Wednesday 22 February: Now is the moment to equip Ukraine with all the military tools it needs

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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626 thoughts on “Wednesday 22 February: Now is the moment to equip Ukraine with all the military tools it needs”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Thoughts From A Friend:

    I was lying around, pondering the problems of the world, I realised that at my age, I don’t really give much of a rat’s ass anymore.

    If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water, but is still fat.

    A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 15 years, while a tortoise doesn’t run and does mostly nothing, yet it lives for 150 years. And you tell me to exercise?? I don’t think so.

    Just grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked, the good fortune to remember the ones I do, and the eye sight to tell the difference.

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

    Now that I’m older here’s what I’ve discovered:

    1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

    2. My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.

    3. I finally got my head together, and now my body is falling apart.

    4. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.

    5. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.

    6. If all is not lost, then where the hell is it ??

    7. It was a whole lot easier to get older, than to get wiser.

    8. Some days, you’re the top dog, some days you’re the hydrant; the early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

    9. I wish the buck really did stop here, I sure could use a few of them.

    10. Kids in the back-seat cause accidents.

    11. Accidents in the back-seat cause kids.

    12. It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.

    13. The world only beats a path to your door when you’re in the bathroom.

    14. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he’d have put them on my knees.

    15. When I’m finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.

    16. It’s not hard to meet expenses . . . they’re everywhere.

    17. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

    18. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter . . . I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I’m “here after”.

    19. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.

    20. Have I Posted This Message Before?

    2. Good morning Tom ,

      Excellent as always.

      You are up and awake early?

      I was awake at 6am , why because older dog needed to go into the garden , he was fidgetting and snuffling , pacing around .

      Once I am wide awake , I cannot return to my warm bed .

    3. Good morning Tom. Another great start to the day. In fact I reckon you’ve given us two days’ worth today. 🤩🤩🤩 Thank you.

    1. Thank you most kindly, Ruth Rose. That is a wonderful card and has made me feel very warm all over.

      I am quite envious of that lovely workbench, and how did you know that the beautiful Pintail is one of my favourite ducks?

      That has quite made my day. XXX😘

      1. I choose the cards through intuition!
        My favourite walk here is the river, the bridge & the ducks, sometimes a swan & egret.
        Wishing you sweet feelings in your day. X

        1. You are a very special lady and I appreciate that very much. Your kind words give me a warm glow. XXX

    1. I have a feeling i saw him on GB News -possibly Andrew Doyle’s Sunday evening show. Nice young lad. He said something along the lines of, the girls in the school asked him for help so he did.

  10. Medley

    https://twitter.com/PaulHut91434196/status/1628076432768352256?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f3d0e3b34abc41f962b559f2ed524dbbf13c8c3290af1ab47ce683cdb93ffe4.jpg

    https://twitter.com/savagemode777/status/1627601492516524034?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3716fa778350eb510a0c4c6dfd8d3c9d03f9ee30ac0b30d1ca70c9586e890dcd.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ca66b24c4479c05e33e153c636e5ac22088f9108cb71aacf19860ac9d0dcd98.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/756566569643b4d2851464d3f9a8e72d8293c8bfe3eeb3e7cc4d2eba0ddb2ca9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4e8b0e110438f6426acb179222f49aa87f2d41b66aa519c731a343758bf1dcca.jpg

  12. Putin shelves blood-crazed bombast as he prepares Russia for a long war. 22 February 2023.

    Nationalist fervour has served Vladimir Putin well over the past 12 months.

    But blood-and-soil war fever is a short-lived high. To ready your public for a long conflict, you need a more sustainable offer.

    So to mark the first year of his short, victorious war, Vladimir Putin went back to basics.

    I must have missed that! The Russian people appear to be no more enthusiastic about this war than we are in the UK. The crowds of yester year, flag waving, ecstatic crowds of adherents, are strangely absent from all countries involved. As to Vlad’s’ “blood crazed bombast” he always sounds like he’s addressing the Mothers Union!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/21/vladimir-putin-definant-regretful-russia-ukraine-long-war/

    1. There was one in our local church a few years ago. They seem unable to worship without having the flags of their own religion hanging around.

      1. Their sexual orientation has nothing to do with their worship of God and they should not be allowed to hang “pride” flags in connection with any service. Pride is incidentally one of the seven deadly sins…

        1. Their sexual orientation is irrelevant to the act of worship. Flying flags of any kind is a political statement, and hat should have no part in worship.

        2. I agree. I avoided that particular service, as I felt uncomfortable with a competing religion in the church.

  15. ‘Morning, Peeps. Apparently we are going to get something called ‘rain’ today…

    So many volunteered to fight, but this chap went the extra mile and joined SOE:

    Fred Bailey, SOE operative who supported the Resistance in France and fought the Japanese in Burma – obituary

    A thorn in Japan’s side, he spent six weeks in the jungle with his team pursued by a force formed specifically to hunt them down

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    21 February 2023 • 1:57pm

    Fred Bailey, who has died aged 99, was believed to be the last veteran of the Jedburgh teams living in Britain.

    In Operation Jedburgh during the Second World War, three-man teams organised and trained by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) were dropped by parachute into enemy-occupied territory to make contact with the Resistance and support the Allies with guerilla warfare.

    For missions into France, the teams usually consisted of two commissioned officers, one British or American, a Frenchman, and an NCO. In October 1943 Bailey, a wireless operator who had trained with the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), was selected for the SOE’s wireless training centre at Fawley Court, Henley-on-Thames.

    He learnt to encode and decode messages at high speed and, two months later, moved to Milton Hall, near Peterborough, where he was trained in weaponry, sabotage and unarmed combat.

    Sergeant Bailey took the field name Rétif and, together with Major John Smallwood (field name Anne), Captain Pierre Bloch, a French Foreign Legionnaire (field name René-Clément Alcée, but also known as Laurent), they formed the three-man Jedburgh team, named Citröen.

    They received parachute training at RAF Ringway Airport, now Manchester International Airport. Bailey’s first jump was from a balloon. The instructor announced that he was in a hurry because he was going on leave as soon as the jump was completed – and shoved him out of the cage with a hefty push on his shoulder. Further drops were from an old Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber.

    The training programme ended in March 1944 and Bailey and his companions embarked at Southampton, bound for Algeria. In Algiers they were billeted in a French cavalry school to await orders.

    On the night of August 12-13 1944, Team Citröen flew in a Liberator from Blida air base and were dropped about 30 miles north of Apt in the Vaucluse region of southern France to support the French Forces of the Interior. Bailey said afterwards that he landed in a disused brickyard and could have broken his back. The parachute with the container carrying his radio had failed to open and the equipment was smashed, but he was able to use a spare.

    After linking up with the Maquis, they commandeered an old car and drove to Pertuis, about 15 miles north of Aix-en-Provence, where Bailey sent an encoded message to the HQ in Algiers. German radio detector vans were in the area and he had to be on the air for as short a time as possible.

    There was the constant danger that informers might give them away. Despite the fact that the Jedburgh team was in uniform, Bailey was in no doubt that if they were captured by the SS they would be shot according to Hitler’s Commando Order that stipulated that all Allied forces captured behind the lines were to be killed. If the SS, Gestapo or Milice, the Vichy paramilitary force, caught them, they might suffer torture first.

    After receiving orders to harass the Germans, who were retreating northwards, they knocked out an enemy tank with the help of an intrepid young Frenchman, who ran up to it armed only with a Mills bomb and dropped it through the driver’s viewing hatch.
    One morning, Bailey learnt that a large German convoy was moving along the road from Grenoble to Lyon. He sent a coded message to HQ in Algiers asking for an immediate air strike. A series of Mosquito fighter bombers attacked and destroyed the whole convoy.

    When the American forces arrived, all the Jedburgh teams in the area were ordered to assemble at a hotel in Avignon, where they were told that for them the war in occupied France was over. Before returning to England, Bailey saw something of the vicious reprisals meted out to those suspected of collaborating with the Germans. These were often carried out by partisans who had taken no part in the liberation of their country.

    Frederick Arthur Bailey, was born in Clerkenwell, London, on November 20 1923. He was surrounded by cousins with whom he could play in the square, and his early years were happy. But he had a heart condition, and his parents were advised to take him away from the damp London clay.

    The family moved to Hertfordshire, where young Fred went to Hemel Hempstead School and became a lifelong fan of Watford FC. On the outbreak of war, he left school aged 16 and started work at the Colne Valley Water Company. He was too young to enlist in the Army but he did serve as a fire picket and an ARP warden messenger.

    In 1941, he joined up and served with the RAC. Based at Bovington, Dorset, he was trained in gunnery and wireless telegraphy. He served for a short time with 13th Battalion The Green Howards before volunteering for “Special Duties”.

    After the liberation of France, Bailey flew to Italy for an interview with a colonel in the SOE. He was told to go to southern Austria and await orders but the colonel was not able to give him any more information. Bailey refused to go and returned to England in January 1945.

    He was debriefed at the SOE HQ in Baker Street and told that volunteers were needed to serve with Force 136, the code name for SOE units operating in the Far East. He was determined not to return to a regular unit if it could be avoided and signed up to join the Jedburgh teams fighting in Burma.

    He boarded a troop ship bound for Calcutta and, four weeks later, met his new team members, Major Paddy McCoull and Captain Jimmy Moorhouse in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

    After jungle training, in mid-April 1945 the team were flown by Liberator and dropped by night near Thaton, north of Moulmein, in the Karen Hills, a mountainous and densely forested area of southern Burma. Bailey landed in a tree but, to his great relief, it was a sapling, and he was able to scramble out of the branches and get to the ground.

    The team’s task was to harass the retreating Japanese and organise local resistance but their food began to run out and they had to cope with incessant rain, heat, insects and disease. They were joined by elements of the Burmese National Army (BNA), but when their position was attacked they proved no match for the well-equipped Japanese. The BNA soldiers fled with everything they could carry.

    Bailey’s team was close to one of the main escape routes used by the retreating Japanese and his regular reports on enemy troop movements were followed by air strikes that caused such havoc that the Japanese formed a special force to hunt them down.

    For the next six weeks, the Jedburgh team, together with about 30 levies (local volunteers) and 20 Indian soldiers, were on the run. They could not be re-supplied and they quickly became weaker. As they moved through the villages, they discovered that the Japanese had killed all the animals and heard dreadful accounts of the enemy’s brutality.

    On one occasion, they ambushed a Japanese convoy and opened up with Sten guns and American carbines. A fierce firefight developed and they slipped back into the jungle before the Japanese could counter-attack.

    By June, they were subsisting on a handful of rice a day and were beginning to starve. A local guide took them to a camp where another Jedburgh team was based. It had an airstrip and Bailey sent a message to HQ asking to be collected. Two days later, a Lysander arrived and flew the team to Rangoon.

    Back in Ceylon, Bailey and other members of SOE were being prepared for a final mission, the task of finding any American fliers who had been shot down in Malaya and taken prisoner. In August 1945, he was dropped into the country, south of Kuala Lumpur.

    He returned to England in November 1946 and, after he was demobilised, he went back to his job with the Colne Valley Water Company. After qualifying as a company secretary in the 1960s he moved to the Portsmouth Water Company. He became a director and stayed there until he retired.

    He was a president of the Portsmouth Rotary Club and supported the Portsmouth Rotary Housing Association. He was also a member of the Special Forces Club.

