Wednesday 23 June: Pension saving will soon be pointless if allowances are cut further

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as 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:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/06/22/letters-pension-saving-will-soon-pointless-allowances-cut/

668 thoughts on “Wednesday 23 June: Pension saving will soon be pointless if allowances are cut further”

  2. White working-class kids are casualties of the culture war. Spiked 23 June 2021.

    Our woke elites feel an overriding contempt for white working-class communities.

    Morning everyone. Actually they hate us! No one should be in any doubt of this. Labour. Tory. Liberal! All of them. They hate our Patriotism which they call Nationalism. They hate our pride in our History which they call Racism. They hate us because we voted for Brexit. This hatred has a positive side. It allows them to feel good about themselves. It is self-ennobling. “Thank God I’m not like that!” What they hate most of all is that they cannot make us them! To this end they will see us off though it bring down the world around them!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/22/white-working-class-kids-are-casualties-of-the-culture-war/

    1. The white working class are a block to the globalist changes that the powers that be want to enact, we see this in former communist Eastern European countries that haven’t been affected by population change like in the West.
      They want to keep their culture and not go through what we have since the war and they have had enough of totalitarian rule.
      We would be very much like the Eastern European countries if we were still a native white majority mono culture.
      But even in the USA the red neck white working class are vilified for supporting populism and Trump.
      Those that want to rule the planet obviously think that destroying white culture, traditional values, religion and our work ethic is essential to their agenda.
      Saying that though the white working classes have been their own worst enemy over the decades.

      3. Except I refuse to accept or identify with “white culture”. That is an Americanism, founded on their settler supremacism over the indigenous natives. Here we are contending with supposedly the opposite (based on perceived skin colour) – alien setters determined to assert their values and aspirations sending the indigenous natives into reservations where they can ponder their shame.

        As an Englishman, I identify with the county of my birth – Middlesex, the county where I was raised – Surrey, and the county where I have been settled for the last 27 years – Worcestershire. And yes, ironically I do consider myself one of the settler classes, and have to be careful not to push myself too hard on the true natives of my adopted county.

          1. I have very fond memories of Norfolk – the large rectory near Stalham where my grandfather had his benefice and a thatched church nearby arrived at by walking through the wilderness.

          2. Into my heart an air that kills
            From yon far country blows:
            What are those blue remembered hills,
            What spires, what farms are those?

            That is the land of lost content,
            I see it shining plain,
            The happy highways where I went
            And cannot come again.

            A. E. Housman.

          5. #Me Too. I filled in an Ipsos Mori questionnaire recently and crossed out “white British” to put “English”.

        2. There wasn’t such a thing as white culture in the past it was just the norm in the country where people were all of one shared history.

          1. Quite. Many Chinese are whiter than I am, but few of them are more English.

          1. Had me in tears this.

            I am of the generation that saw so much of this “comprehensively redeveloped” away in my childhood in the name of progress, and much of what is left disappearing in the same name by a generation that does not know any better.

            Yet I always remember arriving in Kent off the ferry in the 1970s and marvelling at the difference in the landscape, the hedges and the generous greenness of England.

            Still, all is not yet lost. There are pockets that will revive for as long as there are those alive with the will to make it so. I am in the process of making my fern garden in the cloister I made from hazel arches and climbers I have been creating over the last few years. There is a little walk under the trees right on the boundary fence and in the clearing (which was the end of the lawn), just enough space for a little camp fire if ever I have grandchildren or step-children to enjoy it before someone who buys the cottage when I am put in a home bulldozes it to make it tidy and stylish.

          2. Air trooping flights from Germany back to UK were the same.
            As green as the European landscape appeared, after crossing the North Sea the lusher green of England was VERY noticable.

          3. Different shade of green.
            England is a yellow, bright green. Germany and most of the continent is a grey-ish green.

          4. Strange, Bob, but in the RN, we never said “Back to England”, always “Back to UK”

          5. One thing that always struck me when I returned home from abroad was how green England was. Little patchwork fields (often with horses in ). I knew I’d come home. I had a conversation with a chap who commuted from Brussels while I was waiting for the Eurostar one day and he had no sense of roots at all. He’d married a foreigner, worked in London, but lived abroad. He didn’t belong anywhere. I felt quite sorry for him. When I told him I was hefted to the land, I doubt he understood at all.

      4. Saying that though the white working classes have been their own worst enemy over the decades.

        Morning Bob. Yes, Oggy’s right about that, but they are not totally responsible. There has been considerable manipulation and we should not forget the part the Elites have played in their betrayal!

