Wednesday 2 February: If Boris Johnson thinks he ‘gets it’, he has drastically underestimated the anger of voters

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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808 thoughts on “Wednesday 2 February: If Boris Johnson thinks he ‘gets it’, he has drastically underestimated the anger of voters”

  5. If Boris Johnson thinks he ‘gets it’, he has drastically underestimated the anger of voters

    More powers for regional government announced this morning, so the Balkanization of England goes on.
    Another EU agenda that they cannot let go of.

    1. It depends on who he thinks ‘gets it’. If he’s only talking to his remainer MPs then he definitely hasn’t. The civil servants are still in control, as evidenced by the ridiculous additional layers of unnecessary bureaucracy being inflicted upon us. We need to see the dropping of Ed Davey’s ‘net zero’ before we see the beginnings of anything of use to us great unwashed ex Conservative voters.

  11. Online trolls could face two years in jail for posting messages ‘likely to cause harm’. 2 February 2022.

    Posting messages online which are “likely to cause harm” could be punishable by two years in jail under new “duty of care” offences signalled by the culture minister.

    Chris Philp said the offences, recommended by the Law Commission, were being “carefully considered” to criminalise online abuse.

    They will form part of the Government’s new Bill, currently being finalised, that will place a new duty of care on social media companies to protect children and adults from online harms.

    The Law Commission recommended any message or post where the sender was “aware of” or “intended” to harm someone would be an offence. It would not require proof someone was actually harmed.

    This is of course intended for Nottlers and their ilk. Intention cannot be demonstrated or proved, it is realised only in opinion. Even if no one was ever prosecuted under this law it would still have a chilling effect on free speech since it would leave those wanting to express their opposition or disapproval in doubt as to whether they might be subject to its whims. It will also provide the means for targeting specific individuals whose views are deemed to be unacceptable by the PTB!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/01/online-trolls-could-face-two-years-jail-posting-messages-likely/

    1. Means you cannot comment against the narrative.
      What happens if your comment turns out to be true? Do the government go to jail instead?

      2. What happens if your comment turns out to be true?

        Morning Oberst. That’s the bit they are worried about!

      3. And the narrative includes self-declaring to be a woman, or a cat, disagreeing with vaccination, global warming, or even the weather.
        This is an extremely dangerous Act, despite looking nice, cosy and protective of wet people’s sensitivities, and must be downvoted immediately.

    3. Very slowly the forces of globalism are criminalising everyone that opposes them through free speech.

      1. Looking on the bright side, there’s no need to re-locate to a country which Russia is allegedly out to invade in order to get funds from Boris to keep warm this year. If fuel costs become prohibitive on April the 1st I can post that “Boris is a Very Silly Sausage” and that’s me off to jail, where I can spend my days in a warm, heated cell with colour TV (no need to pay the licence fee) and eat three square meals a day at no cost to myself.

    4. It’s even worse than an effective ban on free speech.
      It’s encouraging and ratifying a culture of childishness where the idea of switching off the internet and going outside to experience real life is not an option.

  12. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fd3714644-82c4-11ec-ba9c-cdb4523f3a44.jpg?crop=1600%2C900%2C0%2C0&resize=1200

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0a5a863d33058ace3a12327615af0bee723b542d/0_0_5331_2616/master/5331.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=ef12e102de546541b782fce442a84e7e
    Members of staff pose in front of self portraits by Van Gogh at the Courtauld gallery at Somerset House. The exhibition runs from the 3 February until 8 May

    3. Typical advertising shot. Women and ‘people of colour’ stand around and show themselves to be cultured whilst the white man does the work and suffers the mask-wearing diktats.

  14. Good morning, everyone. Last night I watched AMELIE, from my DVD collection. I had forgotten how good it was.

  16. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    First letter:

    SIR – Boris Johnson said in the House of Commons on Monday that he “gets it” (report, February 1).

    If he really did, he’d have resigned there and then. Surely this time he’s not misleading Parliament or anyone else: is there anybody left who does not see through him and his desperate posturing?

    He stands to bring the whole Tory party into disrepute.

    Philip Mitchell
    Winchester, Hampshire

    I think he’s already achieved “disrepute” handsomely, Philip Mitchell, and the fact that the party has failed to put a stop to it is to its shame because it makes it complicit in the whole affair.

  17. Govt to publish 12 ‘levelling up missions’ to spread ‘opportunity more equally’. 2 Febrauary 2022.

    The government says its 12 “levelling up missions” to spread opportunity more equally across the country will see “a complete system change of how government works”.

    Michael Gove will unveil the government’s Levelling Up White Paper later which officials say will set out a blueprint to bring prosperity “to all parts” of the UK.

    Government by Lies and Deception. Levelling Up has no more reality than Net-Zero!.

    https://news.sky.com/story/levelling-up-government-to-publish-12-missions-in-blueprint-for-spreading-opportunity-across-the-uk-12530256

  18. I couldn’t agree more:

    SIR – To get on in life, tell lies or at least support those who do.

    What a dreadful example the Tories are setting to our younger generation.

    Tim Montagnon
    Uppingham, Rutland

    Watching this oaf bawling and blathering at the Despatch Box in his responses at PMQs is certainly not a pretty sight. Reeling off lists of dodgy stats that are completely unrelated to the question is a practice that Mr Speaker should stamp on by insisting that the substance of the question is addressed.

    2. I doubt if I will be around in 2122, Grizzly, so may I be the first to wish you (in advance) a Very Happy 171st Birthday.

      :-))

      1. It’s bad luck to wish someone happy birthday in advance of the date! They may die before it happens!

        1. My old Scout master lived to around 105. But he refused to celebrate his 100th with friends and colleagues until he had passed the date “in case I don’t make it to my celebration party”.

    3. In the evening there will be both a 2022 22/02/2022 and a 2202 22/02/2022. The date, again, being palindromic.

      Two days before my 51st birthday I was sitting in a bar, atop the tallest building in Sydney, enjoying a Margarita cocktail, at 2002 20/02/2002

      1. You might be. I shall certainly have had my atoms and quarks distributed to the four winds long before then.

    5. For that matter I vividly remember 22/02/2002 when I actually died.

      Straight line VF but fortunately a para medic was on hand with the battery charger and brought me back.

      I am grateful for the extra 20 years of life I’ve had to date, despite further heart attacks in between.

  22. When I posted last night “I am about to watch my first foreign language film (AMELIE) for the month of February” I didn’t make myself as clear as I would have liked. It would have been clearer had I written “… the first foreign film for the month of February, which happens to be my much-loved copy of AMELIE”.

    I have watched, many, many foreign language films, and all the ones I listed are in my collection and – with the exception of LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL and IL POSTINO – I have watched them all. What I didn’t make clear is that each month I choose a topic/subject for the month. December 2021 was film musicals, January was early silent film classics, and for February I have chosen foreign language films. Once I have watched all those I have in my collection I will see if there are any more available on YouTube.

    If there are not enough titles, I may choose another topic/subject to complete the month, then choose another subject/topic for each month. March will be a continuation of silent classics, e.g. NANOOK OF THE NORTH, Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL and YOUNG SHERLOCK, etc. then back in April to another topic, perhaps a season of Judi Dench films, or of David Lean films, etc. etc.

    1. You are a great film buff, Elsie! The only person I know who watches as many films as you is my sister – she teaches media studies.

      1. Thank you for your kind compliment, blackbox2. I am also trying to read at least two books per week. And the reason for these two activities is really because all of my life I have collected books and DVDs but never really got around to enjoying them. Lockdown and advancing years have made me realise that if I want to indulge my interests I really need to get cracking. I am also working on meeting up with friends more often than I have done all my life. Writing “Where has the year gone? We really must meet up next year” on Christmas cards every year without every doing anything about it seems to be silly. But I am aware of the dangers of becoming obsessive about my interests.

        1. I think your ideas are wonderful. I too have quite a few DVDs that I’ve never had time to watch, dating back to the 90s! At some point, my life sped up to the point where I rarely have time to slow down enough to watch a film.
          Also some books I haven’t read yet, but some of those I will probably accept are not for me, and pass on at some point. Doris Lessing said that you should only read what you want to, and not read stuff because you think you ought to, and that is good enough for me!
          We watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding II the other night, and it was very entertaining, though not as good as the first. Films are so real to me, that I rarely watch anything except romantic comedies, because I get too emotionally involved with serious films!
          As I get older, I place more importance on meeting up in real life as well. It’s all too easy to get lost inside that world in our heads, especially now that it includes the internet.

          1. For the past two years, meeting people has been fraught with difficulty; especially when those you had known for years turned out to be covid fearties.

          2. Good to know that you share my views, blackbox2. And Doris Lessing is correct. I now ditch any book that doesn’t grip me by the first hundred pages.

            This past weekend I skimmed through 32 gardening books, keeping just 6 slim paper backs to read; the 26 big glossy tomes will go to the local charity shop. And I hope to do the same with my cookery books, and also the dozens and dozens of English history (including WWI and WW2 books). Life is too short for that.

    2. Have you got, or watched, the silent film of The Last of the Mohicans? I remember it being very good.

      1. Neither, molamola. I remember the TV series in the late 1950s, and I was managing cinemas when the 1990s?) colour version appeared, but didn’t get to see it.

  23. SIR – I currently hold over £140 worth of first and second class postage stamps, bought before the most recent price increase.

    Now I read (report, February 1) that I am to send them to a Freepost address in the hope that I receive replacements to the same value.

    Considering Royal Mail’s current delivery problems, wouldn’t a simple system of like-for-like exchange at a Post Office be a better idea?

    Frances Williams
    Swindon, Wiltshire

    I still hold a stock of pre-paid envelopes, left over from when I closed my business and retired. They are being used up gradually, but certainly not by the deadline.

    And here is the article:

    Royal Mail unveils digital stamps that will let you send a video greeting

    First video stamp, featuring a Shaun the Sheep animation, is launched as part of biggest shake-up to way post is handled in almost 200 years

    By
    Victoria Ward
    1 February 2022 • 6:00am

    Sending a letter in the post can seem a rather plodding, outdated means of communication these days.

    But the humble stamp, as we know it, is to be phased out and replaced with a version designed to bring the process into the digital age.

    Barcodes are to be attached to regular first and second class stamps, marking the biggest shake-up to the way post is handled in almost 200 years.

    They will allow recipients to watch videos and eventually access messages and even choose their own greetings.

    The inaugural “video stamp”, featuring an exclusive Aardman animation of Shaun the Sheep, goes on sale on Tuesday.

    It is the first in a series of videos to be released throughout the year, allowing customers to choose which they would like their recipient to see when they receive an item of mail.

    Nick Landon, chief commercial officer at Royal Mail, said the initiative had allowed them to “connect the physical letter with the digital world”.

    A spokesman added: “This is only the start of a new era for the postage stamp.

    “We want people to continue to experience the pleasure of receiving letters and cards from loved ones, and will continue to work to ensure that stamps remain relevant to future generations.”

    Royal Mail said the introduction of barcodes would pave the way for further services and innovations. This could include customers being able to scan a stamp with their smartphone and being redirected to a website with more information about a company.

