Wednesday 23 July: Nothing stands between rotten water companies and their suffering customers

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

496 thoughts on “Wednesday 23 July: Nothing stands between rotten water companies and their suffering customers”

  2. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. Today's Wordle was a Par.

    Wordle 1,495 4/6

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

    1. I didn't get it at all – there are six variations I think and I tried four of them unsuccessfully!
      Edit: Good morning (it is still just about morning!)

    2. I didn't get it at all – there are six variations I think and I tried four of them unsuccessfully!
      Edit: Good morning (it is still just about morning!)

  5. Nothing stands between rotten water companies and their suffering customers

    Only our rotten governments

      1. We lived and worked in Germany for2/3 years nead Bad Kreuznach. We had a great time but would not live there for ever.

    1. Good morning Maggie.
      Hope you've recovered from having that sunflower growing out of your head!

      1. Good morning Bob,

        It was a terrible photo .. don't know why I popped it on here , but the point was out of a packet of giant sunflower seeds , only 2 grew , and certainly not to the 15feet predicted !

        1. The twins sunflowers have been a bit of a disaster this year! Very disappointed, they are!

  10. Gutten morgen alles zum letzten Mal.
    This time tomorrow I'll be back in England, docked at Harwich and getting off the ferry.
    This is the place I went for a meal the past two nights as well at Friday lunchtime:-
    https://www.die-insel-hameln.de/
    For a quiet location I would recommend it.

    A piece from an old friend on Faceache is an interesting read:-

    Copied from Hunting Kind. Well worth a read, whatever you think about foxes.
    “We feel this article written by David Renney, a veterinary surgeon, and chairman of the Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management is appropriate to re post, given his endorsement of the new book , Hunting Ethics – A Personal Journey written by Nick Fox
    “The reader of this book, no matter how good his education in science, and no matter how long his contemplation of its subject, will gain new insights into the primal behaviour that we call hunting.”
    The opinions in this article are his own.
    Why are we not talking about the welfare of the fox?
    I am a veterinary surgeon. So when I tell people that, when it was lawful, I used to enjoy going foxhunting, and that I believe it was a good thing to do, many of them find it contradictory. Some of them become confused, and angry. The reason for that, of course, is that they imagine being hunted terrifies a fox witless. They imagine that, if it escapes hounds, it will experience some kind of post-traumatic shock syndrome, with flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety. They imagine that, if it does not escape hounds, it dies as a consequence of having its bowels torn out or its limbs torn off.
    What is our response to this? In the past, it has been to tell people that hunting with hounds represents liberty and livelihood. This is a good way of recruiting people from the right-wing of politics to support hunting. But it does not answer the central question of whether hunting is cruel. And even some of the people on the political right who esteem liberties and livelihoods cannot bring themselves to support something they believe to be unspeakably cruel. We have to answer the question, “Is hunting cruel?”
    Every fox will die. Most readers of this article will regard that as something universally known, not worth saying. But it is worth saying. Because many opponents of hunting exclude it from their thoughts, thinking only of “saving a fox’s life”. The question we must ask is this: what is the best way for a fox to die?
    Some people nurse the fanciful idea that a fox should die only of natural causes. They perhaps imagine that this means dying in its sleep, or having a heart attack (for anatomical reasons, even foxes which live on scavengings from their local MacDonald’s do not have heart attacks). But the only likely natural cause of a fox’s death is starvation, when it becomes too old and weak to hunt.
    In any case, the fox population is not going to be left to grow unmanaged in an environment from which its natural predators, wolves and golden eagles, are absent. Farmers will kill foxes to protect free-range poultry and lambs. Gamekeepers will kill foxes to protect game birds. Conservation organizations and conservation-minded landowners will kill foxes to protect the wonderful ground-nesting birds which enhance our lives but are now threatened with extinction.
    If we are going to manage the fox population, how should we do it? We have to choose between shooting, snaring, and hunting with hounds. A peer-reviewed study has shown that between 22% and 46% of foxes shot at are seriously wounded. The skill of the shooter makes little difference to the wounding rate. Skilled ones wound most of the foxes they do not kill, missing few. Unskilled ones wound most of the foxes they do not miss, killing few. A wounded fox will suffer for hours, sometimes perhaps for days. I find that disturbing. I want shooting used only when there is no better alternative.
    We know less about snaring than we do about shooting. But there are things about it which we can deduce. Being snared is an unnatural experience for an animal, one for which evolution has not prepared it. Snares are required to be inspected daily, so a snared animal will be held in the snare for up to 36 hours. During that time, it will have no access to food or water, and no protection against rain, the sun, or any other weather. The snare may injure a stuggling animal, and may cause severe pain resulting from interference with the normal circulation.
    It seems not unreasonable to think that the suffering of some snared animals must be appalling. I am not alone in thinking that snares should not be used unless there is no alternative. The code of practice for snaring endorsed by the DEFRA and all the major organizations representing farming and game-rearing states that snares should be used “only if the alternatives are impractical, prohibitively expensive, or would not be effective.”
    Which brings us to hunting. Is the hunted fox terrified? It seems unlikely. The fox will have run away from people, and from dogs, in the past. In the days before the Hunting Act 2004 in England and Wales, and right up until the present day in Scotland, it would usually have run away from hounds before. Giving evidence to the “Hearings on the Evidence” held before the Hunting Bill came before Parliament in 2004, Professor John Webster, a veterinary surgeon and eminent animal-welfare scientist, said this. “Animals are good at learning from their experience. A hunted fox learns from experience that when pursued by hounds, it is going to escape.” This is no surprise to those of us who have observed a hunted fox. Its behaviour is remarkable for being calculated and rational: there is no sign of terror.
    What about the killing of a hunted fox? Predators normally take their prey by the neck. This spares them from the risk of being bitten, and enables them to kill the prey instantly by breaking its neck if they have the advantage of size and strength, which foxhounds do. There have been few post-mortem examinations of foxes killed by hounds. In those few cases, the fox has been found to have been killed either by dislocation of the neck, or by massive injuries to the major organs. Death from these massive injuries when a fox’s chest has been crushed by biting will be quick. Perhaps more important, the consequent sudden loss of blood pressure will have resulted in an instant loss of consciousness. It is by reference to the very same consequence that we accept Jewish and Muslim slaughter methods for farm animals today.
    We need to control foxes, and hunting is the most humane way of doing so. So why are we not talking about the welfare of the fox? Misunderstanding of it is at the heart of opposition to hunting, even if some of our opponents have baser motives. We must talk about welfare if we are to create an environment of opinion in which we are ever to see hounds hunting a fox again. And, as a veterinary surgeon, I want to talk about welfare because I want as few foxes as possible to suffer as a consequences of our dependence on shooting and snaring.
    For a long time, there has been a view in the hunting world that we who hunt must “stick together” with people who shoot, and that this extends to “sticking together” with people who shoot and snare foxes for game preservation. That has meant that we have shied away from comparing the welfare implications of shooting and snaring foxes with those of hunting them. It has denied us the best argument that there is for hunting, and the only one that can change the social environment for it: that it is the most humane method for managing the fox population. It has denied us the opportunity to talk about a problem that needs solving: the unnecessary suffering of foxes. It is time for us to start talking about it now.
    Photography by Adam Galpin
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7f471f90f6d552f4caf72ab1472262cb2287d8af1beb99234dc9143d49eb2f87.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1fda48ac64f51d58d62e9ea74b3bd77d06062738f4601a452c85aa83dffdb59.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71451f0d2b7473628fb8bc42f82293dcfcfc6797d7aee129eb2c0ae5b18be029.png

    3. We have urban foxes all around us.
      Many are old and unable to hunt for their food, hence currently the number of fox stools containing plum pips and the inevitable plethora of take away litter.
      The older, weaker ones are often infested with mange which can be passed on to domestic dogs and cats – and their own young.
      It is very easy to coo over young foxes trotting up the road or balancing on fences as they do play like puppies and can be very personable. A form of Disneyfication.

    4. Banning hunting using hounds was all about sticking it to the (perceived) upper classes. Nothing to do with welfare.

    6. Lord Burns found that hunting was not cruel. That, of course, was not the right answer so it was ignored. I don’t accept halal slaughter. The animal has to bleed to death and be conscious while the mumbo jumbo is spouted.

  11. 409931+up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Dt,
    Police take pro-migrant protesters to asylum hotel
    Essex officers brought counter-demonstrators to face angry locals, claim witnesses

    Looks very much like the peoples guardians have chosen a side in this very organized
    "government cartel" coup".

    Are we to seek how the army stands tis our last, as I see it, defense betwixt us and the foreign hoard seemingly building up in Calais for the final push.

    Unlike the current "police" I would strongly assume that the serving soldier has parents who rank highly
    among their values more so as to toss in their lot on the side of the criminally insane politico's, we are in point of fact very close to witnessing the
    " killing fields of England"

    1. Starmer Starzis. Just like the dogs in Animal Farm, trained to attack the domestic animals.

  12. Generation blame
    SIR – I agree with Daniel Johnson’s article (July 21) on the politics of envy and Labour’s apparent vendetta against the Boomer generation. However, I’d prefer him not to include my generation (Gen X) among those who share Sir Keir Starmer’s antipathy for people born between the end of the Second World War and the rise of The Beatles.

    Before the advent of millennials, Gen X barely got a mention. Its members broadly accepted that the world they had entered was different from that of their forebears, and that their lives would not follow the same path. They simply got on with it, as did pretty much every generation before them.

    It exasperates me to be lumped in with two generations – Gen Z and millennials – whose sense of entitlement is so very much greater than that of my peers and me.

    Nicole Smith
    Kew, Surrey

    I liked this comment , so true .

    JB

    Joshua Bowman
    6 min ago
    I feel the parameters for Generation X are too broad, anyone who didn’t experience life in the 1970s won’t have any comprehension of how tough those times were though the Labour Government seem intent on bringing them back.

    1. Let's consider the record of Gen X prime ministers:
      David Cameron (b.1966)
      Boris Johnson (b.1964)
      Liz Truss (b.1975)

      Assuming the "boomers" use the American definition of being born between the war and the rise of the Beatles, we have:
      Tony Blair (b.1953)
      Gordon Brown (b.1951)
      Theresa May (b.1956)
      Keir Starmer (b.1962)

      We have one millennial former PM:
      Rishi Sunak (b.1980)

      1. It is a shabby record from the boomers onwards.
        When Gen X was growing up we had such political giants; we didn't understand that the worst from our generation would dominate parliament to the extent of deliberately excluding others.

      2. It is a shabby record from the boomers onwards.
        When Gen X was growing up we had such political giants; we didn't understand that the worst from our generation would dominate parliament to the extent of deliberately excluding others.

    2. We had a terrible government in the 70s but otherwise life went on and the country was still British. Not full of invaders.

  13. Food delivery driver Muhammad Faizan Khan who launched a terrifying sexual assault on a Glasgow 32-year-old was using a 'rented' Deliveroo account.

    Deliveroo said last week it had asked civil servants for the hotel addresses so it could block accounts operating from these locations, only to be refused due to 'safety concerns' for hotel occupants.

    But the Home Office has now reluctantly changed its stance and will share this information with Deliveroo, as well as its competitors Just Eat and Uber Eats.

    A story within a story.. the clown world of Leftiedom.

  14. Good Moaning.
    Even the Tellygraff has stopped looking the other way.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/22/police-take-pro-migrant-protesters-to-asylum-hotel/

    Police take pro-migrant protesters to asylum hotel

    Essex officers brought counter-demonstrators to face angry locals, claim witnesses

    22 July 2025 10:02pm BST

    Police have admitted escorting pro-migrant protesters to an asylum hotel at the centre of days of volatile demonstrations.

    Essex Police initially denied that it had brought activists from the group Stand up to Racism to the Bell Hotel amid claims by anti-migrant protesters that the arrival of counter-demonstrators sparked the violence on July 17.

    However, the force backtracked after being shown footage of the protesters being escorted by officers from a nearby station to the hotel.

    On Wednesday, Essex Police will hold a press conference, at which is expected to explain its policing of the demonstrations.

    It came as Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, admitted that mass migration is threatening community cohesion, amid growing fears over another summer of riots.

    In total, six people have been charged with offences related to the disorder in Epping, following further clashes between demonstrators and police on Sunday.

    Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Hooper said: “We have a reasonable duty to protect people who want to exercise their rights.

    “In terms of bringing people to the hotel, the police have a duty to facilitate free assembly. We would only ever take people away from protest if we felt there was an immediate threat to people or property, to free up police resources, to protect others, or to prevent additional violence.

    “In Epping, officers took all three of those into account before making their decisions.”

    Residents said the decision to escort counter-protesters, some of whom were masked, towards the hotel had made violence inevitable.

    Footage shared on social media suggested the confrontation escalated shortly after the arrival of the counter-demonstrators, with objects reportedly thrown and minor injuries sustained.

    Orla Minihane, a leader of the anti-migrant protests and a Reform UK council candidate, said that locals – many of whom said they were there because they wanted women and girls to be safe going out alone – felt police were almost forcing a “confrontation” between the two groups.

    Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said: “I didn’t want to believe this had happened and then I saw the video. It’s an absolute disgrace, and the police’s priorities need urgently looking at.”

    The row follows numerous accusations of two-tier justice levelled against police in recent months.

    Allison Pearson, The Telegraph journalist, was investigated by Essex Police after she posted an allegedly racist tweet online. The force later dropped the investigation.