        1. Does Blair have any serious rival as the person who deliberately did his best to destroy Britain?

          1. I don’t believe so Richard. If he’s not the Devil Incarnate he’s a pretty good imitation!

          2. I think he has the same hatred, sadism and spite in his soul as Prince Harry has recently revealed himself to have against his family.

      5. Saying that though the white working classes have been their own worst enemy over the decades.

        Morning Bob. Yes, Oggy’s right about that, but they are not totally responsible. There has been considerable manipulation and we should not forget the part the Elites have played in their betrayal!

    3. 334699+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      You have just put the finger on the prime cause of the treacherous take down of the REAL UKIP UKIP was building successfully under Batten financially sound & building rapid as the ONLY credible opposition.
      Batley – Spen WILL be a proving ground on many an issue.
      Reality in Batley is they are talking of
      tactical voting to keep out the tories (ino) continuing down the road of national destruction.

      By the by since the 9 month delay by may the treacherous their agenda has been crystal clear.

  4. Misery Loves Company

    “Look at ME!!” boasted the fit old man, pounding a very flat and firm stomach, having just finished 100 sit-ups before a group of young people.

    “Fit as a fiddle! And you want to know why?? I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t stay up late, and I don’t chase after loose women!”

    He smiled at them, teeth white, eyes aglitter, “And tomorrow, I’m going to celebrate my 95th birthday!”

    “Oh, really?” drawled one of the young onlookers. “How?”

          2. I thought that the coloured explosions were the work of Iron Dome. Quite triumphant, really!

      3. Biggest Happy Birthday to you Oberst and may you have many more in your Fjords

      4. Biggest Happy Birthday to you Oberst and may you have many more in your Fjords

        1. Thanks, Belle! :-D)
          Sun is indeed shining, temp over 10C. This must be all your doing!

  8. Government responded to “Hold a binding referendum on the future of the TV licence.”

    The usual flummery that I’m sure many of you have also received but there is a glimmer of hope in the last paragraph:

    The Government is also currently in the process of determining the level of the licence fee from 2022. The Government is committed to greater transparency in this settlement. In line with this commitment, on 10 November both the Secretary of State and the Minister for Civil Society laid written statements in Parliament formally announcing the process. On the same day the Government published the formal commissioning letters to the BBC and S4C requesting their financial information and will publish further formal correspondence where appropriate. The Secretary of State will also lay his determination before the House to allow time for parliamentary debate before the settlement takes effect in 2022.

    I shan’t be holding my breath.

    1. No doubt they will be flogging off the best bits of Channel 4 to the most influential bidder, prime for further dumbing down (how does one dumb down ‘Naked Attraction’?) in order to spare the BBC any further public scrutiny.

      1. Could be, Jeremy, that Lineker et al will be getting a haircut and let’s make it a crew-cut at which they might bristle.

    3. Is there a single election promise that Johnson has honoured?

      Who was it who declared that election promises were not binding and that politicians could promise what they liked without having any obligation to keep their word?

      1. ‘Morning, Richard, “… without having any obligation to keep their word?” but instead, lose all credibility and their seat at the next election.

        1. The trouble is – as ogga points out – they break their word and it does not seem to stop them being elected again and again.

          However I do now think that the game is up for the odious Mr Johnson and his dominatrix and he will be dumped by his party, his country and – after that his dominatrix will also decide that she has had enough.

      2. ‘Morning, Richard, “… without having any obligation to keep their word?” but instead, lose all credibility and their seat at the next election.

      3. I seem to recall reading that it was Gordon Brown, who took it to the ‘supreme’ court (another one of Blairs meddles) to argue that a manifesto was not binding. Brown may have been Judy to Blair’s Punch but he is equally culpable for the results of his actions.

    4. Scrapping the TV tax will have zero effect on the BBC.
      Scrapping government funding…now that’s another matter.

      1. Make it subscription-TV. Then, all those who worship at the BBC feet can pay, and those who wouldn’t watch it if it was pushing needles into it’s eyeballs don’t need to pay for not watching.

        1. The Government statement today is that only 3% of the populace want a subscription model.

          Most of the people we’ve discussed it with must be in the 3%.

      1. I’d rather have a Minister for Uncivil Society.
        Judging by the High Street, it would be more accurate.

  9. Good morning, Paul and a very ♪♫Happy Birthday♪♫ – which you share with my Best Beloved. Tell it not in Gath but today she starts the last quarter.

    1. I shall certainly keep quiet about it in the Streets of Askelon : I don’t want the Philstines to rejoice or the daughters of the uncircumcised to triumph!