    It will also enable the introduction of added security features.

    Each unique barcode will have a “digital twin” and the two will be connected by the Royal Mail app.

    It matches the colour of the adjoining stamp, from which it is separated by a simulated perforation line.

    Non-barcoded stamps will be phased out but will remain usable until Jan 31, 2023.

    The firm is encouraging customers to use up their existing stamps but they will be able to swap any old ones with the new barcoded versions from March 31 via a Freepost address.

    The announcement follows a successful national trial last year.

    At the time, Mr Landon compared the change to the introduction of the Penny Black stamp in May 1840, noting that the company had a “long and proud history of creating innovative and intuitive postal solutions”.

    The initiative was described as part of Royal Mail’s modernisation drive to boost convenience and reflected the rise of internet shopping.

    But the move might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

    The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society wrote on Twitter: “Is it irony that when I write letters I don’t really want to be reminded of the digital world?”

    Traditionalists can take comfort from the fact that there are “absolutely no plans” to phase out the famed stamp featuring the head of the monarch.

    The new stamps will still be available in books and will remain at the same price.

    The development comes at a turbulent time for Royal Mail, which could be fined millions of pounds by Ofcom over long delays faced by customers.

    Letter and parcel deliveries have been subject to unprecedented delays as the organisation struggles with staff absence, demand for Covid tests and a deluge of Christmas returns.

    Deliveries that should take between one and two days are not arriving for weeks, with delays over one week reported in 80 postcodes in January. The company has blamed staff absences.

    Shadow minister Sarah Jones said she had written to Royal Mail asking it to “investigate the current state of affairs” following numerous complaints from constituents.

    1. When I was a small child I collected postage stamps but no longer do I do so. I now have a good collection of DVDs. SHAUN THE SHEEP is not one of them.

    2. Another brick in the technocracy wall; one might almost call it a wolf in dancing Shaun the Sheep clothing.
      Anthony Trollope must be turning in his grave.

    3. Another brick in the technocracy wall; one might almost call it a wolf in dancing Shaun the Sheep clothing.
      Anthony Trollope must be turning in his grave.

    4. Exchanging at post offices isn’t on because they are a different business to Royal Mail and the cost and administration are likely to be prohibitive.

    5. Stamps used to be cancelled in use. Often with slogan, “Keep Britain Tidy”. One such slogan was “Newport: Home of the Mole Wrench”. this cancellation was used for many years until the Post Office discovered that “Mole Wrench” was a brand name not a generic one.

  24. More ‘net-zero’ bolleaux:

    SIR – Your report (January 29) on plans to change the rules governing alterations to church buildings recognised the valid concerns some parishes have, but ignored two facts.

    First, the drive towards net- zero carbon by 2030 is not being directed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or any other central function. More than half of diocesan synods have made the same pledge, and the target was set by a vote of the General Synod. It was thought too ambitious – but now, with wide engagement and developing energy options, we believe we can meet it. These changes are not about what parishes must do, but about what they can choose to do.

    Secondly, the specific change to the permissions required for fossil-fuel boilers will not leave parishes without heating, or options. It will be possible to deal with unexpected breakdowns through emergency permissions. Similarly, the proposed changes do not mean that no new fossil-fuel boilers will ever be allowed, merely that parishes will have to show that they have considered all options. Finance and practicality are both factors.

    The national buildings teams continue to produce resources, training and guidance for parishes and dioceses on all aspects of net zero and the wider imperative to care for God’s Creation. No parish is alone in this.

    Becky Clark
    Director of Churches and Cathedrals, Church of England
    London SW1

    I wonder who is granting these “emergency permissions” and how long the authority will take as the congregation freezes while it draws up its ‘consideration of all options’? You can bet your life that the cost of heating a church will become many times more expensive, a burden that most parishes will never be able to meet given the perilous state of their finances.

    1. Good morning, Hugh. I wonder whether Becky Clark reports to Justy Welby or does she just call him Bishy. Perhaps she has a direct line to God Almighty. I guess she was christened Rebecca but simply chose to replace the “ca” with “ky”. (I suspect I am turning into a Grumpy Old Person, because I prefer traditional hymns to all this “happy clappy” stuff.

      1. ‘Morning Elsie.

        Last Sunday we had a visit from the Bishop. Guess what? Of the four hymns all but one were traditional where I knew the tune and the words from my schooldays. The other was a rather tuneless (to me) song, with half-hearted singing, whereas the proper hymns were belted out at good volume. They should save the “h-c” stuff for the youth services and let us oldies sing what we know and love.

    2. The finances of most parishes would be perfectly healthy if they didn’t have to send so much money to fund the bloated Church of England management.
      It is all part of the myth that we can’t afford churches any more – we could if we didn’t have to pay so many diversity officers and the like!

    4. Looks like a young lady with extensive experience of gobbledy gook, at least from reading her Linke-Din notes.

    5. I think that what she calls emergency permissions are what are known as ‘faculties’ which are issued by the diocese to allow changes to be made. We had to get such a one, in order to add a kitchen and toilet to the exterior of the church.

      She probably thinks we’re too thick to understand one, albeit archaic, word in that context, so she uses two.

      1. The last time my previous church sought a faculty it took just over 12 months to appear!

        1. Ours was not particularly fast but we spent the time raising the necessary £100,000 plus, necessary.

  26. I have noticed very recently the use in newspapers of the expression “doubles down”.

    Can someone tell me what it means? I assumed it meant “reduced by half” by remain (as always) uncertain.

    1. US English I think. it means when someone says you might be wrong, you reiterate that you are right, and even take further actions in the same direction.

      1. Actually, I like this phrase – it’s very straighforward, in the English tradition.
        I wonder how the French would convey the same idea?

        1. “Si Vous voulez quitter l’UE nous nécessitons plus des concessions, Messieurs Le Royaume Uni.”

          1. ‘Morning, Elsie, eleven words in French to say what we say in two – increase pressure.

    2. Good morning, Bill. I personally thought it brought up the picture of someone holding an object down with some pressure of the hands, but to keep it in place more effort (doubling the pressure downwards) was expended. This may be totally fanciful, but I have never heard the “reduced by half” expression.

    3. It’s a Blackjack term Willum,it means the opportunity to double your bet in some circumstances but you can only draw one card

  27. Headline in today’s DT:

    BBC Three Launch Night An £80 million budget and what do you get? Repeats and RuPaul

    Once again the BBC splurges cash on the yoof viewer. The only problem is – my lot are not alone in never watching (or listening to) the BBC because there is plenty of choice elsewhere. And where did it find the £80m? Recent complaints about being short of funds should fall on deaf ears.

    1. My children don’t watch TV either. Internet all the way. Mind you, that might have something to do with me chucking the blessed thing out when I got fed up with arriving home from work to be greeted by Miley Cyrus’s silly little face in the corner of the sitting room every single evening of the week, it seemed.

      1. Gordon Bennett, that is more than flesh and blood should have to put up with!

        ‘Morning, bb2.

    2. I saw the trailer with its hyper-excited dimwitted presented and flashing primary colors (sic) and decided this was something to be avoided, and preferably not being coerced into paying for. It’s what happens when the indoctrination [no, brainwashing is a better word] coming out of CBBC grows up. More of the same, but bigger in both size and budget.

      Looking at the schedule, it seemed mostly to be wall-to-wall Fleabag, and something that Dave could do just as well.

      Didn’t BBC3 once do some decent dramas?

    3. I watched a live stream on the youtube from one of the channels I follow. Junior read his book (his second this year!!) and the Warqueen made a mess in the kitchen trying to feed Mongo. She’s adamant she can look after a puppy of her own, and the experiment continues.

      So far Mongo’s only missed four dinners, 2 walks and has had one accident indoors which went into the cat’s tray – she didn’t know his tapping the door was the signal to go out. Well, she’s just not in tune with his coming to see you, coming back to see you, looking at you, then going to the door.

    1. Truth is no defence. At least one person has already been prosecuted for hate speech in Europe, even though what they said was true, and it was explicitly said that truth is no defence. I forget who it was, one of the well known “trouble-makers.”

      2. That’d be the EU for you. Truth is no longer welcome when it disagrees with the political line.

        Yet if the court explicitly said that truth is no defence then we are in trouble. From that point, we enter an utter dystopian nightmare. The truth is the only defence. Yes, it will upset people but that’s the nature of truth. Suppression of fact is the first act of tyranny.

    2. Truth’s a dog that must to kennel.
      He must be whipped out, when Lady Brach may stand by th’ fire and stink.

      [King Lear]

      2. Ask Sturgeon why women are advised to avoid so many thoroughly tested and well known common drugs which have been used for years, during pregnancy, yet she is demanding what is still a very new potion to be injected into people who are already having difficulties having children.
        Strange actions for a woman who miscarried a child herself.

        1. My God! You mean someone actually ‘made luurve’ to her, or was it a turkey baster job?

      3. Further down that thread, some muppet quotes a bBC article which has managed to unearth a ‘study’ stating that if a pregnant woman contracts the Kung Flu it may harm the child. I have no experience of how normal flu affects pregnant women but suggest we’d be reading rather more about it if it did pose such a threat and all pregnant women would be getting the flu jab as part of their maternity provision

        Or, it could just be the bBC providing their usual fake news bollocks.

        1. It does seem odd – well it would have been in pre-covid days – that with reports of problems with the female reproductive system post “vaccination” that a medical decision declaring that only “vaccinated” women will be given the opportunity to become pregnant via expensive IVF treatment has been made. It appears to me that it is another one of those topsy-turvy decisions that make no sense at at all and has been designed solely to annoy and upset people. It takes a particularly twisted mindset to conceive (pun intended) such a vindictive idea.

    4. Masks *are* effective, but like distancing they just give the medical profession breathing room. They do not affect the spread of a virus. They kick the can down the road.

  30. We’re being conned.we’ve won nothing

    Jabs rollout for 5/11 year olds continuing

    Testing jabs for 0/5 year olds ongoing

    Mandatory jabs for new NHS jobs still in place

    Only a “consultation” about current staff

    Current staff STILL receiving threats of sackings

    We can’t trust the swine an inch

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61b70b9f59db58f53d026ac3cdf13add41867899097417068a758ea780967492.png
    Always remember the image of the Savage Jabber glaring hate over the top of his mask!!

    1. Savage Jabber/Squalid Jawdrop – this odious piece of filth certainly invites the sobriquets! (There are plenty of other appropriate nick names for the ill-health minister).

    2. Duplicitous, yes. They’re waiting for all the furorore to die down to push through the unpopular legislation. A good day to bury bad news.

      Politicians are all the same. They’re all scum.