    Thursday’s demonstration was one of a series of protests outside the Bell Hotel after Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, a 38-year-old asylum seeker, was charged with sexual assault. The migrant, who denies the charges, is alleged to have attempted to kiss a 14-year-old girl.

    On Monday, anti-migrant protests spread to Norfolk after plans to house single male asylum seekers at a hotel were revealed.

    Hundreds of demonstrators waved flags, chanted “we want our country back” and clashed with counter-protesters outside the Park Hotel in Diss on Monday evening.

    There were no violent clashes, but ugly scenes unfolded as protesters tried to take down the other group’s signs and shouted in each other’s faces.

    The hotel in Diss has housed asylum seekers since 2023, but they have mostly been vulnerable women and children. They will now be replaced by single men. South Norfolk council and Norfolk Constabulary have both raised concerns about the proposed change.

    From around 5.30pm, protesters arrived at the back entrance of the hotel and stood in a long, narrow line on the pavement of Park Road. Several were dressed in St George’s Cross bucket hats, while others carried Union Flags.

    They shouted “send them home” and “stop prioritising migrants over our population”.

    Across the road, a group of about 30 counter-protesters stood by the hotel gates with signs that read “refugees welcome/stop the far Right”.

    They tried to drown out the larger group with chants of “say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here”.

    After trading chants and insults for about 30 minutes, anti-migrant demonstrators crossed the road and a line of police officers had to step in to keep the groups apart.

    Vastly outnumbered, the counter-protesters left shortly after 6pm. Norfolk Constabulary said no arrests were made.

    Protesters clashed outside the Park Hotel in Diss after it began housing single male asylum seekers

    The force has previously expressed concerns about the potential strain on resources that single adult males instead of families being housed at the hotel would have. The council has also written to the Home Office asking it to halt the plans.

    Daniel Elmer, the authority’s Conservative leader, said: “We are really disappointed by the decision made by the Home Office to remove families from the Park Hotel and to replace them with single male asylum seekers.

    “South Norfolk, and especially Diss, has a long history of welcoming refugees and those in need of help and offering a safe place to stay.

    “The families have been with us for two years, and it has been a success. They have integrated well into the local community, with the children going to local schools and the mothers welcomed by local community groups. This success has made the decision by the Home Office that much more difficult to understand.”

    The Home Office was contacted for comment.

    Meanwhile, migrant hotel protests spread to London on Tuesday night after claims that asylum seekers housed in Epping were being moved to a four-star hotel in Canary Wharf. The Home Office denied the claims.

    1. The pictures I saw, which may have been taken out of context, showed police escorting masked protestors.
      It should be made illegal to wear a face covering of any sort on a protest march.

        1. Ah, practicing how to control a riot.

          Good of them to give up their free time.

    2. I should have thought that the group was more correctly “stand up for racism” since they appear to hate the white indigenous population.

  15. I like this DTl comment

    Bret Dawson
    2 hrs ago
    After reading an article in yesterday's DT, "Blair’s secret scheme to make immigration more popular", I was reminded how so many of the current problems in the UK have Tony Blair's fingerprints all over them.

    I was also reminded how in the intervening years, he has never been held to account. On the contrary, he has been honoured with a Knighthood.

    Tony Blair took the country into an illegal war, which resulted in the deaths of 179 British service personnel and thousands of Iraqis.

    Tony Blair opened the floodgate, ushering in the age of mass migration.

    Tony Blair stripped Parliament of a vast amount of its power – transferring it to unelected quangos and the Supreme Court.

    Tony Blair agreed that the ECHR's 47 unelected Judges could override British Courts.

    Tony Blair is a free man and his net worth is estimated to be around £70 million.

    Meanwhile, Lucy Connolly still languishes in prison for a hateful tweet

    1. 409931+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      The common denominator of the lab party with criminal record
      ( Bow Street Court) for importuning,
      " miranda" was elected three times as PM.

      By the by,
      Do you cultivate that wall flower growing out the top of your napper ?

    3. Blair and his wrecking crew are quite possibly the worst government the UK has ever suffered.
      Even cursed harmer and co could not be doing what they are but for the foundations laid by Blair.

      1. He and his old flat mate fiddled with the treason laws. And he left behind more 'D' notices than any one else ever has.

    1. Captain Sensible
      8h
      Also:
      Jack Malpractice: Shadow Secretary of Shadows.

      Pattie Handbag: Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief.

      Lucy Adewolo-Cholmondeley: Shadow Minister of Planks and Duckboards.

      Cliff Richard: and the Shadows.

      1. 409931+ up ticks,

        Morning C1,

        I believe the horse via horse sense
        and very little thought said loudly
        NEIGH.

    4. He is both. He must know about FGM, 6 year old brides, honour killings, rape gangs, etc. We already understand the Muslim world and we don't like anything about it.

          1. Good morning Anne

            Please enlighten me – what did he say on this matter?.

          2. Effectively, he predicted that Charles would bring down the monarchy.
            Can't find the exact quote; possibly all the security bollux, that never applies to us, has stepped in.

          3. Thank you.

            He was no fool and he had no illusions about his son. He knew that his and his wife’s heir was a bumbling, incompetent idiot.

    5. He's absolutely correct.
      The more one understands the more one appreciates the extreme danger Islam presents to the civilised world.

    6. " I want to be King of the muslims and at an appropriate moment I will make public that I and my family converted a long time ago so that they will accept me."

  19. Operation Dispersal.

    Labour leader of Sunderland City Council Michael Mordey said there would unfortunately be a pause on the acquisition of homes for asylum seekers after a buying spree of 830 purchases.

    The purchase of new asylum accommodation in County Durham was also paused for three months because the Home Office said it had "sufficient capacity" in the region already.

      1. It's no doubt a Yankism, Pet, similar to "sail boat" or "horseback riding" among many other atrocities.

  24. Mornin' all.
    Here's an idea. Why don't we apply sport's eligibility rules to the boats' contents? As I understand it the boats' contents are taken to hotels, given £70 per week, a smartphone and access to dentists and doctors.
    You have to have been born in Wales, Scot, Eng or Norn Iron (or have a grandparent who was) to play for each country. Let's start by giving the above only to people who would be allowed to represent one of the home nations at sport.

  26. Morning, all Y'all.
    The climax is approaching quickly now. Keep your heads down!
    When the Telegraph has headlines like Police take pro-migrant protesters to asylum hotel
    Essex officers brought counter-demonstrators to face angry residents, claim witnesses
    ( https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/22/police-take-pro-migrant-protesters-to-asylum-hotel/ )
    and the government have expropriated a hotel, firing all the staff, without warning, there can't be much time left before it all kicks off.

        1. So I observed, and if true it’s disgraceful.
          Where are the leftie protesters over this?
          Silly me, supporting the gimmegrants.

          1. As a housemaster in a boarding school I had to live in the school. Indeed because of this many people in my position used to rent out their own houses.

            Many hotel staff will also have living quarters in the hotel and will not have anywhere to go if they are suddenly moved out without warning.

            I am beginning to think that Starmer is deliberately trying to provoke civil war. He is itching for an excuse literally to shoot down 'The Far Right'. He is not just a Communist he is an extremely evil, cold-blooded Communist.

      2. "Here's a couple of grand and an NDA to sign take the money and shut your mouth"
        Or Else

  27. We (The staff in the NHS Trust I work for) have been told we have to identify £X million of cost savings and have been told to submit any ideas at all that would save even a few pounds here and there.
    I suggested that perhaps patients who need interpreters could pay for them themselves.
    I think I might get the sack.

    2. I had major work done on my teeth in Poland in 2022. I did indeed pay for my interpreter through a medical tourism agency 'Polish My Smile'. Pawel did a splendid job, constantly on call via SMS and in person during the fortnight to help me out when discussing treatment with my dentists in Krakow.

      It turned out that I was charged about double what I would have paid had I been a local, but I felt that it was money well spent. It was still considerably cheaper than private treatment in the UK, and did not trash my mouth as provided by the NHS, who import their professionals from Asia, where they buy their qualifications.

      1. Maybe NOTTLers – wot was tort by reel Inglish teechers – could set up there own meme factry.
        All memes wood be spelt proper and punktooation wood be rite.

  30. Good morning, all. Overcast and breezy.

    Canada appears to have its own Miliband minor – it's likely most/all western nations have their own version – Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy.

    Hodgson is using X to extol the provision of 7 hectares of solar panels in the Yukon to provide power to 78 (2021 census) people. Previously the people relied on diesel generation for their electricity.

    Beaver Creek – no smirking at the back – sits above the 62nd parallel i.e. similar to the Shetlands.

    Suffice to say, there isn't much, if any, support for this idea.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bce1e89bffc30ac30bf4553d712507309aaf657b80f6df01b673f3a8bba03381.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59eb75c63f20684781a80de6cf72fb486994d2c229028a41c9693833ce3f0836.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ee4736a64888050f4721b2ea84d1a5f15c573899f9c7ff3da300d357f902f14.png

    The voice of reason in these matters, Professor Ian Plimer, has his say on wind turbines and solar panels.

    https://x.com/listen_2learn/status/1947870429500346858

  31. Lord Farquard
    1h
    The term "r*cist", deployed whenever native Brits need to be shut up for questioning immigration policy, is obviously a very potent one. The sight of state employees from the security services or off duty police pretending to be "Antifa" or state-funded "Hope Not Hate" screaming "R*cist" or "Nartzee" at ordinary Britons concerned for the safety of their children due to state negligence over immigration might finally cause the penny to drop for many people.

    The goal of the state is to drown out the legitimate concerns of ordinary people and damn them or their protest as the problem, not the p*#dos, raypists, murderers, jee-haddies and spongers the state is supporting.

    I note social media is full of comments about "Stella drinkers" etc under anything about Epping. Again, the legitimate concerns of ordinary people are drowned out and they are made out to be the problem, not the government and the illegal immigrants they should be sending away.

    The fact there will be no Sunday Times investigation into who Antifa are and how they are so well organised, apparently with state collusion, tells you everything you need to know

    PollyTicks
    Lord Farquard
    1h
    Well said. Government would rather control us than the others. They want us to shut-up because they know there will be riots. Antifa are there to make sure the blame lies firmly with us and that the media and the whole world can see that.

  32. I got it wrong yesterday – today is the anniversary of the vicious attack at Brompton Barracks:
    “Anthony Esan is accused of the attempted murder of Lt Col Mark Teeton, who was stabbed in Sally Port Gardens near Brompton Barracks on 23 July 2024. ”

    This came a week after the Harehills riots:
    “On 18 July 2024, a riot took place in the Harehills area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The incident was triggered by a dispute over four children of a Romani family being taken into care by social services and police.”

    We have to wait till 29th for the anniversary of the senseless massacre of 3 little girls (not to mention those that were severely wounded in the attack).

    I missed the reporting of the first two anniversaries. I await next week’s anniversary with bated breath.

    1. We heard no more about LtCol Teeton after that stabbing – did he recover? Was anyone charged with any crime?

  33. Morning all 🙂😊
    Some thing went right. A reasonable outcome for England from last night's ladies football.
    And all that's happened with the water companies regulator is a name change. How is that going to make any difference ?

  34. I’d do it all again, says suspect accused of punching police officer six times

    Muhammad Amaad alleged to have used ‘high level of violence’ against Pc Zachary Marsden after he tried to arrest his brother
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/07/22/TELEMMGLPICT000432717131_17531958877430_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqrWYeUU_H0zBKyvljOo6zlq1UDbDdk-JPjedL466dDsg.jpeg?imwidth=1280 CCTV still of Pc Lydia Ward (green dot) and Mohammed Fahir Amaaz (red arrow), Pc Ellie Cook (blue dot), Pc Zachary Marsden (red dot) and Muhammad Amaad (blue arrow), during the alleged assault of three police officers at Manchester Airport

    Telegraph Reporters
    22 July 2025 4:58pm BST

    A man accused of assaulting a police officer at Manchester Airport said there was nothing he would change about his behaviour.

    Muhammad Amaad, 26, is alleged to have used a “high level of violence” against Pc Zachary Marsden after he and two female colleagues tried to arrest his brother, Mohammed Fahir Amaaz.

    The Greater Manchester Police officers entered the Terminal Two car park pay station after reports that a man fitting Mr Amaaz’s description had headbutted a member of the public inside the airport just minutes before on July 23 last year.

    Under cross-examination on Tuesday, Mr Amaad denied that his use of force was unlawful or offensive, saying he had sought to defend himself and his brother as he believed they were “under attack”.

    Prosecutors say Mr Amaad took hold of Pc Marsden’s right arm as the officer restrained Mr Amaaz, 20, and then grabbed Pc Marsden by the throat and neck.

    The Crown says he went on to push the officer back and down on to a nearby seated area before he punched him six times.

    Cross-examining on Tuesday, junior counsel Adam Birkby said: “The prosecution’s case is that during the incident at the pay station your use of force was offensive. It was not defensive. Do you agree or disagree?”

    Mr Amaad said: “I disagree.”

    Mr Birkby said: “And that level of force, in particular the six punches, was unreasonable.”

    “No, I disagree,” said the defendant.

    Mr Birkby said: “And your use of force was unlawful.”

    Mr Amaad said: “ I disagree.”

    Mr Birkby said: “On reflection … is there anything about your behaviour that you would change?”

    “No,” said Mr Amaad.

    Mr Amaad has told the jury that he initially sought to defend his younger brother, who he thought was being choked by Pc Marsden.

    He said he then acted in self-defence to free himself from the grip of Pc Marsden, who he said punched him first.

