Wednesday 23 April: The compassion and humility of Pope Francis won him admirers from all the world’s faiths

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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839 thoughts on “Wednesday 23 April: The compassion and humility of Pope Francis won him admirers from all the world’s faiths”

    1. On my national saint's day, I must not make tasteless remarks.
      Thank you, Blower. You know darn well what everyone thinks.

  3. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. And I didn't make Wordle in 6 today. But once I reached step 6 the correct answer became obvious.

    Wordle 1,404 X/6

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

  6. The compassion and humility of Pope Francis won him admirers from all the world’s faiths

    I expect that some faiths look upon compassion and humility as an anathema, a sign of weakness and a sign that western culture was collapsing, resulting in a good opportunity to supersede us.

  7. Jenrick Slams Mahmood Over Judicial Impartiality

    Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick isn’t resting on his laurels following his victory in getting the Home Office to publish migrant crime data. In the Commons this afternoon he grilled Shabana Mahmood over judicial impartiality. Jenrick highlighted the case of Greg Ó Ceallaigh KC, a serving immigration judge, who allegedly declared the Tories “need to be dealt with as you would deal with the Nazis, cancer or lava.” Jenrick asked if Mahmood thought such comments were compatible with impartiality from the bench. Her response was a shrug and a dodge:

    “There is a well placed mechanism for making a complaint to the judicial complaints office. If he wishes to make a complaint he can do so. What I’m not going to do is indulge in personal effectively doxing of judges. Not when judges are simply doing their job of applying the law.”

    Jenrick went on to slam the judicial appointments commission:

    April 22 2025 @ 16:56

    Never Rains
    11h
    He is absolutely bang on the money but why are we now hearing this when action should have been taken whilst the cons were in power.
    The truth is the cons did nothing and deserve to be annihalated at the ballot box.

    Massey Ferguson
    11h
    I must admit he is saying all the right things from the opposition benches , but his problem is that people remember what he did when in govt, which was bvgger all.

    Sir Jimmy Savile OBE
    9h
    The judge in question is from Dublin. Is he even a British citizen? Speaking as someone from an Irish family, a lot of the far left in Britain hail from there and are motivated by hating us.

    1. My Welsh father was born on this day in 1921. He was never shy about being born on England's Saint George's Day. He had a wonderful singing voice, amazing that such a slight body produced so much sound. Me, I can't hit a note 😒 and I'm certainly not slight in build.

  15. Catholic Church is already turning against Francis’s agenda

    The late Pope famously adopted a more liberal stance, but there’s growing support for a successor with a traditional conservative approach

    Catherine Pepinster
    22 April 2025 3:09pm BST

    If the cardinals charged with electing the next pope need any reminder of what a responsibility lies on their shoulders, then they will find it in the Sistine Chapel, the place of papal elections, also known as conclaves, for hundreds of years. As each swears on the Gospels to never reveal the secrets of the election, they stand beneath Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.

    It is also a moment when the cardinals call on the saints to pray for them and to the Holy Spirit to guide them. But in the run-up to the conclave, the cardinals have more earthly concerns too. There has been chatter for months in Rome – long before Pope Francis passed on Easter Monday at the age of 88 – about who is “papabile” and who has got what it takes to be pope.

    And this time, the questions asked will be much more than whether someone is papabile because he seems a holy man. For the cardinals, and indeed the entire Catholic Church, will be asking: do we want to continue along the path chosen by Francis, or do we want to change direction?

    Many millions of Catholics loved Pope Francis from the moment he stepped onto the balcony of St Peter’s after his election in 2013. They liked his chatty manner, rather like a parish priest, his talk of mercy, the way he lived simply, rejecting the pomp of the papal office. But in the 12 years that followed, there were rumblings of dissent from some quarters. The constant references to climate change, the finger wagging at politicians over their efforts to cope with the seemingly endless procession of migrants making their way across Europe and the United States, the efforts at friendly relations with China’s Communist regime: why, some asked, has the Pope dabbled in politics rather than focus on the stuff of people’s souls? Don’t we need more attention given to prayer and less to net zero?

    There were other dramas too, like the time when Francis gathered people from the Amazon in Rome for a Synod about the region. Some brought with them the statue of Pachamama, a pregnant indigenous woman which they placed in a church, as if she were as worthy of reverence as the Virgin Mary. Outraged Catholics threw it into the Tiber river. Or the tickings off he delivered to senior Vatican prelates, known as the Curia, particularly in his early years as pontiff, when he accused them of gossiping, being power mad and suffering from “spiritual Alzheimer’s”.

    Among Francis’s most famous comments was his much-quoted line when he was asked about gay people: “Who am I to judge?” But now, in the run-up to the next conclave, support is already growing in some circles for the election of a conservative cardinal such as Robert Sarah, from Guinea, who has strongly criticised gender ideology and denounced Islamic radicalism.

    Among those critiquing Francis’s approach is Edward Pentin, author of The Next Pope and creator of the online College of Cardinals Report, which has become go-to reading for those wanting to know who is indeed papabile.

    “People want clarity, they want to get back to the salvation of souls,” he says. “They feel the Church needs to be back on an even keel with sound doctrine.” So is there a new pope waiting in the wings who can do just that?

    The list of candidates is not long. Both Sarah and the American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke were given their red hats by Francis’s more conservative predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI; both want a return to much more traditional rules on sex and marriage and both publicly clashed with Francis.

    But whether they can muster enough support among the voting members of the College of Cardinals is a moot point. Of the 138 under the age of 80 and so eligible to vote, 110 – a whopping 80 per cent – were appointed by Francis himself. These clerics, he felt, shared his vision of Catholicism.

    Liberals might find an African pope appealing, but Sarah’s particularly strong views – the same views earning him a groundswell of support on social media this week – may be problematic, as could his advocacy of the traditional Latin Mass, which Pope Francis suppressed. In an interview with The Tablet in 2019, Sarah said: “Gender ideology is a Luciferian refusal to receive a sexual nature from God. Thus, some rebel against God and pointlessly mutilate themselves in order to change their sex. But in reality, they do not fundamentally change anything about their structure as a man or a woman. The West refuses to receive, and will accept only what it constructs for itself.”

    In a separate interview, footage of which has been circulating on social media in the wake of Francis’s death, Sarah said his foremost concern about the current state of affairs in the West was that “Europe doesn’t want or has lost the sense of its roots” – a sentiment that was also voiced by Benedict. “A tree without roots dies. I’m afraid the West is dying,” Sarah said.

    If he were to win, then his vociferous supporters among the Catholic traditionalists might well see the hand of the Holy Spirit at work: Sarah is just weeks away from his 80th birthday, the cut-off point for being a voting cardinal, and if Francis had lasted just a little longer, Sarah would not form part of the band of red-hatted brothers entering the Sistine Chapel to vote. For all the talk online, it seems unlikely that a College of Cardinals made in the image of Pope Francis will make him their pick.

    Liberals might prefer his fellow African, Peter Turkson of Ghana, although he too has little time for diluting traditional teaching on sex. But he has signed up to the Francis project on the importance of climate change. Or they might opt for Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa, a Franciscan friar and peacemaker. But he has also spoken out against Francis’s advocacy of blessings for same-sex couples.

    According to Joseph Shaw, of the Latin Mass Society, it is climate change that has been a major sticking point for some Catholics about Pope Francis. “It is not unreasonable for a pope to talk about the stewardship of the Earth, but there was little actually concrete about what we should do. It was descriptive,” he says.

    For Shaw, whose organisation focuses on the Catholic Mass being said in the Old, or Tridentine Rite – something which Francis was opposed to and banned – such a strong focus on climate change caused upset and division.

    According to Shaw: “It is impossible for a pope to hold the entire Church together because today Catholics have very divergent ideas – unless you think that the role of the pope is to preach the Gospel.”

    Yet the British theologian and Jesuit priest Dr James Hanvey, who is based in Rome, believes that Pope Francis has managed to do exactly that, marrying tradition and contemporary concerns, of which climate is one. “So many of his writings as pope begin with joy – the joy of the Gospel, the joy of evangelising. That has been his message.”

    To Hanvey, the Pope’s focus on climate change is not about politics but is part of the theology of the Catholic Church.

    “He stands fair and square in the tradition of Catholic social teaching,” he says, “and so when he writes about the environment, he is writing about our way of life. He is developing a spirituality of creation.”

    For Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham and one of the most senior clerics in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the leitmotifs of Francis’s papacy were joy, hope and mercy, especially mercy. “He has captured people’s hearts and imaginations with his focus on mercy and the love of God.”

    But he recognises that Francis brought about so many reforms to the Church that it is time for Catholics to have some breathing space “to absorb the changes”.

    “The pace may be different. Undoubtedly, the next pope will look more at spiritual matters,” he says. He also recognises that some Catholics were uncomfortable with Pope Francis’s thinking.

    “They want a sense of someone understanding and listening to them”, he says. “But there are always people who feel marginalised.”

    Another of this country’s senior bishops, Archbishop Mark O’Toole of Cardiff, believes that the cardinals, knowing that two-thirds of Catholics live in the global south, will pick a new pope who will focus on what those Catholics want.

    “They want a Catholicism that is robust and can stand up for itself. And you do hear people who say they want a pope who spends less time on climate change and more on redemption.”

    But O’Toole says Pope Francis did communicate his own faith strongly: “His theology was very rich, about community, with the Church as a community of communities, not an institution.”

    Hanvey, himself a Jesuit like Pope Francis, says that he can see a direct link between the way the pontiff has run the Church and the thinking of the Jesuits, an elite, intellectual order of priests and brothers, traditionally involved in education, and in social activism in recent times. “He helped make the Church more conscious of discernment, and discerning what God wants of you – seeing God as an active God – is Jesuit thinking.”

    But another theologian, who prefers not to be named as a critic of the Pope at such a febrile time, says that it was the Pope’s Argentinian roots that most influenced the papacy. For Francis grew up steeped in the ideology of General Juan Perón, the post-war ruler of Argentina, who combined the force of trade unions, the might of the military and the moral authority of Catholicism, sometimes to the extent of suppressing its enemies.

    “Whoever is the next pope almost certainly won’t be a Peronist,” the theologian says, while another commentator thinks that Peronist approach emerged in Francis’s ruthlessness towards those who disagreed with him. “It made people cautious”, he says. “People were nervous of having a different point of view.”

    Some criticism surrounding Francis comes from an entirely different perspective – that he was not radical enough. Prof Tina Beattie, a leading feminist theologian, says many women are frustrated that there was barely any change in the status of women in the church; other than a few appointments to Vatican roles, there was hardly any progress on women deacons and a complete ruling out of women priests: “There was a failure to reflect more deeply on women’s roles. This was a reforming pope, yet on women he was inconsistent.”

    Even if the conclave opts for another reformer, it is highly unlikely that there will be an appetite for another Jesuit or another South American. “Rome’s had enough of those for a very long time,” says a former Vatican official. “What the Italians want, after the Polish John Paul II, and the German Benedict XVI and the Argentinian Pope Francis, is for the Italians to get the papacy back.”

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

    We are a very Catholic church

    Mark Hammond
    14 hrs ago
    No more Woke popes please. We need someone, anyone, prepared to stand up for Christians and Christian values. No more pandering to Islam and its useful idiots on the left. No more open borders grandstanding. No more Net Zero lies.

    2. "There were other dramas too, like the time when Francis gathered people from the Amazon in Rome for a Synod about the region."
      Was he trying to get free deliveries without paying for Prime?

    3. Bring back the Tridentine Mass! Universal (catholic in its original sense). Everyone across the world sharing in the same rite.

    1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/04/22/TELEMMGLPICT000421151170_17453572093430_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqDQVK81QMLSkr-IuGRMUJHP4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=960 The PM speaks to Gary Lineker at the Downing Street celebration

      Richard Edwards
      6 hrs ago
      The gall of starmer standing with the England flag after trying to destroy our country and the Anglo Saxons.
      He knows how bad May 1st elections are going to be for him.
      I cannot wait to vote Reform

      Malcolm Tucker
      7 hrs ago
      The people sowing division in our communities are Starmer, Reeves, Phillipson, Miliband and Lammy. They don't love Britain, they hate it and they hate the people who made Britain.

      Kate Robertson
      6 hrs ago
      Reply to Malcolm Tucker
      Is it just me I can see Sir Gary Patron Saint of Migrants there

      2. The areas guaranteed to give Stoma and Co. a thorough kicking are not holding elections. They've been "postponed" under the guise of setting up unitary authorities.

    2. He should be arrested for a 'hate crime' for displaying all those offensive and racist English flags.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

      1. So cynical. Downing Street spent all of £2.99 on that string of flags.
        They should have gone to Poundland; but then it's only taxpayers' money.

    5. I suggested to a friend that the flags represented one for each English person gaoled for a hurty tweet.
      He replied that the wall would be covered in flags.

  18. On the 21st of April 1964 a coach carrying a couple of teachers and a couple of dozen school pals including myself left Derby to watch a performance of JULIUS CAESAR at the De Montford Hall in Leicester some considerable distance away. Returning after the performance on the coach back to Derby, as the clock struck midnight my chums and I all burst out singing "Happy Birthday dear Shakespeare, Happy Birthday to you".

    1. On 23rd April 1964 we were treated to a Shakespeare day at school which included a showing of Olivier's film of Hamlet.

  19. SIR – Buying avocado pears in the 1970s could be a tricky matter. When I asked in a Bracknell greengrocers if they had any available, I was told not, but was offered Williams pears as an alternative.

    Alyson Persson
    Henfield, West Sussex

    I think part of the problem was the silly habit of calling them avocado pears. They might have a shape that resembles a pear but they are not remotely related.

    Also in the 1970s I once bought a green pepper from a greengrocery section of a small supermarket in Staveley, Derbyshire. The girl on the checkout picked it up, examined it with a puzzled expression, then asked me, "What is it?" I told her, "It's a green pepper."

    She then asked me, "What do you do with it?" I smiled and said, "You may do whatever the heck you want to with it, but personally … I eat it!"

  22. Henry Flower
    11h
    "Imagine being such a coward you can only muster the courage to tell the truth once the Supreme Court has ruled on what the truth is."
    J.K Rowling on Starmer.

    1. A more succinct point than the one I made several hours later. I had little doubt that others would be thinking likewise but I was unaware of J.K. Rowling's contribution.

  24. Waltzes in to say another scented spring day .
    Good morning.

    4. Do people with fur on their faces have a tendacy to fur cough?
      Well this one should.
      I think Spain had enough of them the first time round. It took 300 years to get rid of them. Well almost……

  26. Good morning, all and a very Happy St George's Day (I expect even thinking that is a hate crime).

    Grey, sunless start to the day.

  28. 'Morning All
    Midweek Medley
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      1. 404595+ up ticks,

        Morning JN,
        I do beg to differ somewhat, WE the electorate Started going crook some four decades ago, then continued in the same tribal voting fashion up and inclusive of 2019

        Losing ones mind at 90K + expenses is a position much sought after I would think.

        1. The politicians saying one thing and doing another. and few were bothered. I left the Tory party when a saw what Cameron was.

        2. We can only vote for those who put themselves up as candidates.
          Even if 100% of the electorate sat on its hands, the same people would still be in power.

          1. 404595+ up ticks,

            Morning Anne,

            Not good enough, seek among the outfield independence get one white patriotic person/s as in Englishmen with long term English roots established over many a year then follow en masse, eliminate ALL 650 current MPs with zero back up, otherwise long term anarchy will eventually set in.

      2. Ironically, if, to follow the trend, the Papists choose a black pope, he is rather a fire and brimstone chap.

        1. There are more than a thousand religions out there. Not one of them interest me in the least.

  32. SIR – Upon the passing of our Pope, I — and, I’m sure, many other Catholics — hope and pray that the time has arrived for us to ordain married and women priests.

    Nicky Samengo-Turner
    Lambourn, Berkshire.

    Passing? PASSING? What has he passed? Water? Wind? Has he overtaken a large Norbert Dentressangle pantechnicon in the fast lane?

    He is dead! Resting! Stone dead! Stunned! Deceased! Tired! Shagged out! Demised! Passed ON! No more! Ceased to be! Expired! Gone to meet his maker! Stiff! Bereft of life! Rests in peace! Pushin' up the daisies! His metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! Kicked the bucket! Shuffled off this mortal coil! Run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible!