    1. It’s Robert Stapleford again, but this time promoting paedophilia. Perhaps he needs to be reported to plod.

    2. I eagerly await the day Stapleford deigns to actually comment here,no doubt dazzling us with his wit and erudition rather than just downvoting………
      Oh Wait

  32. Convoy !!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f48e44549f62b2fd8ff1fcec52d3cde154ebdc40451faef71b62d8df53b469b.jpg

    https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1488434452153970691?s=20&t=YYthq_XE0hZ0ZXWs2AwwZg

    https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1488433003424530432?s=20&t=YYthq_XE0hZ0ZXWs2AwwZg

    https://twitter.com/TheJuggernaut88/status/1488389367781822470?t=_KWOyQ44eJ6DTKx_bPjSVw&s=19

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f07abbb2924e58ebac80c8a1869aee523bbb0fedcb005330d00bbc93a595b1ee.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ecb355b1cbee38715704680daf08ae189472ebbb779e568a65ddd94d1522394.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a11e7426d6b230f0bd15a4ee2e21901753ce37e73302db2583cdaac1553ea7f0.jpg

    Never Ever forget the lies

    https://twitter.com/MAGA_Pendragon/status/1468894054528262147

    1. I read that Trudeau’s own Kung Flu restrictions were quoted as the reason that tow truck drivers couldn’t approach ‘unclean’ vehicles to tow them away.

    1. Makes a change from the Sundaese, Eritrean, Iraqi and Pakistani muslim paedophile rapists pouring across the channel.

  34. Good morning all. Another bright and dry, 5°C start.

    I have to go into Derby to pick up the mattress and settee I bought yesterday. After a fairly sleepless night, I’d rather not have to do it!!

    1. Reminds me of the time my old boss saw the company deliver driver standing early morning at a bus stop in the rain and pulled over his Roller to pass Jim an umbrella 🌂 🙄
      It could also be one of his old cars that can be seen on Antiques Road show RCW 71

      1. There was this tramp standing at the side of the road begging – this guy in his roller stopped, wound his window down and said “Neither a borrower or lender be – Shakespeare” , wound the window up and drove off. Unfortunately the tramps scarf was caught in the window and the tramp was dragged along the road. Finally the scarf came free and the tramp shouted after the car “CU*T – D.H.Lawrence”

    2. That must be north of Watford Gap. Dahn Sarf it would be champagne (apart from Brentwood, of course).

          2. One of the 50 side effects of long term use of Omeprazole is erectile dysfunction. Just sayin’.

    1. But is it true or just Remainer trouble-making? The DT article seems to have disappeared and I can’t find it elsewhere.

    1. It’s pretty well nailed on that the recipients of this dysfunctional government’s largesse do not think the money was wasted. Very happy days for the few!

    2. Add that to the huge amount of wasted money feeding and looking after anyone who turns up on our shores in rubber boats and now apparently in light aircraft. And the 13 plus billions wasted on forgien hand outs. You’re probably looking at around 30 billion.
      And now of course the economy is in very serious trouble.
      And Everything our political classes and civil service comes into contact with they eff it up and big time.
      But it’s everyone else’s fault again.

    1. Since there is a fair chance that all the “isms” Turdeau mentions are false flag actions by his supporters, perhaps he should lie low and say nuffin?

  40. Eric Cooke is obviously too thick or too lazy when he asks the question “will the date 22/2/22 happen again – of course it will……… stupid boy, use your brain cell

  41. Morning all.
    8.7 billion wasted by our political classes and civil service. And now as usual it’s everyone else’s fault. And we have been chosen to carry the can and pay for it.
    And a driver in London hurls a glass bottle at cyclists after a altercation at traffic lights and Jeremy Vine is right on hand with his head and other cameras to film it. And to join in, shouting NO several times. Right up his street i’d say.

  44. Just when you thought the Coof couldn’t get any cleverer………

    “California, a state that maintains some of the strictest
    restrictions for Covid-19, will allow thousands of fans to gather
    together without masks or social distancing this Sunday, February 13 for
    Super Bowl LVI (56) between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals
    at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, CA.

    What will happen to COVID in CA on February 13th? Will it magically disappear for one day?

    California
    has some of the most restrictive COVID rules and mandates in America.
    The state has distributed millions of N95 masks and most California
    public schools still have mask mandates. California’s COVID
    restrictions are even stricter than what the CDC recommends.

    So why is it suddenly okay to pack 70,240 people into the stands in the
    SoFi Stadium to watch a football game while thousands of small
    businesses in Los Angeles have been forced to close or continue to hang
    on by a thread thanks to California’s authoritarian COVID restrictions”
    Money,money,money………..

    1. I’m sure a virus that knows whether you are sitting down or standing up in a pub, will have no problems with a calendar in one US state.
      It will also take account of the different time zone from the eastern border states.

      1. ‘Morning, Anne, also it knows not to get too virulent until after 22:00 hrs in pubs and clubs.

    1. 26 people have colds – shut the country down and demand another 10 billion from London.

  47. Qatar says it cannot unilaterally replace Europe’s gas needs in case of shortage. 2 February 2022.

    DOHA, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Qatar, one of the world’s top natural gas exporters, will not be able to unilaterally replace Europe’s energy needs in case of a shortage due to the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, the emirate’s minister of state for energy said on Tuesday.

    “The volume of gas needed by the EU cannot be replaced by anyone unilaterally, without disturbing supplies to other regions around the world,” the minister, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, said in a statement.

    Well Vlad’s not going to cut off the gas because he needs the revenue. That hasn’t of course prevented the story being touted by the US and MSM . The Qatari’s have shot their fox here.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/qatar-says-it-cannot-unilaterally-replace-europes-gas-needs-case-shortage-2022-02-01/

    1. We would require long-term contracts to guarantee supplies otherwise we sell to the highest bidder…..exactly the same as Russia”

    1. My goodness Anne! I thought I was bad, but there are some real tin-foil hat wearers on the btl!

      1. The usual crowd there – much like us here! There must be many more like us on other sites – all disgusted with this government, what they have done to this country over the last two years, and what our fellow citizens have become.

          1. ‘Morning, again, Philip, “If only we could organise..”

            Into a Political Party. All candidates to take a lie-detector test and swear to uphold the manifesto.

        2. It was the conversation about Prince Phillips funeral, that astonished me! The thought that it was staged, and the kicking they gave the Queen…well, I was a bit taken aback! Perhaps I’m being a bit naive?

          1. I think the Queen probably chose to sit apart from the others – she wouldn’t have wanted to be seen ‘breaking the rules’ imposed on others. She kept her dignity intact. I don’t think it was staged, or that she was forced to comply.

    3. All part of the BBC’s plan to help Welby fulfil his brief from Cameron to destroy the Church of England.

    7. How will the ArchBish, a man who doesn’t have a moral centre ask a man with no morals about morality?

      It’s a bit like having two cows talk about antiseptics!

    8. I expect the Pope has ask TB if he can work on the ABC to bring the CofE back into the fold…….

    9. Religion and Politics: the twin impostors.

      Together and separately: they are responsible for more death, tyranny and misery than all other man-made concepts (in history) combined.

  51. Good morning ,
    Lovel sunny day .

    Moh’s car had a flat battery again so he put all his golf gear in my car and I drove him a few miles to his club . We were on time ( I was still wearing my jimjams )

    I was up early preparing breakfast for him, 2 poached eggs on brown buttered toast. Lovely rich yolks , so I do hope he is sustained and happy, and plays well .

    1. Good morning Maggiebelle

      What do they say about women who go out of the house still wearing their pyjamas?

      1. Morning Richard , I was being urged to hurry up, so I popped my coat on and obliged !

        One cannot dither around with Moh, dogs were eating their breakfast , Moh was eating his eggs on toast .

        His car is now on battery charge , there is just so much to do, besides waking up properly!

      1. Pathological and habitual lying is one of the main qualifications for being a top civil servant or a politician.

      2. They are so bad at it that most of them seem to believe their own lies. Truth went out of the window years ago.

    1. It’s about time someone put Trudeau on the rack.
      When you’ve finished guys we have at least another one here that needs bringing into line.

  55. TRIGGER WARNING: this post is about UKIP. Ogga, look away NOW!

    For your edification, here is an email I received today from Ben Walker of UKIP. I’m no longer a member, but this email is interesting – I highlighted a couple of parts.

    “It was pretty much a given that standards in pubic life would take a hiatus when Boris Johnson took office. But when that building has hosted Tony Blair and John Major, it’s a little bit precious to be speaking as though any of this was unprecedented. Hypocrisy goes with the territory.

    But those who are bleating on about it should probably take time out to consider why they’ve failed to depose the PM. For a time, just before Christmas, it looked like they might succeed, but every day they push it now, the more it begins to irritate and bore the general public to the point where the balance of sympathy ends up on Johnson’s side.

    There’s also that small matter of what they seek to replace him with. Johnson isn’t the crisis. The deeper political crisis is that we have the likes of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel and no matter how bad they get, no matter how useless they are, they are always preferable to the available alternatives.

    We seem somehow to have drifted into the politics of extreme oppositism. The Tories (notionally) want to secure the borders, thus Labour wants to open borders. The Tories want to end lockdowns so Labour wants to double down. Labour have a talent for positioning themselves in the least popular position on everything from Covid to transgender rights. When it comes to Net Zero, Labour would go harder and faster on all the worst aspects of this Tory flagship policy. Everything is performative, nothing is evaluated.

    For a long time now the Tories have been able to get away with saying “at least we’re not Labour”, and though in recent months that has been far less persuasive, it will still be a deciding factor at the next election. And it’s why the Tories will win – albeit with a reduced majority. By all rights they should lose on the basis of their performance, but Labour will save their bacon. Labour manages a unique blend of gormlessness, obnoxiousness and grubbiness that the Tories at their worst could never match.

    Moreover, there aren’t any alternatives to Boris Johnson in the Tory party either. There are certainly less frivolous and outwardly more sensible people, but one notices the centrist tendency is even worse than Johnson on Net Zero, more inclined to slavishly do the bidding of spreadsheet pushers, and apparently very eager to have us back at war with someone. None of which is better than the shambles we presently endure.

    At this point, we might as well accept that this carnival of sub-mediocrity is the best our system, as is presently constituted, can produce. This is as good as it gets without a major overhaul – which we won’t get, not least because the people who propose systemic reform are among the worst people in politics. See Lucas, Caroline. The supposedly good and decent people (as opposed to Boris Johnson) are the narcissistic virtue signallers who scramble on to every passing bandwagon – whose politics are closer to Stroud than Doncaster.

    As is so often the case the real opposition can be found on the Tory benches. If the insanity of Net Zero is to be brought down, then it will be the usual bunch of backstabbing bastards, but as with Brexit, the majority of parliament is out of synch with the public. That’s why we still need a UKIP to make them afraid for their jobs and remind them who they work for. They didn’t get the message last time, and we have to keep reminding them.

    When it comes to it, these people aren’t capable of thinking outside their own dismal little boxes. The push for electric cars says everything about how they think. It never occurs to them that productive people need readily available long distance mobility, and perhaps don’t have a driveway or private charging station. Nor do homeowners have the spare cash to downgrade to a heat pump or subsidise windmills. MPs just charge the heating bills for their second homes to their expenses.