    He was awarded a Mention in Despatches in May 1945. The citation stated that during a hazardous mission he had maintained contact in the most difficult circumstances and was a technician of the highest order. He was also awarded the Croix de Guerre and appointed to the Légion d’honneur by the French government.

    Fred Bailey married first, in 1951, Sylvia Astle. She predeceased him. He married secondly, in 1976, Sheila Kelly. She died in 2013 and he is survived by a stepson and stepdaughter.

    Fred Bailey, born November 20 1923, died January 29 2023 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07ba45b5874a2db6b764300d657a0a0df72831f659a549d6e19cdc6931a8a7f3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3da1d0f0245dee715724f80221af3585dc1e65e10777cbed75a3ae8eae2e1a02.jpg

    A few of the BTL posts:

    Graham Cove
    2 HRS AGO
    Today, you can get a knighthood for singing pop songs or sitting in the House of Commons and making money for yourself for 20 years.
    This chap volunteered to fight not just against the Germans, but against the Japanese too. And all he got was a mention in dispatches.
    RIP sir, and thank you.

    Joseph Wyse
    2 HRS AGO
    I simply have no words at all adequate to express my admiration and gratitude. A mighty mighty man. RIP with your brave comrades.

    Phillip Nicholls
    40 MIN AGO
    Whenever I read an obituary of men and women like Fred, the lines of the poem ‘Epitaph on a New Army’ (Michael Thwaites) come to mind. Ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things for little or no reward but because they saw it as the right thing to do. You have to wonder if such people exist in the ranks of ‘society’ nowadays. RIP.

    2. Christian prayers reinforced a different mindset , and my school , Cof E and all of us could chant this , as in deed did chaplains

      Teach us, Good Lord
      To serve you as you deserve.
      To give and not count the cost.
      To fight and not heed the wounds.
      To toil and not to seek for rest.
      To labour and not to ask for any reward
      Except that of knowing that we do THY Will.
      Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
      Amen.

      2. “To serve thee as thou deservest……..
        …………………………………………
        Save that of knowing that we do thy will.”

        What is wrong with the traditional form, it is much softer on the ear.
        (I’m not getting at you, Belle.) I infinitely prefer traditional church language.

        1. So do I, Poppies mum , I prefer traditional languge as well.

          I was attempting to convey something more readable to those who just wanted to skip through .

    4. If only he’d designed a frilly balcony bra; then he’d have been deemed fit for the House of Lords.

  16. Good morning all.
    A dull 3°C this morning. Currently dry but the air feels damp so expecting some rain.

      1. Happy birthday Grizzly, nicely timed to fit with the end of hibernation. Hope you enjoy your day.

        1. Thanks, Feargal. I shall. 👍🏻

          I don’t know about the end of hibernation, I might just turn over in the bed of leaves in my cave and set the alarm clock for Spring (à la Yogi Bear).🤣

    1. Happy Birthday, Grizz.
      Hope you like your present.
      I’m sure you have a set of Allen keys in your playroom workshop.

    1. No names, no pack-drill. Someone I know very well was anti-vax from day one. She went down with the plague in the summer of 2021, out of action for several weeks.

      Anyway, a friend of hers was about to have an antibody test to see if she needed a fifth jab. Keeping her opinions to herself, she accompanied her friend to the clinic. As the test was free of charge, she had one too. The results came through: her friend had quite a few antibodies, but my friend had so many that her certificate was marked “Fully vaccinated”. How she laughed (but not in front of her friend, of course).

      1. A friend of my daughter’s was a nurse in Germany. She never had the vaxx, and has now left nursing permanently because of the mandates. As part of efforts by unvaxxed nurses to stay in the job, she had an antibody test, and was discovered to have antibodies from constant low level exposure, even though she had never been aware of having covid.
        They still got rid of her, for defying the system, one assumes.

        1. Which is the fundamental problem – the state must be obeyed, logic, reason and rationality are irrelevant: you will conform, or you will be destroyed.

      2. PS. That was some time ago. My friend told me yesterday that the booster programme has been quietly dropped. That explains why my surgery has stopped pestering me to have my fourth jab; they just want me to have a flu jab now.

  20. SIR – I would like to see leading booksellers such as Waterstones boycott the woke butchering of Dahl’s children’s books and stock only the original editions. This would send a strong signal to publishers not to tamper with great writers of the past.

    Jean-Marc Evans
    London N12

    SIR – I hope Puffin will have a clear banner across future editions of Dahl’s books, saying: “Censored edition.”

    Christine Beharrell
    Petworth, West Sussex

    Hear, hear to both!

    1. Uncensored copied will be selling at a premium on ebay, or from the top shelves of the newsagent, presumably.

    1. Sadly typical of Lefty statists everywhere. The doublethink they exist within cerates all sorts of confusion – windmills are good, cheap and necessary for energy generation and have no environmental impact, for example.

      It’s all lies but they have to lie to themselves because they cannot cope with the cognitive dissonance of reality.

  22. If only this were the Kiss of Death to digital IDs…

    Give digital IDs to all in tech revolution, urge Blair and Hague

    Everyone in Britain should be given a digital ID incorporating their passport, driving licence, tax records, qualifications and right to work as the cornerstone of a “technology revolution”, Sir Tony Blair and Lord Hague of Richmond say today. Writing in The Times, the former prime minister and…

    3. And how will this digital ID be used? For what? If they can’t make a records system for the NHS that works yet cost billions, how can anybody expect a digital ID system to work, for whatever it is supposed to be for?
      Arse.

    6. Alright. You first. However… why should tax records be on there? Why should qualifications be on there? Who will have access to this? Will plod be able to see driving licence and medical? Will hospitals be able to see my tax records?

      Hell, the hospital can’t even see my medical records without the paper files being posted over.

      If you lot want these things then you should pioneer it. everything open to whichever agency. No? Oh, why the change of heart? Did you not want your deliberately oblique and obfuscated tax records made available to a forensic accountant?

  23. SIR – Has anyone stopped to really think why nurses, doctors, ambulance staff and physios are striking? Why aren’t we holding our hands up in horror that these people cannot afford a decent living standard, despite having spent years training to do highly responsible jobs?

    Every day we rely on them, often in the most desperate circumstances, to care for us. It is their goodwill that has largely kept the NHS working up until now. We fail at our peril to treat them with the dignity, respect and working conditions that they deserve.

    Jacky Ellinger
    Southampton

    No vested interest there, then?

    https://healthgps.co.uk/gp/14765-lordshill-health-centre/

    1. Top BTL post on this subject:

      Anastasias Revenge
      8 HRS AGO
      Has anyone stopped to really think why nurses, doctors, ambulance staff and physios are striking?
      In part, because a union leader on £197,000 p.a. called them out.

    4. Nurses and Docs do do a very important job. For this work they are rewarded with a publicised salary scale, yearly increments and a stonkingly good pension on retirement.

      OK, they don’t deserve the abuse hurled at them by the public – that is wrong. They deal with everyone, from those who’ll sleep their time away to those who scream and swear at them.

      However, it’s been four months of my waiting for an operation and I’m getting rather fed up with their striking. If they don’t want to do the job, get another one. I’m having over 60% of my income destroyed in tax for an inefficient, expensive, overmanned government department to demand by not doing the job they’re paid to do that I give them even more of my money.

      The argument we cannot go on as we are is long gone. The state doesn’t care. The decline is enforced. Despite our efforts, despite the clawing desperation to succeed as soon as we do, the state forces more crippling taxes on us – hell, it’s giving civil servants another 3.5% (on top of the annual rise – that’s not mentioned, is it?) – for a group who when they went on strike NO ONE NOTICED. For a group so utterly inefficient and ineffectual that they lame covid a year after the event. If I did that my customers would simply go elsewhere to someone who would respond to fix their computer.

      There is no goodwill left. In fact, there is anger and resentment at the waste, laziness, inefficiency and sheer cost of the edifice.

  24. Good Moaning.
    Are the DT journos up to double entendres or is this a euphemism?
    A snippet from the report on the laughi masturbating policeman.

    “Rail workers said the officer appeared to have been drinking and when he was asked to show his ticket he flashed his police warrant card.’

  25. Good moaning all,

    A drizzly 6℃ to start the day at McPhee’s Hampshire country residence today.

    Perhaps then headline for today’s gatesograph letters should read:

    NOW IS THE MOMENT TO EQUIP UKRAINE WITH ALL THE MILITARY FOOLS IT NEEDS

    Elsewhere in that once great member of the Fourth Estate we see this: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d76ca4f37f2f892f66e8b0f186527e7d2dd0cd855cf228e9ed6f295a70ef8fb.jpg

    London fashion week shows its offerings for those seeking to make an impact at their satanic ritual child abuse parties.
    Just in case we were in any doubt about just who it is who controls the fashion industry.

      2. Nahh, her Lawyers are desperately trying to Westernise her so ever press image is of her in a t shirt and baseball hat and jeans ‘Look, I’m just like you!’ is the message – no dear, you’re not. You’re a vicious killer who betrayed this country to kill it’s soldiers.

  27. Morning, all Y’all.
    Snowing gently, which is appropriate, as we’re going away for a few days skiing 😀
    Already feeling the benefit of not going to work on a working day – second cup of coffee, and no hurry to do anything much.
    Car to pack and inside of windscreen to clean, then away we go.

  29. It began as a banal urban planning concept. Then it became a beating stick for conspiracy theorists.

    The French academic Carlos Moreno proposed the “15-minute city” in 2016 as a way of countering postwar urban sprawl. By dividing cities into walkable neighbourhoods, residents could access shops, pharmacies and schools within a 15-minute walk. Seven years on, the idea has attracted such controversy that five protesters were arrested in Oxford last weekend after gathering for a rally against it.

    At the protest, among the placards railing against “green tyranny” and the “climate con” were leaflets telling residents that excess deaths in Covid-19 were not what they seemed. This may seem rather tangential. In fact, the pandemic is key to how the idea of 15-minute cities became such a red rag to conspiracy theorists.

    By emptying our streets of traffic, Covid lockdowns provided an opportunity for councils to experiment with new ways of using urban space, with fewer cars and more cyclists, pedestrians and green space.

    The idea of “climate lockdowns” had already started to gain traction in antivax circles online, encouraged by a World Economic Forum (WEF) tweet saying lockdowns were “quietly improving cities” and an article by a professor at University College London warning that extreme energy-saving measures and limits on car use and meat consumption may be needed if climate change was not solved soon. In particular, right-wing talk shows in the US brought the climate lockdowns idea to a wider audience.

    Fifteen-minute cities started to take a central role in the conspiracy theory when Oxfordshire county council used the term to push a version of low-traffic neighbourhoods, an already controversial scheme by which some roads are blocked to reduce congestion and pollution. Instead of a blanket block, Oxford would control certain routes by selectively issuing permits to drivers. It said the plans would calm traffic around 15-minute walkable areas.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-are-15-minute-cities-uk-oxford-fines-2dvqbdc56

    Yet every holiday period our roads here crammed beyond all imagination because people want to come here to our coastal attractions .

    1. The Dutch have a much more straightforward way to keeping areas intended for people rather than machines. They took to planting trees in the middle of the road.

      Weaving a slalom around the trees in a car is very difficult at anything over walking speed. No need for enforcers or traffic police, and those that must use their cars can get through without waking a litigious monster favoured by our city planners.