    He is an ex-Pope!

    1. Good morning, Grizzly. I thought we'd lost him, but I checked in the fridge and he wasn't there. Incidentally, have you forgotten to change your avatar today?

    4. Hi Grizzly ,

      Hang on a moment , what are you talking about , getting your y fronts in a twist about the expression passing , yet you had no explosive comment to make about the ordination of women priests ?

      1. Good morning, Maggie.

        I thought you knew that I don't do religion; so whatever sex, colour or species priests are does not ever waste a single second of my thought processes. I know they exist, but they do not inhabit my world.

    5. a large Norbert Dentressangle pantechnicon in the fast lane

      Brought back many happy memories of motoring in France. ND's red trucks were everywhere. No longer, it seems, as the company has been sold.

  33. I see China's CATL battery maker just made all-round clever clogs Tony Seba of Stanford University prediction of the extinction of the ICE car.. five years closer.

    CATL unveiled its sodium-ion batteries.. an inexpensive fast-charging battery charging system that adds 320 miles of range in five minutes..
    ..with huge implications for solar power technology.

    Fun fact: Sodium-ion battery was discovered in 1807 by an English chemist and inventor Sir Humphry Davy.

    1. Morning all. A Clerihew:

      Sir Humphrey Davy
      Abominated gravy
      He lived in the odium
      Of having discovered sodium.

  34. Happy St Georges Day, I might like to join a crusade against evil
    but first I will make a cup of tea and say hello to the birds pecking the outside of my windowsil .

    1. And there were plenty more before him. They have ruined our once reasonably safe civilised country and they stink.

    2. Every time I see his face I feel a great anger. A bare faced liar now the prime minister of my country. It can only end badly.

  36. I might like to join a crusade against evil.

    If you are on this blog you are already doing so.

  37. Good morning, all. Wet.

    Badenoch made a reasonable fist of her speech on the female gender issue. On a personal level it appears that she had been on the side of common sense and biology but the wretched party she supported was not. The reason the Tory's denied "the science" on the woman issue was due to the agenda that that party et al. had signed up to. Most, if not all, of our current ills (especially mass immigration from the 3rd world) derive from this globalist designed and led agenda, and the weak politicians who were somehow convinced to follow it.

    What will stop the Tory recidivists from backtracking, on this or any other agenda driven issue they now deny, should they ever get back into power?

    https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1914743321605374434

  38. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Good morning 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
    Cold, dark and damp here. Bergoglio is being displayed in an open coffin. Not nice as there are blood marks on his face. John O’Looney has explained on X that no, it isn’t the mark of the devil. It’s something that commonly happens when a corpse isn’t handled well.

      1. That particular line of evolution died out. Frankly, we get the electorate the state wants, then that gets us the political class to suit the electorate.

  40. Good morning all, a cloudy start after some heavy overnight rain with a tad under 10°C on the thermometer.
    And oh bugger. Just had to clean up after dropping and smashing a bottle of milk.

    1. Morning Bob, I haven't held or seen a glass bottle of milk for years ..

      Amazing to remember 25 years ago I used to order 4 pints a day , and the Blue tits had a whale of a time .

      Just a thought what and why did Blue tits enjoy the cream from the top of milk bottles , and how do they cope now that milk bottles are no longer delivered?

        1. Tuesday and Friday for us.
          It's a bit more expensive, but it means you don't nip to the shop for a pinta and come back with maple twists, bargain loo rolls and bogoff cans of dog food. Oh, and a couple of plants if MB is with me.

      3. Our next door neighbours still have their milk delivered to the door step in bottles. Often heard around 4 am.

      4. We have a milk delivery twice a week.
        In these days of universal refrigeration, it's a sensible use of the milk man's time.

  41. The amazing colourful uniforms of the Vatican guards , incredible design and patterns , and the carrying of the pikestaffs .. and their helmets .. would those helmets be the same as St Georges, as seen in old paintings?

    1. The uniform of the Vatican guards was designed by Michelangelo. He wasn’t much of a fashion designer but who would dare scrap the work of the greatest draughtsman that ever lived?

        1. Leonardo was somewhat unfulfilled. He left very little finished work, at least partly due to his intellectual curiosity. Forever distracted and moving on to new ideas. Hence the controversy over there being two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks. Would a man who rarely finished anything really cover the same subject twice? We'll never know.

        1. The term ‘passed away’ actually dares from the 15th century and may refer to passing through the veil of death. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it makes me want to vomit, but I much prefer to be explicit and say someone has died.

          1. It’s not ‘passed away’ that pisses me off, it’s the ‘passed’. There’s something about it that drives me mad. Next time someone in the pub says it, I’ll rush to a window and say, “Why didn’t they come in?”.

  42. The amount of time spent by Ministers, Parliament, Judicials, journalists, letter writers and readers on transexual matters must be an indication of where priorities lie. If only the same amount of intellectual energy was spent on the illegal immigration problem ….
    (Mind you, that makes an assumption about the intellect of those debating trans issues.)

    3. Ex-Nestlé CEO?

      He should be hanged for what Nestlé did to Rowntree and Mackintosh.

    5. Brabeck-Letmathe (credited as Peter Brabeck) appeared in the 2005 documentary We Feed the World and while speaking on the subject of water, he said "It's a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. And there are two different opinions on the matter. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That's an extreme solution. The other view says that water is a foodstuff like any other, and like any other foodstuff it should have a market value." He added, "Personally, I believe it's better to give a foodstuff a value so that we're all aware it has its price, and then that one should take specific measures for the part of the population that has no access to this water." Following controversy on social media about these remarks, he stated that he does believe that water for basic hygiene and drinking is indeed a human right. He went on to say that his remarks were intended to address overconsumption by some while others suffered from lack of water and further that his remarks were taken out of context by the documentary.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brabeck-Letmathe

      As with "there's no such thing as society", the context and meaning are obscured then lost in the endeavour to vilify a subject of hate.

      1. Agreed. IMHO it is an example of lost in translation. Peter Brabeck referred to the 'price' of water when it might have been wiser to have mentioned the 'cost'. His CV, business and personal, is interesting. Married a Chilean lady in 1970, they have three adult children and some grandchildren. He speaks Spanish at home, is wealthy enough to have retired and although aged 80, seems to be happy and keen to be of service.

      2. Yet… Israeli built desalination plants and Africa can't lay pipe without our help.

        There's a point where we can't actually help them any more. If they won't get off their backsides and so the work, then tough.

  49. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Morning all 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🙂😊
    Happy St George's day.
    Raining which is typical of an English day of celebration. But not cold.
    Oh well the day before tomorrow, I wonder what is in store for us.

  50. Photo later, but I've just put the flag up.
    A bit crude, cable tied to a length of galvanised hand rail, but it serves the purpose.
    And a Happy St. Georges Day to all.

  51. Of course, Christian politicians, from the socialist Keir Hardie, one of Labour’s co-founders, to the architects of New Labour, the Anglican-turned-Roman Catholic Tony Blair and the Presbyterian Gordon Brown, have made at least as strong a mark on politics as their Conservative counterparts.

    YET Hardie’s present-day successor and namesake, Sir Keir Starmer, is an atheist. He told The Sunday Times Magazine in 2021: “I am not of faith, I don’t believe in God — but I can see the power of faith and the way it brings people together.” Some Christians worry that this is a sign of a post-Christian society in which the undeniably secular world of Westminster is the vanguard.

    These fears are apparently borne out by Starmer’s enthusiasm for assisted dying. In December, he said that there were “grounds for changing the law” after the broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen announced, after a stage-four cancer diagnosis, that she had joined Dignitas and “might buzz off to Zurich” (News, 26 January).

    In one of his first significant acts as an MP in 2015, Sir Keir had voted to legalise an assisted-dying Bill, which was defeated in the House of Commons. Now, he wants MPs to vote with their consciences, again. A new biography of Sir Keir does not delve into faith matters (Books, 10 May), but its author, Tom Baldwin, a friend of the Labour leader, told the Church Times: “Although neither Keir nor his wife have religious belief, they sometimes attend synagogue in a nod to her Jewish background. He says it’s one of the ways he has learnt to respect people of faith in all its different forms.”

    1. My fear with assisted dying is that it may well become compulsory. After age 67, off to the clinic with you.

      2. Assisted dying is not being able to see a doctor for severe pain and other associated conditions .

        Me speaking now , because that is how I feel and have to wait until Friday , but he has been treating me supposedly for nearly ten years for a complaint that has worsened .

        I am scared stiff that it is all too late , I am now a a mess , physically and now mentally .

        2. Perhaps the previous diagnosis and treatment was not the right one. Don't let him fob you off.

        3. Oh, Belle! Don’t get despondent. It’s never too late – have you tried seeing another doctor?
          My Dr-ette is a lovely girl, but I feel she needs followed up. ChatGPT is easy to ask, because you can use conversational style writing, and I then excuse myself and mention that “Dr Google” suggests this or that, what does she think.
          And yes, it’s a pain for her, but at least it keeps my brain alive and makes me feel as if there’s some control. Maybe you could try it, to get some input to your Dr when you ever see him.
          My point is, Belle, don’t lose hope and be down. You are a key figure here on Nottl and are precious to us. You often set the tone for the day.

        4. Have you tried taking an antihistamine tablet? One of my friends has stomach problems set off by hay fever. He says antihistamine helps.

  52. I understand you don't do religion , because you have mentioned that many times ..however I assumed you would plough a bit of muscular energy into dissing the chicken merengo comment ( or whatever his name is )

    1. Why should I? I only "plough a bit of muscular energy" (I might adopt that description) into topics that I think worthwhile, but Religion and Politics do not control my mind.

      Any road, how do you know that the correspondent — Nicky — is male? I reckon she might well be a bird!

      AND, (for your information only) I do not wear Y-fronts (nor do I wear briefs, boxers or knickers). I wear trunks.😘

  53. Reform UK chief backs reparations for slavery

    Farage Ltd of The Conformist Party on key ishoos.
    Shamima Begum.
    Mass deportation.
    Tommy Robinson.
    Chairman Zia Yusuf.
    Expulsion of Rupert Lowe.
    and now Reparations?

    1. Is this true? Have you a link?

      Farage must be finished if this is really correct.

  54. Good Morning and Happy St.George's Day!

    With impeccable timing, Frederica reminds us that peasant's can and do revolt, and though it might take a long time, their revolts can achieve wonders. The Peasant's Revolt of 1381 began on St. George's Day, 1376, and the soty has twists all too familiar today, with lies, betrayals and tyranny. Read all about, and leave a comment.

    Michael Fahey gave posting on FSB for Lent, and watching the lying MSMN, and mentally and spiritually refreshed, he writes about it movingly and profoundly in his Reflections on Lent . We hope you’ll read it and share your thoughts.

    In I don’t want to be a plastic Yank Xandra H laments the loss of old British customs and traditions and the Americanisation of our society, Do you agree with her? Please read and leave a comment.

    Energy watch 08.00: Demand: 32.47 GW. Total UK Production: 28.08 GW from: Hydrocarbons 45.5%; Wind 11.6%; Imports 20%; Biomass 6.6%; Nuclear 10.1%. Solar: 3.5%.

  56. Thoughtless, selfish people. Why shouldn't they suffer along with the rest of us?

      2. When I read the link you provided it suggested (I paraphrase) that this only happened if the 23rd of April fell "within Easter week". But I thought that Easter week ended on Easter Sunday and that "Easter Monday" is little more than a Bank Holiday – see my various posts over recent days. So what exactly makes the Church think that Easter week ends on Sunday the 27th when they celebrate the end of Easter on Sunday the 20th (or Monday the 21st if you include the Bank Holiday). To coin a phrase "The World has gone mad"!

    1. 404595+ up ticks,

      Morning BT.

      leilani dowding 🌸🚜 ☮️
      @LeilaniDowding
      Islamists in Kashmir kill 27 Hindus.. we are “not allowed” to have any fear or concern about Islamists. Are we going to keep being cornered into pretending this is the religion of peace. The same thing has been happening to Christian’s in Nigeria and conveniently bushed over

        1. On the contrary, they bring rape, murder and denude the public purse of much needed cash and resources.

  62. Yo and Good Moaning all, from a warm and sunny C d S.

    The highlight of our social life, well it would be if we were Brummies, the Bin men have just bin.

    We are going to have to cut back on leccy usage: we used have 9 pence worth a day, for the last week

      2. The article says that Which? rated it as bottom in 2023, but has risen to 5th out of 120 in 2024. That's some progress in just 12 months!

      3. I read last week that Colchester is to have, or has received, £20 million for an upgrade. Good luck with that piddling amount. Making the pavements look respectable and safe to walk on would eat into that in no time.

          1. IIRC, Jumbo gets a mention and a few others I’ve forgotten about.

            Are you aware that the Head St bike lane is two way? Two way cycling in a one way motorised vehicle street. Genius!

            I almost fell foul of that back in February: on my way to my hairdresser’s salon I waited to cross and when the traffic stopped I put one foot forward and a cyclist shot past me from my right. I was expecting all traffic to be coming from my left and hadn’t noticed that some clown had allowed two way cycling on that lane.

    3. My bin was emptied this morning – the fifth time since the strike began. I guess we're lucky.

    1. Unlike the Church of "England" which has found some nit picking way of postponing the event.
      I wonder if it's as keen to postpone Gay Pride or St. Patrick's Day?

    1. "William the Conqueror took seven months to prepare his invasion force, using some 600 transport ships to carry around 7,000 men (including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) across the Channel.

      On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, William landed unopposed at Pevensey and, within a few days, raised fortifications at Hastings."

      Different numbers are given by different historians but it is clear that even by the highest estimate our current invaders are arriving at over three times that rate each year. When added to those already here some may think that we have just cause for alarm.

    1. Good morning, Auntie Elsie.

      Nah, no dramas, mate. I'm just a bush-livin' Ocker from the pub with no beer, Blue. She'll be right!

    2. Reminds me of the old song!

      Caviar comes from a virgin sturgeon
      Virgin surgeon's a very good fish
      No good sturgeon wants to be a virgin
      That's why caviar's a very rare dish

    3. I must admit, when I first saw the picture I thought it was Clare Balding – but I think she's from Lesbia so I had to be wrong……

    4. Is it now de rigueur for leaders of all political parties to have an utterly gruesome and emetic physog?

    5. I don't know what this is about? Who is this person and why is she of interest?

        1. I barely recognise her. She looks much older although the hair helmet is a trademark.

        2. Does she really workout or is this just a publicity pose? It's certainly before the workout because she has yet to work up a sweat. Sweaty Sturgeon? 😷

  72. 404595+ up ticks,

    These have been well known facts since before the assisted invasion began yet each governing party put its ALL behind the daily invasion force and electoral treacherous fool supported them triggering a murderous, paedophilic rape & abuse of children fess, the like of which these Isles have never witnessed before.
    These facts have been on view for decades and via Dover the rising crime numbers are added to ongoing on a daily basis.

    Robert Jenrick
    The facts are in: mass immigration has led to a rise in crime
    Coming to this country is a privilege, never a right. It should not be afforded to anyone likely to endanger our citizens

    1. Jenrick, you tosser. Why didn't you act when you and your lot was in government?

      1. 404595+ up ticks,

        BT,

        Oh but they did in a very odious treacherous manner via the wretch cameron & treacherous treaser.

      2. Why did any opposition party formerly in government — in my experience — never 'act' on the things they later routinely moan about? It has forever been the case and ever shall be.

  73. 404595+ up ticks,

    These have been well known facts since before the assisted invasion began yet each governing party put its ALL behind the daily invasion force and electoral treacherous fool supported them triggering a murderous, paedophilic rape & abuse of children fess, the like of which these Isles have never witnessed before.
    These facts have been on view for decades and via Dover the rising crime numbers are added to ongoing on a daily basis.

    Robert Jenrick
    The facts are in: mass immigration has led to a rise in crime
    Coming to this country is a privilege, never a right. It should not be afforded to anyone likely to endanger our citizens

  74. You may think that, I cannot possibly comment.

    I do believe that Mrs Macfarlane (of this parish) has inside information…

  75. Oh Yes!!! She always has every bit of inside, outside, upside, and downside information – I hang on her very word.

    1. Oh I say…do you really? How exciting!
      I haven’t been to Bridge of Allan recently, so I couldn’t say…but I probably will!