    His barrister Chloe Gardner asked: “Did you believe you were under attack?”

    Mr Amaad said: “Absolutely.”

    Mr Amaad is alleged to have assaulted Pc Marsden, causing actual bodily harm.

    Mr Amaaz is alleged to have assaulted Pc Marsden and Pc Lydia Ward, causing them actual bodily harm.

    He is also accused of the assault of emergency worker Pc Ellie Cook, and the earlier assault of a member of the public, Abdulkareem Ismaeil, at a Starbucks cafe in Terminal Two arrivals.

    Both men, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, deny the allegations.

    The trial continues.

    Verdict? Sentence?

    2. If they are found Not Guilty, or if Guilty not jailed, then we will know that we really DO have a two tier justice system.

    3. From the obvious, it was all done and dusted. Why the need for a trial. Guilty as charged. Jail.

    5. I really hope they get let off, with lots of compo.
      The reason.. I reckon things have to get really really really really really really really really really really really bad then a bit worse.. before all hell can break loose. And only then.. can things get better.
      A wet conviction will just be business as usual.

      1. They will get police protection. The pakistani muslim paedophile rapist who was released has a police alarm bell in his tax payer paid for house.

        There is no justice in this country.

    6. If anyone is in any doubt that they'll get away with it, I've a bridge to sell you. Two tier Britain does not bother itself with justice.

    7. "Under cross-examination on Tuesday, Mr Amaad denied that his use of force was unlawful or offensive"
      In Shiteholestan.

      1. Aka Londinistan, Bradfordistan. Mancheristan, Lutonistan and other similar sh/1t holes.

    8. Verdict? Innocent as the day they were born. Cultural norms. Colonialism. Yada. Yada. Yada.
      Sentence? £Squillions of taxpayers' money for hurt feelings. Oh, and throw waycism into the pot for extra wonga.

    2. Amazing how there are now 8+ human beings on this planet.
      In 1900 there were approximately 1.65 billion (I chose that year as human prosperity and improved sanitation and medical care became more generally available around that date)

  37. Beebsplaining
    18m
    So Essex plod are going to hold a press conference 🤔
    They have had enough time to think up a 2tieresque excuse for enabling unrest and its all our fault or we don't understand or it was "context" related blah blah incoming, despite previously admitting it was wrong by their denial🤔

    2tiers proven I would say🤔

    Did I mention the Essex PCC is a Tory🤔 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e66f2005ba628ceaea9d942d67957657bcf2b9de1ae43ddf1f64189799c7978b.png

    1. 409931+ up ticks,

      C1,
      Motto of current force,

      We carry the fuel for the continuance of oppression.

  38. Apparently the Essex Plod "escorted" the thugs to confront the desperate parents "because it is important that people with all views are allowed to protest".

    Funny how selective they can be….

    4. The current Essex PCC has put himself up as a potential Conservative candidate for the Essex "Mayoralty" when the county becomes a unitary authority; the excuse for "postponing" county council elections this year.
      I'm not sure these shenanigans enhance his chances of winning the candidature.

  39. Well, that's a good breakfast had and into the last half hour before legging it to Hameln Bahnhoff.
    Travel mug filled, (must make sure the top is properly closed this bloody time) and I just have to pack this laptop & pick up camera & spare lens.
    I plan going from Hameln, changing at Herford, Henglo, Den Haag and Schiedam where I change to the Rotterdam Metro for the last bit.

  40. Good Morning!

    Psychologist Xandra H is back and in her Is there anybody out there? she looks into the insidious effect of AI interference in 'human' discourse. Think you are corresponding with a person? Think again, it might be an AI chatbot. Xandra finds this disturbing. What do you think?

    The articles Abortion: A Moral Reckoning Between Life and Liberty and Ich Bin Ein Epping-er! Why I stand with the patriots of Epping are still live and attracting comments. More will be welcome.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 30.1%; Solar, 6.6%: Wind 15.9%; Imports, 23.9%; Biomass, 4.3%; Nuclear 16.3% and Miscellaneous, 2.9%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  44. Do we remember the MSM explaining that it was black people that built Stonehenge and that until a few hundred years ago the majority of Europe, including our islands, was full of dark skinned people?
    I'm wondering if all of this organised population relocation we see happening is just an enormous rewilding attempt.

    1. 409931+ up ticks,

      Morning Mo,

      Indigenous dark skinned amounts to
      lack of washing facilities on site, black and blue is down to industrial accidents

    2. Go back several thousand years and yes, the melanin did fade away as we made the trek from darkest Africa to Darkest Hampshire – but this is at the same time the nations of France, England and Ireland were the same landmass, so it's entirely moot.

      Civilisation and society – both needed to build Sonehenge were both hugely advanced ahead of where africa is even now.

      1. Ancient Egypt had a tremendous civilisation with incredibly skilled artisans – every post on Facebook says the ancient Egyptians were black.

          1. For some reason i get a lot of Ancient Egypt stuff coming up on the 'news feed'. They're usually quite interesting so I do look at them. In the comments there's always people who deny that the Egyptians were probably of similar origin to other Mediterranean people and it's those comments which are so boring and predictable.

        2. No one seems to point out that the pyramids were built with slave labour. Is there any call from the Left to demand they pay reparations? What about the Greeks? French? Belgians? Spanish? Other blacks?

          Heck, we gave them an entire, beautiful city to live in and the black slaves trashed it. It's a toilet even today.

        3. No one seems to point out that the pyramids were built with slave labour. Is there any call from the Left to demand they pay reparations? What about the Greeks? French? Belgians? Spanish? Other blacks?

          Heck, we gave them an entire, beautiful city to live in and the black slaves trashed it. It's a toilet even today.

  45. From The Times:

    "Air India families in Britain ‘receive the wrong bodies’"

    Well, colour me surprised…

    2. How can they tell one cinder from another? They should have used the seating plan.

  48. Why did James O’Brien recycle an anti-Semitic lie on live radio?
    It’s disgraceful to suggest Jews have been indoctrinated to despise Arabs
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/23/james-obrien-lbc-israel-caller-zionism/

    James O'Brien is one of the solid objects which floats to the top in a cess pit.

    If any group of people indoctrinate people to despise Arabs it is the Arabs themselves by their hate-filled words and actions..

    An exchange of BTL comments:

    Ist BTL: Will OFCOM do anything about this?

    Reply BTL: No – OFCOM is more fundamentally leftist than the Ku Klux Klan is fundamentally racist.

    2. I don't agree that "they'll do anything to stop the truth coming out."
      The alternative media has been flooded with this story for two days.
      The only conclusion is that "they" WANT us to be up in arms about it.

    1. Is the dolphin really thinking 'No stoopid hoomahn! Get that ball outta my pool!'

      1. I suppose the dolphins' goodbye message has to be updated to 'So long and thanks for all the balls'.

      2. I suppose the dolphins' goodbye message has to be updated to 'So long and thanks for all the balls'.

  53. SIR – In June 1984, I watched with mounting anger the attempts by Arthur Scargill’s thugs to overwhelm the police at the Orgreave coking plant. This was part of another attempt by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to bring down a Conservative government. Mr Scargill called the strike without ballot and it was therefore illegal, but this is ignored today by the likes of the human rights barrister Michael Mansfield, the solicitor Gareth Pierce and, of course, this Labour Government. Comments by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the Orgreave Truth and Justice campaign indicate that the inquiry will find against the police and the Conservative government.

    If the inquiry does not fully examine the role of the NUM it will be a pointless exercise. A true and fair inquiry should see the NUM hung out to dry for the violence it engendered during the year-long strike. The Government should be careful what it wishes for.

    John Paterson
    Saltash, Cornwall

    The 1984–1985 miners’ strike did not get the universal approval of miners throughout the coalfields of the UK. In many cases miners were dead set against strike action but they knew it was inevitable as they were being used as political pawns by Arthur Scargill and his National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Since there were no ballots — on potential strike action — being offered by Scargill many resented this undemocratic approached by the union’s manic-Left leadership. Unfortunately there were a good many rabidly-militant activists in many areas and defying them would not have been a good career decision.

    The area with the strongest and most vocal anti-strike membership was Nottinghamshire. When threats were made by NUM headquarters towards Nottinghamshire miners, instead of capitulating they dug in their heels. This resulted with a massive number of them resigning their membership of the NUM, although a few more militant individuals remained. A new union, named the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) was initiated within the Nottinghamshire coalfield and the vast majority of local miners joined it. This set the scene for more conflict between the two unions, the NUM regaling the UDM as being nothing more than government puppets and ‘scabs’ (colloquial slang for strike-breakers, aka ‘blacklegs’).

    In general the Nottinghamshire coalfield continued to work and produce coal for much of the duration of the strike. This caused the NUM to raise the stakes and deploy many more legions of flying pickets to attack the Nottinghamshire coalfields. I had personal experience of this on quite a few levels.

    In the early months of the dispute I was part of a ‘serial’ (a Police Support Unit comprising an inspector looking after two large Ford Transit personnel-carriers, each containing a sergeant and 12 constables) that was despatched to maintain order at Creswell colliery. The interesting thing about Creswell is that although it is physically situated in Derbyshire, for union purposes it was part of the Nottinghamshire area so, in the main, work continued most of the time.

    I recall, vividly, one occasion when only one of our personnel carriers was present at this closed colliery where the only work taking place underground was necessary maintenance. We were surprised — to say the least — when a massive number of vehicles containing pickets arrived without notice. They congregated (around 150 of them in total) at the entrance to the pit and stated to slowly walk across the cricket ground that lay adjacent to the colliery. It was a farcical situation. After radioing for assistance we debussed and spread ourselves out across the cricket ground — all 13 of us — standing about 20 yards apart! Our plaintive pleas of “Stop! Go Back!” were simply ignored as these pickets just strolled across the pitch chuckling to themselves. We could not help doing a spot of chuckling ourselves due to the ridiculousness of the situation. Eventually masses of support arrived and we managed to herd the pickets away with very little incident on that occasion.

    On most occasions, especially the quiet ones, police and local pickets got along well together especially when keeping warm at a brazier on long cold nights and sharing sandwiches and hot drinks. It was only the influx of flying pickets that gave us any problems.

    I was later selected as part of a small squad of six constables and one sergeant to form teams of two, working eight-hour shifts (0600–1400 and 1400–2200) to patrol a Derbyshire mining village (New Houghton, near Mansfield) that had one specific problem. This small village was nearly 100% for the strike, with the exception of just one man. This chap was a huge powerhouse of a man whom no one in the village dare take on. He insisted on continuing to attend his pit for work and was determined not to let any pickets bully him (more fool them if they tried). Our job was to patrol the village as normal and deal with any incidents or complaints, in an attempt to restore normality.

    On the occasions that this chap left his home for work, or return home after his shift, he was greeted by a massive crowd of miners’ wives and children who screamed abuse non-stop at him. It was all water-off-a-duck’s-back to him as he simply ignored them. No male miners attended this melée since they knew he would have dealt with them summarily. This went on for a number of weeks until one night, a new home this chap was in the process of having built was demolished by unknown others! Only then did he decide to leave and move in with his parents in Mansfield for the safety of his family. After that a semblance of order was restored to the village. Many of those miner’s wives who had previously been screeching vocal in their castigation of our presence in their village started to grudgingly accept us, especially when they needed to report crimes and other incidents of which they were the victims.

    Most of the above was never reported in the local or national press since it was deemed to be not controversial — or politically-divisive — enough for them. I, among many of my colleagues, was more than happy when the dispute ended around a year after it started.

      1. Good morning and thank you, Mrs Macfarlane pet!

        I'm not back yet (I've not been further than my workshop) but am only commenting on this current topic since
        Spikey asked me to give my personal views on it (as I did first on Sunday).

        I'll probably be back to offer more in a few weeks' time. bonny lass!😘

    2. As Sonny Boy Snr pointed out; will the inquiry be touching on the subject of the taxi drive killed by miners who dropped a concrete block on his car?

    3. Those unfortunate events occurred 40 years ago. Why are they being dredged up now? I imagine with hindsight many folk on both sides are not especially proud of their personal behaviour.

      If the intent by this government is to destroy Lady T's legacy they already have by destroying the country she bequeathed.
      If it's to destroy the police again, the Left have already done that as public trust is evaporating due to plod's own actions under the woke regime.
      If it's to attack the unions – well, it isn't, so no point going there. If it's to exonerate the unions that's impossible as they sought to use power for their own profit at the expense of the country and were thoroughly defeated. They exist only as a remnant in the public sector now.

      Thus I ask, what's the point? It'll be a monumental waste of money to find the answer the state wants. We have so many other problems to deal with perpetrated on us in the last 30 years to resolve.

  54. Forget Rome – this was the ancient empire that made the modern world
    Eve MacDonald’s history of Carthage offers a fascinating insight into the civilisation, which is all too often eclipsed

    Hannibal Crossing the Alps by Jacopo Ripanda, c. 1510 Credit: Getty
    Daisy Dunn
    22 July 2025 7:15am BST
    Daisy Dunn
    Napoleon is relatively unusual in western history for aligning himself with the brutal Hannibal – not Hannibal’s Roman enemy, Scipio Africanus. The Frenchman’s interest in the Carthaginian bordered on obsessional. He read every book about him he could find, including the Latin histories of Livy, and made copious notes. He could work examples from Hannibal’s life into conversation with ease, and when he crossed the Alps in 1800, he knew precisely whose footsteps he was following in. Hannibal was more than a man: he was, like Napoleon, a god.

