Wednesday 20 August: A heartening display of European resolve in support of Ukraine

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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474 thoughts on “Wednesday 20 August: A heartening display of European resolve in support of Ukraine”

      1. Yes,Paul. All parts are in working order. I am aware that I have lost some strength and stamina but that is to be expected. It doesn't really affect my life.

    1. The Oinker doesn't care if "putting boots on the ground" is risky – they won't be his own boots! Here's a thought – what if the troops providing security guarantees in a post war Ukraine find that it's the Azov Brigade or similar that is causing the problems, not the Russians – will they be able to fire on them???

    1. Another way to steal money from us….except those who live here for free and don't work.

    2. Labour imposes unaffordable taxes.
      Offers home owners millions to rent rooms to illegal migrant asylum seekers
      Desperate home owners vote Reform in droves so as not to lose their house or be the most unpopular person in the street.
      Reform implements technocracy

    1. Tommy asks the key question tonight. Nigel Farage, it is time to decide —whose side are you on?

      Are you on the side of the decent people and families of UK, who have simply had enough of seeing women and girls harassed by Islam and their communities overturned by Muslims?

      Or are you on the side of Islam who break our laws and the lawyers who want to overturn the Common Law to keep forcing British people to live through Sharia Law and pay billions for the privilege?

      It’s time to decide.

      And everybody in the country is now watching closely.

      1. Yes Farage has to come clean but He has the most chance of winning.He is trying to keep a broad church rather than narrow one. As labour have done many times is to have a mild leader who is elected then change them soon after election as they did in Liverpool with Hatton many years ago.

      2. I have a feeling that the Muslim Zia Yusuf has the 'goods' (or rather the 'bads') on Farage and so if Farage does not toe Yusuf's line the beans will be spilled.

    2. Hang on a minute Farage.. you didn’t want anyone from Reform attending the protests.

      1. Remember you have a left media who will make it into far more so the party loooks far right. There is no easy way.

      2. And Rupert Lowe was vilified and sacked for saying that all illegal immigrants – including those already in the UK – should be deported.

        Farage is a narcissist.

  8. Foreign Office Wastes £926,000 on Lost Computers, Phones, and Missed Travel

    Mr Davies
    15h
    “Lost computers”
    I have worked for decades in the private sector and never heard of a lost computer.

    Stop civil servants stealing from us.

    Share
    Reply
    Chris Smith
    Mr Davies
    15h
    The cost of replacing them should be deducted from their salaries.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40f622792a40f01db53f146ab35853c8086d94d1d806f253dd24c4f7ef30412e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/acc14bb5d97b4422c0f5ea2afd65bc0f8cacbb7e5176a043e116401ce0708134.jpg

    2. Chris Smith is right – and that's what happens [or certainly used to happen] in the Forces – you lose it, you pay for it! In the RN it used to be the dreaded Form S126!

  9. Good morning all. Had to seek clues and tips to complete today's Wordle – just! And thank you, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,523 6/6

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    ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Lucky guess here left no other options
      Wordle 1,523 4/6

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

  10. 'Morning All
    Midweek Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d660ddad355986b936fc2b88f870685ee77ed45bbf551162b5f64848c2fbbb8.jpg
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    https://x.com/SpillTheMemes/status/1957207057888895391 https://x.com/SpillTheMemes/status/1957207057888895391

        1. They use one of those huge Dutch bottom trawlers which bump 100,000+ ‘non-commercial’ fish after each trawl and only keep the passports.

    1. Good things need to be shared out equally. Hasn't Angela Eagle got an identical twin sister?

    3. Where Eagles stare?

      The identical twin sisters are both MPs – it is easy to identify which is which as one of them is not a lesbian.

    1. Someone in Labour's ranks needs an MBE for services to taxidermy. I believe they even got it talking, albeit a rather robotic voice, although they are hunting for a better recording for AI to analyse.

      One day, they'll all want one.

    2. It is easy to underestimate just how horrible the man at the right end of this line up is.

      He became universally loathed in the Netherlands so he was rewarded by being made Secretary General of NATO.

  18. Notional Trust
    10h
    Cominɡ tо а hоuѕе оf multірlе оссuраnсу nеаr уоu ѕооn.

    Тhе ɡоvt wоuld nоt hаvе lоѕt thіѕ hаd thеу bееn bоthеrеd. Тhіѕ аllоwѕ thеm tо ассеlеrаtе thе рrосеѕѕ оf mоvіnɡ thе nеw Вrіtоnѕ іntо соmmunіtіеѕ ассоrdіnɡ tо thе wіll оf thе реорlе.

    Yоu knоw thоѕе lаrɡеr hоuѕеѕ іn mаrɡіnаl аrеаѕ, thе оnеѕ thаt wіll bе vаluеd аt hаlf а mіllіоn quіd but hаvе еldеrlу fоlk іn thеm whо wоn’t bе аblе tо аffоrd thе nеw рrореrtу tах, wеll, thеу wіll bе bоuɡht uр bу аɡеnсіеѕ wоrkіnɡ оn ɡоvt соntrасtѕ раіd fоr bу уоu аnd then Аbdul Ѕhііtе аnd thе ѕеvеn ɡоаthеrdѕ wіll bе mоvіnɡ іntо thеm.

    Тhіѕ іѕn’t а vісtоrу.

    Yоur ɡоvt hаtеѕ уоu. Оnсе уоu undеrѕtаnd thіѕ уоu undеrѕtаnd еvеrуthіnɡ.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6daaeee44d0cc8d81642820648b1188b92ae333e43b7125f6f1b752f1316d4f.png

    1. A vivid snapshot of the major problems in our world.
      It always seems that someone else gets the blame.

    1. Is the brave and beautiful young woman with big brown eyes in hiding somewhere in Luton?

      I do not recall she had strong feelings about Jews, but plenty to say about fellow Muslims.

    2. Years ago, I remember watching a TV report from Iraq. According to the BBC, the man holding his toddler daughter (who was clutching a toy iirc) was saying something like "everything is very hard, food is short, even this toy would cost a week's wages".
      Someone in the room who understood the language said, "that's rubbish, he is saying they are managing OK"

  24. Trimdon Tone
    11h
    Well done to the Scottish press for mentioning (not a headline) the pee-der-file councillor today. Oh, he was Labour by the way!

    4. And if you cannot distinguish between your and you're you shouldn't write posters!

      1. The majority of these logos are written by AI [Artificial Imbecility] and the crassly bad spellings are getting worse by the day.

        If you rely on a machine to write a slogan then never spell-check it, no wonder educational standards are plummeting.

  26. Good Moaning. And a fine, grey one it is, too.
    Sorry, folks, but Temperate Zone Gal is happy.
    However, she was not so chuffed when the same cold grey wind hung around Dedham yesterday evening.
    When I asked for a door to be shut, it was explained that the Sun Inn did not have air conditioning, so the door had to be left partly open.
    Since none of us was prepared to sit in a wind tunnel we were moved to a cosier area. 2 hours later, and with the pub packed, the four tables near the "air conditioning" were still empty.

    1. My local can have a similar problem except it's down to the customers to decide 'Shut, open, or anywhere in between with a doorstop.

    2. There's fresh air and then there's draughts. The restaurant should know the difference.

      1. Shall we say that the staff member in question needed to brush up on her people skills.
        The others were fine; but then they weren't sporting a silly hair style that suggested an advanced level of self-absorption.

    3. My local is like that, they leave the windows open from the top down.
      I always remember the smoke in there Friday nights it was awful.

  27. Morning All 🙂😊
    Grey again chance of rain and 13 degs and quite windy.
    Not at all what had been forecast.
    Someone in Europe has won 216 million,150 thousand in the lottery win. How awful waking up to that…….🤗

    1. Yo RE

      when you win 216,150,000 it does not matter whether it is Pound Sterling or Euro's

      1. I’m not going on to the shed roof today to pick more apples. It’s too windy. I’m making bread but have run out of yeast. So I’ll have to pop out to buy some.
        My shoulders are aching, I’m having a rest.

      1. We probably have enough, but they are busy trawling the internet to counter the increasing Far Right threat – there are probably 3 of the FR now, up from 2 last week?

    2. Is he suggesting that Europe could deal with Russia without the USA?
      History suggests not.

  31. Just had a letter from NatWest with a leaflet enclosed, entitled "Financial Services Compensation Scheme Information Sheet".
    This helpful publication assures me that in the event of a bank being unable to meet its financial obligations, my deposits are protected up to 85 000.

    Bless them. If I wanted to read fairy stories, I'd go to the children's section of my local bookshop.
    They must really be getting the wind up about people losing trust in the financial system – what on earth can they be expecting to happen in the next few weeks/months?

      1. Mario Inecco today predicted a bond crisis around the autumn equinox which is 22nd September. Similar to the one that they said was all Liz Truss’s and Kwazi Kwarteng’s fault, but worse. Rafi Farber keeps sounding off about overnight repo as well (this is a bit technical for me, but I gather there’s not much liquidity in the system for banks to settle their overnight debts with, and a crisis in the lending rate due to lack of liquidity is what happened in late summer 2019 and precipitated the situation where they “had” to print lots of money and pump it directly to companies, aka the Deadly Plague).

        I don’t think it will collapse, they will sacrifice the currency (i.e. switch on the printers) to save the banking system instead. Of course, all the rotten financial institutions who are up to their eyeballs in debt and shennanigans OUGHT to collapse but that is socialism for the rich, I guess.

    1. If only they had as much concern for victims of crime as they have for the Government's problems.

  34. It would seem that many of the world's governments are giving up more than a modicum of their time to assuage the devotees of one particular religion to ensure that a 'crime' is enacted to prosecute those who disrespect that belief system.

    Why are they all hankering for a crime of "Islamophobia" when no other 'belief system' is similarly protected?

    Why are there no similar crimes of:

    Protestantophobia
    Catholicophobia
    Methodistophobia
    Hinduophobia
    Buddhismophobia
    Sikhismophobia
    Confucianismophobia
    Zoroastrianismophobia
    Shintōismophobia,
    No-use-whatsoever-for-any-religion-ophobia …

    … or the same for couple of thousand other ‘belief systems’ in use worldwide?

    What is so special about Islam, especially when its proponents and devotees are free to disrespect anyone who does not adhere to their creed?

      2. Why are we in Western society expected to put up with all this constant bickering from a faith that has its mindset set in the middle ages and the aggressive middle east.
        If our political idiots haven't noticed by now they should have, that everywhere these people arrive at they cause as much trouble as they think they can get away with. And increasingly turn up the pressure, it's been going on for centuries.
        How many 'people' wearing a burka have been arrested because it contravenes facial recognition cameras?