    2. Oh I say…do you really? How exciting!
      I haven’t been to Bridge of Allan recently, so I couldn’t say…but I probably will!

  77. Jenrick vows to unite Tories and Reform in leaked audio
    Shadow justice secretary says he is ‘not prepared’ for divisions on Right to let Sir Keir Starmer win second term in power
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/23/jenrick-vows-to-unite-tories-and-reform-in-leaked-audio/

    Either: all right of centre Conservatives move to Reform;

    or: the left wing members of the Conservative Party move to the Lib/Dems so that Reform can join proper Conservatives.

    The narcissist Farage is the main problem as he seems to be incapable of working with competent people around him as he sees them as a threat.

    1. Farage's performance of late has been really disappointing e.g. the ousting of strong characters Habib and Lowe, and his softening on the islamist problem. A recent Lotus Eaters' podcast lumped Reform in with the useless legacy parties. Any divide between Reform and the rest has evaporated on the main issue, mass immigration: the one out, one in idea really isn't an idea that will ease the problem of too many people on this small island.

      1. I am bothered that Farage isn't framing immigration as solely an economic argument. While it's about 'muslim' he will lose. The narrative of 'no immigration = racist' is insulting and tired. Making the argument about resource demands, population density and plain, factual economics undoes the Left's demand for more foreigners. We simply can't afford them. We can't keep taking them. We have to encourage people to leave and rebalance the economy.

        However I don't believe Farage can do that.

    2. I don't know if that's true, but Reform must be bigger than just Farage. They are not presenting policies – they clearly don't understand energy as the people I am talking to haven't said they're being spoken to.

  78. From Coffee House the Spectator

    19 Apr 2025
    Coffee House
    Gareth RobertsGareth Roberts
    Have I Got News for You is a sad, unfunny spectacle
    22 April 2025,

    Like most people, I haven’t tuned in to Have I Got News For You for years. But when I heard of a staggering omission in last Friday night’s edition, I just had to see it – or, rather, not see it – with my own eyes. The biggest news story of the week – the momentous ruling by the Supreme Court on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010 – was not covered at all, even obliquely. You’d think that the absurdity of the highest court in the land being called to adjudicate on one of the most basic facts of observable reality – that there are two sexes, and that the words man and woman mean, er, man and woman – would be a rich source of mirth, the kind of glorious nonsense that’s a satirist’s meat and drink. But no. Not a word. Zilch.

    There was also no mention of the new weekly record for small boat arrivals, which you’d think was pretty significant

    ‘We begin with the bigger stories of the week,’ said guest host Katherine Parkinson, as is traditional. These turned out to be steel nationalisation and the bin strike in Birmingham. We also heard about the Blue Origin ‘mission’, gambling on the election date, Liz Truss launching her own app. But the thing everybody was actually talking about? No. That just hung in the air like a vicar’s fart, with everybody pretending it hadn’t happened.

    There was also no mention of the new weekly record for small boat arrivals, which you’d think was pretty significant. But that is a similar hot potato, and it is just not done – not quite the correct thing – to raise such matters in polite society.

    The regular team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton were joined for this edition by journalist Jemima Kelly and comedian Julian Clary. The presence of Clary, a sadly rare sight on TV nowadays, added to the sensation that I was experiencing one of those spooky timeslips, the kind where people turn the corner by Sainsbury’s and run slap bang into Marie Antoinette.

    HIGNFY began 35 years ago, after all. Roll back another 35 years and you realise that its continued presence today would be like Muffin The Mule and Gilbert Harding still being on TV in 1990, with Eddie Calvert and Alma Coogan at the top of the charts. The sight of Hislop and Merton still there, still doing the same old jokes from the same old perspective, was disconcerting. It felt as if I’d walked back into my student union bar and found everybody I remembered from 1990 had been sat there ever since, Stone Roses and 808 State t-shirts hanging from their withered bodies.

    If this episode tumbled back to 1995, anybody seeing it then would be reassured that Britain in thirty years would still be pretty much the same old place. Clary got away with it because his schtick was always the repetition of one joke, already ancient, and it is even older now, ripened to a fine old age.

    ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if Alan Titchmarsh was a homosexual’ was joined by other box-fresh, up-to-the-minute material; catchphrases like ‘Answers on a postcard’, and topical jokes about vegetarian restaurants and Antiques Roadshow. Paul Merton is still bringing out his flights of random fancy as if it was the Comedy Store in 1982.

    The modern world obviously does get referenced occasionally, viewed through the most predictable lens. Merton reveals that JD Vance’s initials stand for ‘jumbo dickhead’; how brave! You won’t hear that kind of daring anywhere else. Hislop suggested that Donald Trump’s cuts to the funding for barmy, DEI-ridden Harvard means that he is ‘a straightforward fascist’, a tedious remark greeted by an equally tedious round of applause.

    HIGNFY is of a piece with the BBC in general, which has spent much of its time since the court ruling on gender falling over itself to talk about the hurt feelings of men who claim to be women, and studiously ignoring the opinions of actual women, including the ones who brought the case.

    Did the HIGNFY production team decide against covering the ruling for fear of further upsetting these men? This supposedly most marginalised group in society that can end your career if you don’t swear obeisance to the minutest jot and tittle of their barmy demands. As a consequence, abject terror of often aggressive big lads in wigs is always being dressed up as tastefulness and ‘respectfulness’. Isn’t there something funny about that, worth a little joshing? Apparently not. But you can’t have a topical, satirical TV show that is tongue-tied, awkward, and nervous of saying the wrong thing.

    The big irony here is that the BBC, which got its knickers very twisted in the recent Adolescence panic, and is always gnashing its teeth about other people being ‘very online’, is itself beholden to, and petrified of, the extremely digital genderist lobby (among others). The creative class in general is massively skewed to the minority views of progressive internet activists. It is disconnected and siloed, and afraid; and even a naff old show like HIGNFY has had its fangs, such as they ever were, pulled.

    Gareth Roberts
    Written by
    Gareth Roberts
    Gareth Roberts is a TV scriptwriter and novelist who has worked on Doctor Who and Coronation Street

    1. BTL:
      Westcollapse
      a day ago edited
      Hislop must be the smuggest, least funny, leftist prat on TV.
      No man or woman has personally done more to destroy British satire through his stewardship of Private Eye and HIGNFY than this slug.

      Norman Adair
      a day ago
      In the dim, distant past when Angus Deayton was in the chair, this programme was very funny. Rarely since.

      Nitby
      a day ago
      Article is to the point. That said, the same sort of article could have been written 20 years ago. In a commercial environment this conceited rubbish would have been consigned to the bin but with the licence fee it just rolls on. It is the joke.

      Fanny Craddock Nitby
      a day ago
      See also Countryfile, otherwise know as leftwing Londoners in the countryside. Most people watch Clarkson’s Farm, which is truly funny and informative.

      1. Who the bloody Hell is that Robert Greenaway?
        What an absolute total tosser!

    3. Not Alma Coogan – Alma COGAN.

      She was the highest paid female entertainer in her day but she died tragically young at the age of 34

    4. HIGNFY is based on the old Radio 4 programme "The News Quiz" which dates back to 1977.
      It is still running, but I dropped out of listening to Radio 4 years

      1. I cannot recall when I last listened to Radio 4. It was many years ago. I listen to very little radio nowadays. By choice, it's most likely to be cricket commentary. I have, though, of late been hearing radios playing in the background of hospital and GP waiting rooms. That seems to be my main source in the past two months or so.

        1. When I go to the cardiac outpatients department at Hammersmith Hospital there's always a big screen in the waiting room playing BBC natural history programmes (without sound). Especially Blue Planet type films with lots of underwater footage. I guess it's a low maintenance version of staring at a fish tank.

          2. At least there's no sound, so paying attention to it is optimal. Blaring screens in public places are a nightmare.

  79. All Conservative Party leaders since Margaret Thatcher were incompetent and treacherous but Theresa May was the personification of Sheer Evil.

  80. "Runaway climate change" is now on the cards. Frankly, I haven't seen much warming, quite cold outside today and past mornings this month.

    By the way, what was going on last August and almost continuously since – on cloudless days the trails are obvious – do they stop spraying when natural cloud cover is present?

    Let's hope that the 'models' they're using are accurate: they are using models, aren't they?🤣🤣🤣

    https://x.com/Artemisfornow/status/1914933610789953905
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/489301f88577ca4fb489b1f7ab4893d23d58479c15a2b7c3c56774d8b5079b7e.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db3857e775dcce4aedf04042017d86891e2bf826a58337c361eb000d8487ecf5.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/364bb8cd701827463658595a2b051d1517b0581e8e705454c8b5702af256cb2a.jpg

    1. Lovely rain here last night, more than half an inch after two months with less than that.

      Farmers will be relieved, which will upset the BBC.

      1. Same here.
        My rainwater tank up the "garden" is refilling quite nicely after the outlet pipe became dislodged a month or so ago.

      2. Easter Monday provided parts of Essex and Suffolk with rainfall of biblical (apt) proportions. The radar showed that it was localised but nevertheless welcome. Some useful rain last night and the night before.

        Highly exaggerated forecasts of hot weather, circa 22 degrees, has been forecast for the next week. The PTB really have lost the plot, except with the grossly stupid amongst us.

    2. Mess with nature at your peril. They have no idea what will happen in the long term. The planetary atmosphere regulates itself. Messing with it is a big mistake.

      An example of the most appalling hubris.

      1. They don't care. The scam isn't working and the little people are doubting the scam.

      2. One of my Aussie friends told me some time ago that the biggest problem on the horizon was global dimming where the sun lost its power.

      1. The danger and stupidity of fiddling about with nature to perpetuate a tax scam hoax is utterly insane. They must be stopped. The farce abandoned.

  81. Never seen Clarkson's Farm. Have not seen HIGNFY or Countryfile for at least 10 years, the latter rarely before that.

    2. Clarkson's farm is pretty good. Some is obviously staged, if not scripted but he has done more to promote and expose the problems farmers have.

      His comment at the end of season 1, when he got his money in was actually poignant.

    1. We are firmly intent on creating growth: in taxes, waste, debt and state spending.

      But not economic, which is what you thought. We couldn't care less about that. Pay up, proles, a gimmigrant wants your money.

  85. The statement issued on Starmer's behalf, finally and unequivocally giving his position on what is a woman, was utterly spineless. That he waited until the Supreme Court had come to a verdict leaves the distinct impression in my mind that he would have expressed a quite different view, matching that of the court, had it reached a different verdict. He was too afraid to express a definitive personal view for fear it would not match that of the court. Most of the population has the "courage" to express an opinion without waiting to be told what it is by a court.

    1. And when, in due course, the pretend court in Strasbourg overturns the judgment, Cur Ikea Slammer will backtrack to his original equivocal position.

    2. I don't think that man has any actual views on anything other than the propaganda he supports.

      1. I think he is a true believer in the rule of law; independent opinions are only there to be proved or disproved in a court, so why not skip the opinion and wait for the judgment?

          2. I don’t know: I have met a couple of lawyers at least who genuinely believed that the law was sacrosanct and that law and justice were the same thing.

    4. Why are there 'positions' and 'opinions' on an irrefutable — unarguable — biological fact?

      1. Because law and biology were not guaranteed to coincide, and many of those who disagree with the legal definition will not be swayed by it. There will always be those who'll insist that sex is a state of mind and that there are unfortunate people whose lives have been blighted by being born with the wrong anatomy and physiology. I cannot conceive what that feels like but the lengths some will go to to more closely match their bodies to their minds tells me that something is amiss with them which is beyond my understanding. I just hope that before hormones and surgery, great efforts are made to make them feel more at ease with what nature has given them.

    1. In answer to your question, Our Susan, I honestly believe that sub-editors have gone the way of most other sensible things. Every day, the two newspapers I see contain howlers, grammatical errors, incorrect "facts". One of my bugbears is the way that articles repeat themselves. eg: "The manager told this paper that he was disappointed at the company' performance." A paragraph later, "I am disappointed at the company's performance," Mr X stated.

      1. Subs are long gone. The "modern" journalist puts stories out there almost straight from smart phone to web site. Fact checking depends. A paper that takes itself seriously will require two independent sources to validate a story. Lower down the food chain, it's more of a "put it out, we can always take it down" approach.

    2. He isn’t sound on islam. All of it, just not the “fundamental “ side, is a threat.

    3. Looks like the kind of Pope I think is needed. Traditional values, table.thumper and arse-kicker.

    1. I realised that English had evolved when I was trying to translate of spot of Beowulf – dictionary was nearly worn out – and discovered that Grendal and his Mum apparently lived in a cave protected by killer tomatoes.

  90. The last one is a mistake. It is how English is spoken by Geordies in 2025.

    (Seeks shelter)

    1. I dated a Geordie for a while. I honestly couldn't understand a word she said for weeks without her speaking very, very slowly.

      1. When I first moved to Norfolk I thought I'd made a mistake and moved to Norfolk Island. The dialect was impenetrable.

        I did get used to it though.

        1. My uncle has a broad Norfolk accent. I have no idea what he's saying. My Aunt translates for us.

        2. I used to have the same problem when I stayed with relations in Devon. I was never there long enough to adjust unfortunately so I spent the whole time asking them to repeat everything.

      3. As a child I got talking to a lad of my age; couldn't understand a word. I thought he was a Polish refugee from the camp up the road.
        Turned out he was a Geordie visiting his uncle in Essex.

  91. Not only has the sun buggered off, it has turned cold. Lunch – with a beer to help with internal heating!

  92. Has anyone here ridden a camel and what is it like?

    I'm thinking of holidaying in Djerba off the coast of Tunisia.

      1. Yes; avoid if you have a bad back, get travel-sick, or unaccountably dislike being spat at. Otherwise they're great, camels… 😉🤣

        1. Think i'll give the camel a miss. A donkey is probably more my style. And lower to the ground when i fall off.

    2. When an Englishman called Carruthers joined The French Foreign Legion and was posted to North Africa his fellows told him that when he wanted to slake his sly biological urges he should take a camel.

      Carruthers mistook this advise to use this usual method of transport to go to search the local town for houris. He protested but said he hoped the camel was female.

      "At least there's nothing queer about Carruthers," was what they said in the barracks.

    3. The standing-up of the camel is pretty violent for the passenger, as the arse end suddenly whooshes up first, then the front. Like a speedboat in a very heavy sea…

    4. Yes. I’ve ridden both a Bactrian and a dromedary. It’s easier if you can ride a horse. They are not known as the ship of the desert for nothing.

  93. Afternoon, all. Dull, damp and miserable again and that’s only me!

    As far as I can see, only the woke feted the late Pontiff.

    1. Happy St George.
      A lovely sunny day here in Valencia. Now the holiday weekend is over the good weather seems to have come.

  94. OK, I know it's cobbled together, I forgot to cut the lower cable tie shorter, it needs to be at least 10' higher and it needs a bit of a breeze, but at least I tried.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/78d29a977d31d14bea6db5e963af3339be9d12d9dce207607901d83f16b488c3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba37a4cdd7d1d0fed90615c1a845039b747f5d0d9339f289d47a670297b7a375.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fe1e8a140eb4141c921529bbc2cb32f03e112d657f955191c6fad4117fcbcfe4.jpg

      1. If you load it into MS Paint and then save it to a new name, it should reduce the size of the picture file.

        1. I took it on my phone. It didn’t give me the option (unlike when I email a photo) to resize it.

      1. The top of the flag was and probably still is, attacked horizontal rod hinged and spring loaded to flip out so the flag hangs down from it.

    3. Arold
      1h
      “I’ve always approached this on the basis that we should treat everyone with dignity and respect whatever their different views and I’ll continue to do so'
      Except that I'll also brand anyone and everyone who disagrees with my narrow and blinkered view of the world as a 'Far Right Extremist'.

      For example, according to Starmer, believing in the existence of gr00ming gangs of a certain demographic, is a 'False Far Right Narrative' but Starmer then congratulates himself on prosecuting said perpetrators, of whom he had just claimed didn't exist.

      God he is a really sh!t lawyer. no wonder he ended up at the CPS.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca6ab70ae27f0459966f3c56224eec284866914f55e5f8c59be6dd9c0a77dd3c.png

    4. Even Cooper and the Ginger Growler looked unimpressed by their leader's total evasion.

    6. Profoundly weak people do not understand that it takes both integrity and strength of character to admit that one was wrong.