    Hannibal was no stranger himself to self-mythologising. His name meant “he who is favoured by Ba’al”: Ba’al Hamon being the chief god of the Carthaginians, who reached the apex of their global powers from their city near Tunis (in modern Tunisia) in the third and second centuries BC. Hannibal had the air of an immortal, but also believed that he enjoyed the protection of Melqart, the Phoenician equivalent of Hercules. Melqart was often equated with the sun itself. Such confidence in one’s divine credentials can only breed an appetite for risk-taking.

    Hannibal was clever, charismatic and fair. His success as a commander, argues Eve MacDonald in her comprehensive new book, Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire, “rested in his soldiers and their loyalty to him”. The general was known for distributing bounties to his soldiers – a professional army drawn from many territories, including North Africa, Iberia, Greece and Italy – and following with further payments. The Romans, of course, despised him as the apparently unbeatable foe. The phrase Hannibal ad portas (“Hannibal is at the gates”) gained currency during the Punic Wars between the two ancient superpowers, epitomising the fear as well as the awe he inspired in his adversaries.

    But has Hannibal’s fame eclipsed that of his civilisation? This is one of the questions MacDonald, a senior lecturer in Ancient History at Cardiff, poses in Carthage. The fact that Greek and Roman sources dating from soon after Hannibal’s time focus so heavily upon him, she suggests, “tends to skew our evidence about Carthage around the life of one man and his great deeds and adventures.” As a result, wider-ranging historical interest in the region “gets lost in the appetite for daring deeds of great soldiers”. Napoleon’s fascination is a prime example. MacDonald’s history, then, is not so much revisionist as expansionist. Its subtitle might have been: “Who Were the Carthaginians?”

    Inhabitants of the ancient city were committed to comfortable living. Men – we know far more about them than we do the women – wore long tunics and earrings for pierced ears. On the evidence of Aristophanes, the Greek comedian, we can conjecture that they were mainly circumcised. From as early as the third century BC, the wealthier members of society had bathrooms with cisterns in their homes. They dined well on fish and a porridge consisting of grain with eggs, curd and honey. Meat was consumed mainly after religious sacrifices. One very early banquet, the remains of which were recently uncovered in the former Carthaginian city of Utica (near modern Bizerte), featured goat, oxen, pig, horse, and even turtle and dog.

    The architects of Carthaginian cities gave some consideration to the breeding and keeping of animals. MacDonald, who draws effectively upon her background in archaeology, describes stabling for horses and spaces inside the double “casemate” walls of Carthage for raising elephants. Before Hannibal famously led 37 of the beasts across the Alps, Pyrrhus, King of the region of Epirus, introduced 20 to Italy, prior to his expedition to expel Carthaginians from Sicily. Having seen elephants in action, the Carthaginians were smitten, and went on to use them during their conquests of the Iberian Peninsula. The animals provided unparalleled cover for their retreat during a river-crossing beset by an hostile Celtic tribe. There’s no consensus over which species the Carthaginians used, but a combination of African and Asian elephants is likely.

    The Carthaginians would not have been nearly so famous had they not fought with Rome. And the Romans might never have created their enduring empire had it not been for Carthage, which they mercilessly destroyed in 146 BC following a lengthy siege. The difficulty for the modern historian is that, in putting Carthage on the map, the Romans cast shadow on its virtues.

    It’s a typical story of history being written by the conquerors. MacDonald’s ambition to retell the history of Carthage from a Carthaginian perspective, then, is hampered by the limitations of the written material. This is unavoidable and only to be expected. No historian of the ancient world should be taken to task over the gaps in the sources; it’s how they navigate those gaps that matters.

    MacDonald pieces the material together admirably and succeeds in creating a thickly-layered portrait of a culture that has often struck readers as peculiar and violent. She takes a particularly sensitive approach to the interpretation of phenomena such as child-sacrifice. An open-air sanctuary in Carthage has been found to contain thousands of urns filled with the cremated bodies of babies, young children and animals. It is known as a tophet – from the Hebrew name of a valley in Jerusalem where the Philistines were said to “sacrifice their children through fire”. Greek and Roman writers wrote with abhorrence of Carthaginian children being rolled into flame-filled pits.

    Were children sacrificed in prayer for the wellbeing of the city? Or are these the dedicated remains of infants who died from natural causes? Most were very young when they died and we know that the rate of infant mortality was high. MacDonald draws attention to the inscriptions upon the stelae erected next to the urns, and particularly to the words, “because he / she heard our voice”. This looks very much like a divine offering in fulfilment of a vow or an answered prayer. While it remains unclear exactly what was happening here, it is interesting to observe, as MacDonald does, that similar sanctuaries have been discovered in Malta, Sardinia, Sicily and elsewhere in north Africa.

    MacDonald is more vehemently myth-busting in her examination of the foundation of Carthage. According to the legend elaborated in Virgil’s Aeneid, the city was established by Dido (known to the Carthaginians as Elissa), who fled her home in the Phoenician city of Tyre (in modern Lebanon) to escape her tyrannical brother Pygmalion. Having made landfall on the coast near Tunisia, the beleaguered Dido requested a piece of land only as large as an ox-hide. Her wish was granted, and she proceeded to chop up a hide into skinny strips, which she laid end to end to encompass a sizeable area for her new city. The citadel at Carthage was known thereafter as Byrsa, from the Greek for “ox-hide”.

    It’s a brilliant story, and according to MacDonald, calls on the well-known concept of “using an ox to plough an area of land to mark out boundaries”. That sounds plausible. One thing the ancient writers did get absolutely right was that Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC and had Phoenician origins. The earliest inscription found at Carthage – on a gold pendant placed in a tomb – dates to then and even refers to a “Pygmalion”. Radiocarbon dating further supports a foundation date in the 9th century BC.

    MacDonald writes clearly and frankly, and has produced an enjoyable and readily digestible introduction to Carthage. Hers is not a book of stylish prose or vivid description. The closest we come to the latter is in the opening pages, which recount the final destruction of Carthage, and in a survey of the aftermath of the Battle of Cannae, when “steam rose in the morning off the still warm bodies of the dead and injured”. Some readers will favour such an information-over-atmosphere approach, and there is much to be said for giving it to us straight. But there were moments in which I felt that MacDonald could have let go a little. If Hannibal has one lesson for writers, it is surely that triumph is dependent upon risk.

    ★★★★☆
    Daisy Dunn is the author of books including The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It. Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire is published by Ebury at £22. To order your copy, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books

    If only the DT contributed more articles like this .. so interesting ..

    And of course , just as violent as now ..

    1. She is an extremely clever and intelligent young woman. Writes like a dream.

      1. Nothing distracts attention from other scandals like invrnting a new one (or two). Just as soon as Epstein stories are forgotten, stories like this will dissappear.

      1. It's just Trump being Trump. He is intensely jealous of Obama and throws dirt all the time. There's no fact behind the fiction.

  56. Hugh Thomson
    Tim Davie isn’t fit to lead the BBC
    23 July 2025, 5:30am

    Those within the BBC might be afraid to say so, but an ex-producer like me has no such qualms: Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General, isn’t cut out for the job. For the good of the BBC, Davie must go.

    The last few weeks have been painfully bad for Davie. The Masterchef saga, which led to the departure of not one, but both main presenters, is the final nail in the coffin, after blunders over Glastonbury and Gaza.

    Never has the BBC needed to have a visionary in post more to survive. Never has it had someone so clearly inadequate for the job

    A review of the BBC’s February documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, which was released last week, found the programme had breached editorial guidelines for accuracy, having failed to disclose that its child narrator was the son of a Hamas agricultural official.

    The review didn’t, however, find any breaches of impartiality. The BBC exonerated, then. Except Davie himself wasn’t. Because instead of having backed the filmmakers over the row, he and the BBC Chair, Samir Shah, ran for cover as hard as possible and let them take all the incoming flak.

    The feeling within the BBC is that both Davie and Shah have been hopeless and craven in their response to this saga. The programme was not ‘a dagger to the heart’ of the BBC’s claim to impartiality, as Shah jumped the gun by saying in March. But don’t hold your breath for Shah to apologise for those comments, and to reassure filmmakers that, as their boss, he is protecting their backs. Or for Davie to do so.

    BBC management’s main concern has been to put the blame on somebody else. Some hapless line producer will be made to walk the plank – and the independent company that made the film hung out to dry – so they can retain their crowns, as happened at Glastonbury, where the BBC failed to cut the live stream of an act leading an anti-IDF (Israel Defense Forces) chant.

    Part of the problem stems from Davie’s background. As Ben de Pear, director of another film, on Gaza medics, which Channel 4 screened after the BBC refused to show it, said recently: Davie is ‘a PR person’ who doesn’t understand journalism.

    ‘Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making,’ said de Pear. It’s hard to fault that analysis: Davie has never made a programme in his life. When he worked in PR, the only thing he is remembered for is his role in helping Pepsi turn their cans blue (sales went up by 0.1 per cent, so that went well).

    As an ex-BBC producer, I know things would have been different under Davie’s predecessors. BBC Chairs like Michael Grade would have been bullish in their defence of their staff. Alasdair Milne resigned as DG rather then let the government walk all over the BBC in the 1980s.

    Both men had been filmmakers themselves. Unlike Davie, they had served on the front line. They knew what it means to make difficult editorial judgments. And they knew, above all, they would only retain the loyalty of their own staff if they defended them when it was right to do so. Davie doesn’t.

    If things were going fine for the Corporation, having a lightweight at the helm wouldn’t matter. But there are some weighty issues the BBC needs to address and is conspicuously failing to do.

    The BBC strategy over recent years has been to compete with streamers like Netflix and Amazon by producing its own prestige dramas as justification for the licence fee. This strategy has been failing, and licence fee avoidance growing, because it simply does not have the same deep pockets as its rivals. The BBC couldn’t even afford the proper shooting of a sequel to Wolf Hall, which should have been a shoo-in. Producer Peter Kosminsky has revealed that many scenes had to be cut because there simply wasn’t the money.

    Instead, the BBC needs to regain its ambition when it comes to factual television. That this can be hugely successful has been shown by both Netflix – their recent Trainwreck series on disasters – and HBO. It also has the signal advantage of having become far, far cheaper. While drama has got absurdly expensive, technology allows documentaries to be shot by just a handful of people these days and edited on a laptop.

    There is a real and unfulfilled appetite for knowing how others live in our increasingly compartmentalised world. Yet not only is the BBC failing to meet this challenge, Davie seems blithely unaware it’s a challenge at all. The BBC’s Annual Report last week – top-dressed with bland words that read as if written by AI, like ‘Our goal is to deliver outstanding value’ – didn’t bother even to properly quantify their documentary output. Davie and the BBC are in a unique position to make factual programmes about Britain for a British audience very cheaply, if they wanted to, and secure the corporation’s place as a national treasure.

    But that would need a huge reset to direct resources away from the current dull schedule of occasional marquee drama projects and police procedurals, bulked out with endless repeats (‘Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?’ – for the thousandth time). It would need a Director-General with vision and drive and the confidence of his staff to make this change. Instead, 100 BBC staff recently wrote to complain about the behaviour of BBC management over the Gaza medics documentary, but had to do so anonymously. It’s hardly the sign of a happy organisation.

    Davie has had five years in post, with nothing to show for his £547,000-a-year salary (executive ‘remuneration’ is another issue at the BBC that needs addressing). It is simply not enough for Davie to manage decline and deal with the regular upsets which broadcasting, like politics, will always provide; particularly when he is reacting to them so badly.

    Never has the BBC needed to have a visionary in post more if it is to survive. And never has it had someone so clearly inadequate for the job.

    Davie needs to go. Not just because of the MasterChef and Gaza and Glastonbury mistakes, but because, in five years, he has shown no vision for the direction the BBC needs to take to reclaim its position as a broadcaster worthy of the licence fee.

    When the BBC comes to replace Davie, as it soon surely will – and should – perhaps they might choose somebody who’s actually made a programme in their lives. Or Netflix will be making ‘Trainwreck: The BBC’.

    Hugh Thomson won the Grierson Award and has been BAFTA-nominated for his series for the BBC

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

    Coined It
    5 hours ago
    “BBC Chairs like Michael Grade would have been bullish in their defence of their staff.”

    This implies that the BBC’s behaviour is defensible. It is not – it’s a progressive propaganda outlet and net zero campaigner. In the existential battle between radical Islam and Jews we know which side it is on.

    Vast swathes of people hold it in contempt and have stopped watching.

    Mark
    5 hours ago
    I know this runs counter to convention but I now read the BBC news website daily. No, not for Mr Bowen’s fantastical reporting but for other reasons.
    It has become an “elites” messaging service. It conveys the party line on any number of issues. What they are permitted to be offended by, and what they should praise to the rafters.
    Secondly, there are usually what I would term “planter” items, easily spotted as they appear as if from nowhere. Within three or four days our Big Brother, Sir 2TK, will announce a related new non-policy thing. The idea being to plant the sense of a problem and then Big Brother solves it (not).
    It is surprisingly obvious. And it is entertaining. Then the game is to see what the BBC are not talking about….and know that’s what really needs talking about. It is a barometer, a litmus paper, devoted to Big Brother and the elite who are destroying this nation brick by brick, blade of grass by blade of grass.

    Donald Kekong
    4 hours ago
    But this isn’t just about one man. It’s the culture. The BBC is addicted to its own voice, deluded about its relevance, and convinced it can’t be challenged because it once mattered. It lectures a public that has long since stopped listening.