    2. Coz Allah told the Muzzies to chop our heads off if we don’t submit to them and, around the world, they are busy following Allah’s wishes as we type.

    3. A climate of fear suits our masters down to the ground. If Islamism didn't exist, they'd have to invent it.

    5. Note the number of laws Blair passed specifically to protect muslim. An integrating, decent group wouldn't need that, but they're not. They wander about in their pyjamas, bringing their crime and savage attitudes with them and sit on our money here.

  36. Connor Tomlinson makes a valid point..

    Everyone on the Right focuses on getting Islam out of political positions of power.. when in fact it is the demented Progressive Radical Leftie that is far more dangerous.
    Luckily they are easy to spot. They wear a perma-smug sneer.

    1. I have been saying this all along. Muslims are the next generations of gullible young men who will be used to wage the ever-lasting wars. Plus they are being offered the prize of conquering Europe.
      But their future is just as much slavery as ours is. It is still worth trying to wake them up to realise that we have a common enemy which is technocracy.

    2. It's seems to be the self appointed self opinionated, demented progressive radical lefties are running the world at this moment.
      Defiantly wrecking established Western society and introducing dangerous alternatives into its previously safe cultural existence.

      1. A World government cannot operate until nation states are eliminated. Formation of the EU was the first move which we messed up by leaving. The new method is mass migration. When the indigenous members of a nation state are overwhelmed the nation state ceases to exist.

        1. Messed up to a degree. The state has, since Brexit done everything possible, at every opportunity to ensure we remain chained to the hated EU and never, ever take advantage of our having left it.

          Massive unwanted gimmigration is just the latest spiteful weapon. The state could stop it. They choose not to and accelerate the invasion out of sheer spite for not getting their own way.

    3. Yep, the muslim is a symptom of the disease. In a democracy they wouldn't be here at all to gain office.

    1. I can't remember how that was dealt with in the fandom but yes, he is.

      However, Superman/Clark Kent works for a living and is a naturalised American citizen – the ideal America of the american ideal. He is as far from the muslim rapist – or Leftist (despite their desperate claiming – Leftists even tried perverting Supes in recent comics to pretend he was a Lefty: that failed utterly) – as it's possible to be.

      As Captain America quipped 'What sort of mad man would let a Nazi scientist experiment on him to fight for his country!

      There's a reason their colours are red, white* and blue.

  39. We are told that the government was caught asleep at the wheel by yesterday's ruling in favour of Epping council. I'm not so sure. Out masters are nothing if not devious. They're up to something.

    1. We are their masters. They serve us. They have forgotten this and need to be reminded.

      I don't think Labour – or the state – will even flicker at it. They'll just move the vermin somewhere else, or, knowing the spite and malice of these people, force purchase a hotel / flat block and put them in there, renaming it a government multi purpose building and thus immune from legal challenge.

      1. I've a friend who lives in a terraced railway cottage where a house next door, as small as it is, has been turned into a multi-occupancy property with short stay bedsits for migrant men. The men are louts and doing all they can to make the lives of their neighbours an absolute misery. The local authority are on board and will do nothing to help. Legal challenges are costing a fortune. There will be much more of this…

        1. It's a bitter reminder of how the state is simply not fit for purpose. It is their to do our will, not the other way around.

    2. I call upon Rastus to come up with the Shakespearean quotation about not mistaking the wish for the fact.

    1. Thank you Stephen, the article is entirely right. Someone wants this war to continue. The raging anger of Leftists to keep it going, solely because they hate Trump and want him to fail is mindless.

    2. I think there is a lot of money at risk (from a “democrats lining their own pockets” perspective). Who wouldn’t fight for free money?

  41. We should be plastering the St George's Cross all over England, not pulling it down

    By crushing a patriotic flag campaign while letting the Palestine one fly high woke councils are simply stoking fear about multiculturalism

    Isabel Oakeshott
    19th August 2025, 4:32pm BST

    As British as it sounds, Ralph Road bears almost no resemblance to what used to be England. Like so many other inner-city areas, it has turned into something else: an amalgam of Karachi, Kabul, Dhaka and other far-flung lands thrown like a grubby blanket over British-built houses and roads. Grubby, because the local authority has failed so dismally to resolve a long-running industrial dispute with its binmen, and rubbish is literally piling high.

    The filth – from rotting meat tossed in the gutter and swarming with flies, to filthy mattresses, soiled nappies, bits of cardboard, polystyrene, plywood and plastic bottles and bags – points to a near collapse in standards of public behaviour and administration in this part of Birmingham. While residents in more affluent areas have found their own solutions, people here have neither the will nor resources to clear it up themselves.

    Dressed in a grey shalwar kameez, an old man with a long white beard, chapal sandals and a topi cap stands on a street corner trying to sell plastic jewellery from a wonky shopping trolley. How he ekes out a living from the trinkets is hard to imagine, but neither he nor his rudimentary street stall look out of place in an area known locally as "little Pakistan". Almost every retailer and business has a foreign name, from the "Pak Supermarket" grocery store and "Al Madina Halal Meat and Poultry Centre" to the "Zara Khan" Pakistani dress boutique and "Mama Sheeryakh", a café which specialises in "authentic Afghan handmade ice cream".

    Where exactly are we? As an outsider, to wander around Alum Rock in Saltley, an area two miles east of the city centre, is to feel like an alien in one's own land. According to official statistics, almost 94 per cent of the 28,000 population of this council ward is black, Asian or minority ethnic. Some 15 per cent speak little to no English. Unemployment is sky-high.

    In the most potent symbol of the erosion of British cultural identity, the only flags on display are Palestinian. Hoisted high on lamp posts, bleached by the hot summer sun, the now familiar red, white, green and black symbols seem to be everywhere, fluttering defiantly above shops, from makeshift poles on street corners and stuck to sitting-room windows.

    It is what has happened to areas like this, and a sense that they are rapidly expanding at the expense of traditional white, working-class communities, that is driving mounting public anxiety about our national identity. The wholesale transformation of places where money was always tight but British patriotism was unquestioned has not happened suddenly, but is accelerating with the arrival of thousands more undocumented foreigners with no pre-existing ties to this country every week.

    The seismic demographic change raises profound questions over what it means to be British, and whether the scale of immigration (both legal and illegal) is slowly but steadily eroding our identity. What was once a source of British pride – widespread tolerance and even celebration of cultural differences – is giving way to very different feelings over changes that have begun to feel like a threat.

    In Alum Rock and many places like it, churches are in danger of becoming redundant – Saltley Methodist Church, a building estate agents describe as a "striking example of early 20th-century ecclesiastical architecture", is up for auction, while St Matthew's has been turned into a "business centre" – and replaced by mosques. In communities such as this, Islamic courts are often used to resolve disputes, earning the UK a reputation as the "Western capital" for sharia law.

    Of course, this is still England: the point is that it neither looks nor feels like the country older generations know.

    The extent to which growing public angst about these huge cultural shifts is born of "xenophobia" is a hot debate, but it is very real – as evidenced by a new grass-roots movement to promote British flags.

    In what looks very much like the beginning of a cultural fightback, up and down the country, activists have been turning lamp posts into flagpoles and painting flags on roundabouts. Tagged "Operation Raise the Colours" on social media, the spontaneous flag-hoisting, which began in Birmingham, appears to be going nationwide, even reaching the predominantly black, Asian and minority ethnic London borough of Tower Hamlets.

    Stupidly, councils in affected areas are busying themselves pulling down the flags. What madness! It is the worst possible reaction, encapsulating the mess we are in. As fearful authorities in Birmingham and London tear down our own symbols of civic pride, Palestinian flags (theoretically illegal in public places, without express permission, because the UK does not recognise Palestine as a country) continue to fly high. Watching public bodies bending over backwards to respect cultures and identities other than our own, voters despair.

    Why can't our leaders see that the raising of British flags is not an act of aggression, but a cri de coeur from a "native" population that feels subordinated and unheard? Instead of panicking, why don't they lean in, seizing the opportunity to remind anyone who might be "offended" the name of the country in which they have chosen to live?

    It is now 20 years since Tony Blair began retreating from the monster he and his party unwittingly created when they put multiculturalism at the heart of their policy agenda. Reeling from the terror attacks of July 7 2005, the largest mass casualty event in the UK since the Second World War, Blair issued a kind of rallying cry for our country. In a speech that overturned decades of Labour ideology, he warned immigrants they had a "duty" to integrate, and told them they should adopt our values – or stay away.

    What actually happened in the two decades that followed was the reverse. Successive prime ministers continued to allow vast numbers of foreign nationals to move here with little to no requirement to embrace, or even respect, our way of life and norms.

    No wonder the white working classes, who have been most disadvantaged by the influx, and many others who continue to believe that our culture and values are superior to those in very different parts of the world, are feeling mutinous.

    On TikTok and Facebook, in pubs and social clubs, and at kitchen tables up and down the land, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people who have never wanted anything to do with politics share their private despair and ruminate over what is to be done. Raising British flags – whether the Union flag or the St George's Cross or other national flags – seems a civilised way to push back.

    Instead of trying to undo it all, politicians should read the room and actively support this peaceful reaffirmation of who we are. Places like Alum Rock demonstrate the case for going further. It is not the British flags but Palestinian ones that should be removed. Following in Denmark's footsteps, the flying of foreign flags should be banned altogether.

    Be in no doubt: the mood of the country is precarious. It is time to put down a marker, and remind everyone where they are.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/19/st-georges-flag

    The flag could be flown everywhere and every foreign flag torn down but they would still be here…

    1. I think Epping has won their legal rights battle to object to the government stashing the illegal invaders into the hotel systems. It could be the start of something significant.

      1. What do you do about the long-settled millions who have created third-world slums in much of urban Britain?

          2. Better to simply cut off welfare. Just say 'we're not paying for you, or your family'.

            Once they've lived a life of working, honest, law abiding decency then, after a decade a generation can receive state assistance. Until then, nothing.

            As soon as they commit crime or start getting uppity, they're gone – and that can be as simple as not speaking English continually.

          3. It appears that it is often the ones born here that are causing much of the problem. They may sound like "English" people but their mindset is far from that of the integrated immigrant.

          4. You and Carolyn are not French; Caroline and I are not French; Sosraboc is not French.

            SO

            Why were you well integrated in Laure?