    2. One of my husband's favourites, can't think why – he says he doesn't know what it's about….

  99. Taste OK when barbecued. Not like crocodile at all, that's like chicken, with an aero-spongey texture. Yukk.

  100. The UK is heading for a full-blown financial crash, and nothing can stop it now

    Rachel Reeves has utterly lost control of public spending and is putting the economy in peril

    Matthew Lynn
    23 April 2025 12:21pm BST

    She would never “play fast and loose” with the public finances. She would bring back “stability” and allow businesses to plan for the long term. Her formidable experience as an economist meant she would keep an iron grip on spending.

    The Chancellor Rachel Reeves spent a lot of time boasting about how she would keep the books in order. And yet today’s horrific public borrowing figures make one point perfectly clear. She has completely lost control of public spending – and the British economy will be heading for a crash far sooner than anyone realises.

    With Donald Trump softening his stance on Chinese tariffs, and ruling out firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the financial markets were in an optimistic mood this morning. Even so, the news out of the UK was still deeply disappointing. The Office for National Statistics revealed that the UK borrowed £15 billion more than forecast in the year to March.

    In total, we borrowed a shocking £151.9 billion over the last twelve months, £20 billion more than the previous year, and much more than the Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast. Last month alone, we racked up another £16.4 billion in debt, the third highest March figure since records began.

    In reality, the turmoil triggered earlier this month by Trump’s tariffs had obscured how precarious the UK’s financial position had become – and how rapidly the position is now deteriorating. The borrowing figures are getting relentlessly worse month-by-month.

    It is not hard to work out why. The huge pay settlements for the public sector agreed by the Government over its first few weeks in office have driven up wage bills and added billions to the public sector payroll. Departments, led by Ed Miliband’s deranged green energy empire, have been spending far more than they were meant to. Local authorities have been left to pick up the welfare bills for the surge in asylum seekers.

    Meanwhile, in a stagnant economy, corporation tax revenues have proved disappointing as companies struggle to make any money. VAT is no longer raising the amount expected as struggling households rein back their spending. Even worse, these are only the “provisional” figures. If anyone feels like a bet, here is a certain winner. When the final numbers are tallied up, they will be far worse.

    The borrowing numbers are only going to go higher over the course of the summer. The huge rise in National Insurance charges will hit the public sector as hard as any private sector employer; it will add hundreds of millions to the cost of employing the 6.1 million people who work for the Government.

    Businesses are already laying off staff and closing units – look at the decision by Morrisons to close 52 cafes and 17 convenience stores as a typical example of what is happening right across the country – to save on costs, and this will hit income tax and VAT revenues.

    In reality, this can’t continue for much longer. As the ONS made clear today, the UK last year borrowed 5.3 per cent of GDP, an unprecedented figure at a time when the economy was performing perfectly well (at least until Reeves took over), and there was no immediate crisis to contend with.

    The real figure may well be 6 per cent already, and it will certainly hit that level before the autumn. So far Reeves has only announced welfare cuts that will prove mostly fictitious, and “savings’” that won’t be delivered.

    She has ruled out tax rises in the autumn, and may find that little more can be squeezed out of an exhausted economy even if she tries. Meanwhile, she is letting ministers and civil servants carry on spending as if budgets no longer mattered. The blunt truth is this: Reeves has completely lost control. The UK is heading for a full-blown financial crash – and nothing can stop it now.

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

    chris danson
    55 min ago
    On the plus side, the evidence that Socialism doesn't work is being delivered to everybody very quickly.

    Ed Martin
    1 hr ago
    Let that sink in. The Government spent £152 billion more than its income last year . That’s more than £400 million extra being borrowed a day. That’s more than £2200 a head added to the ‘National credit card’ in the year. This is a crisis. Our national finances are stalling and it will soon be impossible to recover from this. We need a DOGE root and branch audit of all government spending and harsh cutbacks to bring spending back into line with revenue.

    1. Alas Chris Danson, there are still deluded Labour voters who think things are going well!

      1. I'm not sure she "lost" control, I doubt if she was ever in control in the first place.

        1. Given the ideology she espouses, it was always going to go tits up (am I allowed to say that after the ruling ?). The facts of life are conservative.

  101. Nothing I could find in the DT on the 26 murders in Kashmir but Reuters gave an interesting view from the locals who live there. " Little-known militant group 'Kashmir Resistance' claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message where it expressed discontent at "outsiders" being settled in the region, triggering a "demographic change".
    Indian security agencies say the group is a front for Pakistan-based militants.". Sounds familiar..

    2. Jammu and Kashmir was the one place I was told not to visit when I was in India. Apparently, white folks were grabbed and used as bargaining chips in the faction fights there.

      There's history there, and it does not reflect that well on India, which never honoured their original partition agreement to let Kashmiris decide whether they wanted to stay in India or join Pakistan. J-K was a majority Moslem state with a Hindu Maharaja.

  102. Nothing I could find in the DT on the 26 murders in Kashmir but Reuters gave an interesting view from the locals who live there. " Little-known militant group 'Kashmir Resistance' claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message where it expressed discontent at "outsiders" being settled in the region, triggering a "demographic change".
    Indian security agencies say the group is a front for Pakistan-based militants.". Sounds familiar..

    1. Saints days.

      The English have never really celebrated St George's Day because we know (or at least, used to know) who we are and didn't need to make a noise about it. The others celebrate theirs not because of who they are but what they are not.

      We are not like them…

      1. When foreigners used to criticism my country I would reprimand them with a cry of, "I am not only an Englishman, but a member of Her/His Majesty's most glorious Empire!"

        Strangely that doesn't seem to have the same clout these days!

  108. If Starmer had any shame he would have resigned after Supreme Court ruling

    The Prime Minister foolishly championed the dangerous fantasy in which men were called women

    Allison Pearson
    22 April 2025 10:10pm BST

    2942

    Has Sir Keir Starmer still got a cervix? Asking for 35 million (or thereabouts) who were delighted, if not, it has to be said, entirely surprised to be told last week that it is now official: we are women. Phew!

    I didn’t think there was much doubt to be honest, what with bleeding once a month since the age of 13, and having period pains and spotty hormonal breakouts, and struggling with horrid bulky sanitary napkins in those first months when you were scared the boys would notice or that the blood would soak through your skirt when you were sitting an exam, and also sprouting breasts for which you were teased, which was excruciating and delightful in equal measure, and beginning to realise your power as a female (such delicious power), but also your vulnerability.

    When you were on the way to work that bank holiday weekend and a man masturbated a few feet away from you in an empty tube carriage and the next stop took several lifetimes to come (Old Street, thank God!). And feeling terrified and humiliated and later angry that he could do that to you because of – oh, that’s right – because of your sex. Because you were young and female and he was older and stronger and male. And hearing the rumours at work that you’d slept your way to a promotion (never heard that said about a male colleague, funny that) and laughing bleakly and thinking, “Well, sex would have been a lot easier than working all hours to prove myself as swotty girls are doomed to do.”

    And, later, carrying two babies in my womb for nine months apiece, and having the midwife checking every hour if my cervix was dilated – excruciatingly painful that probe touching your reluctantly dilating cervix, Prime Minister, but you’d know all about that being a man, wouldn’t you? And feeding that first baby in the long, dark reaches of the night, posting the nipples, cracked and sore, into that tiny, voracious mouth while your brain struggled to do the broken jigsaw of sleep – and you never could find the missing piece, not for years afterwards, not while the children were small. Fathomless tiredness, dear God, voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea tiredness which is just about survivable because the love – maternal love – is so vast, one of the greatest forces in this world.

    And realising that being a mother means your heart leaves your body and walks around in young adult humans who take risks with your heart and you just have to learn to live with the worry, and not nag too much, but please don’t get a motorbike, my love. And, later still, much much later, when the hormones start to leave your body this time, and you endure all the mortifications to which menopausal flesh is heir – brain fog, constantly looking for your glasses (they’re on the top of your head, you silly bat!), hair thinning, waist thickening, needing to wee before you leave the house like you always told the kids to do when they were little and needed you, and you miss them needing you and being little.

    Women did not require Supreme Court judges to tell us what or who we are, thanks awfully. We’ve lived it, got the scars and maybe the mummy tummy to prove it. No, that ruling was for the benefit of people who succumbed to one of those manias to which human beings have always been prone. A spasm of scarcely credible madness in an age that fancies itself rational. Three years ago on BBC One, presenter Andrew Marr asked the then leader of the Opposition, “Is it transphobic to say only women have a cervix?” And Keir Starmer, just a fraction’s hesitation before he answered giving away the fact he sensed danger, said, “It is something that shouldn’t be said… it is not right.”

    To be clear, the man who is now the leader of our country appeared on our national broadcaster and said that the courageous Labour MP, Rosie Duffield, was horribly wrong to insist that women alone could have a cervix.

    Her boss knew better – of course it was possible to believe that a bloke could have a lower narrow neck of the uterus that connects to his non-existent vagina when believing that biological absurdity was essential to keep the trans activists who dominated the shouty, progressive side of his party onside. Seeking to clarify his position two years ago, Sir Keir dug another hole, saying that 99.9 per cent of women “of course haven’t got a penis” as he called for an end to a “toxic divide” over trans issues. (The only toxicity I noticed was coming from aggressive men who barracked sensible women as they tried to protect their intimate spaces from male intrusion, and their impressionable children from a cult of mutilation.)

    Starmer wasn’t the only one making a fool of himself. That big numpty, the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, told LBC that women can “quite clearly” have a penis and the debate around transgender issues was “settled”. Nor do the Tories (a fearless Kemi Badenoch battling hard for women apart) have much to crow about. In 2017, prime minister Theresa May proposed allowing people to change gender without the need for medical checks, if you please.

    The worst offender by far, though, was Nicola Sturgeon. Full credit to the former first minister of Scotland for bringing the entire ugly farrago crashing down. Had it not been for Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill which intended to lower the age people could change their legal gender from 18 to 16, removed the requirement of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and reduced the waiting time from two years to six months of living in an acquired gender, then Westminster might never have summoned the guts to push back. Luckily, things came swiftly to a head when a double-rapist, Adam Graham, from Clydebank, who had been charged and first appeared in court in 2019 as a man, transitioned and took the name Isla Bryson before being remanded to a women’s prison, rightly causing public outrage. Until then, the “no debate” trans mob, spearheaded by Stonewall, had managed to terrorise people either into complicity or silence, but this time they’d gone too far.

    Even the vast majority who wanted to treat trans people with kindness and respect were horrified by the sight of a heavily tattooed sexual offender in a blonde wig and skin-tight pink leggings which grotesquely showed off the male member that, in the name of “equality, rights and inclusion” was about to gain access to vulnerable female prisoners. It was grotesque, sickening. Well, since last week’s ruling, rapists and other male offenders will be sent to prisons that align with the sex they were born with, and how could any decent person ever have thought otherwise?

    If he had any shame, the Prime Minister would have resigned last Wednesday, the day that the Supreme Court ruled a woman is someone who is female at birth. Then, he should have issued an unreserved apology to British women, particularly to those like Rosie Duffield, JK Rowling, Helen Joyce, Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock, our own Suzanne Moore, and Marion Calder, Susan Smith and Trina Budge of For Women Scotland who went through hell to secure this essential legal pronouncement. But the PM kept silent for five days, only breaking cover today to say that the Supreme Court “has given much-needed clarity” on the legal definition of “woman” in equalities law.

    “It’s real clarity in an area where we did need clarity,” he said. Well, dear Keir, you seemed pretty clear not long ago that men could have a cervix and the woman who said they couldn’t shouldn’t say so. This isn’t some minor administrative error that needed clarification – this was blatant lying about observable scientific truth while damning the heroines who bravely stood by the facts.

    You know, I feel sorry for the thousands of old-fashioned trans people who have always been with us, the sort who just want to live their lives quietly and with dignity. They never asked for volcanic, screaming hotheads to demand impossible, unconscionable things. Coining terms like cis-man and cis-woman (ie man and woman) which were guaranteed to alienate moderate people. Warping the language itself by calling a breastfeeding woman a “chest-feeder” in a poisonous, misogynist attempt to extinguish that beloved word “mother” altogether. And what vicious arrogance in insisting “no debate” as loving parents tried to cope with a teenage daughter who overnight wanted to wear breast-binders and read out a script written by trans influencers on social media, which told her terrified mother and father how “toxic” they were if they simply asked her to wait a bit before embarking on life-changing hormones and surgery. That was neither kind nor enlightened, it was child abuse and it gives me no pleasure to predict a swathe of lawsuits when those young people realise they can neither have children nor experience sexual pleasure.

    Over the last week, we have seen that the trans activists and their sympathisers, including Labour ministers, will not readily accept the new sanity. Because who cares about women’s safety if it dents your sense of virtue? The woke cult thrashes about like a headless snake. Those of us who were pressured to call Eddie Izzard “she” and refer to a pregnant man as “he” – so much easier than handling all those furious complaints, don’t you know – will breathe a sigh of relief and feel pride that we were a small part of the resistance. Our leaders, opinion formers, artists and celebrities can feel no such pride. Cowardly colluders, they stood by as trans women were authorised to search women, second-rate male athletes identified as female to steal their prizes and small children were told they may have been born in the wrong body.

    Personally, I will never forget the NHS hospital which insisted that a rape which had taken place could not possibly have happened because it was a women’s ward. CCTV eventually showed a trans woman patient was the offender. One of Keir Starmer’s “women with a penis”.

    Since the historic verdict, activists have vandalised many monuments and, strangely, the PM has not yet called for harsh action and long sentences for “far-Left thugs”. One of the damaged statues is of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett holding a banner with the inscription: “Courage calls to courage everwhere.”

    It was a remarkable bunch of women who found the courage to do battle for their sex; like Fawcett, they fought for daughters and grand-daughters and great-grandaughters still unborn. It was a great victory, and those of us with a cervix will be forever grateful. Our name is woman.

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

    Sarah King
    16 hrs ago
    Brilliant brilliant piece, Allison.

    Sadly it’s not over yet. I am SO furious that these violent madmen are not being arrested for incitement to murder. Like Lucy Connelly.

    But well done for these words.

    Very moving.

    Allison Pearson
    Telegraph
    16 hrs ago
    Reply to Sarah King – view message
    Thank you, Sarah. Exactly, Lucy is jailed for a nasty tweet but nothing for a brute wearing a placard saying, “Kill JK Rowling!”

    William Cross
    16 hrs ago
    Reply to Allison Pearson
    And what about SNP MSP's & past MP standing below a banner that states " Decapitate Terfs". Police Scotland take no action- utterly hypocritical.

    1. Alison Pearson is such a clear thinker. They jumped the gun when they tried to silence her and made themselves look thoroughly foolish.

      One would think the Starmer's wife could have told him what a woman is. He is such a fucking weasel of a man.

      Apols to real weasels. Especially those with a cervix.

  109. Sir Richard Branson: Vast majority of Americans don’t back Trump
    Consequences of US president’s policies are ‘awful for everyone’, says Virgin Group founder
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/23/richard-branson-vast-majority-of-americans-dont-back-trump/

    I can't quite explain why but the truth is I have never warmed to Branson.

    BTL

    Branson made sure he had a pile of money before he became a lefty!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46b58de36bd7df2bf1b79856ee906b5c689e3a9e2aa4a139d2d2ef8ac7f62781.jpg

        1. Hmm. A private Carribean island for partying with the elite…now what does that remind me of?

    2. His company verging on media have earned the first place in the hardest to contact customer services and have lost at least 100 thousand mobile customers last year alone.

    3. I think it was when he paid a penalty of £100,000 to the Customs and Excise for illegally importing foreign records. When he was in his early 20s.

      1. Precisely. Branson made his early fortune through the sale of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. He was involved in lawsuits in Germany I recall both for dodgy exports and imports.

    4. Not too sure that his Flight air crew had nice things to say about him in the old days .
      Pernickety , might be a good adjective .

      Hey listen now , Airlines are panicking because the take up on air travel to the States is down .

      Visitors are worried that their social media will be examined and they will be be sent back to wherever they have travelled from .

      Apparently air fares have been reduced in price , by half ..