      1. They also have an Infinity + 2 number of cyclists.

        It is getting imposssible to drive in UK now as the

        Lycra Louts,
        the Lightless in dark clothing,
        no arms to indicate
        No hands, phone to ear
        No hands, texters
        No bells
        Pavement Poachers
        Undertakers
        Lane hoggers
        etc
        Have taken over our roads

        1. And two abreast wobbling around on a 40 mph Road as was the case yesterday.
          And a queue of 10 cars behind the pair.

          1. I’m a bad driver, I don’t go very quickly, I take my time at junctions, I let people out and I try to give people a lot of room.

            Yet the other day going into Soton centre there were two lycra clad fellows riding abreast at the arterial roundabout. Cars backed up to the wazoo as they pootled along, talking to one another.

            Now, being the bloke behind them, and first in the queue everyone’s beeping – because Sotonites don’t care about other road users, there’s shouting and folk start to use the outside lane of the roundabout to overtake. Of course, because this is Southampton, and people don’t care about the rules of a roundabout, they all pile in to get ahead (also because if you don’t, you don’t get anywhere).

            These two blokes, who could have pulled into the cycle lane blocked up half a mile of traffic on an incredibly busy day (Saturday, when all the Townies spend their weekly pay then forget they’ve bills to pay) for no reason other than their own ego.

          2. I believe that cyclists are perfectly entitled to use all of the road even when there are dedicated cycle lanes. It is all part of the war against cars.

      2. They also have an Infinity + 2 number of cyclists.

        It is getting imposssible to drive in UK now as the

        Lycra Louts,
        the Lightless in dark clothing,
        no arms to indicate
        No hands, phone to ear
        No hands, texters
        No bells
        Pavement Poachers
        Undertakers
        Lane hoggers
        etc
        Have taken over our roads

    2. From a visit a decade ago to Amsterdam I would say Amsterdam is a model 15 minute city. Each of the distinct localities within the city has a good range of shops and businesses. Cycling is a national sport and as far as I know there isn’t any restrictions on entering by car the different neighbourhoods.

      1. Yes, but it’s also designed to safety for cyclists and is flat. What if you’re 70 with bad knees and your ‘fifteen minutes’ to the doctor is 15 mins north, but the pharmacy is 15 south?

        Where are the new doctors surgeries, shops and so on going to come from? What if you can’t find what you need at the corner shop? Bluntly you cannot do a family shop at a corner co-op, not only availability, but also price.

        These also assume the time has no cost. If I have to travel in four different directions for my 15 minutes that’s an hour of time wasted, let alone getting back home. It’d be lovely to walk everywhere, but the people pushing it don’t assign their time by the hour – they just get paid from other people’s money. That’s even ignoring the queues from increased demand.

        It is unworkable and idiotic. The sort of statist dross beloved by those who have nothing else to do.

        1. What if you live on the edge of your 15 minutes and everything you need is easily available over the road but you’re not allowed there? It’s got to happen, as people will have to live on the boundaries of these things.

          1. Like living in a flat beside the Berlin Wall and spotting good lighting and decent consumer goods – barely an arm’s length out of reach.

          2. That is rather precisely what it’s like. I don’t understand why they refuse to acknowledge this.

      2. Yes, but it’s also designed to safety for cyclists and is flat. What if you’re 70 with bad knees and your ‘fifteen minutes’ to the doctor is 15 mins north, but the pharmacy is 15 south?

        Where are the new doctors surgeries, shops and so on going to come from? What if you can’t find what you need at the corner shop? Bluntly you cannot do a family shop at a corner co-op, not only availability, but also price.

        These also assume the time has no cost. If I have to travel in four different directions for my 15 minutes that’s an hour of time wasted, let alone getting back home. It’d be lovely to walk everywhere, but the people pushing it don’t assign their time by the hour – they just get paid from other people’s money. That’s even ignoring the queues from increased demand.

        It is unworkable and idiotic. The sort of statist dross beloved by those who have nothing else to do.

      3. Cycling in Holland is a means of transport. In the U.K. it’s used as a method of intimidation by Lycra louts who continue to ride on the road despite dual footpath/cycle paths being provided.
        Total selfishness.

      4. It’s an incredibly well laid out city but when it was laid out, there was no concept of restricting movement – the design was just very well thought out.
        When they expanded the city outside of the original canal ring in the second half of the 19th century, they built many 4-5 storey apartment block with ground floor space for businessed and flats above. The main streets were wide enough for heavy horse-drawn traffic including trams. This made the roads ideal for the later electric trams.
        The continuation of this from the 1910s to 1930s saw the Amsterdam School of architecture in play, building hundreds of similar blocks containing much social housing. (Pic) Plus a first class public transport system as well.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d3d25e621700553005261446142cad4d3029e1d3dc1c6140469d88cd41bc26d4.jpg

    3. Prior to these ideas was the Garden City Letchworth and Welwyn garden city. Not far apart in Hertfordshire.
      I imagine the founder of both, Ebenezer Howard of to more than spinning in his grave now. WGC has recently been absolutely ruined by over developments from office blocks to residential and now department stores now being shut down for residential development.
      Now just north of WGC in the pristine countryside (next to where George Bernard Shaw use to live) developers think its appropriate to build a huge solar farm. Of more than 31 hectares. 76.6 acres of solar panels. To supply power. Who are these terrible people?
      What an absolute mess this country is in.

    4. What about those people who cannot walk for 15 minutes? Will pavements be improved to help people? The ones around here are rubble set in concrete. Even for me with my boots on I can feel how uneven they are. I walk Mongo on the grass alongside. Even that’s nasty as it’s always full of rubbish or waste.

      1. We walk in the road on the side roads near us. Trouble is the road are also in a dire state and the ‘repairs’ are of the sticking plaster variety and pot holes reopen within the week.

      2. Our uneven pathways in our village screwed my hip up during 2020 lock downs when we were encouraged to walk around our village during our Hour ‘s long policed exercise .. yes, Covid monitors lurked in yellow jackets ..

        1. That’s awful Belle. The idea of state monitors controlling us – such people are evil.

          Heck, I’d do it just to make sure i looked the other way.

    5. Disingenuous to say the least. Remember the term conspiracy theory was first coined to describe those who questioned whether Lee Harvey Oswald was really a lone gunman and guess what, with the paperwork now released we know that the assassination of JFK was ordered by the CIA. Likewise every “conspiracy theory” of the last three years has been proven correct.

    6. If 15 minute cities were such a good idea, all they would need to do is use the planning permission laws to encourage local services., no need to control anything else.

  30. Morning all 😊☺
    I’m not sure I agree with the telegraph headline today. In fact I wonder if we have the same problems as Australia has with spies in our media who are going all out to change event’s to suit their own adgenda.
    The broadcast media seems to be stuffed full with them.

  31. 371464+ up ticks,

    That is all very well BUT the sane peoples of the UK are in somewhat of a dilemma, reason being
    that the politico’s plus telling us the way to go regarding Ukraine are also semi covertly in conflict with us the sane peoples of the UK.

    To neglect our own internal war at the expense of aiding a foreign war is surely NOT sound reasoning.

    https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1628111752251703296?s=20

    https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1628111752251703296?s=20

    1. She believes in “western values”. The problem is that, as anyone can discover by reading a newspaper, that the Political and Intellectual Elites do not! Paradoxically it is Putin who supports and believes in these values!

      2. It is odd that his views are closer to those of the average fellow than the dross in Westminster.

    2. Disappointed in Toby Young I thought he had more sense than that.
      Do we have any jets that work?
      It takes many hours of training to be able to fly one of these sophisticated jets which the Ukrainians don’t have. Does he expect our Royal Air Force pilots should fly them in which case he’s saying that our disUnited Kingdom should declare war on Russia.
      As Grizzly, on his birthday, would say, the stupidity pandemic is spreading unabated.

      1. Flying the aircraft is one thing but they are ineffective without sophisticated surveillance, intelligence, command, control and communications systems. Pilots need to train with the command and control system. Not a lot being said about who might provide those capabilities. I do see Globalhawk UAVs flying over the Black Sea most of the time so I suppose US is collecting a lot of information.

      2. 371464+ up ticks,

        Morning AtG,
        That is seemingly their ultimate aim massive power / monies to be made.

        Our forces are required on home ground
        and when sanity returns I want to read in a patriotic news sheet, home guard forces have encircled the palace of westminster and are closing in for the kill.

    3. What does the West believe in?

      High tax? Big government? Enforcing poverty? Decline? Waste? Inefficiency? Socialism? Globalism? Expensive energy?

      The public don’t want these things. They don’t want high taxes, expensive energy, none believe in climate change really, they’re forced into it.

      Then there’s the massive uncontrolled gimmigration, excessive welfare, the destruction of the family? The state doesn’t care about any of the things the public do and is responsible for ruining much of it. I’m not sure I would fight for this country now – the state is determined to destroy what it was to force it into a twisted, empty, communist dystopia overrun with foreigners, weirdos and wasters.

        1. Our so-called leaders need to accept tha the UK is no longer and empire or a major power. Instead, they constantly seek some new leadership role but they never turn around to see in anyone is following (plastic packaging for example). The most extreme example was David Cameron insisting that we should become “a World power in foreign aid”.

    4. Why do people like Toby Young and Dan Wootton and other journalists say Nucaleer rather than Nuclear?

      1. 371464+ up ticks,

        Morning R,
        Is it like their local dialect, london now must be talking a form of pidgin English
        as in “you go make fetchum bring”.

      2. George W Bush started that mispronunciation. I had not heard it before he became president but a lot of people do it now.

      1. Randy Andy did something very silly, but not Illegal in UK and has been hounded by The US and their Press

        However

        The car was driven by Anne Sacoolas, who is a former US spy[1] and wife of CIA employee Jonathan Sacoolas, stationed at the time at USAF listening station RAF Croughton.

        The collision caused diplomatic tension between UK and US officials. Sacoolas fled the UK soon after the incident and claimed diplomatic immunity with US support.[4] On 20 October 2022 she pleaded guilty to causing the death of Harry Dunn by careless driving.[6] On 8 December 2022 she was sentenced to eight months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and disqualified from driving for 12 months.

        She had not attended the sentencing in person on the advice of the US government despite the request of the judge.

        Spot the difference

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn#Diplomatic_immunity_for_RAF_Croughton_staff_and_families

      2. Randy Andy did something very silly, but not Illegal in UK and has been hounded by The US and their Press

        However

        The car was driven by Anne Sacoolas, who is a former US spy[1] and wife of CIA employee Jonathan Sacoolas, stationed at the time at USAF listening station RAF Croughton.

        The collision caused diplomatic tension between UK and US officials. Sacoolas fled the UK soon after the incident and claimed diplomatic immunity with US support.[4] On 20 October 2022 she pleaded guilty to causing the death of Harry Dunn by careless driving.[6] On 8 December 2022 she was sentenced to eight months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and disqualified from driving for 12 months.

        She had not attended the sentencing in person on the advice of the US government despite the request of the judge.

        Spot the difference

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn#Diplomatic_immunity_for_RAF_Croughton_staff_and_families

    2. I saw him being ‘interviewed’ but not properly grilled by Wooton on GB News last night.

      I have no particular affection for the Duke of York but he has been abominably treated by the King and the MSM.