            Why are we well integrated in Brittany?

            Why is Sosraboc well integrated in his part of France?

          6. Possibly because we share a European Christian heritage? And, in our case, anyway, were prepared to watch how the locals led their lives and gradually ask to be able to participate.

          7. But Jill and I became naturalized US citizens, as our family is here – and expanding. Plus we had no intention of giving up a very comfortable life style to return to a Britain totally alien to the one we left. And sadly, it's got worse since we made that decision.

          8. The original Commonwealth immigrants were glad to have a job and a better life. Their offspring however, were the ones who blew up the tubes and buses in London. The problem is too many radical imams have been let into the country with apparently little or no assessment by immigration, and by their teachings, are the "enabling" factor for anti British activities.

    2. It is a start to remind the verminn that this is our country, not theirs. That they are unwelcome and unwanted.

      As rebellion goes, it is very British. If Starmer were not a unethical, tone deaf useless oaf he would start listening and doing something about the invasion.

      Hell, we've had pakistani muslim paedohpile rape gangs – still on going.
      Murders, stabbings on a daily basis. London is so awash in black blood it's not worth reporting it.
      Organised crime in the dindu hair cutters and sweets,
      The rape of women by the gimmigrant vermin

      – when does this end? The state, there to protect the citizen isn't so much failing as deliberately endorsing, encouraging mass murder, assault, rape and paedophilia. It needs to be burned down and rebuilt to serve.

    3. Back in 2006 my daughter would have been an English minority in the local state school. Admittedly the other pupils were mainly European, Korean and Chinese; but even so.

    4. Isabelle Oakeshott clearly has no intention of handing in her Establishment card any time soon.

        1. I mean that she is a limited hangout, establishment controlled opposition. Her article is a pale reflection of the wickedness that is being perpetrated on our country, full of little nods to the establishment.
          “a sense that they are rapidly expanding at the expense of traditional white, working-class communities,” – no Isabelle, they ARE rapidly expanding, there is no “sense of”, there is factual evidence. Also, most people don’t give a stuff what their neighbour’s skin colour is, they just don#t want to be bullied by muslims or have their daughters raped or have foreign flags everywhere and they want to live among people who dress like them and behave like them. She’s setting up a paradigm where British people only care that their neighbour is white, which is simply not the case.

          ” it neither looks nor feels like the country older generations know.”
          Oh, so that’s alright then. The only thing that’s wrong is that older generations feel out of place. NO, you traitor, it’s wrong because more than ninety percent of the country do NOT want to live in an islamic state. It’s wrong because bringing hundreds of thousands of young men with no women, no jobs, no property and no family ties into a country is to make that country an extremely dangerous place to live.

          These are just particularly egregious examples, but the whole article is peppered with false paradigms.

          1. "I mean that she is a limited hangout, establishment controlled opposition."

            What? Too many people write this kind of paranoid, conspiratorial rubbish and they're obviously not all on the left.

            I got the message. You engaged in undergraduate semantic analysis.

          2. No, I read the actual article and what it said, and I don’t agree with it.
            It is hardly paranoid to recognise that the likes of Isabelle Oakeshott won’t step outside the Overton window even if that means ignoring or concealing the truth.

          3. What don't you agree with? That parts of urban Britain are third-world slums where foreign flags are routinely displayed, that flying English or British flags is sneered at and sometimes the flags torn down, where authorities live in fear of the immigrant and put down criticism of immigration by the ancestral peoples of the island?

            It seemed pretty clear to me.

          4. I already gave two examples of things I don't agree with. She's a writer, she knows perfectly well the power of words and her suggestions.
            The Telegraph ignored people's legitimate concerns for years, but now she's telling us that our mood is precarious. That's not supporting stopping the invasion; it's pre-programming people to accept the idea of civil unrest.
            She several times refers to skin colour, which is telling us that we're uncomfortable due to the number of non white people in the country.
            She chooses to write her article on the subject of flags rather than the more important factors such as lack of infrastructure to support a burgeoning migrant population or the sheer danger of having so many unattached young men in our country just before a major financial crisis.
            Of course, she didn't decide that herself. It has been decided higher up in the food chain that people's anger should be focused on flags at this particular moment which is why the whole legacy and alternative media, not just the Telegraph, are full of flag stories. This flag situation has been going on for years.
            No, Ms Oakeshott never produces any output that isn't fully in line with the establishment's agenda, which comes back to my original comment – her job is to direct people's anger where the establishment wants it to go.

          5. Pardon me, but this is bollocks. It's years since I've responded to anyone like that on here.

            She's used flags and the Birmingham slums as two particular symptoms of the immigration crisis. It's just 1,200 words, limited by the eds. She could have written a 5,000 word dissertation and only scratched the surface.

          6. She used flags because the entire media are chasing flags right now. She and they are ignoring far more important things. It’s all part of the game that keeps you angry and powerless. If you can’t see that, then nothing will ever change.

          8. It’s up to you what you see, but perhaps you should look into the mechanics of modern propaganda a bit more closely.

          9. Your argument appears to be that because the Telegraph and its journalists haven't been strident enough in their editorials and comment pieces, and have been keeping information from us, we have an immigration crisis.

            That's attic bedsit tin-foil-hat time.

          11. If you tell people they lack the vision that you have to read between the lines, you’ll get a sharp response.

          13. Er, no, you were dismissive of a query to your ‘Establishment card’ remark and followed up with risible conspiracy theory.

          14. "I mean that she is a limited hangout, establishment controlled opposition."

            What? Too many people write this kind of paranoid, conspiratorial rubbish and they're obviously not all on the left.

            I got the message. You engaged in undergraduate semantic analysis.

  42. 411586+ up ticks,

    Epping migrants could be moved to another hotel, minister admits
    Court ruling closing down Bell Hotel has thrown the Government’s wider asylum plans into turmoil.

    Then the peoples "removal stain on a nation elixir," must be applied to any location as it springs up.

    1. Then the Leftists will just force buy houses and shove the gimmigrant sewage in them. They won't stop until they are made to, and that'll take years because they've intentionally tied the entire farce in legal knots.

      2. 411586 + up ticks,

        Morning W,
        May one ask, are “legal knots” immune from
        arrows of justification unleashed via a mass peoples stance ?

    2. My understanding is that this ruling is not a blanket one – i.e. it only applies to the Council which applied for it. Therefore the government can just move migrants elsewhere. It would be up to each local Council to apply to the Courts for a similar judgement.

      1. 411586+ up ticks,

        Morning A,

        I take it to be the same, that every council will be a battle ground, what many pro hotel councilors must keep in mind is that they are elected to office,

    1. A TV advert for Sanex shower gel which showed black skin as cracked and white skin as smooth has been banned for reinforcing a racial stereotype.

      The ad shows two models with dark skin – one has itchy skin and the other has dry skin – followed by a white woman with no skin problems.

      The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld two complaints which said the depiction of dark skin as dry, cracked and itchy "could be interpreted as suggesting that white skin was superior to black skin".

      I don't believe this. White people in TV adverts?

      3. I was hitherto utterly unaware of that particular racial stereotype. Had I seen that advert, I very much doubt that my conclusion would have been that pale skin is inherently superior to darker skin.

    2. Not a lot of bias there, but that someone dindu took offence is how pathetic they are.

  44. On the BBC news site, discussing rising inflation, I found this BTL comment. Guess who it's aimed at … "I'm not an economist, nor do I claim to be on my CV but I could a much better job than she is doing. Lacking direction, ….. she's a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, out of her depth and ignoring every economic signals that is tell her she's made so many wrong choices!!"

    1. Seen as Reeves isn't either, and did lie on her CV the reason why she is ignoring all the obvious klaxxons is because the Treasury and OBR are consistently, perpetually wrong about their every desperate, Left wing nonsense.

    2. I think Reeves has been told she's not allowed to resign. Nobody else wants to be left in the hot seat when a giant bond market crisis happens. She played poker and didn't spot the mug at the table…

  45. Sir John Thomas
    3h
    BBC trying to tell me that airline ticket prices are mostly to blame for price inflation, in other words it’s not the government’s fault for increasing taxes and wage costs.

    Youngy
    21m
    The rises are due to this Chancellor smashing small businesses and families with X-rated Tax Rises and minimum wage increases that they simply cannot afford.
    She was told this was going to happen but her arrogance and her inexperience (with a dodgy CV thrown in) she ploughed on regardless.

    Starmer needs to take some of the blame, putting in someone who is obviously not on top of what her responsibilities are and more importantly what the consequences would be…..

    With more to come because Plan A failed they will just pile on more misery with a Plan B with more taxes and more misery. No chance for the Economy to grow, no opportunities for Kids to get on the job market and no Millionaires left….

    Forrest Gump politics from the Left…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3b86ea56d09f3505e3a00ee16f87c5e1764a053c76843737060a9161d2b23701.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e5bf29fa5480067dc70dc18db0c5912db5114dadfe1780e41690cd8b3bd4242.png

    1. The thing is, state sees itself as the heart of the economy, not the parasite it is. Thus they see big state spending money (waste) as growth, thus the more the state takes, the more 'growth' it generates.
      Of course, this is fallacy. The less the state takes, the more the economy grows but no government department is ever going to admit that.

      That's the root of it. We cannot control them. We must be able to reject their budget in part or whole. When they fail us we must be able to remove them on a whim. Instead of enacting destructive law, the current shower should be forced to repeal all the appalling legislation we don't want.

      This means revoking universal franchise.

    2. If businesses raise prices in response to higher input costs, especially those imposed by a socialist government, then that response is indicative of the inherent greed of those who make that choice. The government should make it illegal to raise prices when higher taxes are imposed. Any losses sustained by those businesses must be recovered from the incomes of those running them. Closing businesses due to losses incurred by rising costs must be made illegal and declining to start businesses, simply because the economic and fiscal climate is not conducive to making vast sums of money at the expense of the downtrodden poor, will be overcome by appropriating the wealth of those refusing to start them and given, instead, to those who would like to start a business but without the financial means or entrepreneurial skills of doing so. When those businesses fail, as they inevitably will, more wealth will be appropriated from those with the means to allow the failing businesses to continue. Emigration will be made illegal for those who are greedy and attempt to evade these impositions.

    1. he really is a one-trick pony, isn’t he? How big is his vocabulary- 10 words?

      Edit. About the size of his shoes and IQ,

    2. I have a Skull & Crossbones flag that I bought for the Last Night of the Proms, to put alongside the EU banners. Will that do?