    Their attitudes to immigration are similar in that the immigrants they know are all from well-to-do internationalist families, and not the machete wielding child groomers they witlessly unleash on Wigan and Leicester – maintaining the fiction that Dover invaders are refugees. In their eyes the problem isn’t that we’re importing scroungers and rapists – it’s that we’re allowed to talk about it – which they will soon fix with their Online Safety Bill.

    On that score there isn’t much of a difference between Labour and the Tories. We can be reasonably assured that the deadbeat middle class Tory clone hoping to replace David Amess will adopt socially convenient positions on everything from Net Zero to immigration. It says a lot that MPs these days are so politically similar that there is no ideological barrier to crossing the floor.

    Like it or not, this is the system we’re stuck with until the public breaks from traditional voting habits, and that may never happen. But UKIP proved that change is possible through small and persistent actions. We don’t have to win seats to call the shots. We just have to make a decent dent. And that is possible if you decide to be part of the solution.
    Donate Now
    Join Now

    Ben Walker
    National Party Chairman
    http://www.ukip.org

    3. If only there were enough principled Conservative MPs with the courage and integrity to resign from their seats and present themselves again for something like the Reform Party or UKIP in by elections.

      What is going to ensure Macron’s victory in the coming presidential elections is that the right is fragmented into three groups led respectively by Zemmour, Le Pen and Pecresse.

      The same sort of fragmentation will destroy any chance of the Lib/Lab/Con stranglehold being broken in Britain. Tice, Hamilton, Fox and others must sort out their hubristic vanity problems and unite if they are to attract defecting Conservatives of which there are probably potentially millions.

      1. I’ve been saying it for a while now, Richard and have even written to Fox, Tice and Waters begging them to stop the potential vote-splitting and unite as one party, with a manifesto that the majority of us will want to endorse.

    4. If only UKIP could stop being a vehicle for the vanity of whoever is in charge this week, they might get somewhere. And the same applies to all the copycat wee parties.

  56. Good morning all. Update on son.

    He’s making really good progress. He goes swimming daily, has been to the driving range to hit a few balls and is also exercising at home with resistance bands. He’s going back to work next Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, for about 4 hours each time, to ease himself back into work and is glad to be going back because, as he sa6s, there’s a limit to how much exercise you can do in one day and his brain needs some exercise! So all going along nicely.

    He did shock us last week when he told us he’d had his first jab. Aaaaaaarrrrgghhhh. apparently when he was in hospital he kept mouthing, when he was able to, “I’m sorry” – that he hadn’t had the jab. I wish he hadn’t had the damned thing. But we didn’t say anything. Probably our faces said it all.

    1. Good to hear of his progress, vw. Not so good about the jab, though I suspect the hospital felt that they had a captive, so jab him amongst other remedies. I hope for his sake, that there is no delayed, adverse reaction.

    2. Have you been allowed to meet face to face? Glad he’s made such good progress back to health.

      1. Yes and hug and all back to normal really.
        None of us talk about 5he experimental injections.

      2. Yes we have thank goodness. We were told in the strictest terms no face to face u til at least 2 weeks after coming home. We’re allowed to sit outside under a gazebo, he sat inside the window and we chatted like that. It was all a bit surreal.

      1. D-I-L is a nurse, business manager at several care homes, and is all for it,unfortunately. When he was in hospital she said ‘he’s having the vax as soon as possible’. And I did say, but what about his antibodies? But I think he has been persuaded and definitely felt guilty having not had it. Felt Guilty about the worry he caused everyone. Difficult to talk about it with her. Omicron was a terrible variant according to her.

        1. That’s a shame. D-I-L clearly hasn’t been paying attention. Fairly typical of her profession.

          I reluctantly accepted two AZ jabs, on the basis that I’m old, fat, diabetic and take ACE-inhibitors for high blood pressure. But I had a fleeting visit from Mr Covid in February 2020. I can’t prove it, since testing wasn’t around then. None of the symptoms lasted for more than a couple of hours.

          I had adverse reactions from the AZ jab. I can’t prove it, but it seems likely. I have declined the mRNA booster. Yet I’m still alive.

          Meanwhile, despite the recent relaxation of restrictions, I was the only unmasked human in Church last Sunday. Some even kept them on while drinking coffee after the service. Yes, I know… 🙄

          1. I think I had the dreaded lurgy in January 2020 – no tests of course but the dry cough lasted several weeks but I wasn’t particularly ill. I reluctantly had two AZ shots as I’m not yet ready to give up travel and it was clearly going to be a requirement. I’ve forgone the booster – certainly don’t want a Pfizer jab. I’ve been clear of any bugs for two years now. Vitamin D3 & Vitamin C may have helped.

          5. Similarly here, caught at conference at the airport Feb 2020. Had to not go on skiing holiday. I called it “unflu” as it had most of the symptoms, but was weird with it.

  57. An excellent (again) column from Allison P:

    Just how pathetic and contemptible are our universities? They are among the institutions most reluctant to get back to normal, even though their paying customers were among those least at risk from Covid and they’ve all had it by now, at least twice, anyway.

    Young people deserve better. In their first two years of uni, my son and his friends must have had a grand total of three months of uninterrupted education, as much as five hours of it in person, and the rest via a blank screen because everyone in the virtual class turned their cameras off for “privacy reasons” (still in bed). Yet there is no mention of a refund. On the contrary…

    Dear Learner,

    Please find enclosed a bill of £45,000 for tuition plus accommodation. I know some of you were unable to use your accommodation because we closed the library, the sports facilities and sent you home, but these things still have to be paid for!

    Although the Government has lifted all Plan B restrictions, please do NOT come into college yet, to ensure that we keep our community safe. While our lecturers obviously haven’t been in since February 2020, they will be on campus next week. For the strike.

    Some students have expressed concerns about missing out on graduation. Don’t worry! We’ll email you a splendid PDF of your degree certificate, which you may print.

    The Leavers’ Ball will go ahead – on Zoom. Tickets are a very reasonable £230 each, with a small levy for technical support, cheques payable to the vice chancellor. He is still socially distancing in the Cayman Islands (can’t be too careful!), but he wishes to convey all good wishes for a successful future and very much hopes you will remember St Rip-Off’s in any future bequests…

    Mind you, given what lecturers are prepared to teach students these days, maybe keeping the places permanently closed wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Last week, it was the University of Northampton slapping a “trigger warning” on George Orwell’s enduring satire Nineteen Eighty-Four. Students are warned the classic work “addresses challenging issues related to violence, gender, sexuality, class, race, abuses, sexual abuse, political ideas and offensive language”. Blimey, let’s hope nobody tells the sensitive flowers about that really not very nice man Mr Stalin who inspired it.

    This week, it’s the highly respected English department at Royal Holloway, University of London, which has issued a “content note” for Oliver Twist, lest its themes of “child abuse”, “domestic violence” and “racial prejudice” cause “anxiety” or “distress”. You would hope that students on the Victorian Literature, Art and Culture MA course would understand that Charles Dickens’s portrait of, say, Mr Bumble striking orphan Oliver when he asks for more food was supposed to convey the wretched conditions of the 19th century workhouse in order to drive social reform.

    How odd that this generation of students, so willing to take offence at the smallest thing, is not out on the streets protesting about their rotten treatment at the hands of some greedy, arrogant universities who exploit the pandemic for their own benefit.

    It looks like we may soon achieve the ideal situation for those universities where all books are considered too alarming to open. Do students even need to read novels at all? Back in the pea-souper of time, when I was taking the Oxbridge entrance exam, I turned over one paper to discover all the questions were on authors I’d never read. Panic stations! I managed to concoct an essay based entirely on my word-perfect knowledge of the film Oliver! (we sang along to the soundtrack on car journeys to Cornwall and back). Emerging from the attic classroom a couple of hours later, I almost collapsed into the arms of my English teacher, Miss Richardson, who was waiting outside.

    “Miss, it was awful. I wrote an essay on Oliver Twist, but I’ve never read it.”

    “Oh, don’t worry, dear. The dons certainly won’t have seen the musical.”

    She was right. I got my best mark for that paper. I finally got round to reading Oliver Twist last year. Pretty good, but not a patch on Lionel Bart’s musical, which truly is a work of genius.

    “If you don’t mind ’avin to fake your learnin’

    It’s a fine life!

    Though a comp girl applying for Cambridge struggles to get in

    It’s a fine life!”

    1. A fired-up BTL poster:

      Lance MacLeod
      14 HRS AGO
      Universities have truly become cesspits of anti-liberal, cancel-culture and wokism.
      Once the institutions that enabled thinkers to learn different thoughts and opinions, and then build upon them and develop new ones – now free thinking is illegal on modern university campuses.
      For many years it’s been the expectation that everyone attend a university after college or sixth form. And for what? A Mickey Mouse degree in lesbian dance theory, £60k in unpayable debt (literally now that they’ve changed the whole thing, even people earning £200k won’t be able to pay back the loan, with stepped interest rates), zero job prospects, and a bitter twisted outlook on the world that demonises the white, the male, and the straight – among others.
      Kids these days should begin to look at other options. Invest in an electrician accreditation, or plumbing, or study for a CCNA to go into networking or cyber security. All amazing ways to virtually print money.
      Of the people I know, those that went to university are on average much worse off than those that chose a more creative path – except for proper degrees like medicine, law, or teaching. EDITED

      1. Mr MacLeod is quite right, however you can guarantee that ALL the taxpayer funded jobs will go to the lesbian dance theory graduates, and therefore they will be the ones telling the rest of us what to do twenty years from now.

        We can’t afford to cede all the universities.
        At one point, it was said that the University of Buckingham was the most conservative in Europe. Is this still the case? Of course, academics at other universities pour scorn on its course content.
        Conservatives need to colonise institutions that can be saved, although the non-university option will suit many of course.

        One of my children is at a left wing sh*-hole university, but at least it’s free (continental Europe). Another is doing an OU technical degree, which minimises contact with left wing BS, as well as cost.

      2. A lot to be said in joining one of the services in a technical trade – my Air Radar and Air Wireless training was second to none, coupled with military discipline that teaches you to learn to take discipline before you may dish it out to others.

        1. I doubt if it’s as good as that now, Tom – they want the tearful softies who need trigger warnings to join up now.

          1. We can only hope, J.

            Perhaps a war might toughen them up a little and expose the Harrys amongst them as fakes are good for death.

        2. I doubt if it’s as good as that now, Tom – they want the tearful softies who need trigger warnings to join up now.

      3. Not just the straight , white males are demonised now, but anyone born female, with a cervix.

    2. When I was at UEA I had free access to all the sporting facilities – obviously you had to book a squash court but you did not have to pay to use it; I also used the university’s tennis courts, sailing dinghies and played in the UEA 3rd XV without having to pay anything.

      There is now a splendid new sports centre but students have to pay through the nose to use any of the facilities. In my day the sports facilities were funded by the NUS and out of university fees.

      Our second son, Henry, went to UEA in 2013 – he had to pay for every game of squash he played and we had to pay £9,250 pa in university fees.

      Also the students and the lecturers now have to pay to park their cars (free in my day). And I expect they will soon be charged for using the bicycle racks as students are being ripped off in every way they can think of ripping them off and many degrees – bought at a cost of a lifetime of debt – are completely worthless.