      I wonder why they said that he was the Queen’s favourite? Her judgement was usually not entirely wrong.

      2. I think he was born after ER and Prince Philip had been through a rough patch in their marriage.
        He was a symbol of hope.

        1. …and there had been tut-tutting criticism from older generations of the RF about too much time being spent swanning about on Commonwealth tours and too little time with Charles and Anne.

        1. It is also MB and my (cough, cough ….) wedding anniversary.
          Unlike today, the weather was cold and bright.
          Not unlike today, we had spent the weeks running-up to it sorting out a house!

          1. Happy Anniversary, Anne and YB! New year, new home and new lease of life! Have a wonderful day! 🍾💐

          2. On a cheerful note, today our furniture restorer is delivering the 2 revived dining chairs that belonged to Uncle Willie. They sat up in the attic for years while I noticeably failed to get them done.

          4. Oh I have a set of 8 dining chairs which my dear mother started to renovate, both framework and seats! Well that was 30+ cough years ago!

          6. Happy Anniversary to you both Anne .

            It is also my youngest sister’s anniversary .. They have been married for 37 years.. a very good exciting marriage .

          9. Happy anniversary, so many years that you’ve stopped counting, or did The King forget the telegram?

    3. Wherever fortune and life has taken you, Kamau, Happy Birthday! 🎉🍰🥂🍾 Enjoy your day!

    1. MoH offered to buy piggy banks for the twins. Our daughter replied:”What for? Coins will soon be obsolete – every transaction will soon be digital….”

  35. Reposted from late last night

    Wednesday 22nd February, 2023

    GRIZZLY

    https://www.google.com/search?q=swedish+rhapsody&oq=Swedish+rhapso&aqs=chrome.0.0i512l2j69i57j0i512j46i512j0i512l2j46i512j0i512l2.10765j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f7799e1e,vid:Rtw78l0LO0k

    This may not be your favourite type of music but it is geographically appropriate and is a change from the Policeman songs we posted for you in the past!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2710e66bba82e40c29dd4a57b0089ef07171c770f0aa1ba6fc8ed0b334c71718.jpg

    and very many joyous returns of the day.

    With very best wishes,

    Caroline and Rastus

    P.S. Caroline made some very good pancakes and we followed your advice and made a homemade marmalade and Cointreau sauce to go with them Delicious.

    1. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Mr. Grizz! Hope it’s a wonderful day, and sending much love! 🍾🎂😘

    2. Many many thanks again, Caroline and Rastus.

      That lovely Percy faith tune is a favourite since it was played, ad infinitum, during my toddlership of the early 1950s on the Light Programme (even though I didn’t know its name). I like a lot of Percy Faith’s output, with his marvellous rendition of The Theme From A Summer Place being my favourite.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSsiS-v6_6M

      Best wishes to you both.

      1. Many happy returns, the ’51 was an excellent vintage and should keep well, well into the future.

        1. Thanks, SOS. As Roger Daltrey sang (in the film version of Tommy) “Got a feeling ’51 is going to be a good year”. 👍🏻

  36. Good morning, everyone. Off to the Cotswolds for grandson’s wedding tomorrow. Back on Friday. Look after each other.

    1. Wasn’t the Biden family involved in murky business in the Ukraine at the time of which Putin is speaking?

  38. “How Britain’s heat pump revolution fell apart. Lords warn rollout is ‘seriously failing’ amid criticism of ‘pathetically low’ uptake.”

    “It prompted warnings that this figure only translated to 30,000 heat pump installations per year – far below the Government’s eventual target of 600,000. However, 16 months on, the biggest problem seems to be public apathy.”

    No dear Lords, it is not public apathy, it is public common sense.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/22/how-britains-heat-pump-revolution-fell-apart/

    1. Well said Richard. Why are they all so stupid? But, what will they think up next to compel the take up?

        1. Realistically we all know we can’t “demand politicians who have ever done a proper job”. More’s the pity.

          1. Well i suppose we could join a political party and try to influence who they select to put forward for our local constituency.

            Equally, who would stand for parliament these days? The left-wing “offence archaeologists” would be out in full force, trying to “gotcha”.

    2. I tried to reply to your reply to response to vw and it says your post has been removed.
      But net zero doesn’t mean reducing the the carbon at all. As far as our thick and stupid MP’s think if you close businesses and export the jobs it reduces CO2.
      Example: we don’t use our North Sea gas reserves because it increases our ‘carbon footprint’ but we import frozen LPG from Qatar. We say the diesel used to transport it to U.K. is Qatar’s CFP. No doubt Qatar says it’s ours.
      With a single stroke both countries believe they have reduced their CFP. I’m convinced that’s the creative accounting used to justify this lunacy.

      1. The creative accounting is all about adding costs to our energy bills to fund ‘green energy’ in the hope we won’t notice….

      2. My post got too complicated so I decided to remove it. You have said what I was trying to say anyway.

    3. There was a big article in yesterday’s business section about how far behind Yoorup we are in installing heat pumps, from which I conclude that the governments in question are dishing out even bigger subsidies than ours is. If they were any good, they wouldn’t need any subsidy.

      1. Even if they were any good i wouldn’t have one. They are less efficient than my current boiler which is only 5 years old. They are noisy too. Plus they are outrageously expensive.

  39. “How Britain’s heat pump revolution fell apart. Lords warn rollout is ‘seriously failing’ amid criticism of ‘pathetically low’ uptake.”

    “It prompted warnings that this figure only translated to 30,000 heat pump installations per year – far below the Government’s eventual target of 600,000. However, 16 months on, the biggest problem seems to be public apathy.”

    No dear Lords, it is not public apathy, it is public common sense.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/22/how-britains-heat-pump-revolution-fell-apart/

  40. “Liquid hydrogen-powered robot ship wins backing from taxpayer. Unmanned vessel could be up and running by next autumn.

    Developers vying to build the world’s first liquid hydrogen-fuelled robot ship have won backing from the taxpayer as part of the push to cut carbon emissions. Acua Ocean, Unitrove and consortium partners have been awarded a £3.8m government grant to develop an unmanned vessel and hydrogen fuel station.”

    More misinformation. The taxpayer has NOT backed this project, the Government has. The taxpayer had no say whatsoever in granting funds to this venture.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/22/liquid-hydrogen-powered-robot-ship-wins-backing-taxpayer/

    1. Hydrogen storage issue for the huge volumes needed – even compressed. Advised on a ship design about 15 years ago where the hydrogen was to be held in long cylinders like industrial gas bottles. Not a success – too heavy. Too bulky.

      1. I wonder what happened to those ships that were fitted with computer-controlled sails to augment their conventional propulsion?

  42. At last, someone with more than a single brain cell is warning against the adoption of hydrogen for domestic heating. A pity, therefore, that the H o L is still wedded to costly and inefficient heat pumps!

    From today’s DT:

    Hydrogen not a realistic replacement for natural gas, warn Lords
    Ministers told to focus on promoting heat pumps in sharply-critical report

    By
    Matt Oliver
    22 February 2023 • 6:00am

    Heating millions of homes with hydrogen instead of natural gas is unrealistic, peers have warned, telling ministers to focus on promoting heat pumps instead.

    In a sharply-critical report, a House of Lords panel on Wednesday accused the Government of undermining the national rollout of heat pumps with confusing “mixed messages” about unproven alternatives.

    Mass adoption of heat pumps is a key plank of the plan to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. The devices raise the temperature in people’s homes by absorbing the heat from outside and compressing it.

    The Government wants to see 600,000 heat pumps installed each year by 2028, compared to around 35,000 today. However, uptake has so far been slow, with many people put off by high upfront costs.

    The Lords environment and climate change committee said the Government was undermining its own target with an ongoing review into whether hydrogen-powered boilers could be used for home heating. The review is “negatively affecting” demand for heat pumps, peers said, by sowing uncertainty.

    Baroness Parminter, chairman of the Lords environment committee, told The Telegraph: “In heat pumps we’ve got a mature technology now, where there aren’t any issues around safety. So why focus on hydrogen for home heating?

    “The mixed messages around hydrogen are compromising the [Government’s] ability to get heat pumps into homes.”

    Uncertainty over whether heat pumps or hydrogen were the solution has left plumbers and other businesses unsure of which technologies to commit to, the Baroness added.

    Production of hydrogen is energy-intensive and it is unclear whether there will be enough supplies to serve millions of homes, Baroness Parminter said.

    “Frankly, hydrogen is not a serious option in the short to medium term.”
    The findings come after MPs warned in December that hydrogen was only likely to play a “limited role” in home heating and was “not a panacea”.

    Under plans unveiled by Boris Johnson, Britain will ban the installation of new gas boilers from 2035.

    Homeowners have been offered vouchers worth £5,000 each towards the cost of installing heat pumps, with ministers hoping this will spur widespread demand and help manufacturers bring down costs.

    However, peers said the so-called boiler upgrade scheme was “seriously failing”.

    Public apathy has left two thirds of the scheme’s £150m first year budget unused, with less than 10,000 of 30,000 available vouchers issued.

    Peers said this was because heat pumps remained too expensive for most households – costing £7,000 in some cases even after the grant – and the Government had failed to advertise the scheme properly.

    Promoting hydrogen-ready boilers as a possible alternative has also convinced some home owners there is little point in switching.
    On Tuesday the Government said it planned to launch a marketing campaign to promote its heat pump vouchers.

    Although ministers expect most households to adopt heat pumps in the long-run, critics argue they often require expensive home adaptations such as insulation.

    The Energy and Utilities Alliance, which represents boiler manufacturers and some heat pump makers, estimates that up to 12 million homes may be unsuitable for heat pumps.

    Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, accused peers of being out-of-touch and “doubling down on a flawed policy”.

    He added: “The committee is right to suggest there is a high level of misinformation around hydrogen, by publishing highly misleading conclusions around hydrogen.

    “The Government’s plans for hydrogen-ready boilers are a no regrets option going forward, helping households decarbonise their homes without the £13,000 upfront cost of a heat pump.”

    Industry groups Hydrogen UK and Energy UK warned against a “one size fits all policy” for home heating.

    Hydrogen UK said: “A balanced approach between electrification and hydrogen, through the deployment of hydrogen distribution infrastructure, hydrogen boilers and hybrid hydrogen heat pumps, would mitigate these peaks and could bring significant system cost savings compared to pure electrification.”

    * * *

    A pity that no one thought to raise the following:

    1. Creating hydrogen is no more than 50% efficient, meaning that you get out a lot less energy than you put in.

    2. Hydrogen molecules are tiny in comparison to natural gas and will seek out even the smallest leak, thus requiring the replacement of the entire gas network on safety grounds.

    3. For the same energy as natural gas you need three times the volume of hydrogen.

    4. The production of hydrogen creates a great deal of carbon dioxide (assuming you regard this as important, of course.)

    5. The burning of hydrogen is difficult to control, unlike natural gas

    2. The great idiot Trudeau is backing hydrogen.

      Rather than selling LNG to Germany,he has come up with the idea of wind power driving a plant to convert gas to hydrogen, which is then converted to Ammonia before it is shipped to customers.

      If that man is behind the idea, count me out.

      1. Me too! Besides, electrolysis is highly inefficient, so even on the ‘completely bonkers’ scale this method is a non-starter.