    1. I'm not so sure I would have the stamina or will to live through 1hour 45mins of that.

  50. Travelone
    2h
    That's fine — but there should be no 'processing' — bring in emergency rules like Greece. No illegal migrants in the UK will ever get asylum . There is no asylum process open to them. They are detained and will not be processed. They will never have residence in Britain. Number of boats to Crete went to zero as soon as this was brought in. — no asylum no point coming to Britain illegally. The only processing will involve the voluntary return to their last safe country or back to one of the countries they crossed or their original location. If they prefer detention fine. Other EU countries are following this – parts of Spain , Denmark and being discussed in Germany and Italy. Legal migration and asylum will need fixing too but illegal migrants first.

    Keith Guevara
    David Johnson
    25m
    At election time, they all lie and say they intend to reduce immigration. We vote against immigration at every general election, and still they force it upon us.

    Rogerborg ⬛🟧
    Travelone
    2h
    And all that requires is us saying "No". No free housing, no free healthcare, no free money, no free lawyers, no free translators – the can pay for their own, or they can jabber away in Elbonian, then be told "No" either way.

    Bulls**t Detector
    Rogerborg ⬛🟧
    13m
    That would involve Stammer admitting that he was entirely wrong to litigate for immigrants to have all these benefits all those years ago when he was a lefty human rights lawyer, and before the establishment decided it liked the cut of his jib.

  54. 411586+ up ticks,

    The swastika maybe, after a parliamentary debate.

    No Saints only sinners will be tolerated ,hence GEORGE is out.

    DT
    Police investigate St George’s flag painted on roundabout
    Criminal damage inquiry is launched as Reform-led council removes paint, but pledges to keep flags flying

    1. Ffs. Criminal damage. When there are real criminals out there, shoplifting and raping little girls. Not paintimg roundabouts red and white, or tweeting hurty words.

  55. The British Right should put Kent before Kyiv

    A tension is emerging across the Western world over how to weigh national interest against involvement in faraway conflicts

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/869f951daed89d47079020d40c010447f2a7f19b1b5c2881c3ef1c1099519c08.png
    The West's fight?: Telegraph columnist Charles Moore shooting an AR15 at a firing range in Kyiv, Ukraine on May 16, 2023
    [Credit: Heathcliff O'Malley]

    James Orr
    19th August 2025, 6:10pm BST

    Shortly after the local elections, in which the Conservative Party suffered one of its worst electoral defeats in living memory, I addressed a small group of shell-shocked Tories and warned them that the results indicated their party faced an existential challenge unlike any it had faced in its long history.

    To my astonishment, the post-speech discussion veered instantly towards the war in Ukraine and the US vice-president's perceived incivility towards President Zelensky. Momentarily losing my composure, I accused them of suffering from "Ukraine Brain" and argued that polling in the run-up to the elections had made it unambiguously clear that the British people would rather its leaders prioritise "the defence of Kent over the defence of Kiev [sic]". There followed a stunned silence that was broken eventually by an aggressively whispered "Kyiv."

    The furious intensity with which so many Tories of a particular age follow every twist and turn of the Russia-Ukraine conflict – even when staring in the face of electoral oblivion – can be hard to understand. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that it is psychological displacement, a way to sidestep the spectre of national decline by chasing the phantom of a geopolitical influence that has long since faded.

    The incident returned to my mind when reading Charles Moore's bracing column last weekend, in which he warned that National Conservatives like the US vice-president and myself were, as the headline theatrically put it, flirting with "a perverted patriotism that may yet lead to neo-fascism".

    In a Gallic modulation of Godwin's Law, Moore claimed he had detected an echo of the Vichy slogan "Famille, Travail, Patrie" ("Family, Work, Country") in the title of a speech I had given – "Faith, Family, Flag, Freedom" – in which I argued that the New Right should adopt a version of Augustine's ordo amoris as the organising principle for a conservative politics of home and belonging.

    I did not mention Ukraine or Russia once, but my discussion of the importance of family and nationhood at a major conservative conference was to his mind evidence that I was a Pétainiste and so, by extension, a Poutiniste. He then cited my accurate observation that more people face penalties for free speech in Britain than in Russia as proof of my sympathy for the latter, when my point was to underscore the severity of Britain's free-speech crisis by comparing it to the most notoriously oppressive regime I could think of. (And, in any event, to note that X is worse than Y in respect of Z is not to endorse Y in any respect.)

    Baffled though I was by his reasoning, I found it hard to disagree with Moore's claim that a tension is indeed emerging across the Western world on the Right, on the neuralgic question of how to weigh national interest against risky and costly involvement in faraway conflicts.

    He was right too to note that the issue has become a key point of contention among National Conservatives, a global movement of the New Right numbering thousands of Right-wing politicians, academics, and commentators from dozens of countries. Where he went wrong was thinking that there is a single leading figure in the movement who does not unequivocally condemn Russia's unprovoked violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, or salute the extraordinary courage that nation has shown in defending itself against Putin's shameless aggression.

    Some view support for Ukraine as a moral and strategic stand against authoritarianism and are convinced that appeasement through negotiations with Russia will only embolden further aggression. Others argue that Western support is prolonging an unwinnable war and inflicting far greater suffering and destruction on Ukraine than might have been avoided had peace negotiations been pursued more vigorously early on.

    The debate highlights the principled realism of the New Right, a realism that tries to balance the claims of justice with the competing priorities of nations affected in different ways and to different degrees by geopolitical conflict.

    Regrettably, that is an approach that seems to enrage the Old Right, which insists on refracting almost every geopolitical crisis through the prism of the 1930s and 1940s. Steeped in the post-war myths of British exceptionalism – Chamberlain's folly, Churchill's heroism, the grit of the Blitz – they insist on treating Putin as Hitler, Zelensky as Churchill, Ukraine as Poland, and any pursuit of peaceful resolution as the appeasement of a Chamberlain or the collaboration of a Pétain.

    This mindset – "World War Two Brain," in the idiolect of the Right-wing Zoomers who are most mystified by it – motivates hopelessly muddled thinking and ignores the realpolitik of Russia's longstanding paranoia over NATO, the conflict's devastating effects on European energy prices, and the disastrous realignment of Russia with China.

    It is fuelling a confrontation that is inflicting damage on Ukraine from which it will take decades to recover, it is straining Britain's resources amidst a flurry of domestic challenges unprecedented in living memory, and it is demonising voices calling for peace and restraint.

    Thankfully, this is a mindset that the US vice-president unequivocally rejects. He understands that dewy-eyed idealism and anachronistic analogies are a recipe for conflict and instability, and that America must pursue peace through strength as it navigates a multipolar world that could not be more different from the geopolitical landscape that vanished nearly a century ago.

    As for the emerging figures on Britain's New Right, it is they alone who seem to understand that the time has come to rally behind politicians who will put Kent before Kyiv, Glasgow before Gaza, and Bournemouth before Beijing.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/19/british-right-should-put-kent-before-kyiv

    Moore's article:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/15/perverted-liberalism-has-led-to-neo-marxism-perverted-patri

    1. He was doing quite well until he mentioned "unprovoked aggression". Incidentally, can anyone tell me if I'm right to be concerned about firing an AR-15 from the left shoulder – where does the hot brass go?

      1. A shame really because he was making an important point, namely that opposition to involvement in Ukraine isn't support of Putin. Moore's piece last Saturday was rather unpleasant. The headline is enough: "Perverted liberalism has led to neo-Marxism, perverted patriotism may yet lead to neo-fascism".

    2. If you see that over your head, best to take shelter somewhere very well constructed.

    2. Ah! Sun-flower : William Blake

      Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
      Who countest the steps of the Sun:
      Seeking after that sweet golden clime
      Where the travellers journey is done.

      Where the Youth pined away with desire,
      And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
      Arise from their graves and aspire,
      Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

        1. Might have instilled some sense into the bunny hugger. Preserving the stupid is what’s got us into this mess.

  61. Hospitality Businesses Lose Cash Reserves After Reeves Tax Raid

    New data shows hospitality businesses are struggling to keep up with Reeves’ tax hikes and are seeing their savings ground down. Better hope there isn’t another global economic shock…

    Polling conducted of members of UK Hospitality, the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII), the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) and Hospitality Ulster shows that one in five have zero cash reserves remaining. Hospitality businesses’ savings have long been damaged by successive tax policy. Eight in ten have raised prices after the last budget’s tax hikes kicked in…

    69% of polled hospitality firms also have fewer than six months of reserves remaining. The NI hike alone has cost the sector an extra £3 billion and cost 84,000 jobs according to research. First they came for the pubs…

    Notional Trust
    47m
    Doing my bit. Had thirty pints across the weekend, all British brewed, all consumed in a pub or club.

    Crackendake, Khyber, & Jaipur the pick.

    The future of the sector is product. It can survive in diminished numbers and specialised form. The large food pub and the small ale house.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d03495a14a72501b5b5d0b6f66ee5c7e88567486e64f8b3c9bab77b2d22cef7.png

    Sir John Thomas
    Notional Trust
    21m
    Hee hee hee. Reminds me of a watering hole I once visited where they had a strong beer that they would only serve in half pints, its name was Roger and Out!

    Windsor Bloke
    Sir John Thomas
    4m
    The Belgian Bar in Ramsgate has a good variety of Trappist rocket fuel. Some are over 10% 🍺🤪

    Alcohol is haram
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/83b2f8ec0efd4c1502e06a26e15be840c427429f5fea321d0029b88125e98985.png

      1. Attaboy Atatürk

        [Founding father of the Republic of Türkiye, he always found a way around the bits of dogma he didn't like]

      2. Pretty certain Omar Khayyam mentioned a jug of wine, too – and wasn't he an Islamic scholar?

          5. I’m afraid of what your husband might do to me. Other than that there is a small gang of us meeting for lunch in Mayfair at the end of September.

    1. No, no, he has a heatpump. He also claims double what his neighbours do for heating (he shouldn't need to) on expenses.

      Someone mentioned he was putting in bills for over 500 a month or something comedic.

    1. The way in which Rupert Lowe was treated by Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf should show the gullible voters that when they are looking for a party for which to vote the Reform Party – as it is now – is not it.

      To my way of thinking the only answer is for there to be an internal uprising in the party and for Farage and Yusuf to be expelled from it and for Lowe to be brought back into the fold.

      Of course this will not happen just as the leaderships of Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak and Badenoch should not have happened as cumulatively they have resulted in the total extinction of the Conservative Party.