      1. 'Visitors are worried that their social media will be examined and they will be be sent back to wherever they have traveled from'.

        Under Biden that would have been worrying. Under the Trump administration it make me laugh. All those proselytising do gooders are getting their comeuppences. :@)

          1. I should have taken a pic but heyho. They were clipped and tidied. Feathers and bottoms. Beards and tails shaped also. Glands, nails and teeth all done. Full wash and blow dry.
            They look so fluffy now lol.

            And they smell nice too.

            Next time the breeder is doing it and give Dolly a Skinhead cut and Harry a Mohican. She does this for free but she is working 7 days a week at the moment.

            Their beauty salon treatment was £100 so we will probably only do that once a year.

            They can look like Shaggy and Scooby for the rest of the year.

          2. Spartie's turn tomorrow.
            (Thank goodness he's asleep and not rea ……..)
            Aaarrgghhhh ……

          3. Thank goodness beagles don't have to be clipped – not many blessings attached to hound ownership, but that's one of them! 🙂

    1. It isn't difficult to side line Lammy. Which means he is definitely in the wrong job. KFC would be more appropriate.

  111. I've spent at least two and a half hours trying to contact my Local GP practice on line.
    They rang me and asked me to send BP readings to their website. A website that after using it within the last two weeks has now become impossible to make contact with.
    Why do these people set something up and changed the settings so often ???
    I've given up now……

    1. Afternoon Eddy. I received a letter this morning from the surgery. It told me that my blood tests have come through and the doctor wishes to hold a non-urgent telephone conversation with me. There’s a slight problem here. I’m going deaf and phone conversations are out. Apart from that my last Blood tests were on the 14th and I saw the doctor face to face on the 17th. I already have my next tests scheduled for May 1 and my next meeting with the Doc on May 9.

      Who organises these things? I’ve just ignored the letter.

      1. I'll pop in tomorrow, it's only walking distance but up hill on the way back, so sod it I'll take the car.

    4. I have an NHS android tablet at home with the Doccla app which detects and submits my blood pressure/pulse, weight and KadiaMobile ECG readings. I did them every day for the first two weeks and now three times weekly. I wondered if the readings were still being monitored but when I had a bad day and ate very little, my weight dropped and I did receive a message. The Kadia device helpfully tells me every time that it has detected Afib and it gets the same, "Noooo…you don't say!" response from me every time.

  112. What do you think of this idea?

    https://www.crowdfarming.com/en/seasonal-organic-boxes
    Avocados
    Unión de Fincas · Museros, Spain

    I love Avocados, they are so expensive in the shops , and usually black inside due to refrigeration on their way over from South America..

    Have we stopped importing European fruit ..

    Even Blueberries come to us from the other side of the world .

    Brexit bad planning has sent the cost of fruit soaring .. and why are we buying stuff from Egypt and Kenya.

    1. It's a great idea that benefits farmers as well as customers, but the organisers are making the same mistake as Britons usually make – they are organising it over the internet. We need local food production, and only local communities that know and trust each other are truly resilient. Internet stuff will fall apart at any blip in electronic payment or long distance delivery, and it will never build up the personal relationships that buying in person does.

    2. Those boxes are much too large for just us. We wouldn't manage to eat all that before they went off.

  114. Well we were forced to have the off-peak meter changed as the signal will be turned off soon……. the man came here today to do the job and it appears we've now got a "smart meter " whether we wanted one or not (We didn't). There's a nasty little display thing ticking away.

    1. I think you can get the meter 'muted' so it doesn't act as a smart meter – ask your supplier

    1. I do, unfortunately. My meter has stopped reading the amount of electricity used. I am having to pay estimated bills.

    2. You do if you have economy7. The RTS signal that switches from one rate to the other is being turned off at the end of June.

      1. Upsies and downsies. When i lived in Birmingham people i knew in tower blocks hated eco 7. The floors though concrete still vibrated at 2 in the morning and woke people up in the flat below.
        Often to leaks.

    1. Being able to play music is just a matter of progression. Just take a comb and some wax paper and off you go.

      You will be filling Carnegie hall in no time.

    2. Reminds me of the Arch Welby pissing off to his villa in the South of France during covid, closing the Churches when the CofE was most needed.

      The Church isn't about the them !

  119. Wordle No. 1,404 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 23 Apr 2025

    A whiff for Birdie Three?

    1. Nice one – that was a potential toughie – getting the first letter enabled me to make par…….

      Wordle 1,404 4/6

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

      2. Bit more of a struggle here…
        Wordle 1,404 5/6

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

    2. Well done. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,404 4/6

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

    3. Another struggle

      Wordle 1,404 5/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    7. A close call here, another phew!

      Wordle 1,404 6/6

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

    3. Would like to think there are civil servants somewhere scrolling through t'interweb on the lookout for this, Elon Musk style. Only takes a programme/programmers with the right code.

    4. I am very much against the death penalty but really, what is the point of keeping such an evil creature alive? The kindest thing to do for a rabid animal is to shorten its suffering and also minimise the chances of it further damaging others.

  121. What would you have done if you were one of the paddle boarders arriving on a terrible rainy rough day , how would your judgement have been … I would have said .. good heavens , no thanks .

    A police officer who led a paddleboarding tour on a swollen river, during which four people died, was “not remotely qualified” to do so, a court was told. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/nerys-bethan-lloyd-sentencing-paddleboarder-deaths-j9rfgjd8l

    Nerys Lloyd, 39, a firearms officer at the time, had received permission from her bosses to set up the Salty Dog Co paddleboard business, although this was later revoked.

    At the time of the trip she was also suspended from South Wales police after accepting a caution for a fraudulent insurance claim involving a vehicle.

    Lloyd, who was the owner and sole director of Salty Dog Co, admitted causing the deaths of Paul O’Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, after they got into trouble on the Cleddau river on October 30, 2021.

    Last month Lloyd, from Aberavon, south Wales, pleaded guilty to gross negligence manslaughter and an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

    During a sentencing hearing Swansea crown court was told that the four victims were part of a paddleboarding tour organised by Salty Dog Co that went ahead despite “severe weather warnings” on the day. Lloyd was present as an instructor alongside another instructor, O’Dwyer, who was killed.

    Rogers, Wheatley and Powell were pulled over the top of Haverfordwest town weir and became trapped in the churning white water at its base. O’Dwyer exited the river safely before he dived back in to try to rescue the three women and was dragged over the top. All four drowned.

    None of those who survived said they were told about the weir or received a health and safety briefing before entering the water.

    Mark Watson KC, for the prosecution, told the hearing that Lloyd and O’Dwyer were “not remotely qualified” and the stretch of the river had a “real potential for danger”.

    He said that Lloyd advertised the River Cleddau trip on Facebook for £149 per person, including overnight accommodation and two “fully” qualified instructors. However, she and O’Dwyer had only gained a “basic entry-level qualification” after attending two courses over two days.

    The training did not qualify them to instruct on “rivers in flow” or “near a weir” and were for “inland sheltered water, no moving water” and meant for “flat water and coastal activities”.

    Lloyd was also told of the dangers of ankle leashes in flowing rivers and shown a YouTube clip highlighting the need for quick release chest or waist-mounted alternatives.

    Despite this she led the tour in extreme conditions with inexperienced paddleboarders who were “attached to their boards by way of a traditional ankle leash”. Because of the heavy rain, about “two tonnes of water” were crossing a one-metre section of the weir every second, Watson said.

    Lloyd and O’Dwyer knew about the weir, having paddled over it two months before. Text messages between the pair showed O’Dwyer had suggested an alternative route in Milford Haven but had been “rebuffed” by Lloyd.

    Lloyd went ahead of the group and safely made it down the weir. When the others followed her, they were swept over the lip, where some became trapped.

    Lloyd listened to impact statements from the families of the victims, often staring down at her hands.

    Wheatley’s husband Darren said he had waited “three long years” to tell Lloyd she was a “coward” and a “charlatan”.

    He said that during the first Christmas after his wife died, Lloyd was posting pictures of herself smiling at a light display. “You had a joyful look on your face without a care in the world, without any sign of remorse,” he said.

    Theresa Hall, Rogers’s mother, said her daughter’s life was lost for “nothing more than profit”.

    Powell’s husband Mark cried as he told the court he and his wife had moved to Wales in 2018 for a “more enjoyable life” and to raise their son.

    “How can a serving police officer allow this to happen?” he asked. “Not only was Nerys Lloyd lackadaisical, she was also unqualified, deceitful, wholly incompetent and not fit to have my wife’s welfare and life in her hands.”

    In a statement read to the court, Ceri O’Dwyer, who was on the tour, described her husband Paul as the “kindest man” but admitted he made a “catastrophic error of judgment”.

    Lloyd appeared to tear up after one of her friends, Gemma Cox, who had been on the trip, defended her and said she had “shown remorse” and “suffering” for her mistakes.

    Cox said: “Not a day goes by without remembering how it felt pulling Morgan on to my board and trying for roughly 40 minutes to bring her back. Seeing Nerys to the left of me doing the same with Nicola.”

    Mrs Justice Mary Stacey will sentence Lloyd on Wednesday.

    A former police officer who led a paddleboarding expedition on a swollen river in which four people died has been jailed for manslaughter.

    Nerys Bethan Lloyd, 39, was sentenced at Swansea crown court to ten years and six months over the deaths on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest, southwest Wales, in 2021.

    Morgan Rogers, 24, Nicola Wheatley, 40, Paul O’Dwyer, 42, and Andrea Powell, 41, lost their lives in the incident.

    Great sorrow that the poor people lost their lives, they weren't children , why on earth didn't they use their own judgement re the terrible conditions .

    The ex police officer was a hoist to her own petard .. and was not an honest woman, but why did n't she cancel the event

      1. Sounds like a modern police officer:

        "At the time of the trip she was also suspended from South Wales police after accepting a caution for a fraudulent insurance claim involving a vehicle."

      2. It isn't difficult really. The individuals who died also have some responsibility. God rest their souls.

        They should have asked about the course and conditions and done their own research and made up their own minds.

        Though i do accept some people can be persuasive.

        1. If – IF – the films of the river are correct, it really was unsuitable for paddle boarding.
          Not only is it really raging in spate, but the colour suggests the turbulence was bad enough to churn up the river bed.

        2. It's the problem with safetyism, Phizz. The great infantilised have been lulled to sleep with the idea that if it is legal it is completely "safe", even if personal judgment and common sense says different. Ie: if the state gives permission it is bound to be safe (qv how to tell a woman from a man). Everything unsafe or untested is not legal. Napoleonic Law rather than our own Common Law.

    3. Paul O'Dwyer had negotiated the weir but went back in to save the women and lost his life as well.

    4. Learner Paddleboarders taking on a weir? That sounds a touch more than aggressive – they should have known better.

      1. None of those who survived said they were told about the weir or received a health and safety briefing before entering the water.

      2. Think it very unlikely I'd have gone anywhere near it. But people do do these things, often egged on by others.

    5. Shocking event and she was quite culpable…… however……. does anyone else think 10 years seems a bit harsh?

      I think it was horrific enough to warrant a custodial sentence, but surely a couple of years max – and maybe that would have been enough for the relatives, who knows?

      I think of all the other stuff that goes on that attracts nothing like that level of sentence. It just doesnt seem commensurate…..

        1. Yes, of course, but it still seems disproportionate with other stuff that's happening…..

          2. That's a very good point and worthy of so much more discussion (and action!).

            However, we are where we are, and I still hold to my view that her sentence is extraordinarily excessive.

        1. Too right KJ – you'll walk every time…. have you ever seen '12 Angry Men?' (That was me)

          2. Actually I'm getting a bit Fonda of late – I posted yesterday a clip from Easy Rider (Peter Fonda), today I've referenced Henry – who knows, tomorrow I might get into (?) Hanoi Jane – although I can forgive her everything for Barbarella (a young lad's dreams come true…) x

          3. I like all three…Easy Rider well ahead of its time…I remember supporting Hanoi Jane…preferred that incarnation to Barbarella…I’m just too straight, sigh…

          4. I think I’ll take a break from all of them, to be honest, as after all, absence makes the heart grow Fonda…. I’ll get me Chopper (that’s bike!)…..

      3. Well, no, Gs. If I claimed to be a brain surgeon (which I'm not) and, whilst making money from the process, allowed a few random people to operate with electric tools on the brains of others I would be liable for the damage, no?

        The sentence only seems harsh in the light of the ridiculously light sentences given to rapists, murderers and others of violent intent and outcome who get a slap and a community service order, to which they give the finger.

        I do agree that this woman probably meant no harm, but she was careless with the lives of others (children) to whom she had a duty of care, because it was a way of making money. They are now dead due to her careless greed.

        1. I’m not defending her in any way, shape or form O, it was horrendous what she did (and an ex-copper to boot!) – but you’re second para says it all, and that’s the point I’m making.
          I strongly believe that sentences must be proportionate – and in this case I dont think they are….
          I knew my position would not be popular but maybe her sentence might serve as a basis for tougher sentencing for the rapists, murderers etc to whom you allude.
          However, I’m not holding my breath – the law sir, is ,as ever, an ass……

    1. I was told they don't make them any more. I can't even have a smart meter. Apparently, my house is not "smart meter ready" whatever that entails.

  125. I think i need a minder. I have just done it again. The first time for gluey eye i put in otex eardrops in.

    Now i have just sprayed chloroseptic in my left eye.

  126. I would cut of an arm if I could be ambidextrous goes the old joke. We'll I effectively did and I am not.
    I tripped and managed a three point landing – knee, nose and hand, managing to chip a few hand bones in the process. Ouch and a bigger ouch, the golf club opens tomorrow but not for me.
    Almost nhs service with about a two and a half hour wait to be seen then an hour for x rays and a splint.on my hand. No g9lf or gym fot two weeks and the doctor wouldn't even mould the splint around a golf club.
    Damn this lefty world is uncomfortable.

    2. I'd give my right arm to be a world-class snooker player…….

      Arent you in Canada, Richard, or am I getting confused (again)??

      1. southern end of Canada, a long way from Distant Cumbrian who inhabits the northern wilderness

        1. He’s used to it coming from Cumbria – posting from Cumbria myself (softy southern bit)….

  127. Then 'assassination panel' shows up at 08:30
    https://youtu.be/tMXLOM-Wos4
    @kevingallen1678
    5 days ago
    The “British” Broadcasting Corporation does not represent the British people.We are forced to pay for it by law!
    895

    @stephengardner4194
    5 days ago
    The depths to which the BBC have sank is genuinely shocking.
    1K

    @stephenwalsh1292
    5 days ago
    A panel of 3 people all with the same mindset and you wonder why people get their news from podcasts now
    1.5K

    @LukeRobertMason
    4 days ago (edited)
    "Bear with me, because I know better than you what I think." 👏🏻 Followed by a panel of people who then think they know what Douglas thinks better than he does!

        1. I haven’t a clue. My last link with Newsnight died with poor Regina, their late long suffering broadcast assistant.

    2. It's even worse than I thought. God. What evil gimps these people are. That last bloke regularly pollutes GB News, who give more airtime to such excrement than even the Beeb. Cheez. And Jo Swinton? Come off it!

  128. Good evening, another slightly cooler but delightful spring day.

  129. That's me for today. Dry and sort of sunny – still a chilly edge to the breeze.

    Market tomorrow.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain

  130. Set of First Editions of Shakespeare’s Plays Could Fetch $6 Million at Auction

    LONDON (AP) – A set of the first four editions of William Shakespeare’s collected works is expected to sell for up to 4.5 million pounds ($6 million) at auction next month.

    Sotheby’s auction house announced the sale on Wednesday, Shakespeare’s 461st birthday. It said the May 23 sale will be the first time since 1989 that a set of the First, Second, Third and Fourth Folios has been offered at auction as a single lot.

    The auction house estimated the sale price at between 3.5 million and 4.5 million pounds.

    After Shakespeare’s death in 1616, his plays were collected into a single volume by his friends John Heminges and Henry Condell, actors and shareholders in the playwright’s troupe, the King’s Men.