      (Henry got a 2.1 in Politics and Philosophy at UEA but he has backed it up with a distinction in his M.Sc in Computer Science and Data Analytics from York University for which he studied while holding down a full time job. His career is now well assured and he is not a penny piece in debt – apart from his mortgage.)

  59. Well, well. I said I might be some time. I was.

    All done and dusted at the garden centre. Opened the car and put keys in steering column. Chap put the bags in the boot. I slammed the boot – car locked…..

    They let me use a phone to call the MR – who was able to find the spare key and a kind neighbour brought her to collect me. Spare key worked. Home and dry.

    A lesson. I had no idea that if the keys were in the lock the car could lock itself…. Phew.

    And in other bad news, the “special offer” for compost – Three bags for £16. As we unloaded them, I thought they were lighter than expected. Too right. 50 litre sacks instead of last year’s 60 litre sacks. Same price for a whole bag less. Inflation, eh?

    3. Your car *locks itself* if the keys are in the ignition? I assume that an additional criteria is that no doors are open. That’s bally daft. Scenario:

      It’s pouring with rain. Wellies are in the boot. You get out, close your door to keep the water out….

          1. I’m used to it so it’s no problem – but I hope it doesn’t lock if I leave the keys in. It does make a noise if the keys are left in or lights on and so far I haven’t done that and shut the doors. I’ve had the car since new in December 2007.

          2. Ah – that’s more like it. My last car – a 2005 C-class Merc was similar. But many recent cars have ‘keyless’ entry. Which can be more confusing. For the car, if not the owner…

      2. Quite – been there, done that this very morning – except that it was not raining.

        We mused on what “fun” it would have been had it happened when I was 100 miles from home, or on the way to catch a ferry or (as next Tuesday) to go to a funeral.

          2. Shan’t be buying one of them then, thanks for the warning. 🤭🤭🤭 does seem a bit strange. We bought a Skoda Karok in May last year, a 2019 registration, easier for Alf to get in and out of, automatic. Sold our 2011 Passat and were very sad to see it go. Lovely car to drive, nice bit of acceleration. It seems all automatics have that slight hesitation before responding to foot down. Still, it’ll probably see us out until we need taxis!

          3. Don’t let this one off deter you. IT is a very good vehicle. We would have bought another Kangoo but they are not made with RHD anymore.

          4. The Karoq is a very good car, Maggie. It’s very similar to friend Dianne’s Seat Ateca, off the same production line, and of the same vintage. Annoyingly, I’d identified the Ateca as my likely next car, and advised her accordingly, but – since DVLA are either WFH, on strike, or ignoring anything but online applications, my driving licence eludes me still. Though in all honesty, since I now almost live on Platform 2 of Wanborough Station, I’m not sure I can justify the cost of a car…

        1. Hmm, I didn’t know we had a polyglot in our midst, apart from Peddy – do you speak and understand all those languages?

          2. How do you get the pieces showing in English? I can make out the composers but the rest might as well be in Czechoslovakian.

    4. Interrupted reception last night.

      My digital radio is not always as good as I hoped it would be which I have always blamed on my wi-fi.

  62. Tesco has received an infusion of the salt o’ dishwasher.

    Said washer has been reloaded with said salt and a wash is running. After than another clean, then another wash of the rest of the stuff that’s waited for salt to come into stock.

    While I’m at it, those peel off to cover the water soluble bit of the cleaner bottle are sexist. As a bloke, I keep my nails short – I also fiddle about with expensive cable so having sharp nails is horrible as well. The peels are so blasted tight that you have to scrape at them, thus assuming you have nails. I don’t imagine most blokes do, ergo, the peel-off-labels-for-the-water-soluble-washer-cleaner-bottles are sexist.

    1. Modern dishwasher tablets come with the salt and rinse all included. I haven’t bought dishwasher salt for years, nor the rinsing stuff.

          2. Expending “excess energy” is known as exercise, which is far better for one than sitting on your arse watching the telly whilst stuffing one’s face with processed food (or whining on the internet). As for cost: it costs nothing.

          3. I’m talking about the electric energy consumed in heating gallons of washing up water and the gallons of water used in washing and rinsing. Your muscle power is of little or no interest to the equation.

          4. “Gallons of washing up water?” I use around half a gallon every day (mixed with half a gallon of cold )and it comes straight from my boiler which is always switched on, as it is in every house. I use less water to wash and rinse my dishes than any dishwashing machine routinely squanders. And my dishes are cleaner. It seems that only Bill and I are bright enough to realise this.

    1. “Safe and effective” is just another brainwashing mantra that the gullible are told to believe. Anybody capable of original thought knows it’s BS.

      1. The manufacturers told them it was safe and effective, and their little politicians’ brains are able to retain and regurgitate as required.

        1. Do you think they believe their own lies? I do wonder sometimes, but perhaps that how they are able to keep spouting it with a straight face.

          1. That’s an interesting question.

            a. they believe it
            b. they want to believe it
            c. they are bare faced liars, because they are getting a direct reward
            d. they are bare faced liars though a desire to hang on in there and maybe make a difference (delusional)
            e. they are bare faced liars though sheer habit and see nothing wrong with it.

    2. Dorries should’ve told this bloke to “be polite and not to interrupt, or I will not attempt to continue”.

        1. Personally i don’t think it is very good. A bit drab for my tastes. I like cheap and cheerful Vetriano’s.

          1. It’s a long, flat shape, and this is just a section. The photo is slightly dark, I think. It is a landscape with no figures, but very beautifully painted.
            I’d love to own it!

          1. Insta is a creepy thing, probably it knows if you’ve got a profile and tries to nudge you into logging in!

  65. Well I never EVER thought I would be slut shamed by Nottlers for admitting I had to dash out in my car in my jim jams and my coat earlier this morning , to take Moh to his golf club because his car failed to start re battery problems .

    He had a golf match to get to , quickly, and no messing around .

    1. Driving someone about in pyjamas isn’t a bad thing… wandering around Tesco in them is.

    3. Oh Belle, don’t worry about it! I have ferried my children around in my pyjamas a few times, and I wouldn’t dream of entering the supermarket in them either!

    4. Well I never EVER thought I would see True_Belle admitting she had to dash out in her car in her jim jams and her coat earlier this morning ,

      };-))

    5. Yo T_B

      ……..take Moh out, ……in my car in ………my jim jams:…….. no messing around .

      That would not have happened a few years ago

      1. I knew him at university. Privileged to the nth degree, as out of touch as Cameron. He was less unfriendly than Cameron, but he couldn’t help betraying from time to time that he genuinely understood no social difference between fellow undergraduates who didn’t belong to his rarified little world, and the pub landlady in Eastenders. From the heights, it was clear that we all looked the same to him, and he expected the same from us.
        As you may imagine, this caused a certain amount of offence, of which I don’t think he was ever aware.

    3. Why is it these people think they know what’s best/good for me?

      Of course with up and coming legislation HMG is reinforcing the powers it has taken to itself over the past 2 years. As in:

      Human Rights: https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/the-proposed-removal-of-human-rights
      Judicial reviews: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/oct/25/david-davis-vows-lead-rebellion-judicial-review-changes
      Cart judicial reviews: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/oct/25/david-davis-vows-lead-rebellion-judicial-review-changes

      All giving the State absolute control. You don’t want to be vaccinated? They can overrule you “for the good of society”. No come back, no judicial review, no recourse to Cart review. There. All sewn up.

  68. Budget airline Ryanair says that mask mandates on planes will become as ingrained as post-9/11 rules about liquids in carry on bags, suggesting they will basically become permanent.

    The comments on face coverings were made by Neil Sorahan, the airline’s finance chief, who suggested rules put in place to fight COVID-19 will become fixed in a similar way to measures introduced after the terror attack on America in 2001.

    Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair has declared that anyone who remains unvaccinated should be completely cut off from society, including not being allowed to travel, go to the supermarket to get food, or the pharmacy to get medicine.

    “If you’re not vaccinated, you shouldn’t be allowed in the hospital, you shouldn’t be allowed to fly, you shouldn’t be allowed on the London Underground, and you shouldn’t be allowed in the local supermarket or your pharmacy either,” the airline executive said, as reported by The Telegraph

    BTL Comment:

    “Then I will just drink my tea the entire flight time like I did a month ago when I flew via Ryanair. Flight attendant, “please put on your mask”, me – “nope, I’m drinking. Ah, also, may I have more water in my tea? I’m realllyyy thirsty”. True story 🙂

    One hour later, the same flight attendant, “put on your mask”, me – “nope, still drinking with a smile.”

    She continued to harass me. Me – “mam, I’m not breaking any rules but you’re harassing me”…..she left.

    Make ****ty rules, I’ll find loop holes. By the way, many took off their masks on the plane as many are aware that the covid molecule is 5000 times smaller than the mask holes. In fact, the masks harm and hundreds of studies were done on this.

    By the way I am never flying via Ryanair again. He can go f himself.”

    2. Batten is wrong. Many Jews – Soros, for instance – are not religious. The Jews are a race and do have a genetic identity. Two of my brothers have recently had DNA tests and both indicated 48% European Jew. This was expected as my father was Jewish but mother not.

      1. I believe that Jewishness as far as religion is concerned passes down the mother’s line, so you might be Jewish without being a religious Jew.

      2. 334892+ up ticks,

        Afternoon SE,
        If so, I think he was also pointing out peoples have a right to be wrong.

    2. Since they are not going to investigate, may we see Sue Gray’s report in full and unredacted.

  72. Just spotted banner announcements on Sky and GBTV that the RAF has scrambled two jets to investigate bogeys approaching UK Airspace. I’m sure that it’s just a coincidence!

    2. Happens all the time. Usually Russian Bears having a nose around. When intercepted the pilots wave to each other.

      1. Yes but they don’t usually announce it when they take off Horace for obvious reasons.

          2. Afternoon, Minty. Nice and sunny here today. I’m sure the government would have preferred thunder and lightning.

          4. It used to happen all the time during my service with the Royal Air Force from 1960 to 1969.

            During service at RAF West Raynham on 85 Squadron (Javelin Mk 8s armed with 4 Firestreak Missiles and two Aden 30 mm cannons) we often scrambled to intercept and turn around probing ‘Bears’.

            On the other side, I worked on Station Flight at RAF Laarbruch on the German/Dutch border and we were often visited by Canberras, bristling with aerials and the pilots top plexiglass cockpit cover blanked out, for refuelling but we were not allowed anywhere near them for before flight or after flight checks – the aircrew did these checks themselves. However, we knew that these aircraft spent the majority of their days flying up and down the East/West German borders, listening, listening to the transmissions from the then E Germany (Merkel’s home) in order to gain intelligence about what was going on, liable to happen, etc.

            As the Chinese say, “We live in interesting times).

        2. They will “count them all out, and count them all in”.
          Pro-government propaganda is all-pervasive. This is just another anti-Russian scare story with the additional message that we are on the ball.
          (I feel sure that the Russian analysts will have looked at our Defence budget in detail and will know how much fuel will be available to the RAF… and die laughing.)