  66. Can I ask a really stoooooopid question .

    Male boat people arriving here , no id , no passports . most of them look alike anyway , but who are they escaping from ?

    Are they criminals , are they escaping justice because of the head cutting off / burning tyre / murdering female children / their mothers/ sisters / thieving that sort of thing … and if they are what sort of peril are the female members or younger males suffering back in the country they have escaped from.

    Nothing makes any sense .. Eritreans, Sudanese Vietnamese , Iraq, syrian etc etc .. what the blazes is going on .. and all the videos on Utube showing the so called security yet males wandering around outside the hotels they are billeted in, wont they be recognised, are the Taliban and Isis really interested in those people or are we absolute mugs for believing all their louche pleadings… Don't any of you Nottlers sense or smell a rat?

    1. In the nineties, when Britain started handing out asylum tickets like sweeties to Algerians, the entire criminal population of Algeria downed tools and came to Britain.
      I expect the same is happening now for all the other countries you mentioned.

    2. We should not even be considering asylum applications from nationals of countries with which we have diplomatic relations. Surely we wouldn't recognise countries from which people need to escape persecution?

      1. I don’t know. We need to escape persecution here if we are white, Christian, taxpayers and straight.

    1. Nigel Farage

      ·
      Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,Let me tell you something that’ll make your blood boil. The Home Office, that great bastion of British bureaucracy, is in a right tizzy and why? Because their little game’s been rumbled! For years, they’ve been quietly stacking their ranks with foreign staff, bending over backwards to help migrants settle into our country with free hotels, free meals, free everything! And now, the British people have had enough, and they’re turfing these migrants out of four star hotels. Oh, the Home Office isn’t happy about it. Not one bit!They thought they could pull the wool over our eyes, didn’t they? Fill their offices with people who’d rubber stamp asylum claims faster than you can say “open borders.” And what’s the result? Migrants living it up in luxury hotels, with room service and iPhones, all paid for by you, the hardworking British taxpayer! They’re not just helping these people settle, they're rolling out the red carpet while our own veterans sleep on the streets. Disgraceful!And now, when councils like Epping stand up, when decent British people say, “No more!” and demand these hotels be returned to the public, the Home Office is throwing a tantrum. They’re annoyed, folks! Annoyed that their cozy little setup’s been exposed. Annoyed that the British public has the audacity to demand our country back. Well, I say, let them be annoyed! Let them squirm! Because this is just the start. We’re going to take back every hotel, every street, every community from this madness.Young, undocumented men who break into our country illegally should not be sipping lattes in taxpayer funded spas. They should be detained and deported full stop. And if the Home Office doesn’t like it, they can answer to the British people. We’ve had enough of their betrayal, their secrecy, their contempt for the ordinary folk who keep this country running. This is our home, not their playground!So, I say to every council, every community: follow Epping’s lead. Stand up, fight back, and let’s send a message to the Home Office loud and clear: your days of sneaking around are over. The British people are watching, and we’re not standing for it anymore. God help us if we don’t act now! We have the worst government in British history run by Clowns who Don't Know What The F@ck Their Doing!

      1. It's good rhetoric but will it work? Even if the criminal gimmigrant is forced out of the hotel it doesn't mean they'll be forced out of the country. The invasion must be stopped at source.

        What is Farage going to d about that?

      2. We’ve had enough of their betrayal.

        Have you Nigel? Have you really?

        Until I hear or see you put in writing..
        Mass deportations..
        Purge the Home Office of DEI & Islam..
        Undo Blair..
        Purge every position of power of DEI & Islam..

        I'll be expecting Farage & Reform to be pulling the rug from under the feet of the British people at some time or another.

        1. I seem to remember that Rupert Lowe was sacked from the Reform Party for saying that all illegal immigrants – those who are already in the UK as well as the new arrivals – should be deported as soon as possible.

          Is it not time for Yusuf to be sacked and Rupert Lowe reinstated?

    3. I see some half-wit is trying to blame the illegal migrant crisis on Brexit [not that we ever had one]!

  68. DWP call handler: ‘We have to approve benefits even if we suspect fraud’

    Civil Service insider reveals the scope of bogus Universal Credit claims blighting Britain

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fc62a99ad950e2e1

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

    Moody Blue
    48 min ago
    pinned
    Remember the times when there was a large queue outside the dole office to get benefits, now people dont have to get out of bed

    Jackson Martinezz
    53 min ago
    pinned
    Benefit fraud is absolutely and utterly rampant, the numbers that are mentioned are just known fraud and is literally the tip of the iceberg.

    Extraordinarily Civil Servant
    5 min ago
    This all began back in the 90's with Self-assessment tax where civil servants were given the order to "process now, check later". Which is all very well, but only 10% of tax returns were actually checked. That ethos was then carried on through Child Tax Credits where we had foreign claimants living in the UK claiming for as many children as they wanted that lived abroad. With no way of checking if the claims were correct or not. What's that Mr Akhbar, you want to claim for 11 children you have back in Pakistan? No problem, here's your money. This has since carried on to Universal Credit, which you have as much as you want of if you're foreign or game the system. But my partner, who has had to retire from work through 2 heart attacks and an amputation, can't claim UC because my income is taken into account. We've both paid our taxes all our lives and get nothing. It just goes to Asian, African and Eastern European freeloaders instead.

    One last thing – please don't blame civil servants for this, we just carry out government policy. And every government of the past 40 years, no matter what party, has betrayed their people.

    Luther Milan
    9 min ago
    Fraudulent benefit claimants are a key demographic of Labour voters. Therefore a Labour government will do nothing that upsets or inconveniences them.

    1. The reason Labour didn't want to change welfare is because most of their constituencies are more than 50% welfare dependent. They refused the reforms for their own electoral advantage.

    2. When i contacted the DWP after 15 minutes of talking through the process they cut me off. The alternative was to write to them. I expect my letter is on a desk in an empty office.
      I suspect my treatment would have been different if my name was Muhammed.

    3. When we first were in the US for a year, I remained on my company's UK payroll, and basically lived on a per diem in the US. We were told by the child allowanve people that the allowance was only payable if we and the children were resident in the UK. Which dope changed that rule?

    4. Whatever happened to 'pride in your work'?

      A job worth doing, is a job done well?

      Standards!!

  70. Tom Slater
    The Bell Hotel’s closure is not the end of the story
    19 August 2025, 7:49pm

    Protest works. That will be the take-home message to activists across the country, now that Epping Forest District Council has been granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell Hotel in the leafy Essex market town.

    Thousands have demonstrated outside the Bell in recent weeks, sparked by the charging last month of an Ethiopian asylum seeker with three counts of sexual assault, one count of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and one count of harassment without violence. Hadush Kebatu, a resident of the Bell, had arrived in the UK by a small boat just eight days prior.

    The hotel has been used to accommodate asylum seekers since 2020, when the doors of Britain’s hotels were flung open to migrants during the pandemic. The Bell was slated for closure – to asylum claimants, at least – in 2024, but this decision was reversed by the new Labour government after it came to power last summer, in the teeth of bitter opposition from residents and councillors.

    Overwhelmingly peaceful and local (albeit with some despicable flare-ups of bigotry and violence around the edges), the protests have single-handedly shifted the dial. With demonstrations now kicking off constantly, from Canary Wharf to Diss to Waterlooville, whenever ordinary people get so much as a whiff of a hotel or flat block being handed over to house asylum seekers, the Home Office is now in for one headache after another.

    The truth is, this situation was always untenable. It is not to smear all of the people in those hotels to acknowledge that a non-negligible proportion of those who enter the country illegally will not be legitimate asylum seekers and may go on to commit other crimes. Our asylum system is now so dysfunctional it has essentially become a wrong ’uns’ charter. Locals were never going to tolerate this.

    With the wind in the protesters’ backs, how will the government respond? The glare of public scrutiny is such that it can no longer get away with simply shuffling the problem around, bussing asylum seekers from one form of accommodation to another. This was never just about hotels anyway. This is about communities being forced to pay the price for successive governments losing control of the borders. Until that fundamental failure is corrected, the unrest is going nowhere.

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

    Mandevillej
    19 hours ago
    Good article, though how bored I am with the obligatory virtue-signalling.

    "(albeit with some despicable flare-ups of bigotry and violence around the edges)" – yes, indeed; some apparently facilitated by the local police ferrying in far-left activists looking for a punch-up; but no mention of that, just the implication that protestors were 'bigoted'. Matey, they're entitled to any views they like. I freely admit, despite an expensive education that wasn't confined to Britain, to a bit of 'bigotry' on the subject of rapists and child-molestors myself.

    As for 'smears' on the migrants, who on earth cares about their delicate sensibilities? Anyone in those hotels is by definition a criminal because they broke into a country where their presence is illegal. By definition, they have contempt for our laws. Once upon a time, newspapers weren't supposed to give criminals the benefit of the title 'Mr'.

    There is no 'smear' in question: by definition they deserve the strongest terms going. Not that I imagine most will care, whilst the British state continues to bribe their law-breaking.

    Tintin Mandevillej
    18 hours ago
    Thank you very much for putting our feeing into words. Well done. We shouldn’t care about the sensibility of the illegals.

    Panready kipper
    19 hours ago edited
    None are legitimate because they passed through many "safe" countries, but that was not their aim, their aim was to get to Britain and take advantage of the jackpot offered to them by this Government and the last. The UK is now a charity, it used to be a Country on the backside of a healthcare system, but that's in the past, today its a charity where tax payers money is spaffed on anyone who chooses to come here and take advantage of it.

    1. I have a feeling that the hopeless PM and his worstwhile side kicks will simply throw up their hands in horror and stop using hotels to house these uninvited economic migrants, and simply say "OK off you go.." and let them run feral….

  72. Home Office employed a Palestinian as an interpreter at Lunar House. She could easily tell where the applicants came from by their accents, but when she said, for example, that someone claiming to be a Syrian was in fact an Egyptian, she was told to shut the f up.

    1. The latest wheeze is the claim that they're the direct descendants of the Canaanites displaced by Moses and therefore the original inhabitants. There are several flaws in this argument, not least that traces of Canaanite DNA are found in Jews and Arabs alike.

  74. Revealed: Starmer’s EU fish surrender could cost up to £6bn
    Deal struck despite EU taking nearly £500m of landings from UK waters in one year
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/20/keir-starmer-eu-brexit-deal-fish-surrender-cost/

    BTL

    There can be no doubt that Starmer and Reeves are doing as much as they can to bankrupt Britain.