    And all of it—this bloated, self-important cathedral of soft power—is funded by coercion. A licence tax with no opt-out. For what? Reruns, empty drama, corporate cowardice, and finger-wagging in the tone of a dying empire.

    Defund it. Dismantle it. Replace it with nothing. Let the market decide what deserves attention. The BBC had its era. Now it’s just noise.

    1. This is symptomatic of a wider problem in the Public Sector and Parliament.

      Too many people in roles with great power and influence have never held down any position, let alone senior one, in anything working in the "real world"

    2. Jeez…
      A common theme from Conservatives that have finally realised after twenty years that every institution has been captured by 6th Form Leftie activists. Yet did SFA when in power.
      If you recall Johnsons' appalling appointment of Jess Bramner as BBC chief political editor even though she had spent four years tweeting her intense hatred for: brexit, Boris, the Union flag, the Queen, men, Tories, English constitution.

      1. "If you recall Johnsons' appalling appointment of Jess Bramner as BBC chief political editor…"

        Fancy that! Boris was DG of the BBC in 2021.

      2. Hague
        Cameron/Clegg
        May
        Johnson
        Sunak
        All members of the perpetual 6th. form debating society

    3. Jeez…
      A common theme from Conservatives that have finally realised after twenty years that every institution has been captured by 6th Form Leftie activists. Yet did SFA when in power.
      If you recall Johnsons' appalling appointment of Jess Bramner as BBC chief political editor even though she had spent four years tweeting her intense hatred for: brexit, Boris, the Union flag, the Queen, men, Tories, English constitution.

    5. It's not just the figurehead though, is it? The entire institution thinks itself a government department and so behaves as if the state were it's customer.

    6. This piece completely fails to mention the elephant in the room, which is BBC culture – as the BTL commenters can clearly see!

  58. RRemember The Truckers Freedom protest?

    Tamara Lich and Chris Barber who acted in a leadership role are in court today to be sentenced for their actions. The government lawyers are pushing for seven year sentences.

    Governments really don't like anyone taking a stand against them do they?

    1. Nope, as if people paying for them say no then the entire control system falls down. It's pathetic that the Left have always done this throughout history. They haven't changed, and they self righteously think they're 'the good guys'.

    2. My favourite injustice goes to the jailing of former soldier Daffron Williams for commenting on Facebook that Axel Rudakubana was a Muslim terrorist.. and not a Welsh choir boy as described by the state.

      Six months later it was revealed that Axel Rudakubana was on the Muslim terrorist watchlist. Daffron still inside.

      1. What? That's completely potty. All he did was embarrass the state – ah, that's why.

      3. Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when Lady the brach may stand by the fire and stink.

        [King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4.]

    3. My favourite injustice goes to the jailing of former soldier Daffron Williams for commenting on Facebook that Axel Rudakubana was a Muslim terrorist.. and not a Welsh choir boy as described by the state.

      Six months later it was revealed that Axel Rudakubana was on the Muslim terrorist watchlist. Daffron still inside.

      1. Unfrozen but marked as having been frozen.

        A lawyer supposedly working for Lich and Barber just received notice that her accounts at a Canadian bank will be closed in a months time.

    1. Elly Jones
      1 hr ago
      The part that got to me was: “It is important that the Government ensures that there is a full package of support for those staying at the hotel…" Are you fu$%ing kidding me?!

    3. More likely they are putting in more beds so as to house more people.

      This whole nonsense would stop if businesses refused to play along with it, like that hotel owner at Tintagel. The government is blatantly bribing businesses with funny money. What do those men delivering the mattresses think they're going to get out of the invasion?

      1. Britannia are pretty much the worst hotel chain in the country. No surprise they are accepting government contracts.

      2. The state is offering significantly above normal bed prices and full occupancy, let alone repairs afterward. While it would be nice to refuse the sewage they need the money. The Left have driven hospitality into the ground.

        1. We all “need the money.” I could buy a cheap house somewhere in Britain and get one of these five year contracts on it if I wanted. Funnily enough, I don’t want.

    2. Why is there even a petition? Why can we not sack of staff and employ new ones? They're not 'in power', they're in office. And they must be removed from those offices.

    10. It's not going up as quickly as one would like. I'm not on twatter or faceache – might I respectfully urge those that are to share it with their trillions of followers?

  64. https://order-order.com/2025/07/23/labour-rolls-out-enormous-foreign-aid-spending-to-avoid-disproportionate-impacts-on-equalities/#comments

    George Finchley
    2h
    This isn’t aid, it’s ideological export dressed up as virtue. Most Brits support helping after disasters or fighting famine, not funding Western NGOs to run pet equality lectures in countries with vastly different cultures and priorities. We’ve created an entire industry of well-paid consultants and agencies whose livelihoods depend on repackaging social engineering as “development”.
    The reality? Much of the money never reaches the poor, it recycles through Western contractors, flying in to host workshops, collect per diems, and write glowing reports for DFID or now FCDO. We don’t expect taxpayers to bankroll gender studies in Iraq or media literacy classes in Ethiopia. That’s not what aid was meant for.

    Labour’s talking about “avoiding disproportionate impacts on equalities”, but they’ve missed the real disproportion, British citizens footing the bill for causes they neither asked for nor benefit from. Time to get real: stop interfering in cultures we don’t understand, and stop funnelling UK aid into ideological pet projects under the guise of morality.

    1. Out side of politics in the real world, it would be known as Rrs covering.
      Deferring attention from the monumental and massively expensive errors our political idiots have made.

    2. Nope. It's jobs for the boys. If the Chancellor really wanted to save and raise money, she would tax the Foundations, "Charidees" and "Not for Profits" that have become such lucrative rackets for the usuals whilst being exempt from tax. Why?

      These are all highly profitable businesses – some would say fraudulent ones. Although simply withdrawing government subsidies would go a long way to sorting the sheep from the goats.

  66. 409931+ up ticks,

    We are witnessing a fully fledged fifth Column, top ranker, treacherous war instigator in action,
    the one in uniform.

    A tax payers reliant, servant of the peoples, two options left, general strike, or march on parliament with very strong justifiable intentions, we don't come away leaving the same power structure in place.
    https://x.com/addicted2newz/status/1947995060001194342

    1. His resignation isn't enough. He must be forced to explain what he intended to achieve under oath.

    1. She's a canny nanny who knows the going rate but I wonder if he will have enough doe to pay her?

    2. Some where I have a photo of a wild Gemsbok taken in SA. Poking it's huge and long horns through our open car window.
      It didn't ask us for anything money 🤗😁😅

    2. Will The Pope and the other church leaders proclaim that Christians have a duty to repel those who try to Islamise Europe?

      The Head of the Church of England (aka The Idiot King] has already said that we should welcome them.

      1. How many will he accommodate in all his properties?
        Answers in capitals on a pin head please

      2. I see Charlie and Camilla were at the National Stud. Stradivarius didn’t look very impressed.

    3. I think the genuine people in Europe know that but they can't persuade their own political idiots to do anything about it.

  71. The principal complaint that people are raising is that nobody asked them if they wanted their country and its culture raped and ruined by both legal and illegal immigrants.

    If Farage had any real testicular strength he would be promising a referendum as soon as he got into office on stopping all further Islamic invasion and the expulsion of all illegal immigrants already here.

    But he's all mouth and trousers and won't do anything like that, will he?

    1. Mouth and trousers is something he has practiced devotedly.
      I don't think he's ever done anything but talk.

  72. The law is a ass.
    If I read this correctly these two creeps were guilty, but are now acquitted on a technicality.
    Why wasn't there a retrial ordered?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14931999/City-traders-jailed-rigging-rates-convictions-quashed.html

    The Court of Appeal dismissed appeals from both men in March last year. They then took their cases to the Supreme Court.

    This morning, the panel of five justices found there was 'ample evidence' for a jury to convict the two men had it been properly directed, but they had not.

    1. I think it might be a little more complicated, in that none of the actual bosses was either investigated or convicted, so as usual the footsoldiers carried the can for what was institutionalised dodgy practice. The actual criminal fraud was carried out by the likes of the Bof E and other Big Bank bosses, in collusion, hence cannot be prosecuted, it seems.

    2. I think because it was now , what, ten years since the trial. There have been many appeals. That the case was complicated was clear from the finding that the judge misdirected the original jury.

      Unlike "hate cases" or "far-right violence" where the procedure will go on beyond the grave, there are times when it is thought simpler to draw a line.

    1. There was a conspiracy about using cells from unborn or terminated fetus for big pharma. I expect they eat the remains.

      1. It's not a conspiracy, it's fact. Pharmaceutical research, food research, cosmetic research and also as we lately learned, experimental computers that use brain cells. It is obvious that the last would need mature brain cells.

    2. AU$4,200 for killing baby. AU$1,000,000 if you kill grandma. Well, possibly not yet, but…

  75. She needs locking up asap.. bet she reads The Spectator.

    Protester Lorraine Kavanagh, 70, who has been working for a local charity on the Isle of Dogs for 42 years, said they serve over 1,000 people, most in employment, a week in their food bank, who "still cannot afford to come in here [the Britannia International Hotel] for one night for an anniversary or for a birthday".

    She continued: "The school holidays have now started […] so the kids are now out on the streets, where they should be; they should be out there playing.

    "Parents should not be terrified that their children are out and could be […] approached, spoken to by people who have no passports, no identity."
    .
     https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e505cd39e48ca5551021c20bcf9a9769a5203e793c7d87563ead8aa93f591f59.jpg

  77. Sir Sadiq Khan has been informally advising the Democrats’ left-wing New York mayoral candidate on how to win his election.

    Zohran Mamdani, 33, shocked America’s political establishment last month by defeating the former governor Andrew Cuomo in the race to secure his party’s nomination.

    Sources say Mamdani and Khan have since exchanged texts and spoken over the phone. Khan’s advisers have also been in contact with Mamdani’s campaign team.

    The sources close to Khan add that Mamdani needs to move to the centre to widen his appeal, particularly as Cuomo and the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, are running as independents in the general election on November 4.

    Sadiq Khan speaking at a podium in New York City Hall.
    Eric Adams hosted Khan in New York in 2022

    A Mamdani victory would mimic Khan’s route to the London mayoralty, which required him to outflank his Labour opponents from the left in the selection process only to then move back towards the centre to defeat the Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith, in 2016. Khan has since won re-election twice.

    Mamdani’s critics have accused him of posing a danger to the city’s economic reputation. President Trump has branded him a “communist lunatic”.

    Mamdani, a New York state assembly member, is pledging to open government-owned supermarkets, impose wide-ranging rent freezes, and raise taxes on businesses.

    A source in London’s City Hall said: “The primary race is very different from the [mayoral election]. He needs to moderate or he could lose the more centrist Democrats.”

    Mamdani’s supporters say his radical left-wing policies, focused on the cost of living, provide a blueprint for other Democratic candidates. A source said his campaign should serve as a lesson for centre-left politicians across the western world: “Ditch the pollsters, listen to your neighbours and get back into the damn streets.”

    Khan’s involvement has the potential to reopen old wounds, after Trump accused the Labour Party of interfering in the presidential election.

    Trump’s campaign team filed a legal complaint against the party last year, after a Labour official revealed on social media that 100 current and former staff were going to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris.

    Trump has vowed to stop Mamdani carrying out his radical policies if he becomes mayor. “As resident of the United States, I’m not going to let this communist lunatic destroy New York,” he posted on his Truth Social platform. “Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I’ll save New York City, and make it ‘hot’ and ‘great’ again, just like I did with the good ol’ USA.”

    Khan has history with Trump. Protesters were granted approval to fly an orange balloon in Parliament Square during the president’s visit to Britain in 2018 — a stunt that Khan could have stopped.

    The balloon has since been acquired by the London Museum, which plans to display it when it opens a site in Smithfield next year.

    Khan recently offered to take Trump for a curry in London during his second state visit in September to show him “the joys of our diversity”.

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/london/article/sadiq-khan-new-york-mayor-zohran-mamdani-vg2d2kjws

    Charlie Harris
    21 hours ago

    In Khan’s city, 1 in 12 people are illegal aliens and stabbings, theft, sex crimes, mobile and watch theft are at an all time high, along with public transport prices. The Sadiq way to turn your city into an expensive, dangerous cesspit or a multicultural melting pot, depending on your point view.

    D Bolton
    9 hours ago

    If the prospective candidate for New York wishes to take the city back to the crime ridden dump of the 1970s he is speaking to the right person in Khan.

  78. Sir Sadiq Khan has been informally advising the Democrats’ left-wing New York mayoral candidate on how to win his election.

    Zohran Mamdani, 33, shocked America’s political establishment last month by defeating the former governor Andrew Cuomo in the race to secure his party’s nomination.

    Sources say Mamdani and Khan have since exchanged texts and spoken over the phone. Khan’s advisers have also been in contact with Mamdani’s campaign team.

    The sources close to Khan add that Mamdani needs to move to the centre to widen his appeal, particularly as Cuomo and the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, are running as independents in the general election on November 4.

    Sadiq Khan speaking at a podium in New York City Hall.
    Eric Adams hosted Khan in New York in 2022

    A Mamdani victory would mimic Khan’s route to the London mayoralty, which required him to outflank his Labour opponents from the left in the selection process only to then move back towards the centre to defeat the Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith, in 2016. Khan has since won re-election twice.

    Mamdani’s critics have accused him of posing a danger to the city’s economic reputation. President Trump has branded him a “communist lunatic”.