          1. This is just another anti-Russian scare story with the additional message that we are on the ball.

            Yes. There will probably be a short segment at Peak Viewing Time tonight!

  74. My grandson and his wife are arriving this afternoon with my great granddaughter, Grace. Haven’t seen them for such a long time. They will be here until Saturday and they will make a very old man very happy!

    1. The original coronavirus lockdowns had ‘little to no’ effect on pandemic death tolls in the US, UK and Europe, a controversial report suggests.

      Afternoon Johnny. It’s all just leaking out. More distraction required!

    2. Probably any slight reduction in covid mortality was more than exceeded by all-cause mortality from untreated conditions.

  78. Environment Secretary has been reading a report from the Air Quality Expert Group which has found thet:

    Data from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) indicate that
    emissions of non-exhaust particles from road transport already exceed those from the
    exhaust, and their proportion is projected to increase in the future.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10466009/Electric-cars-green-hoped-polluting-particles-warns-Environment-secretary.html

    Whilst technology to reduce CO2 emissions from petrol cars and particulates from diesels has advanced spectacularly over the last two decades it looks as though Government has now just realised that, despite the ‘net zero’ EVs, Non-Exhaust Emissions (NEEs) present just as great a threat to air quality as Cow Fart Emissions (CFEs)!

    3. It’s been known for donkey’s years that cannabis can make people psychotic – what did they expect?

      1. Nikeliar has never heard the definition of madness, and if she had she’d still do the same thing again! Also she disnae take a telling’!

          6. It’s great…. tootling along coastal roads with the hood down in glorious sunshine…..
            Thankfully….no motorways!
            Once you get over the Tamar all hell let loose…..

          8. I’ve witnessed at least half a dozen Moggies, failing due to un-greased kingpins. Quite entertaining. One was a Moggy van which collapsed in front of Carlisle Citadel Station, just as Princess Anne was visiting the city. By train.

          9. It happened to me whilst stationary in my first £25 car. Fortunately I had a week or two earlier borrowed £15 to buy a secondhand 1957 model so was back on the road in hours with loads of spares!

      3. Thanks to a lot of well placed propaganda in the mainstream media and native stupidity, most people seem to believe it’s a harmless drug that should be decriminalised forthwith.

        1. The vast majority of my “customers” as a JobCentre adviser were addicts of one drug or another. Some of them were seriously damaged.

          1. While we were living in Plymouth years ago, I heard a police officer estimate that 100% of the crime in the city was drug related. There was a tale, possibly apocryphal, of a man who had brought his family down from Moss Side, thinking they would make a fresh start. They moved back to Moss Side.
            For most of the time we lived there, our neighbours on both sides were drug users. One would nick anything that wasn’t nailed down, had a child that required major surgery in its first week of life, sold the Big Issue in the city centre, and ended up in rehab (the dad). Their flat was, of course, a benefits fiddle – her family were using housing benefit to buy it.
            The neighbour on the other side spent some time living at the bottom of his garden, because some of his friends had been grassed up to the police, and they thought he had done it.
            Quite Bohemian, and not what we wanted for our children growing up….so we moved.

          2. Ah – Moss Side. Sounds almost as idyllic as Shadygrove Road, Carlisle. NB I stayed briefly in Moss Side when I was doing IQS block release courses at Salford College of Technology. Admittedly, it was forty-odd years ago, but I don’t suppose the place has improved…

          3. A while ago I heard about a junkie who had suffered an accidental death.
            However, allegedly he/she had been killed unlawfully.
            Coroner no use, police not interested.
            Any scrap of information passed to the orforitees would endanger the life of the person who explained how it was allegedly done.

          4. A while ago I heard about a junkie who had suffered an accidental death.
            However, allegedly he/she had been killed unlawfully.
            Coroner no use, police not interested.
            Any scrap of information passed to the orforitees would endanger the life of the person who explained how it was allegedly done.

        2. I have recommended Sebastian Faulks’s novel, A Week In December, here before. It contains a pretty horrifying account of the psychotic effects the stronger forms of cannabis can have and young people would do well to read it.

          The son of a friend of mine started taking cannabis as a schoolboy and moved on to stronger stuff. He is now in his forties, has been several times to the Priory and has never held down a job in his life.

      4. I saw my fair share of psychotics in my 19 years as a court usher.
        If only these people who advocate decriminalisation visited a court once in a while.

  81. Went to see new warden at Brother’s complex. Apparently he’s been smashing cups. Which is impressive as they’re made from plastic.

    When I arrive she is a bit Kamp Kommandant, all lists of ‘infractions’ and broken rules. The previous bloke made nothing of these issues except to check he was ok. I asked if she was looking for him to move out. No, she didn’t want that, she just wanted his behaviour to improve.

    For pity’s sake.

    She wanted me to ‘speak to him’ about his behaviour. I told her it was the wrong day and that an unscheduled visit would upset him. Nevertheless, she said, the issues need to be addressed. I asked if she had worked with severe autistics before. At that point she became comically shirty and suggested we visit brother.

    Cue screaming, shouting, door slams, thrown mugs – that was before he opened the door.

  82. Radio Suisse Classique is back on the air.

    These “breaks ” happen.

    Monday evening, BBC Radio 3, 5 pm, “And now, over to Sean Raffety and In Tune.”

    SILENCE – then after five minutes some filler.

    Took the beeboids 15 minutes to find which plug they had pulled out in error!

  83. Back from Derby and Step-son now has a mattress and a settee.
    Question:-
    Why was the block of flats he is in designed to make moving a standard piece of furniture, like a two seat settee, next to impossible? Getting the thing into the block and up the stairs was bad enough, but getting it into his flat almost defeated us.

    The person responsible for designing the place needs shagging with a barbed wire pole.

    1. All rooms, doors, stairwells are stupidly small. Heck, even steps are too shallow and high. Comically, a small flat has a sharp left right angle turn – a space *I* find difficult to navigate in.

          1. Funny how we name cars! My first Honda Civic was red so I called him Roger after Roger Rabbit’s red overalls. My last Honda before I returned to UK was a black Pilot which I simply called Pilot after Mr. Rochester’s dog in Jane Eyre. Great cars, my Hondas.

          2. You said the other day that you are unable to drive in this country – would you have had to take a UK test for a UK licence?

          6. You said the other day that you are unable to drive in this country – would you have had to take a UK test for a UK licence?

  84. Hope Vlad doesn’t invade the Ukraine next Tuesday…….

    “Tens of thousands of British troops are ordered to spend a DAY ‘reflecting on inclusivity’: Military bosses say woke ‘tactical pause’ will make Army a more effective fighting force – but ex-colonel slams the plans as ‘navel gazing'”

      1. ‘navel gazing'”

        That as maybe, it certainly will NOT be Naval Gazing: cus, we aint got One

  85. Another stonking sunset….all that global warming, natch!! We never had brilliant sunsets before that.

  86. Preface to Allison Pearson’s article in the DT, Tue 2 Feb:

    “Sit down there, Toad,” said the Badger kindly. “My friends,” he went on, “I am pleased to inform you that Toad has at last seen the error of his ways. He is truly sorry for his misguided conduct in the past, and he has undertaken to give up motor-cars entirely and for ever. I have his solemn promise to that effect.”

    “That is very good news,” said Mole gravely.

    “Very good news indeed,” observed Rat dubiously, “if only – if only”

    He was looking very hard at Toad as he said this, and could not help thinking he perceived something vaguely resembling a twinkle in that animal’s still sorrowful eye.”

    The Wind in The Willows, Kenneth Grahame

  87. Just had the info on my brother’s funeral. Masks to be worn. LFT to be done before entering the crem…..

    Covid – the gift that keeps on giving.

          3. The NHS would have given him a prosthetic ear, and you can presumably get masks with elastic or rubber all the way round, like goggles.

          6. I believe a relation of poor Bill Stickers who was always threatened with prosecution.

    2. A sadder end to a sad event.

      What would your brother have wanted?

      Follow that as far as you can, perhaps with a ceremonial unmasking at the end, if he was anti-mask.

        2. Then give him a send off that respects that view.
          If the crematorium objects, refuse to budge, he’ll be looking down and chortling at your efforts.

    3. If the LFT is negative, what’s the point of wearing a mask?
      I know they are pointless, anyway but if you haven’t got the bug you can’t pass it on. Can’t you use your exemption card?

  88. HAPPY HOUR – “How’s about that then boys and girls…….?”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e4d8f875678a74db8b39a2ca76811d2e4650adc6b76c3582556c2e20df5fef6.jpg

    Boris Johnson is right. Keir Starmer’s CPS did fail to prosecute Jimmy Savile. So why all the faux outrage?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10465933/ANDREW-PIERCE-Keir-Starmers-CPS-did-fail-prosecute-Jimmy-Savile-faux-outrage.html

    Boris is on the ropes but is he down and out …….?

    1. Sadly not. The PM will continue to rule and also try to keep her husband under better control.

    3. Boris has a binary choice, sweetie:

      A colourful career ending forever in ignominy, or:

      Appointment of Carrie as Vice Ambassador to Bermuda with immediate effect …

  89. That’s me for today.

    Eventful. Locked out of car. This arvo, went into back room for milk for tea – floor wet. Mysterious and untraceable leak in washing machine. Not inflow; not outflow; not overflow…. Puzzle.

    Still a glass of whine and the knowledge that an unnecessary LFT is in the offing cheers me up no end.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain

      3. Seconded. Fluff filter gets jammed, and often the owner has no idea that said filter exists, let alone how to locate and open it.

        1. That’s funny! My 18 month old twin grandsons located the one on my washer just this morning! And opened the cover! Fortunately the plug is very tight…

    2. Congratulations to the old boy.

      Not for doing the business, but because he refrained mightily from giving the turd the thorough body rearrangement that it deserved.

    4. We need more of this. The little oiks need a sound beating every day until they learn manners and respect.

          1. The Boss downvoted?
            Nah, if the Boss felt that way it would be cast into outer darkness, along with JSP.

    3. I think this has appeared a few times.
      An electric powered Range Rover where there was a problem, just out of warranty.

      1. Yes. the interesting thing is that the highly educated, trained, and experienced journos of the BBC make to mention of this. It would be an anti-green, anti-electric car message.

        2. Like 60 000 trucks in Ottawa and thousands of post vaccine deaths…it just never happened…
          How we used to pity the poor Russians in the Soviet Union!

    4. It was in the Mail yesterday. A Range Rover Velar hybrid, apparently. The owner said there were sparks but when she turned off the ignition the engine didn’t stop!

    5. The BBC are so coy.
      They don’t want to piss off the globalists who are going to be the only ones left paying/supporting their propaganda business. It was a Range Rover Velar Hybrid that exploded like a bomb. Debris flying over the houses. Three fire crews were unable to put it out. As can be seen. Her house gutted and several neighbours houses damaged.

          1. Tough! You just called me stupid, and I thought it was quite a good joke I’d made!

      2. Thanks for that. The shape of the fire was similar to those in films that I have seen of cars with lithium batteries going on fire.