    2. Morning, Tom.
      :-D)
      Thanks! Hope BB has a grand day! Spoil her some a lot!

  10. Hungary’s classrooms have become the new battleground for the war on ‘LGBT ideology. 23 June 2021.

    Last week, the Hungarian parliament banned any portrayal of homosexuality or transgenderism to minors, in educational material or on television. Appending this to a law protecting children from child abuse, the country’s president, Viktor Orbán, drew an explicit connection between homosexuality and paedophilia. In so doing, he resorted to a canard that much of the world has long dispensed with, but that is enjoying a troubling new emergence in the global battles against “gender ideology”: the danger posed by homosexuals and trans people to children.

    Well there’s no war in the UK’s classrooms where children are taught that their children will not be children but the sexual playthings of their elders. This has long been the ambition of the Gay Community and once endorsed explicitly, by no less a spokesman than Peter Tatchell, who hastily recanted in the face of adverse publicity. To say there is no connection between Homosexuality and Pedophilia is not only to ignore history but the evidence of your own eyes. It is there to see!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/22/hungary-lgbt-content-in-schools-law-homosexuality-paedophilia

    1. Apparently there were statistics from the USA that demonstrated the likelihood of connection. The figures showed that many crimes against children were perpetrated by homosexuals. I do not have a link. I am writing from memory, and this was about 10 years ago?

    2. Teaching children that taking lots of drugs and having surgery to indulge your fantasies when life gets tough is not healthy and should not be taught in schools.

      This nonsense has only arisen because we live in a time of abject luxury where our every whim is indulged. It is also a time of incredible personal weakness and fragility where people choose escapism rather than facing the harsh reality of life. Bluntly, weak, spoiled people are trying to normalise mental illness.

    3. Whenever abuse by a Catholic priest is revealed, the press gleefully reports it at length. The fact that the overwhelming number of these attacks are of a homosexual nature is ignored.

    1. Grattis på födelsedagen, Paul.

      Hope your birthday weather is as good as mine is and that you have a stonking day. 👍🏻🎂🍹

      1. Thanks, Grizz! :-D)
        It’s a beautiful day, and a gnats over 10C! NOT wearing a jumper today – amazing!
        Looking forward to some beers outdoors later.

      1. Thanks, Anne. :-D)
        Nowt at the moment – EU eff ups means that exports from UK are not arriving in Norway (so, no English cider in the shops) and the season means no home-made left, either.
        Bu88er!
        Have to break out the shine… hic!

        1. Don’t forget the tonic, Oberst!
          Wishing you a very Happy Birthday and hope you have an excellent day!
          You’ve caught me up! 🎂🍾🎁

          1. Thanks, Sue! :-D)
            What’s a young thing like you doing amongst all these grumpy old buggers?? 😉

  12. Time to get Ballsy again! [In order to reclaim the ground lost to the Left]

    Does any NoTTLer have a local MP who has the brains, the gonads, and the determination to sponsor a Hurt Feelings?: Tough Shit! Bill and attempt to get it enacted into English (British) law?

    It is beyond time that we took steps to raise the fortitude levels of the nation and increase the population’s moral fibre to what it once was pre-and post-WWII.

    To fail to do so is to accept and admit capitulation to the forces of evil and insurrection.

    NB: This is not a spoof posting!

      1. When I was 18 I shared a flat in London with a friend who played for his school’s old boys’ cricket team. They were called the Templars. I wonder if anyone can tell me where my friend was at school?

    2. 334699+ up ticks,
      Morning G,
      It has gone well past the time of seeking common sense, justice via “ones mp” the deceitful, treachery political brigade is to well established
      via past voting patterns.
      Why fund such political collections of crap when defund / boycott is the only way to to go.
      lab (ino) is no worse than tory (ino) they are an interchangeable odious coalition.

    3. That would require a more educated and self sufficient nation.

      Given that the state has desperately tried to erode any sense of responsibility, dignity or independence it would ensure such a bill never saw light.

    4. My MP is just another Nationalist drone. Apparently she was a very useful surgeon but obviously the ‘opportunity’ to gain up to £250K pa in pay and expenses allowed her to down tools. The few times I wrote to her all I got in reply were cookie-cutter responses that barely touched the subject matter.

      Further correspondence was then passed down to one of her staff. I think my retort to that was probably why I’m not on her Christmas card list. 😉

      1. Morning, Grizz. It’s a long time since we were commenting on the DT letters.

    1. BTL comments are sceptical.
      I particularly liked this one:
      “The Sycamore variant. Sick of more variants.”

    3. So they’re going to start cutting all the trees down, then? To save us from ‘covid’….. hayfever variant? These people are mad. Of course, an area denuded of trees would be just right for building on.