    Mamdani, a New York state assembly member, is pledging to open government-owned supermarkets, impose wide-ranging rent freezes, and raise taxes on businesses.

    A source in London’s City Hall said: “The primary race is very different from the [mayoral election]. He needs to moderate or he could lose the more centrist Democrats.”

    Mamdani’s supporters say his radical left-wing policies, focused on the cost of living, provide a blueprint for other Democratic candidates. A source said his campaign should serve as a lesson for centre-left politicians across the western world: “Ditch the pollsters, listen to your neighbours and get back into the damn streets.”

    Khan’s involvement has the potential to reopen old wounds, after Trump accused the Labour Party of interfering in the presidential election.

    Trump’s campaign team filed a legal complaint against the party last year, after a Labour official revealed on social media that 100 current and former staff were going to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris.

    Trump has vowed to stop Mamdani carrying out his radical policies if he becomes mayor. “As resident of the United States, I’m not going to let this communist lunatic destroy New York,” he posted on his Truth Social platform. “Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I’ll save New York City, and make it ‘hot’ and ‘great’ again, just like I did with the good ol’ USA.”

    Khan has history with Trump. Protesters were granted approval to fly an orange balloon in Parliament Square during the president’s visit to Britain in 2018 — a stunt that Khan could have stopped.

    The balloon has since been acquired by the London Museum, which plans to display it when it opens a site in Smithfield next year.

    Khan recently offered to take Trump for a curry in London during his second state visit in September to show him “the joys of our diversity”.

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/london/article/sadiq-khan-new-york-mayor-zohran-mamdani-vg2d2kjws

    Charlie Harris
    21 hours ago

    In Khan’s city, 1 in 12 people are illegal aliens and stabbings, theft, sex crimes, mobile and watch theft are at an all time high, along with public transport prices. The Sadiq way to turn your city into an expensive, dangerous cesspit or a multicultural melting pot, depending on your point view.

    D Bolton
    9 hours ago

    If the prospective candidate for New York wishes to take the city back to the crime ridden dump of the 1970s he is speaking to the right person in Khan.

    2. And a majority of the people with blue disabled badges in London who are allowed to park in the bays for free. Are not indigenous British. And probably not honestly disabled.

      1. Here I still have to pay even with a blue badge. Get an extra hour. Same in Newmarket. In Wales it’s free.

    4. Khan's advice on winning elections? Cheat of course. Make sure your own people have multiple postal votes and don't deliver either postal votes or voting cards to the Jewish districts.

  79. Wordle No. 1,495 3/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 23 Jul 2025

    Wishy washy Birdie Three?

    1. Birdie here too today.

      Wordle 1,495 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Fairly straightforward Eagle!!

      Wordle 1,495 2/6

      🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Someone needs to put the treasonous government on the spot and demand an explanation for what is going on.

  83. Lord Chris Smith has been elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
    He is the outgoing Master of Pembroke.

  84. Evening all. Been to a plant fair and spent a small fortune. Last couple of times I haven’t bought anything because they haven’t had what I wanted or prices were astronomical. This time prices were reasonable and they had alstroemeria , unusual hemerocallis and some nice heuchera. Am now completely banjaxed after walking around and then planting everything in the garden or pots.

    Don’t know how to comment on the water company situation. I am with Severn Trent. Just down the road is Dŵr Cymru. I may be tempting fate, but I haven’t had an issue with them yet.

  85. Captain Hindsight
    5h
    Whoever made the decision to bus in the far left protestors should be sacked by the chief constable. If the paper trail leads to his desk then he should be suspended pending an investigation before he gets chance to resign.
    If this was flipped on its head, the protesters from out of area would have been kettled at the train station and put on the next train out of the area. This is just the latest example of two tier policing and ultimately it will destroy what little confidence there is that's left in police in this country.

    Intriguing
    5h
    Good from Nigel, more of this please. Direct intervention, stoke the fire and call for officials to go, name them and shame them.
    The UK public will know who this guy is, now we need to name the Home Office officials who bussed in HNH/ANTIFA and who ordered Essex to go along with it.

    Dasilva
    5h
    The fact they escorted antifa right into the protest is bad enough but they actually lied about it before being found out. The head of that police force should be sacked for lieing.

    Polly On The Shore
    5h
    2TK criticized the Southport protesters as "not local people but far-right thugs who had travelled to the area to cause trouble."
    2TK on the fact that far-left/Antifa agitators arrived at Epping tube station from outside the area and were bused to the Bell Hotel by local Essex plod…

    Baroness Chapmans Lovechild
    5h
    He also has form for sending officers to the houses of Journalists for social media posts………………

    Beebsplaining
    5h
    Let us not forget Essex plod still have questions to answer over David Amiss and why he was not protected, one of the reasons the toilet chose Amiss and another one 2tier Rodney refused to look into🤔

    Bill
    5h
    NOW, you all see the true and real reason the Police and Lib Lab Con establishment fought for so long to disarm honest decent law abiding Britons. it had NOTHING to do with reducing crime, cos crime continues to rise, and everything to do with them retaining control of the country and preventing a revolution.

    1. The Essex police seem to be still lying about it! They must think no one has a smart phone – their latest attempt is to say they were driving some people away from the area as a safety measure!! Presumably they don't have a [moral] compass?

      1. Was anything done to the police driver who drove the van into the crowd? Like suspend or prosecute?

    2. ”retaining control of the country and preventing a revolution”. Don’t you mean promoting a revolution?

  86. That's me gone. Funny day. Cloudy and damp this morning – then a sunny afternoon. Been very idle – just reading.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  87. Michael Deacon
    The BBC is no longer a broadcaster. It’s an activist group

    Journalists have a duty to report the plain facts, not advance an ideology

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/07/23/TELEMMGLPICT000368597358_17532706602820_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq-IWLY18X4-CzgyIcjLEAj_SVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=1280
    Scarlet Blake, found guilty of the murder of Jorge Martin Carreno, was repeatedly referred to as ‘her’ by the BBC but was born male Credit: Thames Valley Police/PA Wire

    23 July 2025 5:08pm BST
    Michael Deacon

    Last year, someone by the name of Scarlet Blake was jailed for beating a man over the head with a bottle, strangling him, and shoving him into a river, where he drowned. Four months earlier, Blake had killed a cat and then liquefied its remains in a blender. This violent brute – as you’ve probably guessed, if you didn’t already know – is male. Yet, because he calls himself trans, the BBC’s coverage obligingly referred to him as “a woman”.

    How I would love to have been a fly on the BBC newsroom wall that day.

    “Blimey, have you heard about this Scarlet Blake? He sounds like an absolute sicko.”

    “What do you mean, ‘he’, you cruel bigot? How dare you misgender her! Just because someone murders a random stranger for fun and turns a defenceless animal into cat purée, it doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings!”

    In reality, of course, I doubt any such conversation took place. Because I’m sure nobody in the BBC newsroom would dream of misgendering anyone. And that impression was only reinforced by a story on the BBC website this week.

    “Wife killed husband with samurai sword, court told,” stated the headline. The opening sentence read: “A woman killed her husband with a samurai sword ‘stabbing and slicing him’ more than 50 times before replacing the sword in its sheath on a stand, a court heard.”

    Many readers will doubtless have been startled. After all, it’s extremely rare for a woman to be accused of such a violent crime. Perhaps they will have been less surprised once they reached the fourth paragraph, and learnt that the woman in question “is transgender”. Or, to put it more simply: male.

    Still, the BBC is certainly consistent. Another of its headlines this week read: “Suzy Izzard awarded honorary doctorate”.

    The subject is better known as a comedian named Eddie. He’s previously said he has no problem with people referring to him as “he”. So the BBC, it seems, takes a stricter line than he does himself.

    Such a policy may be wonderfully inclusive. But in news stories – and in particular, news stories about violent crime – journalists have a duty to report the plain facts. Is it a fact that women are born with penises? No. It’s merely a belief, and one that most licence-fee-payers, I’d bet, do not share. Apparently, however, the BBC wishes to force this belief upon them.

    If so, the BBC is no longer a broadcaster. It’s an activist group. One staffed by people who think a fact must be set aside, if it threatens to undermine the ideology they’re determined to advance.

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

    David Barlow
    43 min ago
    I can remember the BBC taking months to acknowledge that a minibus full of frightened Jewish children were indeed phoning for help in Yiddish (so frightened were they) and not shouting anti Muslim insults at a group of Muslims banging and shouting round the van.

    Alwyn Dickinson
    43 min ago
    As for BBC “Verify”. Makes me very angry

    Duncan Holding
    32 min ago
    Reply to Alwyn Dickinson – view message
    Verify is ONLY there to dispute claims of a centre right political nature or confirm those of the left

    1. Irrelevant but have you noticed that both of his eyes are looking inwards towards his nose?

    1. We've all seen this and been aware of it for quite a long time Mr Hitchens.
      Please explain how this has happened and why and how much longer we can expect our country, social structure and culture to be wrecked by our useless political classes.

        1. The DM has the highest circulation figures in the UK. He might argue that any restraints are cancelled out by size of the outreach?

  93. Good evening all.
    Another tiring by good day as the alterations to our bungalow continue apace.
    The Building Inspector gave the thumbs up this morning to the installation of the RSJ supporting the roof.
    Number and placing of sockets decided as well as lighting and placing of them. All but the sink has now been removed from the kitchen, they still need their cups of tea. Preparation of walls for plastering being worked on as well as stripping (bloody) wood chip wall paper from walls and ceiling. Some new plasterboards also required. That will slow progress as it will need to dry out. We’ve also been looking at flooring for the utility room, kitchen and living room as the last two will be open plan. Requested free samples to be sent to us.

    1. Having been through the bungalow extension game many years ago, and both a full refurb and a custom build here, first message would be, you always need more sockets. Especially these days with all the "toys" that need charging. I've recently converted my double outlets in the kitchen to quads – and make good use of them.

      Daughter and SiL organized a refurb of their beach place last year, and went with the latest generation vinyl plank flooring as it's easy to maintain – ideal as they rent the place out in season. Looks good too. If I was doing this place again, I probablyy would use it in the kitchen/breakfast area for the same reasons – although the use of seamless hardwood on the ground floor certainly looks nice.

      p.s. I remember wood chip. Very popular back in the '60's. And a great way to "hide" uneven plaster work.

      1. We’re also going for vinyl plank interlocking, built in underlay and waterproof. In our shower room we’re also having shower panels instead of tiles. No grouting to worry about and, like the flooring, interlocking and waterproof. What could be better.

        1. Don't forget the grab handles – we are all getting a bit old and wobbly these days. I was OK until I passed the 80 mark, when I started noticing balance issues. No more running up and down stairs…

          1. I’m not 80 until next year but at 6’5” my centre of gravity seems to have shifted. Will definitely have grab handles in the shower and by the lavatory.

      2. Sockets? I have 13 in my home studio in trunking running round 3 walls and cable trunking underneath which hides all the wiring for my synthesisers

    3. If you are putting in new plasterboard, you might consider first fitting plywood or OSB (sterling board); 11 or 15mm, fixed behind the plasterboard means that you won't need to worry about rawlplugs when hanging pictures or shelves.

    1. The King of England abandoned his train for two highly polluting helicopters causing pacific islands to disappear below the waves.
      That will be £ 100 billion please to the UN

    2. Everyone will now sue Britain cos Empire and Industrial Revolution (but they will keep all their machinery and manufactured goods etc).

    3. It's time to leave the UN, ECHR, the WHO and all the other parasitic organisations who appear to be determined to lower the entire planet to the living standards of Eritrea.

  95. A comfortable start with a quiet walk to Hameln Bahnhoff and a prompt start towards Herford where it got a bit close.
    The train was running pretty much to time up to Lohne, then the driver needed the toilet, so a comfortable 9min connection time, which would have allowed use of the lifts, became a 90 second dash from platform 7 to platform 1 via the stairs for the train to Henglo!!!
    I only made it thanks to a couple who were less laden than me realising I was following them so opened the doors just before departure to let me on.

    A slightly longer connection time at Henglo with 26 minutes past arrival and a 54 min. departure saw me on to the train for Den Haag.

    Route as planned had a change of trains at Gouda and Rotterdam Centraal to get to Schiedam, but going via Den Haag, though it takes a little longer, gave me a straight run through without the extra change.

    Off at Schiedam and onto the metro, using the last of my full Eurine coins for a 2h ticket saw me staying on the metro up to Hoek van Holland Strand for an hour then back to the Haven and, after a short wait, onto the ferry.

    A few photos taken whilst waiting for the restaurant to open, a plate of Swedish meatballs and to my cabin to relax.

    Still over an hour and a half before we cast off.

    Was planning to add some photos to this, but the ship's e-mail is refusing to co-operate.

    1. Trouble is the US has so many checks and balances around the death penalty that it takes years. The last one that went quickly was that of Timothy McVeigh for blowing up the federal office building in Oklahoma City, because McVeigh wanted to be a martyr and thought his execution would start an uprising, so he waived all his rights and was fairly promptly executed.

      To understand his thinking, read the book that inspired him, The Turner Diaries.

      1. At least you’ve still got the option, we have to house the Southport stabber at huge expense.

  97. So they cunningly move the migrants to Canary Wharf to save transporting all their Lefty counter protesters around the country, saving taxpayers money, I suppose

    1. Take over the whole of Canary Wharf, without compensation.
      Clear out every single person living there.
      Close all the businesses.
      Sack all the workers.
      I'm sure they would themselves approve.
      Then place every single gimmegrant in the UK in there.
      Get food aid in from the UN, just as they do in Gaza.
      Let them get on with it.
      It would only be temporary.
      All those Doctors, engineers and other geniuses would soon create a new Singapore in the centre of London.
      Wouldn't they.
      Wouldn't they??