    The First Folio – fully titled “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies” – contained 36 plays, of which half were published there for the first time. Without the book, scholars say, plays including “Macbeth,” “The Tempest” and “Twelfth Night” might have been lost. Sotheby’s called the volume “without question the most significant publication in the history of English literature.”
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/04/23/set-of-first-editions-of-shakespeares-plays-could-fetch-6-million-at-auction/

  132. I am now officially a rebel. I have defaced an official sign in the street where i live. I may be arrested !!!

      1. I live in a cul de sac and they have dug up the road and pavements forever (35 years i have been here)
        Now they are closing us off and just doing a respray and grit. Which will last about 3 weeks.

        I have an event on the 26th where access would be required.

        They put signs out last week and now have put out signs on every post changing that date.

        There are huge signs now everywhere because we are obviously too old and too stupid.

        So i got my big black marker pen out and drew hairy bollocks. A big stiffy. And a fountain of piss.

        :@)

    1. It used to be the case that youngers did these things and were frowned upon. Now they have the grey army to deal with. I think us oldies know intransigence better than teenagers.

      2. You can bet on that….best advice from my dad 'wuddent gu theer if ah wa thee'……..

  134. James O'Brien absolutely livid.

    The home secretary has ordered officials to publish the data of nationalities of foreign criminals by the end of the year.

    "What am I supposed to do with that information?" He whines.

    1. Not that i ever listen to him but give me a tag on why he would feel this to be so upsetting and diff to deal with?
      Aren't facts facts?

        1. I wonder if people like him get invited to lunch/dinner/my type of garden parties…..More than once.

          2. Only one took the fizz last time and i had to put a cork in it for future sauces.

            Bit annoying when i supply every type and they only want ….

    2. He can ask to see documents detailing nationality, then carry out a risk assessment to establish what would be a safe distance to maintain between him and them.

      1. A coherent response from you as usual. Thank you.

        I don't know but i can assume he is living in an area unaffected or is in denial.

        What do you think?

  135. James O'Brien absolutely livid.

    The home secretary has ordered officials to publish the data of nationalities of foreign criminals by the end of the year.

    "What am I supposed to do with that information?" He whines.

  136. Send Meth by Drone instead. You can suborn warders that way.

    So Bill Thomas didn't say !!!

  140. Thoughts on today's visit to my local Wetherspoon. One female, an employee, has had her face punctured with several holes and bits of metal have been inserted into them. Another female, a regular customer, has had her entire throat injected with different coloured dyes. Although these measures strike me as drastic, I cannot help but wonder how wretched their lives would have been had they not undergone these procedures. I just thank my lucky stars that I am able to live in a state of bliss without having had to endure these rigours.

    1. Spot on, Stig. Everything has changed and there's a new world out there. Did we, in the 70s, make our parents born in the 1910s and 1920s, feel like the world had gone mad?

  141. I noticed very little obvious evidence of St George's Day when out and about today. One man wore a t-shirt bearing the cross; Wetherspoon was selling a bitter called Patron Saint, with two pump clips adorned with the flag; one house was flying the flag; and a flat's window interior was draped with two of them.

    1. Have you seen the pictures I posted earlier, David?
      A bit of a feeble effort it may have been, but I, at least, made an effort.

      1. No, I've not seen them. Three members of my social club were wearing patriotic t-shirts this evening, but only one of them was overtly in honour of St. George. The other two seemed more supportive of the upcoming VE Day 80th anniversary celebrations.

  143. About to catch up on what I’ve missed today. Back from my Offa’s Dyke “infill” walk – 13 miles from Buttington to Mellington Hall, cross-crossing the Welsh/English border in the Vale of Montgomery (skirting Montgomery on its east). The view from the Beacon Ring were tremendous. My friend tells me the Welsh version of “Welshpool” (Y Trallwyng) translates as “Whirlpool”. Welshpool itself is on the river Severn.

    1. They will all have relatives here, so they will be on their way. Standby by for the islamic MPs to start making noise and Starmer to offer an airlift.

      1. Airport in Kashmiristan more important than UK paid responsibilities. Like Gaza. Oh please, dear Lord, rid us of these absolute pernicious cuckoos

  147. Well I'm orff folks, Mrs Eddy hasn't been well today. Sickness and stomach pain. Not much I can do except make sure she's comfortable and not needing anything.
    I've planted a few seeds in the green house, we'll see……d
    Good night all Nottlers.
    😴

    1. Hope she's feeling better tomorrow.
      The DT appears to have finally got over her coughing at last!

      1. Just took her a cuppa, now feeling better but was sick over night.
        That coughing bug was horrible.
        Glad she’s okay Bob.

  148. I am English and damned proud of it, in the same way as I expect the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish to be proud of their nationality. If that makes me a Far Right racist and Nazi fucking good for me.

    1. It always annoys me that there is no ‘English’ on any official documents. It’s just not right.

      1. Me too. Sometimes I write it in, along with "Christian" instead of "fore" name. Depends on how bolshy I'm feeling.

          1. Whereas I have two Christian names and a surname. Mine are genuinely Christian, since I'm named after a couple of saints.

  150. Well, chums, I shall now go to bed exceptionally early. So Good Night to you all, sleep well, and I hope to see you all tomorrow.

  152. Off to bed now folks.
    I was in touch earlier this evening with my old schoolfriend in Denmark.
    Her husband is in a care home with Alzheimers……. and she is now riddled with metastatic cancer. She's in a rehab centre for a few weeks after a stay in hospital while they try to manage the pain she's in.
    Life's a bitch isn't it.
    I count my blessings that I'm well, and my husband is too, though getting a bit frail and forgetful at 82.

    1. Goodnight, Jules. Perhaps it's just as well none of us knows what's in store for us.

    2. I'm sorry for, and about, your friend. That's horrible for her, and her husband. I hope the pain care is good in Denmark.

  153. What possesses these girls that they keep having cosmetic surgery? It's a weird habit.

  155. From the Telegraph

    The man who proved university is a waste of money
    When Paul Wiltshire studied his daughter’s prospects for work after her degree, he found it’s not the ticket to success trumpeted by many
    Julie Henry23 April 2025 6:30pm BST
    Paul Wiltshire is on a crusade to get the authorities to admit that the official graduate premium statistics are flawed
    Paul Wiltshire is on a crusade to get the authorities to admit that the official graduate premium statistics are flawed
    When Paul Wiltshire’s daughter, the third of his four children to go to university, set her heart on studying law, the accountant decided to do some research into her future prospects.

    What he discovered shocked him and confirmed his growing concern, having already sent two children off to university, about the purpose and value of higher education.

    Law Society data he unearthed disclosed that there are at least six times as many law graduates as there are solicitor training places – 30,000 law graduates chasing about 5,000 traineeships. Fifteen years ago, a third less graduates were chasing those 5,000 places.

    “Every single student who enrols on a law course will have been told by their university, ‘This is your route to being a lawyer,’” says Wiltshire.

    But it isn’t just law graduates being “exploited” by universities “making money to plough into salaries and often niche research”, he says.

    Many students struggle with the financial burden of university, both during and after study
    Many students struggle with the financial burden of university, both during and after study Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Europe
    The message given to teenagers, not just by universities, but by schools, the Government, the higher-education regulator and others, is that a degree, in whatever subject, remains a one-way ticket to success for the 50 per cent or so of young people in the UK who go to university. Universities UK, the industry body for higher-education institutions, states: “Government data shows that average earnings for graduates have remained consistently above those of non-graduates [by around £10,500] over the last 16 years.”

    But according to Wiltshire, whose wife is 55 and runs creative arts workshops for adults and children, this claim is highly misleading.

    The 58-year-old, from Helston, in Cornwall, is on a one-man crusade to get the authorities to admit publicly that the official graduate premium statistics – the gap between what graduates earn compared to non-graduates – are flawed and that for a hefty proportion of teenagers, going to university is a colossal waste of money.

    He has spent the past six months writing a forensic analysis – “Why is the average Graduate Premium falling?” – which blows a hole in the claim that the overall premium is £10,500 a year.

    It is 26 years since Tony Blair declared to the Labour Party conference in 1999 that he was setting “a target of 50 per cent of young adults going into higher education in the next century”. According to Wiltshire, as university participation began to rise above 30 per cent a full two decades ago, the graduate premium disappeared to an average of zero for the extra, marginal graduates who were being added into the system. Much of the problem is down to students who are not “particularly academic” opting for university, he says. His research, based on official data, found that five years after leaving university, graduates with four As at A-level have a median average salary of £47,100 – almost double that of graduates with the equivalent of three Bs, which ranges from £25,600 to £29,600. For those with three Cs, university is “not likely to help you” with future earnings, he says.

    In 1999, Tony Blair set a target of '50 per cent of young adults going into higher education in the next century'
    In 1999, Tony Blair set a target of ‘50 per cent of young adults going into higher education in the next century’ Credit: Julian Simmonds
    By his reckoning, 160,000 of the UK’s 2024 student intake of 495,000 will earn around the same as or less than non-graduates.

    They will, however, have their personal finances blighted for decades by having to pay 9 per cent “tax” on earnings above £25,000 as they pay back their student loan. Average debt on graduation is more than £45,000. And this takes no account of the millions paid by parents to their offspring because maintenance loans don’t even cover student accommodation costs.

    “Tens of thousands of pounds of debt is being piled on to hundreds of thousands of students every year without sufficiently robust evidence that it is to their own advantage,” says Wiltshire, who has a degree in maths and statistics.

    “The uncomfortable truth is that if you are not particularly academic; if you are a three Cs person or lower… you would be better getting a job and training aged 18 instead. But young people listen to the adults in the room and everyone is telling them to go; to incur a massive debt and pursue a dream that is unlikely to happen.”

    Wiltshire’s work has been endorsed by Harry Snart, a senior data scientist who is an ambassador of the Royal Statistical Society. “As the average graduate premium decreases, it is likely that the proportion of graduates achieving very low, or negative, graduate premiums will increase,” says Snart. “Given the lack of publicly available data, it is not possible to quantify this directly with certainty. The scenario-based analysis in Paul Wiltshire’s report reasonably illustrates how the decline in marginal graduate premiums might look given the assumptions that he makes.”

    Responding to Wiltshire’s analysis, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the UK’s leading independent economics research institute, has also said that “better evidence on the returns for marginal students is needed”. The IFS may know more about this than most, and not just because of its economic prowess. In 2018, Paul Johnson, its director, said that his own sons’ experience had helped him to realise that politicians had been distracted by “a public debate that focuses relentlessly on universities, their funding, their students, or the pay of their vice-chancellors”.

    “That is not,” Johnson concluded, “where the fundamental problems lie. It is our failure to get enough young people into high-quality, job-based training at 18 that creates our skills shortages, low wages and productivity problems. If there is a problem with our universities, it occurs when students fall into low-value courses by default because that’s the easiest thing to do.”

    Paul Johnson, the IFS director, believes not enough young people get into into high-quality, job-based training at 18
    Paul Johnson, the IFS director, believes not enough young people get into high-quality, job-based training at 18 Credit: Shakeyjon/Alamy Stock Photo
    The reality on the ground is that every year, a glut of graduates end up in entry-level roles; jobs that, according to Wiltshire, could easily be done as school leavers “with some on-the-job training, ability, work ethic and ambition”.

    Wiltshire has three sons, aged 25, 22 and 20, along with his daughter, who is now 21 and in her second year at university.

    When the middle of Wiltshire’s three sons graduated with a geography degree from Bristol University, “he couldn’t find a job in anything.” The 22-year-old is now a trainee estimator in a building firm. He hopes he can eventually become a quantity surveyor but in the meantime is working alongside people who started the job at 18.

    Employers are complicit in hoodwinking young people by insisting that more and more jobs need graduates, says Wiltshire. Even some nurseries – where assistants typically earn £18,000-£22,000 a year – have “graduate schemes”.

    Having a degree is taken as a proxy for maturity and intelligence but Wiltshire argues that A-levels demonstrate the latter as accurately as a degree, and that 18-year-olds are less mature only because society is treating them as such.

    “We seem to have completely forgotten the concept of just entering the workforce,” says Wiltshire. “Our careers advice to young people is not helpful. It implies that you don’t have to think about what you want to do until you are 21 but actually at age 21 or 25 or even 40, you may well have no more idea than at 18.”

    As the Law Society data Wiltshire unearthed shows, even with subjects that are more vocational than the geography degree studied by his son, there is a question mark. Are there enough jobs in marketing, for instance, to employ the thousands of young people coming out of university with marketing degrees? What happens to all the sports science graduates?

    Tellingly, Skills England, the new quango created by Sir Keir Starmer, acknowledges in its first report that “high numbers” of graduates end up in retail, working in bars or in other non-graduate jobs. It even cites IFS figures showing that one in five students would have been financially better off not going to university at all. Wiltshire’s report says this is now even higher, at more like 30-35 per cent.

    Now the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), which ensures the trustworthiness, quality and value of official statistics, is reviewing Wiltshire’s concerns – and even the Department for Education’s higher-education analysis team has admitted, in email correspondence with Wiltshire, that the graduate premium “could be misleading at face value”.

    In response to critics, Universities UK points to surveys showing that students are generally happy with their choices. Nearly three quarters of UK graduates credit university with helping them find the job they wanted within a year. Vice-chancellors also highlight the wider societal and economic benefits of a highly educated workforce.

    Wiltshire accepts that many young people love the student life and that university is a good rite of passage. Indeed, each of his four children has gone off to do a degree.

    Nearly three quarters of UK graduates credit university with helping them find the job they wanted within a year
    Nearly three quarters of UK graduates credit university with helping them find the job they wanted within a year Credit: oversnap/iStock
    “Even though I know probably more than anyone about the pointlessness (in career pay terms) of going to university for so many, all my children have gone and I had no ability to stop them,” he says.

    “If society decided it could afford to fund by general taxation to give 100 per cent of young people the option of going to university, I wouldn’t object.”

    The youngest of Wiltshire’s four children, his 20-year-old son, has, it appears, heeded some of his father’s warnings. His vocational degree in construction project management includes a placement year in industry that might lead directly to a job.

    In the meantime, Wiltshire waits for the OSR review of his analysis. If the statistics regulator agrees with his conclusions, it could trigger an overhaul of official graduate premium statistics.

    What Wiltshire fears will limit the impact of his analysis is the belief, widely held across higher education and society generally, that any conversation about restricting the numbers going to university is “elitist”.

    “I am not anti-university,” says Wiltshire. “I’m from a working-class family – my dad was a security guard and a bookmaker – and I received a full grant when I went to Southampton. But student debt is a loathsome thing. I am anti-debt and anti-exploitation of young people by the higher-education sector.”

    2. But according to Wiltshire, whose wife is 55 and runs creative arts workshops for adults and children, this claim is highly misleading.

      What does his wife's employment have to do with university degrees for the daughters?

  156. Transgender runners can compete in London Marathon as women
    Participants will be able to self-identify despite Supreme Court ruling. Plus, organisers boycott Elon Musk’s X
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2025/04/23/transgender-london-marathon-runners-can-compete-as-women-de/

    The only transgender women allowed to compete as women should be those who have had their penises and testicles surgically removed and have received hormone treatment to grow breasts.

    Each transgender woman should be thoroughly inspected before the race to see that the surgery had been done properly.

    1. Does the Supreme Court ruling have any bearing on marathons. I thought it was a clarification of the Equalities Act. Does that law cover the organisation of marathons? What laws apply to marathons?

      1. I think the Equalities act is one of those catch-all bits of legislation that applies to everything in some way or another.

      2. If you run the show, you can have whatever rules you want. The ruling means that it is now legal to confine trannies to their born sex class of competition if you wish, but you do not have to do so.

        1. Are you saying that this is a private event but run on public roads?
          Does that give me the right to drive my car on all the roads that have been closed as I have paid all my taxes?
          We must stop bending over forwards and being shafted by these single issue pressure groups.

          1. Obviously the rules of an event must comply with the law of the land but beyond that, it’s the organisers that set boundaries. No one has to provide single sex toilets, similarly no one has to set up single sex races.

      3. The laws of biology and common sense for a start.
        Whether your chromosomes are XX or XY.
        It’s really quite simple but the PTB have created a real buggers muddle.

        1. My point is, does this Supreme Court ruling leave organisers of events, such as marathons, open to prosecution if they do not separate born women and transsexual women in competitions?

    2. Even then they are not de facto women, Rastus. They are men and , as such, should not be enabled to compete as women, because they are not and never will be women.