      2. I believe it was last week or so that the “symptoms” of CV-19 underwent a radical transformation: the new “symptoms” closely resembled hay-fever or one of those annoying runny nose Summer colds. Obviously the coughing along with lack of taste and smell had disappeared and continuing with those would have aroused suspicion. Mind you, “cases” are up – I’m surprised that they are sticking to that data – whilst hospitalisations and deaths are well down. Are healthy people really still queueing up to be tested? Madness!

      3. Not very “green”, is it? Trees are the lungs of a city and they turn CO2 and water into oxygen and carbohydrate.

  15. US may slow Afghanistan withdrawal as Taliban win series of victories. 23 June 2021.

    America could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan amid rapid battlefield gains by the Taliban which have raised alarm in Nato capitals, the Pentagon said.

    Ashraf Ghani’s forces have been swept out of many rural areas since the insurgents launched a nationwide offensive at the start of May.
    Joe Biden has promised all US troops will be out of Afghanistan by September, but in recent weeks officials had briefed that the pull out was ahead of schedule and could be complete as early as July.

    Looks like there is going to be a last minute race to the airport!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/22/us-may-slow-afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-win-series-victories/

    2. Again!

      We always run out of Afghanistan. It’s anarchic, with no infrastructure, a series of tribes, not a society. It’s like trying to govern Dark age Britain.

  18. Morning all

    SIR – When I started work more than 30 years ago, it was a given that we had to save to fund our retirement. It was natural to prioritise pension contributions above spending in the short term, and even short-term savings. Such a long-term project deserves stability in the rules. But the lifetime allowance – the amount that people can save without incurring tax – has dropped from £1.8 million in 2012 to £1 million in 2017, and was then index-linked until it was frozen in the last budget.

    The Government’s plans to tinker with the lifetime allowance (report, June 22) will land heavily on those who worked hard and saved even harder for their entire lives, and in particular those with private pensions.

    Even a £1 million pot today that buys an index-linked annuity at 60 with widow’s pension will only generate £23,210 a year, and then you have to pay income tax and are left with £21,068. Hardly enough for an opulent lifestyle.

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    The Treasury is talking about reducing the allowance by 10 to 20 per cent. With so many people likely to breach the limit, the Government will possibly take more in tax from some than it actually gave in tax breaks.

    Civil servants have their lifetime allowance calculated on 20 times their final salary, which means they can have a pension of £53,650 without breaching the limit. They and others on a defined benefit final salary pension get a benefit of 231 per cent more lifetime allowance than anyone on a defined contribution pension at current annuity rates. This is unjust.

    Pension saving is almost dead as a way of having a decent retirement. We will all need to make a plan B.

    Marc O’Brien

    Reading, Berkshire

    SIR – A moderately well-off pensioner pays a healthy 40 per cent income tax at the margin on their withdrawals. It doesn’t matter if the funds came from contributions or capital gains; both are taxed on withdrawal. The “tax relief” on pension contributions is, in reality, just a tax deferral. Nevertheless, this acts as an incentive to put money away for old age, and that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Reducing the lifetime allowance would take away the incentive, and be the ultimate in short-termism.

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    Andrew Orange

    Andover, Hampshire

    SIR – Please excuse the hollow laugh when I read of the Treasury being shackled by the burden of “state pension largesse” as a result of the triple lock (Business, June 17).

    Elderly people who rely on the state pension spend a disproportionate amount of it on food, household necessities, council tax, heating their homes and other energy costs. All these have risen hugely this year. If they run a car their expenses have shot through the roof. If they have other, work-related pensions, these are taxed.

    At £179.60 a week, it is modest compared with some EU pensions.

    Angela Lawrence

    Woodbridge, Suffolk

    One alarmist prediction shaped Covid policy

    SIR – Matt Ridley’s criticism (Comment, June 21) of the distorted presentation of scientific predictions in order for those predictions to have political impact identifies the worst feature of current public policymaking.

    Amazingly, however, in the case of Covid policymaking his criticism is insufficient. The crucial prediction was that of the Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team, which said that 510,000 deaths would occur “in the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour”. This was misleading in the extreme, for there was absolutely no possibility that the outbreak of this disease would not be met by widespread spontaneous changes in behaviour, or that the Government would not take extensive measures to support them.

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    The world has been turned upside-down by an absurd, alarmist prediction of what was always a zero-probability event, as it was this prediction which panicked the Government into adopting a “suppression” policy.

    Professor David Campbell

    Lancaster University Law School

    Professor Kevin Dowd

    Durham University Business School

    Peace in Ireland

    SIR – It is 100 years this week since King George V made his historic visit to Belfast to open the new Northern Ireland Parliament, designed as the partner of a devolved parliament in Dublin with identical powers, linked to it by a Council of Ireland consisting of representatives of both legislatures.