    No successful and thriving economy will ever become communist and so the quickest way to achieve the Communist Britain for which Starmer yearns is to embark upon policies aimed to bring economic ruin.

    1. There's no fish for sale apart from a few sole , South African Hake , hardly any haddock , cod etc , and a few flatties .

      Our fishermen say they are fished out , and there is loads of concern about sandeels which are the staple food of Puffins , no wonder the seagulls call and screech , they are starving .

      1. Plenty of line caught Norwegian haddock and cod at Ocado M&S.

        Local wet fish shops always have a poor offering unless you shop where they are landed.

    2. Don’t worry, we can tax some home owners. They won’t mind, i’m sure. Or better yet, let’s tax the dead people. They don’t even need it.

  75. And it's finally turned sunny!
    I've started getting the ledge above the yard sorted for increasing the height of part of the wall supporting it, shifting several bucket loads of soil to level it off. It's been pleasantly cool as I've been working.

  76. Afternoon all. Just taking a break between a funeral this morning (hate crematoria they’re so impersonal) and going back to the opticians.

    Heartening? Sickening more like. It’s a pity that “Europe “ didn’t show more solidarity about resisting the invaders.

    1. Asylum hotel companies vow to hand back some profits
      Serco, Mears and Clearsprings all said they supported a move away from hotel use, despite the positive impact it has had on their bottom lines.

      1. Yet it's a symptom. The invasion continues. Until the pollution are kept out, the problem remains.

  79. There is nothing natural about rewilding

    It is not a panacea that will revive the nation's beleaguered wildlife; man-made features provide them with essential habitat

    Patrick Galbraith
    19 August 2025 7:35pm BST

    A little while back, I went for a wander through the Broads with a knowledgeable amateur naturalist. We listened to bitterns, we talked about windmills, and as the afternoon wore on, rewilding came up, at which point my companion started frothing.

    Rewilders, he raged, reckon they're the only people who do anything for nature. Their view, he went on, is that conservationists who don't worship at the same altar are failing. I was there because I was writing a book on Britain's "disappearing birds and the people trying to save them". Accordingly, fragments of our conversation ended up in my chapter on reed cutting and East Anglian coastal habitats.

    When the book was published the Norfolk naturalist went tonto. Just before he let loose on rewilders, he'd insisted on me running a dictaphone (clearly he felt what he was saying was important) but in the cold light of day he changed his tune: "never said any of it", "that's not the sort of man I am", "some of my best friends are rewilders".

    In the end, on being reminded of the existence of the transcript, he went quiet but clearly he was rattled. He seemed to reckon that, in the nature space, the rewilding crowd have clout and they might come for dissenters.

    The irony is that on the subject of rewilding, my guide to the Broads was pretty spot on. It isn't some sort of panacea that will revive the nation's beleaguered wildlife. If, for instance, you stop cutting reed beds they quickly turn into scrubby woodland habitat. While this benefits songbirds, it's a disaster for bitterns which are only just starting to recover again after going extinct in the early 20th century.

    The truth of the matter is that rural Britain is a patchwork of highly managed landscapes that have been shaped by man for time eternal – just downing tools and walking away doesn't create an edenic ecosystem. It tends to result in a messy monoculture.

    What we need to do is think hard about the species we're trying to preserve in a particular landscape and then we have to carefully create and maintain the conditions for those species to thrive. Since 1950, in Britain, 118,000 miles of hedgerow have been grubbed out and over the course of the past century we've lost some 70 per cent of the nation's ponds. These generally entirely man-made features provide essential habitat for some of our most endangered wildlife, such as turtle doves, but they aren't going to reappear through human inaction.

    We need to plant hedges and create new ponds – we need to roll our sleeves up and actually do. The countryside needs to be whittled into shape for nature not just left. We have damaged countless square miles and to just walk away while sanctimoniously going on about rewilding would be unforgivable.

    The other great issue is that rewilding has become a stick to beat farmers with – they are continually told that if they left their tractors to rust, utopia would come. If they did so, we'd probably starve but it's crucial to recognise too that farmers can be integral to nature recovery. The more nuanced approach, instead of rewilding, is to sing the praises of thicker hedges, wider field margins, and not cutting silage in spring when birds are on the nest – it's not about walking away, it's about getting stuck in.

    Over the past couple of months, we've seen huge wildfires break out across Scotland. It's simple, if moorland isn't grazed by livestock and managed it becomes vastly overgrown (some people would say "thumbs up, that's top rewilding") while others would point to the usually very low numbers of wading birds on unmanaged moors and the dangerous fuel load. Do we want curlew and lapwings or do we want no curlew and a threat to human life?

    While the uplands have been burning, there has been much talk of reintroducing golden eagles. This "rewilding initiative" has been cheered by the RSPB who excitedly announced, on Radio 4 last week, that they'll eat young deer, hares and rabbits. Indeed they will but they'll also take lambs and grouse, which provide farmers and gamekeepers with livelihoods in some of the most economically challenged parts of the country. The point is this, initiatives to bolster wildlife need to take rural communities with them – you need buy-in from people on the land.

    As for my guide to Broads, perhaps he was right. Maybe I'm about to face the wrath of "Big Rewilding".

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/19/there-is-nothing-natural-about-rewilding

    Patrick Galbraith's latest book, 'Uncommon Ground: Rethinking our relationship with the countryside', is out now.

      1. I've described on here before the neglect of an area of open land near to us (not so open now). The locals have been out in recent times hacking back the brambles to make the footpaths safe. There is very little insect or bird life.

      2. "T'is an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Things gross and rank in nature possess it merely. That it should come to this!"

        The Late Mr Shakespeare…

    2. What about a countryside that has very few humans, and they will be living off the land, hunting and fishing, perhaps some very small scale crop growing? So called civilisation gone. River plains will flood and rivers recommence to meander.

      I feel a post-apocalyptic novel approaching that will be Rewilding writ large.

    3. Meanwhile, mature trees have been felled and substantial lengths of well established hedgerows grubbed up to build a 650 house estate on what was once farm land. Then they have the nerve to tax us for CO2!

    4. It's the sheer number of buildings. Two open fields near me now have cramped, ugly housing estates on them. An old dairy on a couple of acres with grazing land now is covered in tarmac. Ditto a big old Victorian house – the garden, a good half acre is going to house 30 – flippin 30! appallingly small houses. No green space, the trees cut down, the overhanging ones cut back destroying more habitat.

      There are simply too many people in this country. Houses are small, nasty boxes without grace, charm or space.

  80. Don't see lacoste yet, so here's my wordle. A par that took a long time for the penny to drop.

    Wordle 1,523 4/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
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    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Snap!

      Wordle 1,523 4/6

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        1. Probably not exactly back at square one but back to waiting for a date for my surgery. It’s elective of course. If I had a heart attack…but that’s not a desirable option. A doctor friend tells me my kidneys will happily recover full function once my heart is throwing enough blood at them again. Much as I fear the process, I’m growing impatient with the delay.

    2. Good thinking mola! – this could have been a real teaser, as you say – I got a bit lucky on guess 3……

      Wordle 1,523 4/6

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      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
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  82. That's me gone for this cold, gloomy day. I haven't been so cold for weeks.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  83. Police investigate St George flags on roundabouts

    Bradley Thomas, Conservative MP for Bromsgrove, said he "does not advocate" for flags to be placed on public property, but encouraged more to be put on private cars and land. He encouraged the public to take back ownership of the flag, adding that "patriotism does not mean extremism and nationalism".

    Ed Kimberley, a Labour Worcester City councillor for Warndon and Elbury Park, said he had been contacted by residents who disagreed with the flags being put up. "Is this a positive message of patriotism or is it something more sinister?" he said. "If it is a message of positivity, then why is the debate heated?"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz60ezlg905o

    1. The debate is heated because certain people don't want us (the English – they're okay with all others) to express our culture and nationality.

  85. Michael Deacon
    Don’t celebrate too soon. Labour is about to make the migrant crisis even worse

    Asylum seekers like those staying in the Bell Hotel in Epping may be removed from their current digs, but they won’t be going very far

    This Labour Government has just achieved a truly extraordinary feat. According to a new poll by YouGov, it now has a public approval rating of minus 56 – which is exactly the same rating as the Tories had going into last year’s calamitous election campaign.

    Remarkable. Becoming this unpopular took the Tories 14 years. Labour has managed it in just 14 months. Say what you like about Sir Keir Starmer and co, but they certainly work fast.

    Still, I’m sure the Prime Minister won’t be resting on his laurels. I have every confidence that he and his team will soon attain even more dazzling levels of unpopularity. And, in large part, it will be linked to what’s just happened in the Essex town of Epping.

    On Tuesday, the High Court ruled that, after weeks of protests by the town’s residents, asylum seekers must be removed from a local hotel. No doubt the protesters are delighted. As, I’m sure, are people who live near similar hotels in countless other British towns. If I were them, though, I wouldn’t celebrate too soon.

    That’s because Labour is about to make the migrant crisis even worse.

    Once the migrants are removed from hotels, after all, the Government isn’t simply going to detain and deport them (as many protesters wish). It will merely move them to some other part of town. Indeed, Dan Jarvis, a Labour minister, has already admitted that the Epping migrants could just be transferred to another hotel. But if the protesters think that sounds bad, wait till they hear about the most probable alternative.

    Both Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, and Prof Matthew Goodwin, the political scientist, believe that, if the Government is unable to keep using these hotels, it will instead cram their occupants – at taxpayers’ expense – into houses. Or, as the Home Office calls them, HMOs: houses in multiple occupation.

    As a matter of fact, the Government already uses such properties – although you may not have known, because it doesn’t always let on. Not even to the relevant local authorities. At the weekend, The Times reported that, in Portsmouth, large numbers of migrants have been placed in HMOs without the city council’s knowledge. The council had previously begged the Home Office to understand that Portsmouth had no room for any more asylum seekers. Yet the Home Office went ahead and sneaked hundreds of them into HMOs anyway, without a word.

    For protesters, therefore, the High Court’s ruling is bound to prove a hollow victory, because their fundamental complaints still won’t have been addressed.

    In case Sir Keir and his team haven’t grasped it yet, let’s try to explain it to them. These people aren’t merely protesting about hotels. They’re protesting about the ease with which potential criminals are able to enter this country. They’re protesting about the Government’s apparent inability (or unwillingness) to remove them. And they’re protesting about what they see as the injustice of illegal immigrants being given free accommodation (and much else besides) while, on the streets of the same towns, there are British people sleeping rough.