    3. But they matured being marinaded in testosterone, that gives bone & muscle development, and so have a drug-enhanced advantage over real women. Thus, it isn't fair. If they had their own category, that would be OK.

    5. and if they are found to be 'testicula intacta' cut them off and then make them run the marathon

  157. I was asleep until 4.30 then Moh got up for his usual splash, and hey , no more sleep for me , i always find it difficult to go back to sleep , mind starts racing and ache in chest tum and throat .. so more stuff to try to alleviate horrid symptoms.

    No wonder I have no energy during the day .. and just plod on .

    I have owned spaniels for over 53 years , I love them , they are I guess like any other dog, but have quirky differences , they are waggy happy, adventurous loyal funny clever little dogs .

    My first 3 spaniels were springers , field trial bred dogs. Bought and researched from sources that are a story in themselves , stories I would love to relate on here , but daren't .

    A little later after the last springer died and left me mourning for a lost good friend , I waited 6 months and researched and bought my first working cocker from the usual best source , another gamekeeper .

    I could do these things because I had an absent husband who was in the RN and after a short spell living in Nigeria as a married accompanied , Bristow Helos', then back to the Uk , another springer .. Moh spent 16 years off shore , so more dogs were must .. and working cockers fitted the bill, during the mid nineties , I had three , with 2 year age gap between them , easy clever little companions , no problems , apart from vet bills , and once again access to country sports, rain , mud , snow, sunshine , country estates and some interesting people and during that early period , I bought / rescued an African grey parrot , who could remember the names of previous dogs.

    My dogs had happy lives , had countryside exercise everyday , good for me and not just a dog walk .

    In those early days years ago , spaniels were as rare as hens teeth apart from finding them on farms and country estates .

    Decades ago , during Mohs early flying days , when his Sea King squadron was relocated to Prestwick , HMS Gannet , just one son then and a spaniel , after relocating from RNAS Culdrose (HMS Seahawk) up to Ayrshire .

    Most of us had to find somewhere to live .. private hiring!! Very funny , difficult and a bit of a shock especially so from our comfortable service married quarter back down in Cornwall.

    Lots of so called nobility came forward offering cottages on beautiful country estates .. and one in particular invited us to inspect what was the bleakest ever cottage , in the grounds of a stately home .. Our invitation from the now deceased lord and his wife was kind and genuine .. stately homes in those days were cold draughty palaces of rich poverty .. We were invited into a magnificent drawing room , roaring fire , battered but cosy , rugs , sofas , old battered chairs , dim lights , and a booze table full of decanters and bottles of gin ..

    The dear lord welcomed us , and his wife fussed around us , asking sherry , or spirits .. we were delighted .. but Moh said yes please a gin would do , thankyou , and I had a sherry .. Moh's gin was mixed , stiff as hell , splash of tonic and angustura bitters .. my sherry was delicious , medium dry in a huge sherry glass, and we were then encouraged to sit down… before we staggered.. .. sit down , where , every seat was hogged by spaniels, and a growly little border terrier ..

    This elderly lord , told us about his son , who wasn't a Navy flier , but an Army flier , and I am sure I have got this right , because apparently his son was expected to lunch one day and demanded the telegraph pole was removed from the garden , like chopped down for the chopper to land , those Army types led a different existence.

    We drank our drinks , thanked our hosts , and the land agent showed us the cottage , we staggered around , yes after one drink , and saw with shock and horror the bothy on offer, and politely declined !

    The deceased Lords son now sits in the HOL..

    After a few days we found a lovely cottage near Hollybush , and had a happy existence , especially so when the coal strike and power outages of the early seventies hit so many local families hard and us , and me searching a single railway track for coal that had fallen off wagons as the coal train from the local mine had taken a steep bend !! Yes needs must!!!

    Have I been boring ?

    1. Have I been boring ?

      Morning Belle. No. Normality is a welcome break from a Mad World.

    2. Have I been boring ?

      Morning Belle. No. Normality is a welcome break from a Mad World.

    4. The back story behind how people got to where they are now is fascinating, Belle. Not earth-shattering (mostly) but fascinating and relatable. I'm sure we here all have interesting bits of our history that should be preserved as a "tale of ordinary folk" – even those who spent time in Nigeria… ;-). A pity to lose that history, though.

      1. Yes , with me Nigeria first time around as a child visiting my parents in Lagos , 1960 elections .. and all , and then married accompanied with Moh .. to Port Harcourt .. Shell compound ..

        1. I failed a swim test there and had to go to Warri to retake it. (I bought the test pass in the end)

    5. Fascinating, Maggie. Was the local laird Sir James Hunter Blair of Blairquhan?

    7. Fascinating. Not boring at all. One of the pleasures of Nottlers is they offer freely windows into their lives.

      Regarding getting back to sleep i have a tip.

      I read this a little while ago and it is worth a try i suppose.

      While lying in bed. Raise your index finger and slowly draw the infinity symbol concentrating only on the shape as you draw it. It is supposed to calm the mind. Image below…

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64a8abb78969f275a48e756c7cf83b4cbfaf412c811e610e0a87b5437bf4ca70.jpg

    8. "stories I would love to relate on here , but daren't ."

      "and bought my first working cocker from the usual best source , another gamekeeper ."

      You are Lady Chatterley and I claim my 10 Naira.

  159. What? No Thursday page? Hope Geoff is OK. Grey, windy and cold in yer North Narfurk.

      1. Good to hear you are OK, Geoff, and that the problem is technical and not a health matter. I shall now post my Wordle details for Thursday here:

        Wordle 1,405 3/6

        ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Good to hear you are OK, Geoff, and that the problem is technical and not a health matter. I shall now post my Wordle details for Thursday here:

        Wordle 1,405 3/6

        ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      3. It is a relief that you are OK.

        Fetch the lappie one with a spanner. Usually works.

      6. Sorry the gremlins have been at work overnight, Geoff. I'll ask the obvious. Have you tried switching it off and back on again?

      7. Oh, crap. That's going to be expensive.
        But at least you aren't ill or anything unpleasant of that nature!

      9. I wondered what was up.

        I thought Starmer was cancelling days, til the next election, tomake his dictatorship last longer

      10. Yo Boss

        Me being computer illiterate, wonders how you made your post………….

      1. "This user's activity is private – Deal With It!" So how am I to notice your activity from last night, Phizzee?

        1. Well you could look at yesterdays page i suppose…

          I said i am now officially a rebel after drawing a penis on a roadworks sign outside my house. They are resurfacing and have warned that cars in the street will be towed away and impounded.

          They could have framed it as friendly advice but decided to go with threatening.

          I don't take kindly to threats.

  163. I see the objectionable little squirt Jenrick – who was part and parcel of the appalling Tory regime – is trying to take over from the Nigerian.

    He'll not get my vote. Ever.

    2. Spouting off about how the situation he and his party created is so awful.

      2. Jenrick is a so-called “Tory” who failed in the leadership campaign but now thinks (as so many losers do these days) that he should have won. And is trying desperately to oust the Nigerian.

        Nigerian = Badenoch.

    4. The party needs Rod Stewart in Wake up (a new) Maggie.
      After Hesiltine and his oppos drove her out, it's sunk up to its necks in its own excretions.

    5. Jenrick is singularly devoid of charm

      To whom would you give your vote?

      Surely not Farage, Starmer or Davy?

    6. Jenrick is singularly devoid of charm

      To whom would you give your vote?

      Surely not Farage, Starmer or Davy?

    1. This is alarmist nonsense. Even if it were possible to reduce the impact of sunlight on a large scale, it would not amount to "blocking" and its impact would be global, not targeted at the UK and its cities.

      Yes, there are large uninhabited areas of the planet. They are called the oceans.

      The most troubling aspect of it from my perspective is that any measures taken would have impacts which cross international boundaries. I can envisage tensions arising where attitudes to geoengineering are not agreed internationally with dissenting nations being affected by measures taken by others. I can easily imagine weather patterns being altered, perhaps to the detriment of countries which have little or no say.

      The other concern I have is that computer modelling would be used to evaluate the impact of geoengineering measures. I'm not at all reassured that these models will mirror the real world with sufficient accuracy.

  165. Well, good morning to all.
    It's a grey and rather overcast start today with an almost warm tad under 9°C outside and it's dry.
    Sunny spells forecast for later.

    1. Wow. “Our” NHS seems to suffer badly from this kind of behaviour. I remember reading ages ago about how all public sector organisations go psychopathic over time. I wonder if I can track it down.

  167. 'Morning All
    30 years too late
    From the Telegraph:

    'The facts are in: mass immigration has led to a rise in crime'

    '…The preliminary findings are extremely concerning. For instance, Algerians appear 18 times more likely to be convicted of theft as British citizens. Congolese nationals appear to be 12 times more likely, and Somalians eight times more likely, to be convicted of a violent crime than UK citizens.

    The initial data on sexual offences – which needs verifying further – is even more alarming. The data appears to show that Afghans and Eritreans are more than 20 times more likely to be convicted of sexual offences than British citizens. Overall, foreign nationals were 71 per cent more likely than Britons to be convicted for sex crimes…'

    This of course backs up the figures that we see from other countries – the Swedish and German data leads to similar results, just as two examples I'm aware of.

    People are not interchangeable units, and their culture doesn't change the second that they cross the UK's borders. And unfortunately, that culture can even extend to their British-born children (who presumably won't be covered by any data released, so the actual impact of immigration on crime may well be under-reported).

    Like it or not, there are parts of the world where the people there don't hold our respect for the rule of law, and think that all women are fair game. Personally, I see it as entirely uncontroversial to say that we only want people to migrate here if they and any descendants fully integrate to British social attitudes, and agree to follow OUR laws in ALL matters.

    1. I think the average indigenous Brit is already way above the intake of our media and newspaper reporting.
      We don't need them to tell us how our political idiots have effed up everything they come into contact with. But we really do need someone and something done about it, as in action taken. Instead of spending our own money building housing for them which will encourage the problems to become even worse and much harder to control. Stop the boat invasion and send them all back to where they came from.

    2. Problem is that HMG gives the distinct impression that they don’t have to obey our laws.

  168. Right – dressing warmly to attack the market. Apparently it will be warm over the weekend. Hmmm. Back later.

  169. Morning All 🙂😊.
    It's not raining which is nice.
    Time travel today I see, oh well these things are sent to try us.
    I read millipede is about to increase electricity bills for southerners, once more emphasising what a nasty minded and stupid git he is.

    1. It would be funny if it wasn't so bloody true.

      Life imitating fiction again. It's a mad mad mad mad World.

    2. Oh well. At least they're reviving the woolly mammoth.
      Talk about forward thinking.

  173. At least there's one MP that's kept his campaign promise.

    In the local Brummie accent of Punjabi Labour MP Tahir Ali told his local constituents again last night that he is close to getting the funding for his new airport.. to avoid the long three hour drive to Islamabad.

    Fair play.. he's a man of the people.

    2. If they are that brazen & shameless in the press.. imagine the shenanigans behind closed doors when they realise that The Treasury has limitless money.

  174. Funeral to attend at 11am .

    Friend's husband sat down for his coffee in the kitchen .. and died .
    That was on my birthday .

    A week earlier , another friend had a similar experience .. her husband sat down , and that was it .

    Too many deaths this year , no wonder I am stressed out , just finding it difficult supporting my friends at present , they have big families near to them , here all I have is Moh and son , and IOW son, and relatives scattered hundreds of miles away who I rarely see because they are not retired , and we hate driving long distances now.

    1. God above! Please preserve us from these utter lunatics. So, HMG blocks out the sunlight – what about all the solar panels ‘catching’ sunlight?

    2. Jeeze if that is true,……. they are so collectively stupid. What about all the people who have been encouraged to install solar panels on their homes.

        1. I think it’s just a very sly attempt to force more of the built up parts of the
          country to have wind turbines installed.

          1. Another wind turbine site is opening today on the Moray Firth – can supply 50% of Scottish homes if the wind blows at the right speed

          2. or to bring the price up to the high level we pay in Scotland (where we generate the cheapest electricity)

    4. Are those the aerosols to be injected into the atmosphere?
      I feel grey, cold and gloomy at the thought of them lingering anywhere.

    1. That doesn't help. Does she have some kind of home help, visiting nurse, that kind of thing? Or am I confused with the state of things in the UK these days?

  178. I'm sorry, Belle. Nasty surprises, but on the brighter side (if there is one), at least they didn't die a lingering, painful, fear-filled death. Just lights out.
    On the distance thing… I basically left home aged 8 to go to 10 years of boarding school, plus University in London & Bedfordshire, then work in Sussex. That meant that I never lived with my parents, only visiting during vacation-time. We work very hard to keep touch with the two lads, visitng Firstborn on his smallholding about every other weekend, and going to the pub with Second Son every week – my shout as he doesn't earn enough… 🙁
    In that way, we try to keep touch. It sort-of works – t'Lads know us much better than I ever knew my parents. Can't recitfy that as Father is dead and Mother away with the fairies, but I can learn from the past, so… and Thursday is the pub evening! Yaay!

    3. So… man made climate change is real – and caused by the eco zealots directly?

      What a bunch of fools, not content with hysterical ranting about a natural system because the weather cycle isn't complicit with their tax scam they're trying to replicate it.

      1. 404655+up ticks,

        Afternoon BT,

        And thrives among the main herd, many cannot wait to give lab, a well deserved pasting, using the old lab historical opposition party under a new title.
        New title to protect the treacherously gullible
        with ease of conscience.

        My opinion alone.

    2. Iain Dale is disappearing up his own backside. What has happened to him? 15 years ago he was quite sound.

    3. My brief look at the Internet revealed to me that this chap, Dale, is rather a sordid and seedy fellow.

    4. Division and hatred? Or data? How can we make decisions if we do not have data? The Left tried to end stop and search because it was getting the blacks. Well, they're the ones who stab each other and innocent children, so perhaps stopping and searching saves lives?

    5. The Census every 10 years asks for ethnicity. NHS forms ask for ethnicity. Presumably it enables decision-making. Why should Iain Dale object to gathering data on criminality to facilitate decision-making in that area?

  183. 404655+ upticks,

    Morning DW,

    “International boundaries”, do we have any of them ?

    1. They are rather permeable, although North Korea is an outlier. I'd rather not live in a country like North Korea, even with its almost impermeable border.

  184. Good Morning Nottlers, 9°C, clear skies and a light wind on the Costa Clyde. No walking football this morning as I'm heading to Coventry via an overnight in Walsall to join some former RAF buddies for a 60th birthday bash. I've packed a spare pair of kidneys and my stunt liver.

      1. I was at RAF Marham when the last Canberra flew a mere 40 years later. Their survey imagery was a mainstay of my day job, as it provided up-to-date ‘mapping’ to support lower level sorties.

        1. OS have such aircraft doing mapping. Some twit there whinged about the 'carbon' output. I thought – feel free to resign, as without this data, you're not needed.

          Some people are utterly gormless.

        2. The PR9 version continued operating at Marham until 2006 so it had a pretty good run.

        3. The two Flight Sergeants running my Pre-Northern Ireland Battalion Photographer/Processor course at RAF Cosford in January '79, had been recruited as part of a Photo Reconnaissance build up for the expected introduction of TSR2.
          To say they did not have a very good opinion of Harold Wilson is to put it mildly.

  185. Mike Clegg (letters) is talking bollox – why would an airline pilot scoff a meal on the approach to Heathrow when in 10 minutes he would be able to use the catering services of the terminal?

    1. You might have seen my remark over there that if BA pilots needed to scoff meals on such short sectors, it might explain why many of them were somewhat podgy!

  186. I like Madeleine Grant’s sketch today:

    “AFTER paying tribute to the Pope, Sir Keir Starmer wished Happy Birthday to a golden retriever. Jennie, the guide dog of the Lib Dem MP for Torbay, often channels the feelings of the nation as she sleeps through Commons proceedings with a look of mild irritation on her face whenever someone speaks too loudly or for too long.

    Her owner, Steve Darling, received short shrift from the Prime Minister too. Having asked about the effect of Labour’s job tax on tourism, Mr Darling was patronisingly patted down with the assurance that “we’ve announced a new Visitor Economy Advisory Council”. Another Quango. Why hadn’t anyone else thought of that?