    “We really got a wonderful welcome & I never heard anything like the cheering,” the King recorded in his diary. In his speech he appealed memorably “to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget, and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill”.

    Inspired by this appeal, Lloyd George reached a settlement later in the year with some of the leaders of Sinn Fein, which brought them dominion status. In Ulster, where Unionists had given firm backing to a Council of Ireland, an IRA campaign of terror destroyed the prospects of an accord between North and South. It left 428 dead and 1,766 injured in Belfast by the end of 1922. The firm Unionist response to the IRA alienated the Catholic minority.

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    A hundred years later, the task of trying to heal Ulster’s wounds continues. The partnership, envisaged by the King in 1921, requires, above all, unqualified respect for the right of Ulster’s Unionists to remain a full and equal part of our country. Nowhere today is that respect more important than in the European Union.

    Lord Lexden (Con)

    London SW1

    Frustrated landlords

    SIR – How is it logical or ethical for the Government to prevent landlords from taking legal action against defaulting commercial tenants for a further nine months (report, June 16)?

    Letting commercial premises – say, a shop – is one business function providing to another. The shop may now open and have an income but can refuse to pay rent and can’t be evicted. By contrast, if a customer came into the shop and took away goods without paying, that would clearly be a case of theft – and redress could be sought.

    The Government is compromising ethical practice on a grand scale because it is highly convenient to do so.

    David Empringham

    Ashorne, Warwickshire

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    New communities

    SIR – How can new houses be built without spoiling beauty spots (Letters, June 22)?

    The 20th-century New Towns movement created balanced and sustainable communities. These consisted of rented or private houses, schools, medical facilities, open areas, sports facilities, central and local shops, factories, warehouses and offices – all linked with a first-class road system and rail link where possible.

    Bolting on extra houses to existing towns or building isolated new houses is not satisfactory.

    James Thacker

    Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire

    Harder than Enigma

    SIR – Your report (June 21) suggests that Alan Turing’s cracking of the Enigma code helped shorten the Second World War.

    Enigma was, in fact, a relatively simple code mainly used for tactical messages between individual formations and units, notably ships and submarines. It was typically used for routine reports on operational status, position and weather.

    In the Battle of the Atlantic, long-range aircraft equipped with airborne radar had a far greater effect. That technology was given to the US by Britain early in the war, along with jet engine and atomic weapon secrets, in return for Roosevelt’s lend-lease help.

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    On the other hand, as Sir Max Hastings says in The Secret War (2015): “The achievements of Bletchley’s mathematicians in cracking the Lorenz code were quite distinct from and far more difficult than breaking Enigma. Bill Tutte, the young Cambridge mathematician who made the critical initial discoveries, is scarcely known to posterity, yet he deserves to be celebrated quite as much as Turing.”

    Hitler called Lorenz his “secrets writer” (Geheimschreiber) and considered it unbreakable, entrusting it with the most sensitive information on Nazi strategic plans and capabilities.

    As General Eisenhower acknowledged, Tutte’s cracking of the Lorenz code was one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the Second World War, shortening the conflict in Europe by at least two years.

    Richard Fletcher

    Newmarket, Suffolk

    The perfect yacht

    SIR – Dr Stephen Payne, designer of the Queen Mary 2, says Boris Johnson’s preferred design for a new royal yacht would suit the fishing industry (report, June 21). It wouldn’t – and nor would it serve as an exhibition flagship for the UK.

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    I suspect Dr Payne’s alternative proposal would be far more effective. Seaworthiness is a given, but the design must also serve as a conference centre, exhibition hall and business-class hotel. Furthermore, it needs to be able to sustain itself financially. The cruise industry specialises in designing profitable floating hotels.

    Our industry (bulk shipping) used the original Britannia to promote our services. We would applaud the return of a similar facility at a time when the country needs all the help it can muster to promote its overseas trade.

    Michael K Drayton

    Past chairman, Baltic Exchange

    Odiham, Hampshire

    The busy working life of a dog and companion

    An image from The White Puppy Book by Cecil Aldin

    Let sleeping dogs lie: an image from The White Puppy Book by Cecil Aldin (1870-1935) CREDIT: bridgeman images

    SIR – What do dogs do all day (Letters, June 22)?

    Allow me to enlighten your readers. Mine gets me up in the morning. I walk, meet like-minded people, and clear my mind for the day ahead. He sorts out the people who he knows have treats in their pockets.

    On returning home and after breakfast, I work and he sleeps. If I am lonely, he tells me it’s OK. He likes classical music, like me. He will watch TV with me without grabbing the remote and changing the channel and without indulging in unnecessary opinions. He watches over the house – and the biscuit tin. In fact, he is as busy as anyone I know.