    The protesters are hardly likely to be reassured, therefore, if the Government turns round and says: “Don’t worry, everyone – we’re listening. We know you’re worried that these mysterious, undocumented young men from cultures very different from our own may pose a threat to women and girls. We know you’ve been alarmed by reports of sexual assault and violence. And so now, we’ve acted to allay your fears. Instead of placing these men in your local hotel, we’re placing them in the house next door. Problem solved.”

    That, however, is what the Government would in effect be saying, if it switches to HMOs. And when the protesters realise this, they’ll be more furious than ever.

    Of course, no doubt they will once again be loftily informed, by progressive pundits, that their anger is misplaced, their concerns illegitimate, and their motives racist. They’ll be told: “Enough of your nasty, small-minded prejudice against these poor, unfortunate men, who have innocently paid criminal gangs large sums of money to help them illegally cross the Channel, after already passing through several safe countries. Stop being so hateful. All they’re doing is seeking a better life for themselves.”

    To which, I suspect, the protesters will retort: “They may well be seeking a better life for themselves. But they’re creating a worse life for the rest of us.”

    ***********************************
    Robert Ross
    2 hrs ago
    Citizens of the United Kingdom have had enough. Migrants are being moved out of hotels and dumped into houses up and down the country while British families are being evicted and left on the streets. No rent, no bills, no council tax, money in their pockets and a free phone and all at our expense. It’s a magnet for even more to come. Politicians don’t care, they’re gaslighting the public while our communities are being torn apart.

    Mr Sensible
    1 hr ago
    According to a report by Tower Hamlets council nearly 80 % of Somalians are benefit dependent.

    Just about all Somalians in the UK were originally asylum seekers , yet flights from UK airports to Somalia are full of former asylum seekers going home on holiday while fresh Somali asylum seekers arrive.

    Similarly Kabul had 10,000’s Afghans with British residency / passports in August 2021 , many of whome were found to have gone home on extended holiday with their UK benefits being paid into their bank accounts and council housing sublet.

    We are blatantly and openly being taken for mugs and our politicians won’t do anything about it !!!

    1. I've just come back from a trip to the opticians and there were two dark foreigners jabbering away in their own language; one shouting into his phone and the other gibbering to herself. Enough's enough. There was another one, in football kit, wandering around near the supermarket. At least he was quiet, but he didn't look as though he was contributing to the local economy. Inflation, by the way, is at an 18 month high.

  86. Wordle No. 1,523 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
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    Wordle 20 Aug 2025

    Ruminant for Birdie Three?

    1. Apologies for extreme lateness; I have Bank/ Hacking problems – not yet resolved.

      I hope some of you will play!!!

    2. Well done, happy with a par today.

      Wordle 1,523 4/6

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      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Old Abram Brown is dead and gone
        You'll never see him more
        Because he thought that H2O
        Was H2SO4

  90. Just booked two tickets to see Tosca relayed from Covent Garden to our local cinema on 1st October. They don't give you much time – I kept having to restart because I was too slow.

    1. Many years ago I saw the Zeffirelli production at Covent Garden. That fabulous red velvet frock that had been designed for Callas. It was said that the trick in the final scene was to drop the train over the edge first and jump after it. Otherwise, Tosca jumped and the dress flew up behind her.

  91. Just thinking out loud, okay , and various thoughts kept coming back.

    Immense population growth, from about 2 million in 1700 to 8 million by the time of the Great Famine, led to increased division of holdings and a consequent reduction in their average size. By 1845, 24% of all Irish tenant farms were of 0.4–2 hectares (1–5 acres) in size, while 40% were of 2–6 hectares (5–15 acres). Holdings were so small that no crop other than potatoes would suffice to feed a family. Shortly before the famine, the British government reported that poverty was so widespread that one-third of all Irish small holdings could not support the tenant families after rent was paid; the families survived only by earnings as seasonal migrant labour in England and Scotland.[45] Following the famine, reforms were implemented making it illegal to further divide land holdings.[46]

    The 1841 census showed a population of just over eight million. Two-thirds of people depended on agriculture for their survival but rarely received a working wage. They had to work for their landlords in return for a small patch of land to farm. This forced Ireland's peasantry to practice continuous monoculture, as the potato was the only crop that could meet nutritional needs.[16]

    Potato dependency

    An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store by Cork artist Daniel MacDonald, c. 1847
    The potato was first introduced in Ireland as a garden crop of the gentry. By the late 17th century, it had become widespread as a supplementary food, but the main Irish diet, at that time, was still based on butter, milk, and grain products.[18]

    The Irish economy grew between 1760 and 1815 due to infrastructure expansion and the Napoleonic Wars (1805–1815), which had increased the demand for food in Britain. Tillage increased to such an extent that there was only a small amount of land available to small farmers to feed themselves. The potato was adopted as a primary food source because of its quick growth in a comparatively small space.[47] By 1800, the potato had become a staple food for one in three Irish people,[47] especially in winter. It eventually became a staple year-round for farmers.[48] A disproportionate share of the potatoes grown in Ireland were the Irish Lumper,[19] creating a lack of genetic variability among potato plants, which increased vulnerability to disease.[49]

    Potatoes were essential to the expansion of the cottier system; they supported an extremely cheap workforce, but at the cost of lower living standards. For the labourer, "a potato wage" shaped the expanding agrarian economy.[48] The potato was also used extensively as a fodder crop for livestock immediately prior to the famine. Approximately 33% of production, amounting to 5,000,000 short tons (4,500,000 t), was typically used in this way.[50]

    "We must not complain of what we really want to obtain. If small farmers go, and their landlords are reduced to sell portions of their estates to persons who will invest capital we shall at last arrive at something like a satisfactory settlement of the country".[103]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

    2. Thanks Maggie.
      All eight of my great-grandparents came over from Ireland in the 1850s.

        1. My NATIVE red squirrel has been wiped out by the INCOMING grey squirrels. Work it out!

          As for FRT, well, that was just me showing off.

          I'm now Charles Martel.

    3. When he was prime minister, Wellington tried repeatedly to get parliament to help Ireland but without success. He was born and raised there of course. Anglo-Irish aristocracy.

    1. I can't open daily mail items unless I pay. Where in North West London did that happen ?

      2. If you accept the adverts bit, you can read it.
        I have to keep accepting because cookies get cleared when I shut down, but at least it's free and one can ignore the ads.

      3. If you belong to or join a public library, consider Pressreader as it gives free access to all the newspapers and magazines that the library subscribes to.

        1. Thank you for that, I didn't know.

          Can you connect to it in a library and then access outside the library systems one registered?

          3. This is for an iPad/iPhone but I assume that something similar applies to a Mac or Windows computer.
            1. First of all, establish your library account details (card number and a PIN in my case).
            2. Download the Pressreader App. Go to the “Accounts” section – click “Sign in” and then select “Libraries and Groups” in the popup (see image 1).
            3. Search for your library, select it and enter in your account details (see image 2).
            4. Select “Browse” and see what you can get (image 3 in my case).

            The login seems to last a month. Then sign out and re-sign in. The library I have shown is not mine but is an example

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40b666b1e67b657ebd7c45dc1344a2367275ceb321c3261765c666b1e0e03495.png

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ff286f6de013a613b770f099df893905387fdcfeb4dc36a1e26171b197844b8.png

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c7d236ebc1f5a49fc80e897d64b319afdae9d5fd09b7b22c0ddc09149368183.png

  94. Spent the morning making bread after noon picking apples, later cooking dinner, getting in the washing, I'm a bit worn out today. I'm having an early night soon.
    Good night all Nottlers sleep well 😴

    1. Goodnight, R E. I cooked a chicken chow mein tonight; I looked like Philip Harben (minus the beard) with my striped butcher's apron.

    1. Lovely. And well done child and dog.

      BUT, the more cautious bit of me asks:

      "Could you have stopped the dog attacking the child?"

      1. I have a friend whose face was ripped off by a dog he bent down to stroke in a pub, whilst in conversation with it's proud adopter. Hours of exquisitely tricky MaxFax surgery but he'll never look the same again. I am now extremely wary of strange dogs, especially where children are concerned. Rescue dogs (especially when coupled with "vulnerable people") in particular.

        1. I'm very wary of dogs I don't know, but that said I offer my hand for them to sniff and am careful.
          I keep my distance and let the dog feel in control.
          Once the connection is established I tend to scratch behind their ears and stroke them gently.
          Over all the years I've approached it that way, I've only ever had one dog react badly and try to bite.

          HG was badly bitten as a small child by a dog off a lead and she won't get close to them now, unless I've done the introduction, and even then she's clearly worried and they know it.

          1. My aforementioned friend is dog savvy, like you, sos. But it didn't protect him. I also am a dog lover. My autistic (and usually non verbal) son sums it up when he imitates a dog barking, shouting "Wolf! Wolf!"

          3. Sure they can. They can also be very aggressive indeed if bred to be so or mistreated. Previously they weren't and most still aren't

          4. Sure they can. They can also be very aggressive indeed if bred to be so or mistreated. Previously they weren't and most still aren't

          5. I don’t fear them at all, I’m cautious/wary.
            I find offering an open hand works very well.

        2. So am I.

          Many dogs scare me to tell you the truth .

          I have seen too much, and especially overseas where pi dogs /street dogs squabble amongst each other .

          My grandfather owned a wire haired terrier called Vicky , she sat by his arm chair , and he would say come on and I will read you a story ( when I was little ) I would approach Gramps with a nice book and Vicky would bare her teeth and grrrrr at me , as well as giving me the starry eye look.. Gramps would look down at her and tell her to stop it , then she would just curl up by his feet , and be as good as gold !

          Talk about possessive .. she seemed so fierce , I must have been very young .but grrrr dogs terrify me .

    1. Job done. 😊🍷
      I've been noticing that our media have been hitting at alcohol consumption recently, in trying to suggest people are drinking too much. I'm just an old but very experienced skeptic. I think these designed recently contrived digs are being brought in to appease the islamic population.

      1. Every drink I have insults a Muslim, on the basis of 8 drinks to a bottle, I insult at least 3,000 Muslims a year.
        Are you doing your job?

  101. Thanks.
    When I was a lad Wembley wasn't part of London, it was Middlesex. And one of my father's brothers was the Mayor of Wembley. Early 60s.
    It's also known as Brent When it suits them. Now a bit of a Dump as far as I know. Typical of what has happened to the 'London captures' since kahnt.