    Kemi Badenoch had been given an open goal courtesy of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling about biological sex – and the PM’S previous wriggling on the issue. There are so many ways in which Sir Keir resembles a pig – the name Sir Oinky, after all, didn’t come from nowhere – but what trumps even his predilection for having his snout firmly in the trough and his regular spouting of porkies is the porcine wriggling he does when confronted by his own obvious past deceits. The PM frequently resembles a greased-up piglet as he contorts his way around reality.

    Yet, unlike most piglets, he manages to be intensely patronising too. “I think this is the time to lower the temperature, to move forward and to conduct this debate with the care and compassion that it deserves” he said in his first answer to Mrs Badenoch; part ticking off, part vaunting hypocrisy.

    Visibly sick of this, the Leader of the Opposition, who had been given something pretty potent in her cornflakes this morning, went for the jugular. Would Oinky apologise to Rosie Duffield, the Canterbury MP of whom he’d allowed the public humiliation for daring to question trans orthodoxy? “We should treat everyone with dignity and respect”, came the spluttering reply. Cue a mass turning of heads to Ms Duffield, whose face contorted as if she’d been presented with a particularly unpleasant turd, which in many ways, she had.

    Ms Duffield had worn a dinosaur badge on her lapel today – presumably in honour of David Lammy (he of “men can grow a cervix” fame) referring to gender-critical feminists as “dinosaurs hoarding women’s rights”. In all fairness, one can see why Mr Lammy might be jealous. Dinosaurs were highly intelligent and impressive organisms who dominated their respective environments. Even compared to the pygmies in the current cabinet, our Foreign Secretary is the political equivalent of plankton.

    Inevitably, like all snivelling cowards, Oinky sought to blame everyone else. He tried to throw Rishi Sunak under the bus for “making trans jokes while the mother of a murdered trans teenager sat in the gallery”. Flailing within his own inconsistencies, Oinky accused the Tories of “playing political football” while also bringing up a highly emotionally-charged murder of a child to shore up his position. The shamelessness of this man seems to know no limits.
    “No apology, no taking of responsibility”, spat Mrs Badenoch with a well-deserved tone of contempt. This was her best PMQS to date – by the end of her diatribe this little piggy had very clearly been turned into sausages. Meanwhile, Rosie Duffield continued scribbling in her notebook: I would have paid good money to see what she had written.”

    1. "We should treat everyone with dignity and respect…"

      Tell that to the women abused by men pretending to be women and getting into places in which they shouldn't have been allowed.

      Starmer really is repulsive and I was disappointed that no one in the chamber charged him with rank hypocrisy on the matter.

        1. Plankton is the basis of life in the oceans. Perhaps the writer was thinking of the floating scum of toxic algal blooms.

    1. A pseudonym puts up two figures on X, unsupported by any citations, and I'm supposed to unquestioningly believe it? Well, I dont.

  188. What's happened to today? I couldn't get Disqus on my phone this morning nor the telegaffe.

      1. Disqus seems to work on my laptop ok. Telegraph ok too but still not on the phone. Will try shutting it down and start again.

        1. All good, thanks.
          Except for dripping my lunch onto my keyboard (marmite sandwich).

      2. I have more PCs than a human – even 3 of us – could use. Shout an address and I'll put one in the post.

    1. What for? Corruption? Fraud? Theft? Criminal intent? They're all guilty of that. It's practically the entire basis of the whole nonsense farce.

    2. Did he do something that was "Honest", much to the detriment of the Davoskies, WEF, NWO etc?

  190. nice leisure day today as I am on holiday – dad’s birthday.

    Jeremy Warner is a complete idiot, in my opinion.

    Alistair Heath was good today.

    “This time, it’s personal. Labour’s spite, its virulent collectivism, its hatred of private education, have claimed another victim, one close to my family’s heart. My eldest daughter’s old prep school, where she spent seven happy years, is closing, ruined by the Government’s rapacious, triple whammy of a tax grab. I loved the school, and cannot forgive the politicians who destroyed it.

    It is – or was – a charming, traditional establishment where all the children knew each other, even if they weren’t in the same year. A fixture for over a century, it earned praise for its nurturing approach. The families it attracted were tight-knit, hardworking and unpretentious, mostly from minority groups willing to sacrifice every comfort, to skimp and economise, for the sake of their children’s education.

    A campaign by heartbroken little girls to save their teachers’ jobs came to naught. Like so many others, the school has been sacrificed on the altar of a nihilistic political ideology that only ever leads to misery and destruction. The school cited Labour’s multi-pronged tax raid – VAT at 20 per cent, higher national insurance, and the removal of business rates relief – as a central reason for its closure; it could also have mentioned the middle class’s increasing immiseration.
    My children moved on several years ago to another excellent school, yet my fury remains visceral.

    I usually see politics as an intellectual pursuit, a battle of ideas, a clash of visions, but this doesn’t apply here. There can be no honest rationalisation of Labour’s war on private schools. It is an act of depraved Left-wing populism, of sheer vandalism. We cannot give Labour the benefit of the doubt; we must admit that its intentions are purely malign. It isn’t trying to do what is best, to build, to create a new Jerusalem, to help the poor or needy in the public interest, to improve educational standards for the many, not the few: the true intention is to destroy, to punish, to break, to pander to the class warriors, to the ignoramuses.

    When Labour’s pseudo-thinkers speak of “equality”, or even worse, of “equity” or “social justice”, they are weaponising abstract concepts to justify the basest of human instincts: jealousy, envy, the urge to tear down the tall poppies.
    They claim to respect “human rights”, but are undermining parents’ most fundamental natural right to do what is best for their children. In their warped worldview, it makes sense not to deport a murderer for fear his human rights might be violated, but it’s fine to impose obscene taxes on parents to limit their school choice.

    Labour has no respect for educational, religious or any other kind of freedom. For all its talk of “diversity”, it wants to treat everybody as identikit numbers, to control and direct. Labour claims to support women’s rights, with Keir Starmer belatedly discovering that trans women are not women, yet his taxes are destroying the single-sex schools that disproportionately help girls.

    Tragically, even if the legal action in the Supreme Court, led by Lord Pannick KC, does succeed, it would come too late for many. Thousands of parents, punctured below the waterline by Vat-inflated fees at ever more abominable levels, are pulling their kids out of the independent sector, placing them in state schools, potentially elbowing out poorer families. The competition for places is ferocious, even though standards are about to be annihilated by Labour’s equally disastrous project to undo the Tory state school reforms of the past 15 years.

    An acquaintance who recently left Britain points out, with incredulity, that it can now be cheaper to educate children in the overseas branch of a British private school than in the original version. Foreigners cannot understand why we hate schools that are so admired overseas, especially given they are one of the few reasons why any wealth creator would want to move to zero-growth, high-crime Britain. Rachel Reeves’s taxes won’t raise much, if any, money, especially in the context of her terrifyingly large £151.9billion deficit. Is a rounding error really worth destroying our remaining soft power?

    Labour doesn’t even understand who it is hurting. The share of children from ethnic minorities in independent schools has shot up from 23 per cent in 2009 to 42 per cent today (and to more than 60 per cent in London). Far from merely allowing an old elite to reproduce itself, private schools have turned into a powerful force of integration, absorption and renewal.

    Labour’s attack is thus undermining one of the most successful aspects of our (otherwise catastrophically flawed) immigration policy. Members of this new generation of upwardly mobile, meritocratic parents – unlike some of their more class-conscious predecessors – do not see private education as something to be embarrassed about, and can’t relate to Labour’s reprehensible prejudices.

    Independent schools also provide special education needs or disability (SEND) support for 111,154 children, 20 per cent of pupils, slightly higher than in the state sector. Only 7,646 of these are in receipt of an Educational Health and Care (EHC) Plan, funded by local authorities. Some 46 Independent Schools Council members in England are special needs schools. Where will SEND children go if schools shut or parents are priced out? The provision is much worse in the state sector. What kind of politicians deliberately target vulnerable children in this way?

    I dream that one day we will have an enlightened Government that wants to spread the benefits of a private school education as widely as possible, rather than restrict it ever more tightly. It would cut tax, liberalise planning and tear up regulations to encourage new schools, including low-frill disruptors like the Independent Grammar School: Durham, which charges £5,100 a year (including the VAT).

    It would introduce education vouchers, last considered by Keith (later Lord) Joseph in the 1980s, to be used to cover the full cost of any state school or as part payment for a private school. Utopian yes, but right.
    In the meantime, starting with next week’s elections, Labour must pay the price for its nastiness, its cruelty, its immorality. No political party can be allowed to get away with betraying so many children.”

    1. The evil She-Devil May said of the Conservatives:

      "You know what some people call us — the Nasty Party."

      But Starmer's Labour Party is without doubt the nastiest, most vindictive, spiteful political party to ever hold power in the UK.

  193. It's not been a good day so far……… my watch has died – gave it to husband to put a new battery in and the strap fell apart.
    Earlier, as it was getting light, Jessie started yowling (quietly) and evidently was in a bit of a rush or couldn't push the doors open quickly enough……….. anyway she did a dump in the shower. She's a bit under the weather I think, but lying quietly on the bed. Will have to keep an eye on her. Or OH will.

    I'm going over to Gloucester this morning to meet my two old schoolfriends who both know Sheila in Denmark. I've let them know her bad news.

  194. The College of Cardinals would do well to consider a younger man.

    Prince Harry is looking for a job!

      2. It seems scarcely credible that this buffoon is a political leader in the UK.

        1. Making Mad Jack Mytton seem sane.

          (I am still in Wolverhampton, heading back into Shropshire shortly. Hencote vinyard north of Shrewsbury for dad’s birthday).

  199. "Many of his claims were submitted to the court too late…"
    Which rather reinforces the point.

  200. Rear Admiral Philip Mathias (retd), Southsea, Hampshire

    Sir, I am afraid that you are living in the past.

    We have insufficient , aircraft, support ships and probably weapons, to be a danger to Russia.

      1. Maybe family didn't know he'd been discharged? Carers not primed. Neighbours assuming the others had it all under control.

    1. Yes, one is left with the opinion that this is one the state wants to hush up. Like the crime by demographic stats.

  206. The "foot lady" has just been to attend to OH's uncomfortable toe nail…… so now he's skipping about. She's South African and very chatty.

  208. For the Anglicans among NoTTLers:

    Marcus Walker on what the C of E has to offer (The Critic, May 2025)

    "Endless self-loathing from the episcopacy, sermons about every bien pensant soft-left cause found in the Guardian, and liturgies written by a chatbot trained on HR manuals. If you don't like yourself, your identity, or your history, why on earth should anybody else?"

    Pretty much sums it all up.

  209. Roger Jacksons letter on nuclear fuel is a good one – I worked on the project he mentioned (MOX) and others at Sellafield

  210. 404655+ up ticks,

    Both in my book political tools of a chiseling nature,

    Starmer is trying to show he’s more patriotic than Farage, but his plan is doomed to fail
    Love of country may not be enough to save a widely unpopular party and Prime Minister

    1. Starmer’s unusual affection for and attachment to the mad Zelensky cokehead will be his downfall as Ukraine implodes.

      British and French troops will not be welcomed in Odessa by a defeated Ukrainian civilian population, many of whom are armed to the teeth and hold Banderite affiliations.

      There are rumours that Zelensky’s fragrant wife has been stopped from leaving Ukraine and arrested. By whom?

    2. Nor will Farage keeping on creating new parties when he gets rebuffed in the existing one, or appeasing the slammers make him PM.

  211. Good morning, all. Overcast, breezy and cool.

    Apropos the news that the inmates of the asylum are about to officially recognise the "need" to spray whatever – Gates, I believe, has been associated with using calcium carbonate (chalk) particles as the dimming agent – into the atmosphere to save the World from being roasted.

    Imagine if this ludicrous plan goes ahead and is "successful" in its aim i.e. reduce sunlight and heat. Our flora and fauna have evolved to exist, reproduce and grow productively in certain conditions that will be changed: this act of madness is akin to a volcanic eruption ejecting dust into the atmosphere.

    Of course, if "successful" this act of lunacy could have a wide impact on food production, as did historic volcanic activity, and in the scheme of things my little patch will only affect me. However, it's not just the possible loss of produce, it's the pleasure – and aches and pains – of putting in the work and the delight of seeing the results of one's efforts. With some plants, years of work have gone into making them productive.

    Here are a few plants I have that have taken years of effort to cultivate and may disappear/stop fruiting if the inmates' plan comes to fruition. Many other plants are available for consideration.

    Red grape, around six years old and survived being eaten, probably by a grey squirrel, shortly after being planted outside of the greenhouse. Dessert seedless, I've forgotten the variety. Eleven spurs off of the rod and eight have grape bunches forming. Still time for the other three to produce.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56419072b9b33bdaab6aea8d66bc90ec444de4976ced9efd9b3a9fc986e153f2.jpg

    Müller-Thurgau grape, wine or dessert. Twenty+ years old, current rod about five years old, eleven spurs each with a bunch forming.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aeee8b6fff0ea10955a4b50120956dec9c405a699e7158a7f5c04f30fa8c13ae.jpg

    Redcurrant, one of four, this one and two others from cuttings of the original. I have to extend its protection from the blackbirds and that is a job starting tomorrow. Laden with fruit this year, as are the other three.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3d27310732174100cb4fb983327a02c4fd3ca51a11d144b53a9718356a8aaec6.jpg

    My faithful wild apple tree. I haven't pruned this tree for several years but it has never failed to blossom and fruit heavily.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3b5bac284176d5948b7148c08ff7b9b368c8d057a2f5d166553da48f38273390.jpg
    It's hard to imagine what losing many plants would make to our lives but the thought of once warm and hot seasons being changed to something close to forever winter isn't something to look forward to.

    Maybe I'm being over pessimistic but there are so many things that could go wrong with this idea. Unsound zealotry and ideology are not science.

    1. It is worth noting that the spraying into the atmosphere is confined to land and not the vast oceans. The plan is to poison the land and those who wish to breathe fresh air.

      2. I’ve read that some farmers in the USA are finding aluminium levels are rising in their soil and that non GM crops are struggling but GM are doing OK.

    2. What a wonderful paeon to your plants! Long may they thrive in unadulterated sunshine.

      (I particularly liked 'survived being eaten… by a grey squirrel' 🤣)

  212. I noted some discussion of Branson yesterday so I will repeat a comment made before
    Branson is a greasy grifting crook a serial fraudster who started his career with a VAT fraud which his parents had to buy him out of to avoid jail,he followed this up by exploiting Virgin record staff on the promise they "would be well looked after" if/when the business was sold
    Needless to say they got nothing
    The bulk of his fortune was made via a price fixing deal with BA on transatlantic flights when he realised they were about to be caught he turned informer and walked away scot free while BA was fined tens of millions
    I invite Branson to sue me if he dares because these are facts about this disgusting individual

    1. I use to play golf with a guy who in the early days cleaned the VM record stores……….He didn't like him way back then.

  214. Bias Alert.

    "Tech companies continue to expand empires. Built on your data. Isn’t it time we were on the receiving end of exponential growth?"
    says Clever clogs Nerd David Irvine

    Finally up and running after all these years. My nerdy friend says it's the bees-knees. Basically the wee man from Kilmarnock has just blown up the Amazon Web Services (AWS) business model.

    You can think of it like AirBnB for your hard drive.. the App needs about 35GB of HDD and you get paid in ethereum to rent it out. Owned by all but controlled by no one.

    Here's some sound bytes.
    An Internet controlled by no-one, owned by us all.
    Secure, encrypted, autonomous. The critical infrastructure of the next web. Assembled from everyday devices & ready to scale.
    Our devices have more capacity than all the tech giants combined.
    AI, robotics, post-quantum data… its value flows to us..
    Unstoppable, private, open to anyone. Now we are all giant killers..
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyzbaszgrn8

    1. My immediate reaction is that if a company stored dodgy material (eg child porn or snarky tweets) on my rented-out drive, am I the one with the responsibility and the pre-booked jail space?

    2. Allowing access by unknown persons to the inner sanctum of my 'puter… what could possibly go wrong! Maybe I could set up a pay per view of some dodgy photos of Mrs Pea as a side hustle.

    3. Pie in the sky. He fails to differentiate between the physical infrastructure and the information it holds.

      1. As Mr Graham, our boss is a true Gentleman,he should apply a force with an:
        Manually operated, Air-cooled, Percussion Device known to us as a Hammer

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