      2. The German and Canadian governments have agreed to set up a wind farm electricity generator to produce ammonia [NH3] to ship to Germany.
        It will be in Newfoundland if the indigenous population agree. How many local nuclear generators are required to generate more reliably the same amount of electricity as a hundred wind turbines?
        Elsewhere in Canada an LNG plant is being built.
        I also read that there is now blue and green Hydrogen.
        We in the UK should stick with our present gas supply.

  43. From GBN:

    Shamima Begum loses British citizenship appeal as ISIS bride cannot return to UK

    Excellent, a good decision for once.

    1. Cripes. Is commonsense returning to our shores?
      Now for the rest of her family and others of that ilk.
      One small step for Blighty ….

      1. DT BTL

        Harry Knight Esq
        20 MIN AGO
        Excellent.
        Cue tears and distress within the BBC as their propaganda failed to deliver.

        Harry Knight Esq
        17 MIN AGO
        I was going to say heads may roll at the BBC, but that’s Begum’s MO.

        1. If only HK’s sentiments were carried out.
          Think how Bluff King Hal would have dealt with the Beeb.

      2. Well, sooner or later, law of averages etc we had to get something right…but I’m not confident this is a new trend emerging!

    3. Give if a day, Trudeau will offer her Canadian citizenship and pay a few million compensation.

    4. Soon to be appealed to the supreme court and then to the european court.

      Why cannot she just hop on a cross channel dinghy like all of the other unwanted guests do.

      1. Special Appeals Immigration Commission

        There will be lots more appeals. We have not heard the last of this dim, unpleasant, self-obsessed person.

          1. Oh some wealthy charidee. Would be surprised if ISIS isn’t behind her – get her back to Blighty and measure her for a “vest”…

      2. Neither can I, VW! I see that the BBC put this story at the top of their running order at lunchtime, complete with an interview of her – with tears, naturally. However, one thing was missing from this (probably contrived) sob-fest, can you guess what it was? Well, in this lengthy item, complete with a detailed recap (can there be anyone who is still unfamiliar with this seemingly endless nonsense?) there was not one mention of the fact that she held dual nationality at the time Savage Jabber revoked her British nationality. Thus, she is not “stateless” as the Grauniad loves to tell us. She claims that she is stuck in a refugee camp for the foreseeable. However, as Bangladeshi she should instead be looking to that country for residency, not this one. Her lawyers claim that she will be killed if she attempts to return. Really? And where is the evidence for this claim?

    6. The BBC are so disappointed, wailing and gnashing of teeth 24/7.

      I suppose it distracts from Mike Yeadon’s statement that the mRNA jabs are “toxic by design”.

  45. French and Dutch publishers stand firm on Roald Dahl rewrite row
    The author’s Dutch and French publishers said his stories ‘lose their power’ if language is toned down and rewrites ‘only concerns Britain’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/21/roald-dahl-books-characters-changes-lose-power-publisher/

    Most readers of this article are most unimpressed by Puffin Books wokeness.

    I rather enjoy this poster’s neologism for FO

    BTL

    They should be told in no uncertain terms to do their Puffin’ and Gruntin’ elsewhere!

  46. 371464+ up ticks,

    Well deserved, if she returned she would have become a role model for those already here via the dangerous stupidity of the majority voter.

    Shamima Begum loses legal fight to return to Britain.

    1. 371464+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Facts,

      Gerard Batten
      @gjb2021
      ·
      24m
      That is because illegal immigration, or rather stopping it, is not one of their priorities. Enabling illegal immigration by ignoring it, or facilitating it, IS their priority.

      Illegal immigration floods us with desperately poor people who have no stake in our prevailing culture. When they get the vote they will vote for the parties promising them what they want & to bring in millions more of their relatives & friends.

      Illegal immigration is the tool of the Globalists to destroy national identity & loyalty. Destroy societies in order to bring in the NWO.
      Lotus Eaters News
      @LotusEatersNews
      ·
      1h
      The Home Office’s most senior civil servant has come under fire for excluding plans to tackle illegal migration from the department’s top priorities.

      Top mandarin omits illegal migration from list of Home Office priorities
      Top mandarin omits illegal migration from list of Home Office priorities

      Matthew Rycroft, the department’s permanent secretary, under fire after excluding key issue from memo to civil servants

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk

  48. Dashcam captures moment Dan Walker was knocked out cold when rear wheel of his bike caught car’s front wing – sending him sprawling and narrowly avoiding going under its wheels on danger roundabout

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11777639/Video-Channel-5s-Dan-Walker-knocked-hit-car-cycling-Sheffield.html

    Looking at the brief video on the front page
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
    and reading the article, it appears he brought it on himself.

        1. When i was learning to ride a motorcycle you had to look over your shoulder before any manoeuver. Mirrors have blind spots.

    2. He certainly did. And there was a perfectly good cycle path for him to follow – but, like most of the lycra wanqueurs, he ignored it.

    1. Hi Phizzee, my instinct tells me that you’re right about your 2% of the student body but could you please tell me how you got to that figure? It would be good if I could throw that at some of my pupils…

      1. Hi Caroline,

        I am afraid you would need to do your own research on the precise numbers and percentages of how many actual students voted for it as i lifted the comment from below the line.
        My instinct was it would be a small amount because it is an offshoot of an already small protest group.

        1. Cambridge University has 21,000 undergraduates. The Cambridge Students” Union has that number of members.

        1. “ NIVERSITY of Cambridge students have voted to push for a completely vegan menu across its catering services.
          The student union voted yesterday to “initiate talks” with central catering services about removing all animal products from its cafes and canteens, creating a “sustainable and 100 per cent plant-based” menu.
          The decision came after lobbying from Cambridge’s Plant-based Universities campaign, which is supported by Animal Rebellion, an offshoot of activist group Extinction Rebellion.
          The group’s motion was backed by 72 per cent of non-abstaining student representatives who voted…”

    3. I’m onto this… the number of voters is unfindable anywhere on the internet. I smell a rat and now I think your 2% is a gross over-estimation. I have sent the following email to the Cambridge Students’ Union Press officer, subject heading: Verification and clarification request:

      As a freelance independent reporter in France, I should like to have further information about your recent vote to initiate talks with the University’s Catering Services about removing all animal products from its services.

      While the result of 72% (of non abstaining voters) is widely reported, I am particularly interested in putting that result in a numerical context:

      a) the number of people who voted, both for and against,
      b) the number of people who abstained

      Many thanks.

      If they reply, we’ll have some solid stuff. If they don’t, then we can bet that this is a tiny, tiny minority of the students population and they are milking it for what it’s worth.

      1. As i read further down the comments on the article someone posted that only about 40 students turn up to these votes unless there has been a lot of campaigning.

  50. Why is acceptable for Humza Yousaf to hold the same views on homosexuality, abortion and out of marriage sex as Kate Forbes but not for Kate Forbes to hold them?

    And why aren’t the left woke brigade constantly questioned about why Christians should be attacked for their views and practices but not Muslims?

    1. Does he though?

      Perhaps he is fearful that his fellow travellers would toss him off a tall building if he doesn’t pretend to.

      1. Yes, but the point is that he is not being questioned and criticised about his religious views while she is?

        Why should Muslims be allowed to get away with being given an easier ride than Christians? Reeks of Christianophobia to me.

        2. Agreed but given the fact one of the brethren might stab you for so doing would you be keen to be the interlocutor?

        3. I’m sure you know why, Richard – it’s double standards, hypocrisy and arrogance. It is the same thing that sees Yaxley locked up and the pakistani paedophile child rapists protected. It is the entire underlying problem with the nation: every thing is back to front.

        4. According to someone on GB News – this Yousaf bloke was brought up as a Catholic in a Catholic household. He converted to Islam.

    2. Because she is white, married and a Christian and he is a criminal terrorist muslim.

      Why else did you think? Four legs good, two legs bad.

    3. Islam is not a religion it’s a way of life. The only problem is that politicians can’t bring themselves to admit it.

    4. Christians no longer burn the heretics to cleanse their souls. Moslems, on the other hand…

    5. The slammer was on R4this morning and asked about these issues. He flatly denied following the teachings of his faith, but then not many of the electorate are aware of taqiyya so he gets away with it.

      1. In other words it is quite acceptable to lie and deny your faith in order to advance your faith!

        The Mayor of London is a good example of this in his support for homosexuality. If ardent Islamists seriously believed Khan’s pro-homosexuality stance they would have given him the same treatment as they gave Salman Rushdie.

        1. That’s why he travels around in an armoured vehicle. It won’t be the far right that gets him it will be his own kind. I wish them the best of luck.

      2. Simple, get the troops out, order them to “march on the spot”

        The spot being glued hands of XR twits

    3. In a video shared with MailOnline, a police officer could be seen cordoning off the area in Nine Elms, London.

      They recalled Mr Grizzle for his birthday, so he can show them what being a Policeman is really about

      1. Well, apparently Moscow had a general air-raid warning this morning – caused by someone hacking their securidee systems..

        I suspect it may have been a tit for a tat. As it were.

  52. 371464+ up ticks,

    Currently there are four major obstacles, them being lab/lib/con parties & hard core members.

    George Orwell’s chilling prediction has come true – it’s time to make a stand
    The censorship of books, statues and history is an attempt to eradicate the past and enforce a single point of view.

    The current member / voters could see this, over the decades ,building, but alike to having a dangerous psyco close relative and the love of.

    Psyco

    What is the definition of psycho person?
    countable noun. A psycho is someone who has serious mental problems and who may act in a violent way without feeling sorry for what they have done. [informal]

    Can you spot the similarities with our current political overseers ?

    1. Oh they’re all psychotics. The inability to feel empathy, easy ability to lie, complete lack of conviction, belief or faith in what they say, no interest in the consequences of their actions… politicians espouse all those traits.

      The problem is a psychotic is mentally ill. They lack structures in the brain that control impulse. Politicians have them, but ignore them in their desperate grasp for power and control.

      1. Wibbs, please…the word is psychopath.
        Psychosis or psychoses have a specific meaning, & can be completely temporary.
        Unlike a psychopath…who can even be fixed in this state from childhood.

      2. This morning, I half-listened to quite an interesting podcast from past year.

        The hypothesis was that the current spate of narcissists is caused by learned behaviour due to lack of boundaries and possibly due to historic trauma (PTSD), and that it is infectious but, like all pathogens (is that the right word?) will reach saturation point to avoid killing the host.

        Like i say, QI.

  53. A ponder

    I wonder if those brave service folk who lost their lives in , or survived World Wars I & II, would have been so willing to volunteer,
    or be pressed to fight, if the could see into the future at what has happened to NOT GB. viz:

    Male rapists locked up in Female Prisons
    WASPs White Anglo-Saxon People now an Ethnic Minority
    Freedom of Speech Lost
    History (events & people) changed to suit the minorities
    Men marrying men and Women marrying women, with the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury
    Lockdowns and vaccinations to control us (to protect us from deliberartely infections
    Freedom of Speech Lost
    Not producing our own fuels
    Net Zero
    15 Minute Towns
    Unstoppable immigration o

    the list is endless

    I do not envy the young the lives ahead of them

    1. The sad thing is the young are those most eager to get something for nothing from the state, who want immigration and don’t see a problem. They’ve been old climate change problem from childhood so believe the lies.