    7. It certainly appears to be typical of a Li-Ion battery fire self-combusting.

      Beware EVs and Solar Farms.

      1. She’s not bad actually. This is just an incidental photo while she was making something else. I find the little miniature cat amusing.

          7. Are you kidding? I’m not about to try and get the better of you Phizzee – I know my limits!

          11. If you are ever going to be entertained on my Chaise i should be…..more…..coquettish…. Lass. :@)

          18. Well, I didn’t want to show off! 🦪🍤🥠🥟🍱🥘🥜
            I honestly don’t know what half of them are, but they make me laugh! 🧇🥨🥐🥝🌫🥑

          20. Not a clue, Tom! My daughter gave me her old iPad to replace my fading iPad mini, and I use it for Nottling, Googling and keeping in touch with friends and family! Also photo storage! I’m not terribly techie!

          27. I don’t deny Constable is a superb painter but the HW isn’t one of my favourites.

            A very eclectic selection.
            Everything from old masters to Anish Kapoor. From Picasso to Dali, from Whistler to Pocock.
            I like art that either challenges my perceptions or really looks like what is being represented.

          28. Anish Kapoor – mushrooms
            Picasso – produced some good stuff and a lot of rubbish. Les Demoiselled d’Avignon is frankly just ugly!
            Dali – overrated, undisciplined, massively irritating

            Do you mean Jonathan Pocock? he’s good but a bit slick for my taste

          29. We saw the Kapoor exhibition in Sydney, absolutely stunning.
            I’m guessing you’ve never been to the Picasso museum in the Marais.
            Ditto the Dali in Montmartre.
            Lexden, he painted various for William Morris.

          30. I liked Picasso when I was younger, but mainly because he was touted as the best Western artist of the 20th century. Guernica is a masterpiece, but he painted a lot, and much of it is not that high quality. I can’t forgive him for popularising ugliness. Also, he had filthy habits like stealing ideas from other artists. Saw a lot of Picassos in Paris, I forget where now.

            When I think of Kapoor, I think of being an art student and struggling to like approved, “high” art that sucks.

            Lexden Pocock is good, he avoided the sentimental depths of the others.

            I like the much neglected history of figurative art in the twentieth century (the Nashes, Margaret Thomas, Eric Ravilious, William Orpen) and the pop artists like Jim Dine, Andy Warhol – I like the way they played with reality, it is much better than the boring, toiling surrealists. Plus I follow some really good contemporary Japanese, Russian, American and British artists. It doesn’t have to be “high art” – it only has to make you smile.

          1. My grammar school was founded in 16th century as a charity school and had its charter from Elizabeth I.

    4. In the USA, their preferred euphemism is “son of a gun”. Maybe the pub should be re-named as “The Gun of Colour”.

  96. 334892+ up ticks,

    Tell me how do these peoples get into positions of defiling children’s
    welfare, the lifelong mental damage alone is bad enough after the initial rape & abuse.

    Then next we must consider the paedophile activist still being given political succour via the DOVER daily intake.

    breitbart
    Cover-Up Continues? Police in Rape Gangs Hotspot Not Recording Ethnicity of Abusers

  97. “Flush with success!”

    Appearing on an Andrex Roll near you soon….

    “Congratulations, America: it took just over 245 years but as of the last day of January, the country’s debt just crossed above $30 trillion for the first time ever, hitting $30,012,386,059,238.29. “

    1. At some point this is all going to unravel.
      I hope I’m long gone, because when it happens it ain’t gonna be pleasant.

      1. Some people think it will unravel this year.
        Following the theory of Ernst Wolff, Gerald Celente and others; the dollar came to the end of the road in summer of 2019 – full of rotten debt and massively overprinted – central bank interest rates rose, money was not available for corporations to borrow – so they put the economy into an induced coma and pumped large amounts of freshly printed money directly to big corporations – but this year, they cannot hold back inflation and high interest rates any longer, so it will kick off in the spring.

        I do not know whether to believe this or not.

        1. I can well believe it.
          The problem the Chinese have is to guess whether by pulling the plug it will be the USA or China which will suffer more.

          1. I also read recently that China has started to focus on its internal markets rather than endless exporting – presumably to make it less dependent upon the state of the western economy.

          3. I don’t think it needs to be taken to extremes? If they are focusing on the internal market, hopefully they will sell more of their tat to each other, and stop poisoning the rest of the world with an excess of cheap manufactured goods.

  99. Oh good. I’m back in favour; a traumatised Spartie has recovered from his bath and is speaking to me again.
    (Like Good Queen Bess, he has a bath every month, whether he needs it or not.)

    1. I think she only bathed once a year but that’s better than James VI and I who only washed the tips of his fingers. Urk and double urk.

    2. I am still trying to get a brush on Oscar. He’s come a long way, but not far enough to let me groom him! As for bathing; I expect I’ll have to wait until summer (I hope it’s a good one); I’ve bought a dog paddling pool, so I hope to encourage him to join me in paddling, get to like it and lose his dislike of being bathed. Fingers crossed.

      1. Dogs can be weird- the first three dogs I had loved the water, although not necessarily being bathed. The last one, Henry, hated water but was very good when he was bathed.

        1. My setter loved the water – when it rained he sloshed through the puddles like a kid with wellies. You could almost hear the feathers in his feet wicking up the the moisture! The others weren’t bothered one way or the other, but my Cairn/Border cross loathed the water – he’d go out of his way to avoid walking through puddles. In his old age, however, he got over that and was seen ploughing through extensive puddles with glee.

  100. MI6 chief’s Wordle outburst sparks five-letter response

    While Boris Johnson visits Ukraine amid tensions with Russia, Richard Moore reveals his frustration at answers revealed on Twitter

    The head of MI6 has revealed his annoyance at puzzle game Wordle spoilers being revealed as his outburst sparked a playful spat between C and GCHQ.

    Richard Moore, the chief of MI6, tweeted Wednesday that he was “thinking” of unfollowing accounts on the social media site that revealed the day’s answer in the online game.

    His comment prompted the official Twitter account of GCHQ to tweet a mocked-up graphic of the game with the word ‘sorry’ on it in response.

    The playful exchange between the head of the UK’s foreign intelligence agency and its digital spy body comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the Ukraine over mounting concerns of a possible Russian invasion.

    In the midst of the crisis, the head of MI6 indicated this morning that he is enjoying playing the hit game, which sees people given six attempts to guess a five letter word.

    Players are then given clues about which letters they got right and if they were in the right place to help them solve the puzzle.

    The game, which only releases one new word a day, has become an internet sensation with celebrities such as TV author and presenter Richard Osman and BBC anchor Dan Walker among its fans.

    Expressing his frustration at those who reveal the answer before people are able to solve it themselves, Mr Moore tweeted: “Thinking of unfollowing those who post their #Wordle results…”

    He then posted the GCHQ response to his feed.

    The exchange prompted other users on Twitter to offer Mr Moore advice on how to avoid seeing the Wordle answer online, such as removing tweets with it from his feed.

    Another user added: “I would hope you would know their results before they post them – kind of the point of your role.”

    Meanwhile, the agency will be busy monitoring the build-up and movements of around 100,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine.

    Mr Johnson flew out to Kyiv yesterday in show of support to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, as the UK supplies the Eastern European nation with weapons ahead of any escalation in the conflict.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/02/mi6-chiefs-wordle-outburst-sparks-five-letter-response/

    2. I do hope the head of MI6 doesn’t spend his day trawling twitter, playing games and looking at porn sites. One would hope he had something better to do. Like his job.

  101. Twenty five thousand refugees are being housed by the UK Government at a cost of more than a million pounds a day, MPs were told today.

    Home Office official Tricia Hayes made the admission today as she and Home Secretary Priti Patel faced questions over record levels of England Channel crossings.

    Last month it was revealed migrants were staying in four-star hotel rooms at £125-a-night paid for by British taxpayers as the country braces for spiralling energy bills amid a cost of living crisis.

    And Ms Patel today admitted that ‘no one likes this policy of hotels’ and pledged more money for local councils , it is obvious we need to pay more money to local authorities.’

    ‘We are absolutely struggling with local authorities finding housing accommodation, also we want to make sure that we can move people into work and employment. We want them to rebuild their lives here,’ she said.

    ‘So there is actually … a cross-government task force, we have a minister for resettlement that leads on this, but we are desperately still trying to pull together different component parts.’

    Ms Patel also used the session in front of the Home Affairs Committee to clap back at French president Emmanuel Macron today over his ‘absolutely wrong’ claim that all Channel migrant deaths were the fault of the UK.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10467995/Priti-Patel-blasts-absolutely-wrong-Emmanuel-Macron-migrant-deaths-claim.html

    How much did we fork out each month when we belonged to the EU?

    1. … “pledged more money for local councils”. Where the effing hell does the money come from? Expletives deleted. BLasted government. They have never been thicker than this lot.

    2. Priti Patel, “…it is obvious we need to pay more money to local authorities.”

      No, Mrs Patel, it’s obvious that we must not only stop this influx but deport the 25,000 plus the criminals and Imams inciting this ongoing recruitment to the Caliphate Army.

    1. Night, night. I expect I’m in a minority of one on here but that movie, for me, is pretentious crap. Ah well, we can’t all like the same things!

      Every time I put Talking Pictures on late in the evening they seem to be showing The Medusa Touch again and every time, I watch it again. I recall vaguely from his diaries that Richard Burton wasn’t exactly proud of it but hey ho!

      1. Strange facts:

        My dad was at the same school as HE Bates

        My F-in- L was a the same school as Rishard Burton

      2. I think Babette’s Feast is a great film. I realise it is not to everyone’s taste but it is subtle and encapsulates the disparities between the discernment of those familiar with great art and the ameliorating effect it has on the blessedly ignorant.

        Food can bridge that divide in ways that other arts struggle to do so. To many, a noble cathedral is just a pile of stone, a work by Mozart merely ‘cats piddling on tins’ and great writings by men of genius the rantings of some obsessive.

        1. I find Babette’s Feast totally unsubtle in its blatant pretentions to be Art. It was first recommended to me by a woman who thinks that people who don’t look where they’re going in the street, “lack spatial awareness”. In music terms, less Mozart and more in the realms of calling Adele a great singer. I never expected to find it has so many fans here among the unwoke but such is life.

      3. I enjoyed it. I liked the generosity, the warmth and the pleasure given and received. But then food, drink and entertaining is what i most enjoy in life. Don’t really have any other interests. :@(

      1. I mentioned a while ago that Dr. Daughter & her boyfriend had bought a house complete with contents. She is now working through the previous occupant’s LP collection!

  103. Once again, Covid Britain has let children down

    Falling rates of childhood immunisation are indicative of the many health harms experienced by this generation as a result of the pandemic

    KATIE MUSGRAVE

    In the week where Sajid Javid announced the UK Government’s intentions to drop mandatory Covid vaccination for NHS workers, there have been truly staggering scenes broadcast from Ottawa of the protests led by Canadian truckers. Looking on, it seems ludicrous that Justin Trudeau would mandate vaccines for the small minority who choose to decline them, when Covid cases in Canada have been falling steeply for weeks. One wonders if he is oblivious to the many unintended consequences of digging in his heels over the issue.