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    He is now 16 and at the end of his life. When he is not with me anymore he will still leave lingering memories of love and laughter. He will have done a good job.

    J H Hammond

    Broadstairs, Kent

    SIR – I have worked with dogs for the past 35 years. They have been my constant companions and have helped me to save lives, catch offenders, find missing persons, control violence and much more. They come home with me, and like any other pet dog, they offer me unquestioning love and devotion.

    Steven Wayne

    Saltash, Cornwall

    Doorstep deal

    SIR – As a young member of the Royal Navy, I lived on a large estate in Gosport, Hampshire. I was, at the time, brewing my own strong lager, and I had a very good arrangement with the milkman, whereby he would supply me with as many empty sterilised milk bottles (Letters, June 21) as I needed. In return, I’d leave on the doorstep a couple of bottles filled with home brew – a win-win for both parties.

    David Joseph Houghton

    Bournemouth, Dorset

    1. The Government’s plans to tinker with the lifetime allowance (report, June 22) will land heavily on those who worked hard and saved even harder for their entire lives, and in particular those with private pensions.

      I long ago percieved that all pension plans are Ponzi Schemes designed to rob you in the present for a mythical future.

    2. Healthy ‘40%’ income tax.
      One money already taxed seven times over, and more so with every purchase.
      On a scheme from which tax relief was removed.

      The state is nothing but a thief. The intentional erosion of capital accrual for self sufficiency is offensive. All MPs should immediately have their pensions taxed at the cumulative rate of all tax bands. When their own incomes are destroyed maybe they’ll start to realise the damage they are doing.

    1. Boris Johnson’s face looks just like his odious sister’s face in this cartoon.

        1. It’s their voices and inflectional traits that grate with me. The totty daughter’s mouth twitches even she’s not speaking rubbish. Much in need of a good slap [but don’t you dare mention my opinions to our noble and goodly womenfolk on this ‘ere blog]

        2. I was not best pleased to see Stanley Johnson on GB News the other night. I had never realised just how odious a pimple he is.

    3. The simple fact is there are too many (new arrivals) people on this particular island.
      For every brick laid it’s the equivalent to a branch cut from a tree. Politicians don’t have an effing clue what they are doing to this once green and pleasant land.

    1. As we all do…the worst thing for Carolyn and the Ole’ Curmudgeon would be if everybody telephones all at once…. Might I suggest that you do so, Anne, not before 10:00am in case he thinks we actually care about him which would make him worry. I’m sure you have his number WHItehall 1212…In truth I can get their number if you don’t have it.

      1. Ure been two suttle four mee at this early hour, sosage. No comprendo so piss orff.

        1. On my poor resolution screen, at first glimpse the woman in grey looked like a heron fishing.

          Sharpen up.

  23. Irrational fear of Covid has crushed Brexit Britain’s buccaneering spirit . 23 June 2021.

    Notwithstanding some success in pursuing trade deals with countries like Australia, a strange insularity has gripped the nation compounded by an irrational fear of Covid. One reason why some Remainers turned against the EU was the way the institution handled the procurement of vaccines against coronavirus. Had we stayed in, the argument goes, we would not have had such a successful roll-out of jobs here.

    There is nothing irrational about the Fear of Covid. It has been propagated and enforced by one of the most intensive and successful propaganda programs in History! This minor ailment, that is a danger to only a microscopic proportion of the population, has been elevated to the equivalent of the Black Death. It has destroyed the UK economy and blighted the future for tens of thousands of ordinary Brits.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/22/irrational-fear-covid-has-crushed-brexit-britains-buccaneering/

    2. Around here the official BBC statistics state that we’ve had one death per five weeks from Covid.

      Over two deaths per week from traffic accidents.

      Should we expect the BBC to lead a crusade to ban all motor vehicles?

      1. And lots and lots of deaths from ‘flu and pneumonia.

        You don’t suppose that the people signing death certificates have suddenly realised that they have spent 15 months lying to us?

        1580 road deaths to year ending June 2020 = 30 a week. Or 4 a DAY. Every day.

      4. …and the Government obviously believes that, as they’ve removed our Covid testing station.

    3. The stupidity knows no bounds.

      A Scottish footballer, Billy Gilmour tested positive for “Covid”. He was seen in close physical contact with two England footballers who are club-mates, Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell, after the England–Scotland match.

      As a direct result of this close contact, Mount and Chilwell were forbidden from playing in last night’s match against Czechia (they were forced to ‘self-isolate’); yet Gilmour’s Scottish team mates were permitted to play for Scotland, none of them being forced to ‘self-isolate’. Who are the twats making these rulings and where is their logic derived from?