      By the time it is too late for them to realise the extent of the lies it’ll be too late and they too will lament the horror imposed on their children.

      1. You say that, but my two don’t.

        Tho’ i take your point. If only all the kids were a bit more like ours!

    2. Gareth Peirce, a member of Ms Begum’s

      1. Are we sure, that she is a ” Ms”
      2. Even Riski Sunhat is not given a “Mr” when he is referred to in the papers
      3. She is of course funding her own defence (Yar Boo sucks, Diddly Squat, I am mad)

    2. Quite amazing that the dress has been so well preserved, in silk.
      Perhaps silver thread helped?

  56. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/22/ftse-100-markets-live-british-steel-job-cuts-brexit/

    When you read all this, the predictions of costs falling, of government intervention, of subsidy and strikes over pay you rather think – has the state ever considered that it, and it alone is the problem? That it is causing this inflation problem? That it’s tax and waste, borrow and inflate ideology is the root cause of the farcical situation we’re in?

    2. Bigots. Why are they not happy that criminal muslim rapists are being put up in hotels at their expense while their own costs are soaring.

      Disgusting white wasters. better off without them.

  58. When Putin’s propagandists are partying at the Grammys, it’s time for tougher sanctions. 22 February 2023.

    Russian pop stars may not be political titans, but the world must not allow the Kremlin to wriggle through any loopholes

    In Kyiv, we know Kirkorov well. In June 2021 we designated him as “a threat to Ukraine’s national security” and he was banned from entering our country after he spoke in support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Last month, we added him to our list of Russian propagandists who are subject to personal sanctions for their support of Russia’s warmongering. He had reportedly been asking his audiences to stand up and clap for the “heroes”, Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

    Now, here was Kirkorov preening openly at the Grammys, posting selfie videos on social media. A few days earlier he had dinner with Engelbert Humperdinck in Los Angeles and visited Las Vegas to watch an Adele concert. How could such a man be freely wandering the US? How is he able to party at a time when so many Ukrainians are fighting for their lives?

    We are really rounding up popstars! Marlene Dietrich rest in peace. This tells you more about the Ukies than the Russians. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a good case for arresting them all, every last one, and sending them to some remote island but not for their political opinions.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/22/kremlin-propagandists-partying-grammys-tougher-sanctions

    1. Who cares about the monumentally insignificant trivia known as the “grammys” (shouldn’t that be “grammies”?)?

      1. Couldn’t agree more, bb2. Shallow and tacky bling! And that applies to all the other, seemingly endless, ‘award ceremonies’ in my view.

    2. Here’s a clip from that article: “We note that Russian individuals who have found themselves sanctioned
      are increasingly trying to challenge those sanctions in court. Those who
      despise democracy are once again trying to turn its strength into
      weakness. The fact that they and their loved ones enjoy the benefits of
      the European rule of law while fanning hatred for its values is the real
      injustice.      ” Absolute rubbish – people should be challenging sanctions, and the outright theft of property, in the courts. Surely “those who despise democracy” include the EU, and Ukraine where Zelensky has banned the official opposition and imprisoned journalists?

      1. People crossing into the UK illegally in rubber boats

        are individuals who have found themselves sanctioned
        are increasingly trying to challenge those sanctions in court. Those who
        despise democracy are once again trying to turn its strength into
        weakness. The fact that they and their loved ones enjoy the benefits of
        the European rule of law while fanning hatred for its values is the real
        injustice.”

        what’s the difference?

    3. The guardian is stupid. I’ve no interest in the nationality of these people. A Russian chum is finding she has to introduce herself as Polish to get work. All se does is take her kit off for photos, for heaven’s sake. It’s daft. She’s lived in the UK for 5 years. She can’t stand Putin, finds the war horrid.

      It’s like suggesting everyone in the UK is ardently supportive of the oaf Sunak
      .

  59. Just listened to the Delingpod with Sandi Adams. There were a few bits in there that I didn’t know, eg that Elon Musk’s grandfather was involved with Technocracy Inc before the war.
    It seems Mr Musk’s technocratic credentials are a bit longer than anyone realises.

    1. I don’t mind Musk. He seeks to provide a product people want and to get hem to buy it rather than use state power to force people what to have., regardless of choice.

      2. At the moment, I think he was another of their young protegés, like Gates and Alien Guy, parachuted into the next big thing to make sure that they control it. Apparently the US authorities had a project to get everyone’s data, and it was cancelled just before Facebook was launched…
        How sincere are Musk’s criticisms? Well, he is a very intelligent man – maybe he is sincere. When push comes to shove, will he come down on the side of humanity?
        I’d like to think so, but I’m not completely sure.

  60. My reply to Elsie regarding the pancake conversation yesterday evening. As others will have seen my inadvertent downvote, I have copied the conversation here.

    Elsie Bloodaxe
    15 hours ago edited
    Good night, chums. My pancakes this evening were yummy. See you all tomorrow.
    PS – Poppiesmum, you seem to have downvoted this post. Was this an error? If not, I am baffled as to what you disliked about it.

    Reply
    poppiesmum Elsie Bloodaxe
    a few seconds from now
    I have replied earlier, Elsie, to your later request. I now see what went wrong. I was about to reply that my pancakes were tough and leathery this year (what went wrong?) and then I thought better of it, because who wants to know about tough and leathery pancakes. So as I cancelled, I must have inadvertently caught the downvote. It’s so easy to do especially when using a finger on the iPad, it’s not as precise as a mouse. Any ideas as to why my pancakes were tough and leathery, seeing I’ve mentioned it now? I used out-of-date flour by several months (not years!), I wonder if that could have been the cause.

    Of course, I could have perhaps subliminally downvoted your comment because I was so envious of your yummy pancakes !

        1. It’s very hard to get fresh eggs from the supermarket! Mine were from the farm shop, but I have had them for three weeks.
          Up til now, I haven’t noticed a big difference with the eggs from the farm shop, but keeping them for three weeks doesn’t help!

          1. When I make a sponge cake with whisked eggs, & the eggs are really fresh, the sponge is practically bouncy!

    3. My sister makes pancakes from buckwheat flour. She says they’re delicious, almost sweet, & softish.

  61. I have been castigated by the mind controllers of Farcebook for posting an article that claimed that ‘global cooling was forecast in the 1970s:

    We added a notice to your post
    The post includes information that independent fact-checkers said was false.
    False information in a post that you shared
    You shared a photo.
    22 Feb 2023
    Independent fact-checkers reviewed a similar photo and said that it was false.
    16 Dec 2019
    Facebook determined that your post has the same false photo and added a notice to the post.
    People who repeatedly share false information might have their posts moved lower in News Feed so other people are less likely to see them.

    The above is part of the bollocking. YOU WILL NOT PUBLISH FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT ANYTHING WE SUPPORT. Vee haf vays unt meens ov stopping yor lyes unt propaganda – YOU HAVE BEEN VORNED!!!

      3. In the early 80s in CT we had a bloody ice age. I have never seen so much snow in my life!

      2. One can readily see how such an article can be used to claim that the photographs are false, but at the time they were thought to be true.
        The fact checkers will twist anything after the event to suit their agenda.

        Yesterday I told you it would rain this morning. It didn’t.
        What I said turns out to be false, the fact that I said it doesn’t change.

        1. Boris notoriously finds intelligent women attractive. With the passing of time and his choices in life, intelligent women no longer find Boris attractive…

          1. If they were intelligent how on earth could they have found him attractive, an antinomy paradox?

          2. Oh he was attractive enough when he was younger – before his record of affairs, cheating and letting everyone in his life down was known.

          4. I should think Eton is probably just as much of a jungle, just differently. Boris survived by charming everyone.

  66. My oh my!….Bill and Hillary will be so distraught as yet another of their dear friends is found to have taken his own life

    EXCLUSIVE: Arkansas cops rule suicide in death of Clinton aide linked to Jeffrey Epstein – who was found shot and tied to a tree with an electrical cord around his neck – despite no sign of weapon

    Bill Clinton’s special advisor Mark Middleton, who signed Jeffrey Epstein into the White House several times, killed himself in May 2022

    According to the police report, Middleton was found with a gunshot wound to his chest and an extension cord tied around his neck and attached to a tree
    His body and car were found at the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/05/11/17/57689703-10805997-image-m-12_1652286779941.jpg
    Bill Clinton’s special advisor Mark Middleton, who signed Jeffrey Epstein into the White House several times, killed himself in May 2022

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/05/11/18/57689723-10805997-image-m-15_1652289598291.jpg
    Middleton was Bill Clinton’s special advisor who admitted Jeffrey Epstein to the White House on seven of the at least 17 times the late paedophile visited. Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Clinton are seen in 1993 at the White House

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/05/11/18/57689721-10805997-image-a-13_1652288565310.jpg
    Middleton flew on Epstein’s plane and appears to have acted as a conduit between Clinton and Epstein. Clinton and Ghislaine Maxwell are seen on the plane

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/02/22/13/67930091-11759771-Perry_County_Sheriff_s_Deputy_Jeremy_Lawson_said_in_his_report_o-a-3_1677073965212.jpg
    Perry County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Lawson said in his report of Middleton’s death that buckshot and a gun case were found in the dead man’s car, but he found no weapon

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11759771/Mystery-Bill-Clinton-advisor-dead-gunshot-wound-no-gun.html#newcomment

    1. Even the headline doesn’t make any sense. How do you tie yourself to a tree and shoot yourself with a non-existant gun?

      2. Easy – You shoot yourself in the head, give the gun to a friend to hide, go to the nearest tree and hang yourself, just to be sure. As plain as day to the Police and CIA.

        2. One fine day in the middle of the night
          Two dead men got up to fight
          Back to back they faced each other
          Drew their swords and shot each other.

    2. The Clinton’s lives are full of strange events and ongoing mystery.
      I still don’t believe Epstien is dead he was far too rich to top himself.
      He’s living the life of old Riley somewhere.
      Perhaps matey knows/knew where.

        1. I certainly don’t think he topped himself.
          Whether he is genuinely brown bread is a different matter.

          1. If he isn’t, all the minions who are in the picture had better watch their backs, there are some very powerful perverts on the loose who don’t want to be identified.

        2. When the body was brought out of the cell there just happened to be a TV camera close by. The blanket covering the body convienently slid aside. It exposed a face that did not resemble him
          He could easily have negotiated an escape with his knowledge. Which he could well have had stashed were no one would be able to find. Unless instructions had been posted to release the list of names. If they actually bumped him off.

    4. Goodness me. The Clintons must be seriously boring if all their chums top themselves rather than endure another dinner party presided over by Billiary.

    5. Perhaps someone could tip off the Clintons that Shamima Begum has some dirt on Bill – that would be one problem solved!

  67. Why are the idiots in power giving our money and armaments to a corrupt country run by a professional clown? There are more than 80,000 able-bodied men living here in 3 and 4 star accommodation doing sod all except bleeding the economy dry. Why not send them to ‘Ukulele Land’ to help the ‘Mighty Midget’ protect his frontiers from the crazy Russians fleeing Putin, only to die in droves just yards from the border ,contaminating the beloved Uki-fatherland? Win win situation.

    https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.b92f2360662e7bf89538028ba2758279?rik=kXs3f7rfUvNbGw&riu=http%3a%2f%2fi.huffpost.com%2fgen%2f4708738%2fimages%2fo-REFUGEE-CRISIS-facebook.jpg&ehk=Mr11jb3bj3EVNu%2bk%2fgKoLNMxgCOlqNk%2bCatanqgvm%2fA%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

  68. Despite all latest among Washington’s repeat warnings to Beijing against strategic or military cooperation with Moscow, China is now pledging to “join forces” with “like-minded” partner Russia to defend national interests. The statement came by the close of the first day of the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee Wang Yi’s trip to Moscow.