      1. Years, nay,decades ago we lived there, on Milwall Dock, in a block awaiting demolition (it's still there, BTW). Don't fill the place with gimmegrants, it was actually rather good.

        1. Clear out the dead bodies and send in the new arrivals to replace them.
          Rinse and repeat.
          Eventually fewer arrivals, knowing what will happen to them.

  98. The truth about Unesco is too sinister to ignore

    Donald Trump is right to pull America out of the body again. It's infected by Israel-hatred and woke extremism

    Zoe Strimpel • 22nd July 2025

    I love a Unesco World Heritage Site as much as the next lazy "cultured" tourist. I can't count how many remote ruins and religious compounds I have gone to see, at great effort, drenched in sweat, wondering why I'd bothered, only to be reassured by the imprimatur of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco). Unesco World Heritage sites can range from the quirky to the splendid: Derwent Valley Mills, for instance, in Derbyshire, or Aachen Cathedral or… the whole Great Barrier Reef.

    But Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of Unesco did not cause me to flinch. For once, I entirely agreed with the rationale given. "[It] supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes that are totally out-of-step with the common-sense policies that Americans voted for in November," White House deputy spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.

    When it comes to rooting out endemic anti-Semitism, Trump has shown he has real chops, as his attitude to Harvard and other Gaza-mad universities makes clear. With regard to Unesco, back in February, the White House ordered a 90-day review of America's membership, particularly considering "anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment within the organisation".

    You'd have to be in complete denial not to see the rot at Unesco. It has forced through measures that are both anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, such as designating Jewish holy places as "Palestinian World Heritage" sites. It throws around inappropriate and inaccurate language, for instance that "Palestine" is "occupied" by Israel.

    Unsurprisingly, it is also drunk on woke ideology. One item for its executive board meeting in March noted that its Global Alliance against Racism and Discriminations should advocate … wait for it … "intersectionality and the adoption of a transversal approach to address inequalities across sectors of government." Why on earth should America continue to bankroll this sort of corrosive rubbish?

    Then there's the China influence. Beijing is one of the largest funders of Unesco, with big cheeses from Beijing in leadership positions. So no, this is not some cuddly, benign outfit dedicated solely to protecting artisanal cheese or female education. It is deeply suspect.

    What Trump is doing is putting paid to the idea that there is any point in staying in organisations like this. The argument that the likes of America should continue paying the bills because otherwise they'll fall under the influence of the West's enemies is clearly wrong. It's the same with the likes of the World Health Organisation: free countries are expected to subsidise international organisations while ignoring evidence that they have been captured by our adversaries.

    If only Unesco could focus on the preservation of old mills and churches. Its role is an important one. But it's the UN, and thus fatally infected by anti-Zionist obsessions and the insane woke, upside-down view of the world. So Trump is right to get America out and redirect the money to something less malign and more in keeping with his country's original values.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/07/22/the-truth-about-unesco-too-sinister-to-ignore

  99. My investigation proves the trafficking racket in Calais is evolving at frightening pace

    Once-elegant Opal Coast towns are squalid and overrun by migrants, but it's the French police's complicity that's fuelling the decline

    Isabel Oakeshott • 22 July 2025 6:22pm BST

    They call it the Opal Coast, and tourism chiefs have not given up trying to attract regular visitors. Adverts boast of 74 miles of beaches, dunes and cliffs, promising a "breath of French air" to day-trippers, along with a peculiar light that inspired a local painter to come up with the romantic name.

    What local bigwigs do not mention, of course, is the other visitors to these beaches, namely the hordes of illegal immigrants en route to the UK. It is no exaggeration to say that the mass influx of desperadoes has turned much of the historic and naturally beautiful coastline into a filthy, crime-ridden, third world hell-hole. The French police have started warning respectable visitors about shadowy men with guns.

    As Prime Minister Keir Starmer launches his latest wheeze to stop the boats – a much derided "one in one out" agreement with French President Emmanuel Macron – I have begun my own research into the crisis. Step one was a quick recce by a small investigation team. What they witnessed in just 48 hours last week, raises alarming new questions about the attitude of the French authorities, and the way in which the multi-million pound people smuggling business is rapidly evolving.

    That the French police are no match for the hardened criminals, behind what is now a highly sophisticated and increasingly efficient global operation, is well known. What is new is their efforts to hide it. Amid mounting political pressure over the huge sums of UK taxpayer money they receive to help stop the boats, the gendarmes appear to be turning on the British media. Turn up with a notebook or a camera, and it is not the people smugglers, but the police, who get in the way.

    But first, to the dismal state of the Opal Coast and the once elegant little towns, where pavements, supermarkets and public transport hubs are now dominated by throngs of penniless young men from north Africa, Asia and the Middle East. They hang around railway stations, loiter on street corners and do not bother with litter bins, a habit that is despoiling roadsides, woods and beaches. Verges and lay-bys are a fetid mess of discarded food wrappers, plastic bottles, crushed tin cans and soiled rags. Ditches have been turned into open air toilets, with migrants squatting in full view of passing traffic. Bushes and scrubland are littered with human faeces.

    Drone footage reveals hundreds, if not thousands, of these impoverished souls camping out in the woods, but it would be misleading to suggest they are hiding. The French authorities know exactly where they are, but do nothing.

    Very evidently, most of those hoping to get to the UK have little more than the shabby clothes they are wearing – which begs a very important question. How on earth can they afford the ticket to England?

    According to received wisdom, a place on what many migrants now call the "taxi service" across the Channel to the UK costs between £1,000 and £1,500. That is the equivalent of the average annual income in places like Eritrea and Sudan, where many begin their journey. It is like asking a jobless Brit to stump up £30,000. Really?

    Well, perhaps not. We talked to one migrant who may unwittingly have let the cat out of the bag. Speaking in broken English, he seemed to be saying he would not be paying a penny. If true, it sounds very much as if certain smugglers have begun to offer a "buy now pay later" scheme. This would be a whole new ballgame. Are we now importing people who arrive in our country heavily indebted to criminal gangs?

    While they wait for their big moment – a place on the next launch – migrants doss down in shabby tents and other makeshift shelters in woodland camps, subsisting on handouts from refugee charities and crates of beer from the local supermarché.

    In scenes reminiscent of the river Ganges, they wash their clothes in canals and drift between towns and encampments on foot or by public transport.

    Which brings us to the questionable role of certain French coach companies.

    Periodically, large white buses – a state-run service that currently costs just one euro to board – pull up at unmarked stops along the coast, disgorging passengers who are very obviously trying to get to Britain. What are the operators doing, knowingly transporting asylum seekers from urban areas to locations within walking distance of departure points for the boats?

    According to the French press, the drivers hate their involuntary role in the racket. Apparently, there are frequent fights between passengers, especially when news travels that a boat is about to depart, and there's a stampede for seats. The drivers say some migrants board buses carrying life jackets, leaving zero doubt as to where they are heading. So far from stopping and detaining migrants, the police can be observed enabling their passage, sometimes going so far as to escort the coaches to drop-off points. What a joke!

    As my team recorded all this on smart phones, it was the police, not the migrants, who became aggressive. They surrounded my researchers, demanding to see their passports, searching their car, and claiming that they needed press passes. If only they asked as many questions of the shady characters making their way to Britain.

    French law is clear: reporters, including so-called "citizen journalists" without formal credentials, are entitled to go about their work in public places. Stung, perhaps, by recent embarrassing images showing how little they are doing, it seems the gendarmes have now resorted to trying to block the media.

    Unfortunately for them, the sheer scale of this crisis now makes it impossible to conceal. Hanging around by the D601 road was a particularly sinister character. Heavily tattooed, he gave his name as Azad and said he was Kurdish. He claimed to have been living in Germany for 10 years. Inked beneath one eye, and on his forearm, were the unmistakable outlines of AK-47s. He had the air of a man used to being watched, with a lot to hide. Everything about him screamed people smuggler.

    Luckily for him, the French authorities don't seem to like asking people like him any awkward questions.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/22/calais-investigation-trafficking-network-small-boats

    2. Isabel Oakeshott still playing the controlled opposition game that it's not the British and French governments doing this.
      The question is, why are all these mainstream articles and X accounts drawing attention to stuff designed to get the average Brit hopping mad at this moment, right now?

        1. Yes – it is slightly disturbing that they are being so blatant. Although I guarantee that there are millions of BBC fans who will believe that every ‘protester’ in a mask is proof of the existence of a far right army in Britain.

    3. I've thought for a while that it's a cross now, pay later scheme. After all, once they get here, they are guaranteed money and benefits and probably a black market job with others of the same ilk to make the dosh.

      1. There aren't enough black market jobs for the number that have been coming. They must be paying back from benefits, surely?

        1. Probably mostly, but some will also be working in the black market, I would have thought.

          1. The possibility that they are paying back a debt of 1500 from benefits is fairly disturbing because asylum seekers don’t get much cash, and people can stay on asylum for years. So they will be slaves for years and years with no end unless they have relatives in the UK who can pay it. All the more effective to be a desperate army if the money dries up.

  100. Been a day of thundershowes and sunshine. Now very humid, warm, and a billion midges…
    Otherwise, I've been sleeping. Pretty well all day. Need a vacation…

    2. Many of those things (greeting people and chatting in queues, for instance) are alive and well where I live. I last wrote a letter about a month ago and I have the reply to it waiting for me to get around and write back. But then, I live in the country. They do things differently there.

      1. I should also add that I paid cash for my plants (although card payment was available) and when I eat I sit at the table and use a knife and fork, even though there's only me and the dogs here.

    3. Nods and smiles and greetings are still natural in France.
      We still see daily papers of that ilk.
      Every villager seems able to do that here.
      Laundry still dries like that here, we've got more space, of course.
      Every French restaurant shows better manners than in the UK.

      Phones have changed the same here.

      Queues still exist here, UNLESS gimmegrants are in/near the line.
      We still get written thanks here after visits.
      Cash and cheques are still commonplace here, in fact they make the queue seem interminable at times.
      TV. I can't comment.

      France is still like that video in so many ways.
      Who'ld-a-thunk France would retain such things when Britain wouldn't

      1. Similar here in Norway. One even says "hei!" to the bus driver when boarding.

        1. For what it's worth, in my experience, on boarding, one has at least to speak to the driver. And around 85% of – er – indigenous bus passengers invariably thank the driver upon leaving the bus.

          1. Thinking of shared autumn beers where do you live, Geoff? Thinking airports, hotels…

          2. There’s a bus link between LHR and Guildford Rail Station. I’m seven minutes from there by rail (half hourly), and there’s a ‘Spoons across the road…

            Guildford also has connections to Gatwick Airport, Redhill, Reading, Portsmouth Harbour, Woking and London Waterloo.

          3. My grandmother, very old school, would always thank the engine driver on arrival. Got me a look up on the footplate a number of times.

      2. Rural France maybe, but the big cities?

        It's like here, everyone smiles or nods, but go 70 miles down the road to DC and everyone keeps their eyes down. Something to do with the crime rate, which problem we have in all our big cities – though Washington hardly qualifies.

        1. Even in Bordeaux they tend to say bonjour to people already there on entering a shop or restaurant.

  102. The Home Office is facing a protest over a plan to house migrants in a high street property.

    Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, has organised an 8,300-signature petition against the proposal to put up 35 asylum seekers in a converted high street clothes shop in Waterlooville, Hampshire.

    Havant borough council has also expressed concern, claiming it was not properly consulted because of a blunder by the Home Office and its contractor Clearsprings.

    Protesters plan to gather next week.

    It comes with the Government facing a growing backlash over its attempts to reduce its use of migrant hotels by dispersing asylum seekers to alternative accommodation, in partnership with local authorities.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/23/protest-fears-over-plan-to-house-35-migrants-high-street/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLuFSFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHpFQ-gbzrMdKIJfPaHpldip5-zu_D49nPlB6YizYqbupDOcESwWUIFu66es8_aem_f_LwHN0StKfasbbT6Wc4rQ

      1. As should HM Opposition, for not calling the government out.
        In fact, arrest the whole lot, and appoint my Big Cat as UK Government – he's smart and thoughtful, do a better job than any of those shites.

  103. The Labour Lords are lying and obfuscating…

    WATCH: Attacks Mount on Labour Over Mishandling of Epping Asylum Hotel

    https://youtu.be/vho1BLjF7Ko
    In an urgent question debate in the Lords Labour has been attacked on multiple fronts for the events unfolding in Epping. The Commons has risen for recess, the Lords is still going until tomorrow…

    While Home Office minister Lord Hanson complained about “misinformation being spread deliberately to to encourage disorder” Eleanor Laing – formerly MP for Epping Forest for 27 years – pointed out that Labour reopened the Bell Hotel in the area after it was closed for asylum seeker use:

    “It has long been recognised that the Bell Hotel is not a good place for asylum seekers to be housed. And I’m sure the minister will recall that the Conservative Home Secretary closed the Bell Hotel in Epping in April 2024 and these asylum seekers were dispersed to other places. The minister’s colleagues reopened the hotel without any consultation with the district council which is somewhat unfortunate.”