      [‘Self-isolate’: how I loathe that idiotic, tautological and oxymoronic expression.]

          1. I have Never seen such fakery on football pitches, it’s pathetic they are akin to small children who have n been promised an ice cream for each tumble. Even Harry Kane fell over holding his head when he was slightly brushed with a fore arm on his jaw.

  24. Good morning, all. A bright, sunny day – and the weather is much the same.

    Thank you for your kind posts, yesterday. Just what is turning into a regular couple of days every two months of a higher pulse rate. Back to what passes for normal.

    I see that 60,000 people can infect each other at a wendyball match (and sing their hearts out) but that only 30 non-singing people can go to a funeral.

    Can anyone explain the logic there?

    1. Cometh the hour, cometh the man…
      Glad you’re feeling better, Uncle Bill!

      1. It looks like one of my chickens I used to keep. One of the five would peck me as i entered the coop to feed them and muck them out.
        All now long gone and buried in the allotment.

    6. Bill only just over a week ago more than one thousand muslim people attended a funeral in Bedfordshire, keep up mate 😉
      I missed it yesterday but………
      On your pulse rate, how long after your second jab did this occur ? I had the same problem about 3-4 weeks after both jabs.

      1. There does not seem to be a correlation…though one could see a pattern if one wished. My mind is open.

        1. Discussing the possible effects of a jab with several people I know, there appears to be a pattern of problems. One person had a serious TIA, others had seriously blood shot eyes with aching limbs. I had Afib after both jabs, a friend told me that someone else they know also had Afib about 3-4 weeks after his jabs. My GP didn’t seem too interested when I was able spoke to him and didn’t confirm nor deny that on both occasions the jab may have caused the problem. The cardiology department also didn’t show much interest even though I was referred there by the doctor at A&E. By the time I get to receive my honoured phone call from them, it will have been more than 3 months since I first reported the problem. My suggestion would be that they already know about it and it goes away after the time. So they don’t show much concern.

    7. Glad to hear you’re feeling better, but you are asking the wrong question. Logic plays no part whatsoever in the scamdemic. It’s all about control.

  25. Good morning all.
    Another beautiful start to the day. 8°C in the yard when I got the milk in.

    2. Morning Bob – I thought I’d seen you yesterday while we were walking on the High Peak Trail near Longcliffe! Looked enough like you for me to ask, but it turned out to be Steve of Two Dales!!

      1. Too busy shifting them bloody blocks & bags of cement!

        That reminds me, I’ve another 28 to shift before it gets too hot!

  26. 334699+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Dt,
    Irrational fear of Covid has crushed Brexit Britain’s buccaneering spirit
    Five years after we voted to leave the EU, where is the can-do spirit that was meant to be unleashed?

    Erased by the tory (ino) group after being given carte blanche via “we won, leave it to the tories (ino) brigade”

    Did the peoples really think that the pro eu proven assets coalition would change overnight ?

    The mayday politico pointed the way it would be with the nine month delay the johnson chap is an extension still carrying the torch for brussels via the deal ( an umbilical cord ) damage limitations the DOVER intake campaign is clearly showing that.

    Up until now and with every chance of continuing these (ino) parties have been operating over decades with the people’s consent, and that is truly frightening.

  27. US takes down dozens of Iran-linked news sites, accusing them of disinformation. 23 June 2021.

    US authorities have seized a range of Iran’s state-linked news websites, which they accused of spreading “disinformation” on Tuesday, a US official said, a move that appeared to be a far-reaching crackdown on Iranian media amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

    The US government official, who spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because the case had not yet been officially announced, said the US had effectively taken down roughly three dozen websites, the majority linked to Iranian disinformation efforts.

    If they “took down” the US disinformation sites the MSM would disappear!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/us-takes-down-dozens-of-iran-linked-news-sites-accusing-them-of-disinformation

  31. Morning….
    28C here this morning after a 21C night but…………..
    Thunder storms and lower (24C) temps. forecast for the next four days.
    You can have too much of a good thing.
    And a happy birthday Oberst.

  33. 334699+ up ticks,
    Five years today, although it has been building since the major era reset finally came out of the odious shadowland being triggered openly by the 24/6/2016
    Brexitexit result.

    Given to the tory party (ino) with people’s consent to take forward was the gravest of errors EVER made.

  34. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “You can’t overestimate the stupidity of the general public.”

    Charles Bukowski.