    “The People’s Republic of China is ready to join forces with Russia to decisively stand up for national interests and promote mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas,” Wang said Tuesday while meeting with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev. On Wednesday he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in what appeared a warm and cooperative visit.

    Come over to the window, my little Xi darling,
    I’d like to try to read your palm.
    I used to think you was some kind of Gypsy boy
    before I let you take Taiwan.
    Now so long, Taiwan, it’s time that we began
    to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

    (With apols to the late L Cohen))

  69. Buy Blitish!

    “Unions have warned on the future of UK steelmaking after British Steel announced it will shut its coking ovens in Scunthorpe and cut up to 260 jobs.
    The Chinese-owned firm blamed an “unprecedented” rise in energy costs and demands to be greener.
    The biggest steelworkers’ union said the cuts could have a “catastrophic impact” on steel production in the UK.
    Coking ovens turn coal into coke which burns at the higher temperature needed for furnaces used in steel production.
    The closure of the ovens at its Scunthorpe headquarters, which means British Steel will import coke, has been seen as a concerning indicator about the health and future of the UK steel industry.
    The government said the decision by British Steel was “very disappointing” while negotiations were ongoing with the sector over funding support.
    British Steel currently employs around 4,200 workers in the UK and is owned by Chinese company Jingye.

    3. Sooo…first they sell off our assets to China then they decide to go for Net Zero without noticing that isn’t how the Chinese do things. That isn’t how anyone who expects things to work does things. Net Zero is the combined IQ of our beloved leaders isn’t it?

      1. I find their utter incompetence almost laughable. However it is clearly malicious now. It’s all about the globalist masters, not the economy. The callous arrogance of these people is staggering.

    4. This is what happens when the government deliberately make energy too expensive. Now it’s paying welfare for 4200. Oh, not 4200. 12-20,000 because of all the pay packets lost that would be spent but now won’t be.

      And logistics. Supply chain.. the effect ripples through the economy but who cares, right? Net zero (jobs). Well. We’ve just moved the pollution to China. And shipping back and forth to us here.

      Why can’t they just sod the f off, leave us alone, stop meddling and let energy be run by the market?

      1. They are not meddling, they are following globalists orders to destroy this country and it is all going to plan.

  71. Really? This is going to run and run, and no doubt the ECHR will overturn it and we’ll be stuck with her.
    It’s a pity the Syrians didn’t shoot her.

    Begum is our problem
    Shamima Begum was born in this country, she was raised here, indeed she was radicalised here. As such, Britain cannot wash its hands of her.

    Ms Begum was 15 when she and two other east London schoolgirls travelled to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State in February 2015. Her British citizenship was revoked on national security grounds by then-home secretary Sajid Javid shortly after she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019. She has been locked in a legal battle with the Government ever since. This morning, her appeal was lost at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.

    Ms Begum’s is a hard case and she is not the most sympathetic study. The crimes committed by IS, which she left to join, are unspeakably horrific — including mass executions, torture, rape and the forced recruitment of children.

    It is understandable that a country might not welcome such a person with open arms. But the reality is that Ms Begum was a child when she left. She ought to face justice in this country, as a British citizen.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/nurses-strikes-royal-college-of-nursing-pay-rise-b1062284.html

    Mr Justice Jay, the senior judge heading the three-strong panel making the judgment, said seven of the nine grounds used to try to overturn the Home Office’s decision were “technical” and had been dismissed but that the “real merits” of her case was that she had been trafficked into Syria for sexual exploitation.

    The judge said, however, that although there was a “credible suspicion” that Ms Begum was a trafficking victim, former home secretary Sajid Javid had not been required to consider this as a factor to be assessed when making his decision to remove her citizenship on national security grounds in 2019.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/shamima-begum-citizenship-ruling-today-sajid-javid-syria-home-office-b1062149.html

    1. Total BS – I saw a photo of one of her legal team – a whey faced pinko bedwetter whining about the “poor victim” – let her rot with her client if she feels so strongly.

      1. https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/preview/mol/2023/02/22/2715577748158266019/636x382_MP4_2715577748158266019.mp4

        Peirce was born in March 1940 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the daughter of Margaret (née Twidell) and John Le Plastrier Webb. She changed her name from Jean to Gareth during her formative years but never divulged to anyone the reason for doing so.[2] Her parents ran Bentham Grammar School in North Yorkshire, which she attended until she took her O-levels.[3][4] She was subsequently educated at the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics.

    2. She ought to face justice in this country, as a British citizen.
      She isn’t a British citizen. Her citizenship was legally removed.

      1. In neither legality nor attitude was she ever remotely British. She was just an alien pestilence who festered here.

    3. “… she was raised here, indeed she was radicalised here…”

      Well then, the solution’s obvious: remove all those things that radicalised her to prevent further terrorists. ALL. THOSE. THINGS.

    4. Cf., my comment this morning – psychopaths have been known to be established in their pattern, incapable of ‘normal’ feeling & conscience, with often an amygdala of different size, & other brain characteristics…as young as 7 or 8.
      There was a lot of study done in America.
      One very ordinary non-violent couple had one such child & sought help early on, as they didn’t know how to cope.
      They also had another child who was normal & non-violent (who was at risk from the other).
      Despite every technique being applied to ‘cure’ & socialise the aggressive child (who lied without compunction), she was incurable, & moreover, delighted in duping the authorities.
      The story is a daunting read.
      The government needs to obtain advice from top psychiatrists.

      1. It’s interesting to see how upbringing affects people. My mother is very difficult and our upbringing was volatile to say the least – never knowing which way she would react.

        It’s made all of us very jumpy. In my brother most of all as he couldn’t deal with the confusion and retreated into his own world. My sister left as soon as she could. My mother would just hit me. That stopped when she couldn’t. Then she took it out on my cat, then Junior. I’ve never let her near him since.

        I think government’s only interest is in controlling how people respond rather than any interest in the reaction.

        1. I understand.
          You never mention your father wibbling…I presume you had one!
          Do you feel your parents were compatible?
          I don’t think mine were. I think they were chalk & cheese…my father, being a perfect gentleman, bent over backwards to try & accommodate my mother & her caprice or eccentricity, but I think he was essentially fairly sad, a little lonely.
          After my brother died at 16, my father withdrew into himself & never recovered.
          My mother endlessly sought people outside to talk to.

          I wonder sometimes, getting married as they did straight after the war, whether that generation gave much thought to compatibility.
          I think they were just relieved the awful War was over, & had at least a friend to face the challenges with.
          My mother had lost all her family during the war.

        1. “I know two things about the horse
          And one of them is rather coarse.”

          [Naomi Royde-Smith]

  72. Apologies if I’ve posted this BTL comment before:

    ”
    SafeAndEffective
    1 hour ago
    Once you see it. Once you really see it, you realise that everything you thought you knew was a lie. You can barely communicate with your friends or family because they are still in it. You become angry, then you realise that you cannot convince everyone that everything they know is a lie. So you know, and you stop trying to convince them.

    1. No – what you think is entirely up to you. If that conflicts with the real world then you’re defying reality, but it is still your right to think it.

      The problems come when one person uses authority to demand that you are made to think the same as they do.

      The looming damage heading for us is catastrophic. We keep striving and becoming ever more efficient and the state keeps fighting us with lumpen new taxes. By now it’s deliberate. Folk can choose not to see it, to say ‘don’t be silly’ but it’s already happening.

  73. So it looks like Welby is on his way out

    I was just thinking how about offering the job to Kate Forbes

    2. I find it a bit sad that the very things that people turn to religion for: stability, structure, tradition – Welby has set about destroying all of that in the urge to be ‘relevant’.

  76. “Spain to send six Leopard tanks to Ukraine”

    What’s the betting the Ruskies knock the spots off them….

    1. As the president of Croatia remarked with regards to tanks to Ukraine, “They all burn the same”.

  77. Tattoos have become a surprise hit with midlifers like me – here’s why
    Inkings in your 40s or 50s aren’t a sign of a crisis – I describe it as midlife expression
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/body/dont-judge-tattoos-signs-full-life/

    Anyone here like tattoos? I must say I agree with Percival – they are not my scene at all.

    BTL (Wrattstrangler)

    Tattoos are grubby Body Graffiti.

    And just as graffiti appears in down-market places so tattoos appear on down-market people with down-market bodies. “Common as dirt,” as my old mother used to say.

  79. Headline in the DT:

    “Lego releases new figures with Down’s syndrome and missing limbs”

    For pity’s sake, someone please save us from this madness!

  80. Headline in the DT:

    “Lego releases new figures with Down’s syndrome and missing limbs”

    For pity’s sake, someone please save us from this madness!

  81. What’s the betting that behind almost every supermarket in the UK there is fresh fruit and vegetables being chucked into skips?
    What’s the betting that there are huge amounts of vegetables rotting in fields, which could have been harvested by gimmegrants?
    What’s the betting that there are no shortages of fresh fruit and vegetables for our hotel accommodated gimmegrants?

    2. There were no tomatoes in Sainsbury’s today but plenty of fruit, cukes, and other veg. There were no signs up about limits to what one could purchase. I bought a bag of carrots, some tenderstem broc and a bag of tangerines.
      I suspect all this is deliberate in another attempt to cow us all into submission.

        1. Right now for obvious reasons, I am the shopper. We would notice as we like our fresh veg and love tomatoes, especially plum toms.
          How much of it, also, is poor planning and ordering by those in management in these stores?

      2. There’s been a shortage of cauliflowers for a while. I don’t know whether the weather & lack of rain has made a difference?

        1. Sainsbury’s had a lot of caulis but we aren’t keen on it. There were cabbages too but only a handful of Brussels .

          1. No tomatoes in M&S but there seemed to be everything else in the fruit and veg department, bearing in mind it was the end of the afternoon. No tomatoes in Waitrose, either.

          3. Our neighbour who gave us all the lovely tomatoes last summer told us people used to hide when they saw him coming. I suspect that this summer they will be waiting outside his door!!

        2. I think these shortages happen fairly often – when we had a cold spell a couple of years ago, everything fresh became terribly expensive for about two weeks.

        3. True story. I once tried growing cauliflowers from seed. Just before going on a two week holiday the heads were the size of tennis balls. When I returned fro holiday one had grown to such a size I could barely put my arms around it. I donated it to a neighbour’s son – a vegetarian.

      5. An American friend was a fanatical vegan or ‘vegetarian’ back in the seventies when there were a mere handful of vegetarian restaurants in London, two of those in Covent Garden, one near the British Museum called ‘Oodles’, one in Soho ‘Kranks’ and another in Highgate.

        He would interrogate the waiters as to whether the cheese soup contained rennet and almost died owing to a lack of Vitamins B6 and B12.