    Lord Hanson had no response to the attack. Claire Fox then took Labour to task over its focus on ‘misinformation’ driving ‘violence.’ Co-conspirators will remember that it was Essex Police who escorted pro-migrant demonstrators closer to the ongoing protest…

    “Does the minister recognise the legitimate fury and frustration of local people whether in Epping about the fact that they feel their voices are not heard in relation to the concerns about hotel and their genuine fear for their children… does the minister acknowledge that some misinformation can be in calling those local people ‘far-right thugs,’ which to a certain extent is the most insulting thing you can call people who are genuinely protesting. Will the minister distance himself from that misinformation as well as the other misinformation he’s mentioned?”

    The Labour minister declined to distance himself from those accusations and instead said it’s vital to “ensure that we find political solutions to some of the challenges that we have but not in any way shape and form to inflame or encourage inflammatory action against the police, the community or indeed people who are not committing crimes who happen to reside in a particular place at a particular time.” After Essex Police’s disaster press conference today Labour’s line appears increasingly tone deaf…

    July 23 2025 @ 16:53

    1. And when 'fake posts' turn out to be the truth and the government has covered up the truth, what action can the public take against the state to sack those responsible for the lies?

  104. I am fed up – more than usual.

    A few weeks ago we (the company) were approached to rewire and update an office network. Now, this 'office' turned out to be a small government agency. We were approached because tendering rules require them to speak to 'local' businesses and somehow we met the requirement.

    We duly tendered, which is an expensive process in itself. I asked for us not to but we were encouraged to as ours was better value than some others with newer simpler management utilities.

    We went all the way through, with weeks of pointless documentation waffle, meetings with their technical team and demonstrations and then we meet the 'director' who is…. a woman. Who doesn't know what RJ45 is. Who doesn't really know anything. We arrive and what does she ask? Do you have any women or minorities on your team.

    Why, why is that remotely relevant to a technical install? We're good at what we do. We're good precisely because we don't hire people based on labels.

    A waste of weeks of time and work all because some time serving no hoper dribbles along on 'the diversity'.

    1. That sounds depressingly familiar. One of the reasons we sold the business.

      1. I am reaching that point. Normally we cover our costs and are into profit (which we have always put back in) by around June. We haven't yet this year. Our solicitor fellow, who takes on legal work as a freelance under our umbrella is looking to retire. He brings in a lot of raw cash. That'd leave 4 of us, the 2 network fellows, architect /engineer chap, a marketing bod (again a microbusiness).

        Our customers are just going out of business. The big ones are cutting back. One of our biggest, a dentist chain is refusing payment until install for goods bought. We can't walk away from a 50-75K /year contract so we're stuffed.

      1. People's money is running out though. We just can't keep soaking costs.

        A little shop called us and the chap was incredibly apologetic. He's been with us for 6 years or so. He has a massive number of cams and a really powerful AI system. We recently upgraded it all to 4k. He's asked for installment payments but at a level that barely covers cost because of inflation.

        We have, obviously said yes as otherwise we get nothing and I don't want to abuse a good man but still. We aren't going to survive the constant waves of excrement forced on us.

        1. I meant public money – but yes, things are going to be very hard for a bit, I think.

    3. A long time ago (30 years) I was working in London for a company carrying out refurbishments in office buildings.
      It was an old bank building not far from Tower bridge northside. I had to write and provided a description on the process of the removal of a large disused strong room.
      It took longer to write, and discuss the process than it took to carry out the job.

      1. Yep. I remember a lon, long time ago talking to a client as a oiky youth and I said 'Let me just do it and tell you what I've done afterward'.

        It's almost designed to grind you down and make you give up. This is why when other companies tender they are three or four times our price. We want to go in, set up, go home.

        Addendum: we turn down London work now as the fines and charges are too much hassle. We factor in 5-8 parking tickets, road charges and so on every day and it's pointless bothering.The state is a miserable, spiteful thing.

        1. The London problem urged me to start my own business soon after. Mostly local clients.
          In fact after moving in and building our own extension. I had one large extension diagonally opposite and a loft conversion dead opposite.
          And had to turn two others in the road down, as I was too busy.

    4. My sympathy. Redundancy enabled me to escape the 'day job' around 15 years ago, and health issues allowed me to retire early via company pensions.

      I'm still employed as a church organist (not for long), but at parish level, I'm not troubled by woke issues in the wider C of E.

      At 68, wild horses wouldn't drag me back to contractor's quantity surveying, despite the occasional email from recruitment types. I wouldn't survive the first contact with HR…

    5. I do a lot of bidding for contracts. Takes a lot of time and energy, if you're serious about it.
      If the decision criteria is how many dusky folk you have who sit down to pee, why not just put that iin the invitation to tender? Technical, & delivery competence is irrelevant.

    6. "Do you have any women or minorities on your team."

      You should have got one or two of your blokes to wear frocks.

    7. They could have worn a burka or a niquab. They would have got away with anything. Try it next time, take the proverbial p**s out of these idiots.

    8. For clarification – from ChatGPT (edited by me):
      In the UK (just like elsewhere), **RJ45** typically refers to A type of connector** — specifically, the **8P8C (8 position, 8 contact) modular plug** that is most commonly used for Ethernet networking.

    9. Head of Digital, where I worked, didn't know what 'USB' was. She thought we were talking about USP!

      2. Blimey! Even I know what USB is, even if I don't know what it stands for (Universal Serial Bus?).

    10. You could have said that we employ a lot of twisted pairs in our company.

    11. Send in an invoice for your time and expenses.
      Be suspicious of potential new customers, look them up on Gurgle.
      Wind the clock back to the late 1990s, when a board member (successful businessman by day) of a local hospital trust asked a busy building firm manager why he wasn't tendering for NHS work.
      Embarrassed, the builder explained that he was not, er, a buddy of the hospital's property services dept.
      Edit: and as Mr Thomas suggests, WRITE TO YOUR MP.

    1. I am finding out if I can not pay council tax for a period.

      I fully intend to restore and make up payments, but whiloe the council isn't doing it's job I don't see why I should pay for it. Our money is the only hold we have over them. If they don't get rid of pikeys, if they won't fix the roads, if they keep making transport difficult (it takes 10 minutes to get to the surgery for a dressing change. It's 2 and a bit miles.

      There's a damned pedestrian crossing at the top of a hill: at a cross roads. Another 10 yards after it. I'm all for pedestrian safety but these are just stupidly placed out of spite. There's another at the bottom of a hill, again at the confluence of 4 roads which is already a blockage.

      (Could I walk? Yes, but when I do the dressing falls off and my time has a physical value it's silly).

      I don't see why I am forced to pay for this sort of sheer spite and refusal to get a move on and assert law. .

      1. I suppose you can not pay until the last minute, but you'll have to pay in the end or they'll take you to court (unless, of course, you're workless and/or a gimmigrant).

      2. I looked at this a while ago. From memory you can refuse and they will chase you and get the debt collector on you etc but eventually you will have to pay and i think you forfeit your right to pay by instalments. Though i looked into it a while ago. We have. Non-Lib Non-Dem council more often than not and they are beyond infuriating

    1. That'd be why there's so much more fraud, corruption and theft at the Home office then.

    2. "There is no way Chief Constable BJ Harrington can stay in position."

      Correct, Belle, he can't stay in position. So a promotion for sure.

      1. Remember Lucy Connolly (edited, 'cos I'm a dumbass), still in gaol? Who'se next?

        2. No, her surname is Connelly according to the Recorder Melbourne Inman and the justice gov sentencing remarks.

  109. CPierceUK
    @CPierceUK
    ·
    7h
    Even though the House of Commons is in recess, the serious issue of Essex Police involvement in the Epping Protest is an urgent matter of public importance requiring that the Government minister, Labour MP Yvette Cooper, gives an immediate response.

    1. She might, but if she does the response will be 'the far Right thugs caused problem for the police and were dealt with appropriately'.

      1. Planning a trip in the autumn. Not sure when yet, but meeting and beering would be an honour for me.

        2. Lots of options from here (see above). Also – where in the UK are you staying? I may be heading for the South West at some point, if that helps.

  112. Nina Myskow has just told Patrick Christys that she’s pro-migrant and anti-violence. Can’t be both, luv.

    3. Is she pro-illegal migrant, or was she referring to aspirational educated & qualified migrants?

      1. I don’t think she recognises the distinction. Why would an educated professional Arab or African favour a rubber dinghy over a flight to Heathrow or train to St Pancras. They wouldn’t. But the propaganda line is that they do and lefties like Myskow choose to accept that.

      1. She has me reaching for the remote as soon as she appears on the screen.

        But Caroline thinks she is paid by GB News to spout the rubbish she does spout in order to expose how appalling the Left is.

        How Adam Brooks restrains himself from killing her is a miracle.

    2. Normandy, near Guildford.

      Farnbrough is the nearest airport, then LHR and LGW. All fly over here depending on wind direction.

      Nearest hotel could be Potter’s in Aldershot, beloved of migrants…

  115. Some of the photos I failed to post earlier:-
    The train from Henglo:- https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/200ec2332e832c94f26c044808f047a7aa8f782a4e2ace86b1949e0b1fb2e901.jpg Some windmills on the approach to Den Haag:- https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e931dacf34d3c88bac2abf792eeb9f7ce9a8d31eb08f25937d6a71081fb2a1d.jpg The train from Den Haag to Schiedam https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/099bf470a0b7e7c5902f91315d04224970c387cc3c5fe6ba4db22a0f1e064c0e.jpg The Metro train at Hoek van Holland Strand; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/130128ec3f4f22770e1253cc66dd891b3c95a8932a1c3652ca67203571fa4693.jpg Shipping traffic viewed from Strand; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38b3682a958f51fb5aac96682ce432f46dfb85328bd7c703660277bfd8057265.jpg Quite a little attraction on a fine day; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4a69d0059f8b452e8834577e82439281eab36ab20e87c86ed1f4ed00aee69bc6.jpg With a lovely beach; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/970b0315f15ac59a5ceebbcfbbbbf6552088a2ebb3b0dd83c00fc27f06074a68.jpg And the old Hook of Holland railway station before the Metro took over; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8d3e0ff4c6d2a6fe8e2434b4bd2541d330c2164780558365ecd8d579b420c0a.jpg

  116. Goodnight, all. I'm giving in and going to bed. All the walking and gardening has knackered my SIJ and left leg, which are very uncomfortable at the moment. I've taken a cocodamol and am going to put my feet up. As it's the third night in a row I've given in and taken pain killers, I shall have to resort to alcohol tomorrow. Oh, the horror!

    1. Take care and sleep well. Hope you have a better day tomorrow. Give the garden a rest.

      1. Unfortunately, I have had to carry on tidying and titivating; I am hosting a garden party on Saturday.

  118. A second batch of photos:-
    Looking out of the cabin window, somewhat salt encrusted, hence the haze https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e82aea3bac1c9595b5378598348cc05ca2b2512ad0860d032b14d93441414cff.jpg Sailing off into the sunset https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30f120cbfbdb1b1120484a9783bacee57a631739a3e0b6b55fd103c57580fefb.jpg Filling up with HGVs https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a03cfc0582d10639393acf2caca613e73da0d641b96bb5f18eaa4549fe5ccb6.jpg The line of HGVs still waiting to get on board.
    Apparently the ferry will take a 5km long line of vehicles! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95418c7780f867ca601d46fae2e36314f7f546440eb82495558c0343c16464f2.jpg And we're away; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f055297f226f7726ad1f1b7d2afa9f8d0dd9649b9454832546c1af34c136104.jpg Leaving the harbour behind https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6973b3b540ac5bb62339a0a54a68d7505e733045ac0d31578c7a2d9428a7f004.jpg A view forr'ad https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa011167b1f2c05f7195ee9188cffbfe2851676afbc571a623589753d8f1c3ab.jpg And the lights fade into the distance https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8efbdbdd44376e90e6e534b3b81a87f6cfd2aaadaf905a90c3c0078a7a2ff835.jpg

    1. Next time, try Rotterdam – Hull. It's a much bigger ship, but it does take a lot longer. Since I was heading to Manchester, it seemed like a good idea at the time…

    2. Next time, try Rotterdam – Hull. It's a much bigger ship, but it does take a lot longer. Since I was heading to Manchester, it seemed like a good idea at the time…

  119. Docking at 06:30GMT, alarm call at 05:30, so that's me off to bed.
    Goodnight all.

  120. Well, chums, my bedtime approaches. So Good Night all, sleep well, and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.

  121. There has been a family shooting in Northern Ireland, and the BBC webpage features a few quotes from local people, clearly shocked by the tragedy.
    A certain Irishness in the language of the interviewees:
    "To be aware of the friends of other friends of the children involved, it just brings it closer to home and makes it more real for us.
    "You're not out of the woods in a rural area," she added."

    (May the victims rest in peace)

  123. Awake to pump bilges and unable to get back to sleep. A lovely smooth crossing!
    A letter and comment:-

    SIR – Sir James Cleverly is a well-known Tory wet and supports Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights.

    His promotion by Kemi Badenoch confirms that the Conservative Party has learnt nothing from its crushing general election defeat.

    David Saunders

    R. Spowart
    3 min ago
    Message Actions
    "Sir James Cleverly is a well-known Tory wet…." states David Saunders.

    Wet?

    That's putting it mildly! The man could cure a drought in a desert simply by his presence!

  124. And we have docked.
    Still 1h20m before disembarking and my train, to Cambridge for the 1st leg of the journey home, is not until 07:58!!
    Still, I've my travelmug of tea made and I'm up on deck for an hour!

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