    Back in the UK, it has been reported that childhood vaccination rates have fallen to their lowest level in a decade. As a country, we have an excellent track record of immunising children with safe and effective vaccines against a host of serious diseases, from measles to polio. It is therefore hugely concerning to see that families are increasingly not taking up the offer of these vaccines, potentially putting their children at risk from significant illness, and increasing the likelihood of preventable outbreaks. Yet again, there is evidence of how an unerring focus on one respiratory virus can serve to undermine other aspects of healthcare.

    As a GP, I have observed an increased level of vaccine scepticism amongst my patients over the course of the pandemic. When I gently ask about vaccination, it is now not unusual to see patients bristle or become defensive. The use of vaccine passes, mandatory vaccination for carers, and the input of the Behavioural Sciences Unit (in nudging the population to take the vaccine); may well have diminished the hard-earned trust in other vaccination programmes, and even medical advice more broadly.

    It does not surprise me that the many changes brought in during the pandemic have contributed to a decline in childhood vaccination rates. It has been widely reported that the population has struggled to access health services. GP surgeries have displayed “Do not enter” signs on their doors, switching to remote consultation methods. Families tell me they do not know how to access a health visitor, and have often not seen one in person at any stage in their child’s life. Toddler groups were closed, leaving parents with reduced access to valuable peer-support. I fear that falling rates of childhood immunisation are indicative of the many health harms experienced by this generation. The data on vaccinations will be carefully measured and reported upon; whereas problems with socialisation, communication skills, physical dexterity, and emotional well-being are far harder to quantify.

    Children, who have not been at undue risk from Covid, have experienced all manner of restrictions, and had their access to services limited. We have seen an intergenerational transfer of harm, where young people have been asked to make sacrifices to protect vulnerable, mostly older, groups. Yet, if children are the future, it is crucial that our society recognises their value, and guards their interests carefully. The JCVI have clearly advised that children without underlying vulnerabilities are at low risk from Covid and “considerations on the potential harms and benefits of vaccination are very finely balanced”. Yet somehow, in the Government’s eagerness to promote Covid vaccines, they have omitted to ensure the uptake of routine vaccinations is maintained.

    The Government has frequently been accused of focussing on Covid at the expense of other health or societal needs. As the pandemic recedes, our leaders should be increasingly turning their attention to long standing, evidence-based health interventions. Let us offer routine immunisations, access to primary care, improved cancer and hospital services; alongside open schools, sports facilities, toddler groups, and children’s centres. Heavy-handed and coercive messages will only serve to alienate the population. The UK should be a country that offers readily accessible health and community services, without ever resorting to the use of threats or manipulation. Justin Trudeau take note.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/01/covid-britain-has-let-children/

    It’ll still be blamed on the evil vaccine sceptics.

    1. “… without ever resorting to the use of threats or manipulation “. I wonder if this GP doled out the injectables? Bet she did. Did she question the psychological warfare while it was happening? BEt she didn’t.

      2. Exactly! She’s all innocent about oh, these ignorant patients are now becoming vaccine hesitant, without acknowledging that they have darn good reason to be.
        TBTB are still pretending that everyone who has internet access hasn’t seen creepy videos of Bill Gates planning to jab and tag the whole world.

      1. The attempted fix was in for 2016, but the Dems underestimated the size of the fix needed. Hence Hillary’s near melt down.

  106. Insulting Captain Tom should not be a crime

    Convicting somebody for an offensive tweet about the fundraising hero is a dire parable for our times

    MADELINE GRANT • 2 February 2022 • 6:00am

    Twitter never fails to bring out the worst in those who use it. At its milder end, the social media platform can induce a florid strain of lunacy in otherwise reasonable people. Its darkest fringes offer a glimpse into the nadir of the human condition – malicious invective and spite raised to a fine art.

    “The only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn,” tweeted Scotsman Joseph Kelly from the deepest effluent of the digital cesspit. He was speaking of Captain Sir Tom Moore, soon after the beloved centenarian fundraiser’s death last February. Kelly’s 13-word squib, vile if not atypical of the ordure shovelled forth full pelt by keyboard warriors, attracted the ire of the law. This week he was convicted of breaching the Communications Act with his post, which prosecutors described, per the terms of the law, as “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.

    I, for one, couldn’t help but be offended too – not so much by the tweet, horrible as it was, but by the authorities’ overblown reaction.

    It is an extraordinary case, brimming with alarming precedents and totalitarian details. A witness – in this case, a Twitter user who spotted the tweet online – told the court of her pain. “It still hurts me that anybody would disrespect someone that had given their life for the country,” lamented Janet Hunter Jess.

    Sheriff Adrian Cottam said that Kelly’s “gratuitous insult” about Sir Tom was made “with only offence in mind”. Er, yes, perhaps – but we should be very worried about living in a country where being offensive, even gratuitously so, is a crime. And quite apart from the principle itself, what a shocking waste of resources this is given the police’s pathetic record on prosecuting what are often wrongly called “minor” offences, such as housebreaking and theft.

    Though Kelly was prosecuted under the Communications Act, his “felony” feels more like the infringement of a blasphemy law. He was even reprimanded for shaking his head as the prosecutor spoke of Sir Tom – a man by then well past the point of being offended by anything.

    Would such a case have been brought had Kelly insulted any public figure? The jails of Britain would surely resemble the Black Hole of Calcutta if the police started typing “Margaret Thatcher burn in hell” into their Twitter search engines and arresting any raving socialist they caught desecrating her memory. Had the good Captain’s NHS fundraising efforts rendered him a demi-God, legally immune from insult? The blend of dictatorialism and sentimentality feels at once jarring, and very contemporary indeed.

    Policing online speech may be a recent obsession, but the law under which Kelly was prosecuted originated from archaic rules. Section 127 of the Communications Act descends from 1930s legislation drafted to protect the sensibilities of female telephone operators who MPs feared might fall prey to prank calls on the nascent networks.

    A decade ago, a young man was charged and convicted of causing a “menace” under Section 127. He had joked on Twitter that he would blow up a snowbound Doncaster airport if it were not reopened in time for him to fly to visit his girlfriend. [Another item on Max Headroom’s charge sheet.] The conviction was later overturned at the High Court, his defence barrister observing to the judge that if his client were guilty then Sir John Betjeman must be equally culpable after his exhortation: “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!” Yet 10 years later, Section 127 remains on the statute books – a dangerous anomaly that deserves instant abolition.

    Anomaly or not, however, recent developments suggest the direction of travel will produce more of the same. Scotland has hardly covered itself in glory lately – vigorously recording so-called “non-crime hate incidents”, while often leaving real-life crime unsolved. Last year, the SNP forced through their Hate Crime and Public Order Bill – a chilling, cack-handed piece of legislation that would criminalise the “stirring up of hatred” – potentially triggering charges over comments that were perceived to be offensive even if unintentionally so.

    The Government’s own draft Online Safety Bill also contains some worrying provisions, including a proposed duty of care requiring social media firms to moderate content that is “legal” but which “has the potential to cause harm”, or “a significant adverse physical or psychological impact”. Since almost anything might be considered harmful to someone, from a nasty tweet to a snap of a skinny model, such a subjective and ambiguous definition can only be problematic, and possibly lead to gratuitous censorship.

    As Section 127 demonstrates, ill-conceived laws can create all kinds of unforeseen problems down the line. The burgeoning number of caveats on offending “protected characteristics” might also lead us deeper into this sort of mire.

    As the Government consults on a British Bill of Rights, it needs to make free speech a cornerstone of any constitutional change. Speech that people find offensive – however hurtful – must be protected in a free society, or we forfeit our basic liberal norms. The Captain Tom case may be an extreme example, but it is also a parable of our times.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/02/insulting-captain-tom-should-not-crime/

    1. I would get Jack Reacher to kick you, for denigrating Captain Tom

      I would get Edward Fox to take you out, if you attempted anyone to stop it

      2. The old bloke Tom Wotsisname had a good long life, but he is deceased, just like Jesus of Nazareth, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, the Norwegian parrot & that infamous goatherder who liked young girls. You can’t offend a dead person, because they are unable to hear you in a physical sense. And no, I am not a fan of the NHS.

    2. Captain Tom did not see war or action. He was not a war hero.

      He came after the war, a mechanic training those servicing motorbikes.

      He may have been well intentioned but was not deserving of the knighthood and other obsequious attentions of the media. Any money he raised will have been squandered in minutes by ‘our NHS’.

      1. What I would like to know is exactly where all that money went that Tom raised. That trail went very quiet, didn’t it? Sir Tom’s family ought to ask and make any irregularities public knowledge.

  109. Another day approaches its end. Another day when my opinion of this government sinks further …. Today’s pearl was Priti Patel saying of 50,000 illegal invaders “we want them to rebuild their lives here”. One bright note, a kick up the backside for Truss/Johnson from N. Ireland (DUP minister of agriculture refusing to carry out any border checks …).

    Can’t understand how 250+ conservative MPs cannot yet see that their party will have no chance under Boris NetZero Johnson and many will loose their seats … every week he remains makes recovery more difficult … perhaps, it’s a box of apples where the bruised one on the top simply hides the entire rot in the rest of the box.

  110. Tens of thousands of troops have been ordered to spend a day ‘reflecting on inclusivity’ as military bosses say a ‘tactical pause’ will make the Army a more effective fighting force.

    General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith told soldiers across the UK to stop training next Tuesday for six hours of lectures and group talks in their own units.

    The ex-SAS commander will kick off the lengthy session – focusing on ‘culture and inclusivity’ while encouraging them to ‘think differently’ – with a speech from himself and his deputy, Christopher Tickell

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10468001/Tens-thousands-troops-ordered-spend-DAY-reflecting-inclusivity.html

    1. They will soon be able to take on the Canadian army, a beacon of woke happiness and diversity.
      They might still be using WW2 pistols but they know how to care for the enemies feelings.

  112. Wrong leader, What a pity.

    Trudeau is still reigning from some hiding place but the conservative leader has been forced to resign, OToole is like so many politicians, ignoring traditional party supporters while striving to attract the middle ground.

    He managed to lose the last election, seemingly too nice to raise the non stop corruption of the liberals or to focus on mistruths told by that man. Now he has completely failed to take advantage of the truckers convoy and the demand for freedom of choice.

    Maybe we will have a truly conservative leader soon,

    Sorry, just wishing for things to improve!

    1. There is a pandemic of utter stupidity sweeping the politicians of the west. It’s probably been there all the time but has fully surfaced in the last 2 years.

    1. He’s a twerp- I have sent him 4 emails…he’s responded to one and ignored most of the questions I asked.

  114. Evening, all. Late on parade because I’ve had a busy day. The Connemara excelled himself in doing an Elementary dressage test this afternoon. So proud of him! As for the headline; Boris is so out of touch with the person in the street, he wouldn’t get it if it were handed to him on a plate (preferably like a custard pie).

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