  82. Speccie cartoonists have woken up.
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/len_180223_1_sg.jpg
    ‘How ridiculous – now they’re saying our appliances might be spying on us.’
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/15_18.02.23_AJ_Singleton.jpg
    ‘Whose round is it?’
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/17_18.02.23_RGJ.jpg
    ‘We must remain ever vigilant for Chinese spy balloons.’
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/23_18.02.23_Kipper_Williams.jpg
    ‘Can I get that book about modern English usage?’
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/53_18.02.23_RGJ.jpg
    So we’re agreed, it’s finally time to address the problem of coastal erosion.’

  83. Here we go again, ban something that gives relief to millions, on the very rare off chance that someone might be harmed.

    Sudafed, Nurofen and Day & Night Nurse could be BANNED or become prescription-only as officials launch probe into rare yet deadly brain side effects linked to decongestant taken by millions

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11780431/Sudafed-BANNED-prescription-Urgent-probe-rare-deadly-effect.html

    The bastards in charge are very happy to inject the whole population with something that is even more likely to give deadly side effects.

    1. PS, anybody willing to bet that this hasn’t suddenly come to light since the mass vaccinations as a smokescreen for the harm the vaccinations are doing?

    5. Mike Yeadon has stated that the Covid jabs are”toxic by design”.

      I suggest the PTB are trying to ascribe the tragic increase in death and injury in the vaccinated to other commonly used remedies and as we have already seen a lot of other jumped up nonsense propaganda.

      I feel sympathy for those persuaded to take the jabs. Most citizens would never have contemplated the thought that their government and health agencies actually intended harm by poisoning them.

      It is as well to remember that these ruling elite bastards do not care about us. They care only about themselves and their own personal financial investments and bank balances. None of them are to be trusted, they are consummate dissemblers and barefaced liars.

  84. That’s me for today – a very dreary, drizzly day – and decidedly chillier than of recent. And I shall be away tomorrow risking a day trip up Lunnon.

    So – enjoy your evening and tomorrow.

    A vendredi – peut-être.

      1. A main course of Clintons would make terrific alligator food. We could also first serve them an hors d’œuvre of finely-chopped Blairs.

    2. Bill Clinton’s special advisor Mark Middleton, who signed Jeffrey Epstein into the White House several times, killed himself in May 2022
      According to the police report, Middleton was found with a gunshot wound to his chest and an extension cord tied around his neck and attached to a tree
      His body and car were found at the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11759771/Mystery-Bill-Clinton-advisor-dead-gunshot-wound-no-gun.html

      1. How stupid…that advice. How they dress won’t make an iota of difference.
        It’s the mentality & the mind set that needs addressing.

        1. If they dress differently and start covering up, the next girl to be attacked will be told that she shouldn’t have been out without a father or a brother escorting her.

          1. Step by step the state destroys our culture and society.

            Of course – where are the feminists? Where are those modern Lefty activists who scream about women’s rights? Ah, their cognitive dissonance – doublethink – is fighting desperately with the frantic support for muslim gimmigrants.

            The Left are pathetic wasters.

  88. 361464+ up ticks,

    When that spreads to England there will have to be a massive, massive prison building program or point of fact be better to, every thirty yards have an inward facing watch tower around the coastal outline of GB.

    Irish Government Discusses Giving Migrants Special Protection Under Hate Speech Law
    Five Years in Prison if Convicted?

      2. Happy Birthday Grizzly! I didn’t realise it was also your birthday today. I hope you have enjoyed your day and the night is yet young!🥂🍾🎉🎉🎉🍰😘

        1. Thanks, Mum. I am only 24 for the third time now! and I only feel it when I try to get up! 🤣 I’ve had a lovely day, went out for a tasty meal at a local restaurant but was glad to get back home and out of a biting wind. Relaxing now with a nice single malt. 😘

    4. Reader, I married him perverted to ‘Reader, I began a limited time trial relationship until I was happy and felt safe.’

      They’re evil.

  91. If Islamic State and the Savages, that well known pox group, had won in Syria does anyone honestly think the groupie would have returned?

  94. GB NEWS Farage tonight well worth watching. For 45 minutes NF took a back seat and we saw Liam Halligan interviewing Suella Braverman in her HoC office.
    Illegal immigration and Northern Ireland protocol discussed. I thought our Home Secretary would have made a better PM than our present one. Worth a watch.

    1. But she still hasn’t done a thing about all the illegals coming in on the rubber boats.

      1. Her hands are tied, legally. She does know that…she was Attorney General.
        That’s why she’s been on about leaving ECHR..but Sunak won’t let her.

  95. Amazing clear sky tonight! Venus low down in the west, then a bright crescent moon topped by a very bright Jupiter! Orion is so clear I can see his bow with my naked eye, and Castor and Pollux are shining!

    2. Thanks, Sue. On my way back from the Ash Wednesday service earlier this evening, I was wondering what those two very bright stars were above and below the moon; now I know! Absolutely wonderful sight.

      2. Yep; too many options.

        Wordle 613 X/6
        ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
        ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
        ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
        ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
        ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
        ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. I got a par 4 but I was headed down a similar path.

          Wordle 613 4/6

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

    3. It was a bastard to be blunt.

      Wordle 613 X/6

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

  98. Whoops there goes another Mullah!

    “The Iraqi central bank announced Wednesday that, for the first time, it plans to allow trade from China to be settled directly in yuan instead of the US dollar to improve access to foreign currency.

    “It is the first time imports would be financed from China in yuan, as Iraqi imports from China have been financed in (US) dollars only,” the government’s economic adviser, Mudhir Salih, told Reuters”.

    1. Buying Yuan is a huge step toward erasing American power. Biden won’t understand – he’s asleep at the wheel.

      1. This is all in the plan – it was part of that notorious “You will own nothing and you will be happy” presentation from the WEF.
        One of the slides was that the dollar wouldn’t have overriding reserve currency status. They seem to be going for a group of reserve currencies instead.
        It does actually make sense – the fiat petro-dollar was an unstable idea that was doomed from the start. I think they started planning for its demise the moment they had set it up. A lot of technocracy groups were founded in the early 70s.
        It is astonishing that it had such a long run as it did, especially after it died in 2008, was resurrected, died again in 2019 and was brutally resurrected for a second time by putting the world economy into a coma and pumping printed fiat money directly to companies.

  99. Whoops there goes another Mullah!

    “The Iraqi central bank announced Wednesday that, for the first time, it plans to allow trade from China to be settled directly in yuan instead of the US dollar to improve access to foreign currency.

    “It is the first time imports would be financed from China in yuan, as Iraqi imports from China have been financed in (US) dollars only,” the government’s economic adviser, Mudhir Salih, told Reuters”.

  100. A bit of tidying up done up the “Garden” and them began resetting the kerbstone steps I’m trying to get at a reasonable angle to get up to the higher level of the hillside.

    Now about to get away to bed.
    Good night all.

    1. Night Bob, I imagine the hillside is now covered in sharpened, fire hardened stakes now. The clearing up to make room for the moat or the keep?

        1. Rather a good idea. The last bastion of sanity.

          Sometimes I wonder what the hell happened. When did my normally tolerant, decent self start referring to people as vermin? I’ve worked with all sorts. I have 2 Indian lasses on my team. Yet I don’t think of them as Indian. I barely think of them as women. They’re just professionals who do a damned good job.

          1. Wibbs, I never, ever used to be racist but what is going on these days has tended to make me somewhat racist. Not totally because I know and have known many super people who are black, Indian & etc.
            I think what I have become is completely anti- government. I do not trust any of the swine.

          3. Dear boy, I believe I have told you this before….you will be lucky to get a 5 bob postal order on this site. £5- Bill has probably fainted.

          7. All this race relations crap over the past 40+ years has turned me from a tolerant man into an intolerant one because government cannot legislate me into liking a person or people I intensely dislike.

          8. If I could have fast-forwarded my life 15 years ago, I would have been appalled at some of my attitudes now.

    2. Reminds me of our home we had in the West Riding. When we were sitting at the top of our back garden we looked down on our roof.

  101. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/22/food-rationing-returns-green-blob-clearly-wants-britain-starve/

    It’s an old drum of mine but the reason why the state is doing nothing is obvious: It is desperate to rechain us to the hated EU. It doesn’t want a UK farming policy. it doesn’t want to just let farmers do what they want. It wants the CAP and CFP. It is desperately doing absolutely nothing, hanging farmers out to dry with the sole, singular intention of saying ‘it’ll be over soon and we can get back to normal – back in the EU.’

    It’s disgusting. The hubris, the arrogance, the spite, the bitterness, the intentional, wilful refusal to accept the democratic vote. I’m sick of them. Take every 3rd civil servant outside and sack them. Then if the rest keep fighting, do the same again.

    1. I keep hearing the word progressive uttered by those who would change the world into a marxist nirvana. Its one of those words that should mean changes in society are for the better, but what it actually means is that we have taken one more step down into the mayhem of the woke world. Progressive, listen out for it…

      1. Isn’t the opposite ‘regression’ or ‘regressive’ which is very much the current state of The State?

    2. wibbling, farming is being attacked in EU countries – Netherlands, Belgium and Germany being examples. Outdoor food production is being scaled down across Europe as far as I can see.

  103. ‘Night All

    Nicked

    There is no majority for large scale immigration
    There is no majority for illegal immigration
    There is no majority for self identification Trans
    There is no majority for drag Queens reading to children
    There is no majority for 15 minute cities
    There is no majority for Smart Motorways
    There is no majority for Net Zero
    No majority for Critical Race Theory
    No majority for Defence cuts
    No majority Plod going easy on XR
    No majority for Digital ID
    No majority for Digital currency
    No majority for Heat Pumps
    No majority for Electric cars
    No majority for cycle lanes
    No majority for anti white discrimination in recruitment

    I could just go on and on! You would have to be terminally stupid to
    believe that we live in a democracy where government acts to express the
    will of the people. We live in a tyranny imposed by Globalist stooges!
    And the really sad thing is our culture has sunk so low that only a
    minority care about it?

    1. And probably no majority for sad dick kahnt keeping the ‘destruction of our capital city’ job.
      But I do feel that there could be a majority for log burners.

    2. The new generation has been brought up in the post democratic age. They have known nothing else and realise they can do nothing to change matters. Unfortunately, neither can we, who realise what has been taken from us. We are truly stuffed.

      1. I’m afraid you are right. This was a theme at a peace march that I was on recently – “Why are there so few young people here?”
        I advanced the same theory as you.
        It’s also partly to do with numbers. The boomer generation has always wielded a lot of power due to sheer numbers. Gen Z is small.

    3. I do my best at the pub to put these things to be considered. Not many arguments are returned.

  104. After watching a program on TV called the piano. It cheered me up no end.
    Watch it on playback Nottlers, it’s wonderful.
    Good night all.

      1. No a TV programme about a piano at Leeds railway station.
        And these wonderful people who are amateurs turning up to play. Many self taught.

  105. Evening, all. Happy Ash Wednesday. Forty days of penitence and self-denial lie ahead. Now is the moment to have nothing to do with the Ukraine.

  106. Loud chuckle…..veg shortage- all those thumps you can hear are vegans hitting the floor. Let them eat meat.

  109. Goodnight (or maybe Good morning) and God bless, Gentlefolk, even though I cannot sleep (again).

  110. Morning all from Kenya! Great start to my trip. Now moving to the next stage. Hope all’s well with you all.

    1. …and we all hope that it continues to go well with you.

      Keep us posted and keep a diary – it could be a best-seller.

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