    1. When we used to drive down overnight from Newcastle to Southsea, my sister and I in pyjamas in the back seat of the Morris Oxford, not a seat belt in sight, we got to Wembley at some unearthly hour of the morning! It was very exciting when you’re 8 years old!

  105. BBC R4 news at 8pm, starting with the Epping hotel court case and the probability of more like it.

    Zoe Gardner, who is a commentator on migration and asylum policy, says the government should have acted faster to avoid the situation it finds itself in: "Anybody who is paying attention could see the tensions rising, the way that far-right organisers were playing on local people's fears in order to promote more and more and more violent demonstrations taking place outside of those hotels. They had become a lightning rod for the hatred that is being whipped up against migrants in this country."

    Here she is: https://sussexbylines.co.uk/politics/democracy/defenders-of-democracy-zoe-gardner

    Sussex Bylines isn't Nottlander material!

    1. Fill her home with any gimmegrants arrested for sexual -assault, but released on bail.

      Give her plenty of vaginal-lubricunt, she'll need it

  106. Define "difficult"! I don't find translation and interpreting difficult, but getting cooking to taste good is definitely a challenge. I cut up raw chicken, defrosted in the fridge, stir fried it, put in the oriental veg and the chow mein sauce and in the end gave most of the chicken to the dogs.

    1. Cooking is easy just follow the recipes 🤗 Cooking on TV is all prerehersed and arm waving 😉

      1. Never watched cooking programmes on TV since I left home and could choose my viewing. I can do it with a recipe but it’s such a fag and I don’t enjoy it.

        1. I don’t object to her and her kind having such views but it annoys me that they are given so much air and media time by organisations that should be neutral or, at least, acknowledge that there are opposing views

        2. In principle she's right.
          BUT
          When those fellow human beings take all they can, assault their fellow human beings, and refuse to integrate and take, take, take; then they've abused their side of any agreement.

          Please donate her a few rapists to live in her home instead of prison.

        3. Except they (the people to whom she refers) are organising for other people to welcome them in those other peoples' towns.

          How many of the undocumented has this ghastly hypocrite welcomed into her own home? How many has she provided with a nice income, clothed, fed and generally tooled up?

      1. Depends what you're drinking:
        Cognac, Pineau, wine.
        I work on eight of wine from the driving perspective, one of eight is under the limit.

      2. They are probalbly a litre rather than 3/4 so you would get 8 rather than six (though I have to actively withhold to get 4)

  109. "F]ar right organisers", "hatred … being whipped up against migrants"? In the first place people are not complaining about "migrants" they don't want undocumented illegals raping and pillaging. Would she like it? As for "far right", just RIGHT, woman!

  112. Did another hour and a half sorting the ledge out. Now need to get some decent sized stones to do the first bit.
    Will have to take some pictures tomorrow.
    And I'm off to bed.
    Goodnight all.

  113. skynine
    7h
    No, send them to Glastonbury. It can accommodate 200,000 in tents, and there should be 4m high fences all around the site. Everyone there will give them a big welcome.
    Perfect.

  114. Nickerless
    6h
    OT: browsing through a branch of Waterstones this morning and was amused to see that the fish lady's 'memoir' is now at half price, just a week after publication 😂

  115. Gotta love The Donald…

    Jess the Grooming Gang Champion
    1h
    O/T 'Bundestag Vice President Omid Nouripour said on Tuesday on the n-tv programme “Frühstart” that Ursula von der Leyen was made to leave the room during Trump’s meeting with European leaders in Washington. “In the middle of yesterday's meeting … Ms. von der Leyen had to leave because the Americans said: ‘We only want to talk to leaders.’”

  116. Send in the Clones
    3h
    ISN'T IT EXCITING?
    Reeves is due to get her GCSE maths results tomorrow. Can't wait.

    1. FAIL…
      But good enough to be chancellor of the exchequer under a Starmer Labour government.

    2. The horrible truth is that she does have a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford and she does have an M.Sc. in Economics from the LSE.

      If somebody so woefully incompetent and lacking in common sense can achieve such academic qualifications it shows just how stupid it can be to judge a person's competence solely by the letters after his or her name.

      John Major may have been a useless prime minister but he was Margaret Thatcher's chancellor and was not entirely useless in that role. He did not go to university; he did not have any academic qualifications; but he was a better chancellor than Reeves.

      1. The things we do for love….

        "You have set my soul on fire
        Quench me with your flames of passion
        Turn base instinct of desire
        into a lovers'love sensation!"

  119. If Reeves isn't stopped, every inch of Britain will be the property of the state

    The news is grim: Labour is threatening to tip Britain into a proto-Marxist hellscape. Time is running out

    Allister Heath
    20 August 2025, 6:45pm BST

    The pitch rolling has started. The propagandists have been unleashed. We are being softened-up for the ultimate betrayal, the most obscene of broken promises, the grossest attack on private wealth in living memory.

    If you are a homeowner, I have grim news: Rachel Reeves has just declared war on you. You could pay even more tax, so much so that in some cases you may be forced to sell your house to pay the bill – and then to hand over yet more cash just to be allowed to say goodbye to your beloved family home.

    Reeves is considering several options, all abhorrent: an annual proportional wealth tax on the value of homes, large enough to replace stamp duty, council tax and more; the imposition of capital gains tax (CGT) on primary residences for the first time ever, albeit just on more expensive ones at first; an "exit tax" as an alternative to CGT, payable on sale; and a revaluation of council tax, with even higher bands, including a mansion tax.

    Britain is in the midst of an epic struggle between tax-eaters and net taxpayers, between those seeking to squeeze ever more out of the private sector to keep our bankrupt welfare state going a little longer, and those desperately seeking to preserve their wealth at a time of weak GDP, stagnant real wages and rocketing costs.

    We have almost reached the economy's maximal taxable capacity, at least with the tools at HMRC's disposal. The bond vigilantes are circling, and Reeves has taken the UK to the brink of fiscal meltdown. Her party won't allow her to cut spending, so she is turning to the last untapped El Dorado, the final pot of cash ripe for raiding: our homes, worth trillions of pounds in total. If she goes down, she wants it to be in a blaze of Left-wing glory, taking out the forces of conservatism's last bastion and scoring the greatest victory for socialism since the glory days of Hugh Dalton and Sir Stafford Cripps.

    Primary residences have long been the great tax taboo, the last line of defence against predatory politicians: no government has been able to directly tax their gains in value or to impose an annual levy (a property wealth tax) over and above council tax.

    Slapping CGT on primary residences or an annual property wealth tax based on the value of one's home isn't some minor technocratic tweak to the tax system to make it slightly more "efficient" or "fair": it's an attempt at dynamiting the foundations of our society, to drastically curtail the power of the petite bourgeoisie, and to enshrine the political class's supremacy.

    Unlike with ISAs or pensions, whose tax-beneficial status are understood to survive at the Chancellor's discretion, primary residences are an Englishman's tax-free castles, for which we assume we have a natural right not to be taxed. This is one of the last in-built libertarian assumptions in British society, and the reason why Reeves's proposed tax "reforms" are so pernicious.

    Tim Leunig, who advised Rishi Sunak and whose Left-wing ideas are also proving attractive to Reeves, is advocating for a 0.44 per cent levy on homes worth up to £500,000 to replace council tax. He simultaneously wants stamp duty to be replaced by a 0.54 per cent annual tax on homes above £500,000, with an extra 0.28 per cent supplement on values over £1m. These would be revenue-neutral, which wouldn't be good enough for Reeves: she wants to raise billions more. The rates would need to be even higher.

    I loathe council tax and stamp duty, but this idiot savant scheme would create Britain's first annual wealth tax, levied on a stock of illiquid assets, and would prove even worse. Property rights would be abrogated, and homeowners downgraded into leaseholders, paying the state-cum-landlord a fee for the right to keep living in our homes. The ancient tradition of the yeoman freeholder would be extinguished.

    Many homeowners would end up paying £7,000, £15,000 or more a year. At best, there would be no money left for holidays or school fees; at worst, total tax bills would exceed 100 per cent of annual incomes. Pensioners and the cash-poor would be forced to sell. Many would pray their house didn't increase in value, and halt repairs and enhancements. Some would tear down garages or annexes to reduce their annual tax, or allow homes and gardens to fall into disrepair to influence assessors. Entrepreneurs, rich investors and the last non-doms would flee the UK. We should scrap stamp duty, but by cutting spending, not by introducing this repulsive new form of larceny.

    Imposing CGT on primary residences would be almost as toxic. Like every new tax, invariably pitched to us as limited in scale and scope, it would soon be extended, in this case to ever more homes. The rates would soon be equalised to that on income. Eventually, it would become impossible to make any gains from property at all.

    Tax used to be only payable on real capital gains, not on inflationary increases. Labour largely ended that key protection; the Tories scrapped the last safeguards. Inflation, now at 3.8 per cent, is once again a silent thief, delivering what Milton Friedman described as "taxation without legislation" on a grand scale.

    Under Reeves's plans, homeowners would pay tax on phantom inflationary gains and in many cases lose money in real terms. This would be especially true in London, where real, as opposed to nominal, property prices are often lower than they were a few years ago. It would be barely concealed theft. Buying a house would become a high-risk gamble.

    Homeowners who haven't kept every receipt would face tax bills for their recently completed new kitchens. More generally, there would be far fewer future home improvements and extensions as the post-tax payback would be lower. Nobody who didn't have to sell their home would do so, especially with the prospect of a Reform government reversing the raid. The housing market would implode. This war on homeowners is a bridge too far, a leap into proto-Marxist hell. Reeves is seeking to pauperise the middle classes. Taxpayers must make their fury known, write to their MPs and take to social media. This is the final battle, the fight to end all political fights: the Chancellor must be persuaded to change her mind, or else there will be no hope left for this country.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/20/reeves-not-stopped-every-inch-britain-property-state

    1. Where is any house valued at under £500k? Not even here, I suspect, where property is relatively cheap.

  122. You have got to hand it to Labour's strategist. Having made life a misery for Landlords with increasing hoops to jump through, they are now offering to rent properties for migrants.

    1. Hmm. They are offering a lot of money, but I wonder who will be in the front line being blamed if anything goes wrong with the house…
      Plus of course, the undying hatred of the neighbours which will outlast the government contract.

  124. Well chums, I decided to watch This Happy Breed on You Tube, and so I am late in wishing you all a Good Night. See you all tomorrow, hopefully.

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