  35. Michael Gove: Boris Johnson will not grant new Scottish referendum before next election
    PLUS: Read Mr Gove’s exclusive interview with The Telegraph, in which he says PM is UK’s secret weapon in keeping the Union together.
    Ben Riley-Smith https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/22/michael-gove-boris-johnson-will-not-grant-new-scottish-referendum/

    Effectively the nasty little piece of excrement, Michael Gove, has given both Sturgeon and Johnson more time to kick the can down the road

    A BTL Comment:

    Lionel Shriver had it right on GB News the other night when she said : “Give Nicola Sturgeon what she wants – give her a referendum.” This will stop her continuous moaning and playing the role of the poor victim whom the cruel English are snubbing.

    If the Scots decide to be independent they will pay a very heavy price and, amongst many other things, young Scots will no longer be subsidised by the English taxpayer and will have to pay for their own university education.

    If the Scots realise how much worse off they would be without England’s money and vote to stay in the UK then the spiteful Anglophobe Sturgeon will be finished for ever.

    1. If Scotland were to be offered a referendum then the facts must be available. That includes ensuring Scots understand they’ll be paying to use Sterling – but Sturgeon wants to use the Euro.

      Her entire plan would have to be exposed, specifically that she intends to join the EU. However, she intends that based on Scotland’s current funding, not a post union world where it would immediately be impoverished as it takes on a per capita proportion of the national debt.

      1. Maybe Sturgeon could persuade the EU to strengthen and rebuild Hadrian’s Wall for us.

        1. Geography has changed since his time.
          It needs to be a good few miles further north.

  38. Gorgeous warm morning – still. I am going out to do the crossword. May be some time.

    1. 377 years was a long time in politics the reversal has taken place but it looks as if we are now back to square one, the Brexit party might have come out on top, but have been hiding in the undergrowth ever since. There was a great opportunity to change the balance of power but people like Nige backed off. And it must have been expected that the EU/Brussels mafiosi would come after us, the seen rebels. But give it time the BBC might react to the censorship of their programs being banned by the EU mafia. Or of course employ European actors etc to take part in the newer more Woke programs and slip in Urdu, African languages, arabic and other multiple subtitles for us. And if there is room on the screen English as well.

      1. The EU would never censor BBC output. Al Beeb would do a backroom deal with the EU to rabidly promote big state EU ideals. Remember the mantra: Indoctrinate, Control and Dictate.

        I do imagine a world where English is no longer spoken. Where the majority births are not to Britons. The media already thinks this world exists and is dedicating itself to that ideology.

        1. The BBC will be doing everything they possibly can to upset the British/English public. They already employ people with identifiable street accents to make certain announcements. And it seems no more then a few seconds are allowed to pass before a black or asian person is on the TV screen.

          1. Imagine what it would be like if there were adverts on the Beeb! The ones we see (and scroll through very quickly) are on the commercial channels.

          2. If you find certain adverts patronising or insulting don’t buy the products.

            That’s why hardly anyone ever buys Walkers’ crisps in this area.

        2. The Bbc got funding from the EU, so that’s all you need to know about its “impartiality” on the European question. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

  40. Morning all. This is not good……..
    It will be of benefit to you to read this article to see what you may expect to be imposed upon you in the next few years. Your local and county councils will all have been prepared for it, just as they were for the fake Covid attack, in order to bring fear and control. You will be given little choice. It is all illegal but the supposed ‘Government & suborned Judiciary’ care little for that. UN rules!!

    https://gellerreport.com/2021/06/the-islamic-republic-of-yorkshire.html/

    1. They’re not enclaves, they’re colonies. How our ancestors will weep that, having spent so much blood and treasure standing up for our values against alien violent people wishing to invade and subjugate us, current generations stand meekly by as it happens slowly. Islam is a warlord’s cult demanding obedience or death and multiculturalism has failed badly. Muslims here are doing their God’s work and have far better lives than they could have in their home countries; primarily, I blame not them for wanting to come here but us and the politicians we vote in for allowing it to happen.

      1. I totally agree, well almost, as it is a now a well known fact that everywhere (their raison d’étre) they are or where ever go, they cause as much trouble as they possibly can. And slowly but surely ramp up the agitation to creep it up as far as possible. And it was Blair who arranged this. And Cameron allowed thousands more to come in without any discretion. As i mentioned a couple of weeks ago it took the Spanish 400 years to get rid of them ……what have our own stupid political classes done ?

    2. Councils already have far too much power. I know I’m a broken record, but… starve the beast, remove it’s ability to act. Yes, it will try the usual tired farce of saying ‘oh the old people and environment’ while pocketing the cash but the solution then is to sack those people deliberately wasting our money.

      Direct accountability will shake up the state no end. When the first few thousand stand bewildered outside town halls clutching a box and without a pension they’ll get the message that they’re there to serve us, not their bank accounts.

    1. Thanks, Eddy!
      :-D)
      Glasses to be raised to all kind NoTTLers for these best wishes later this evening – then replaced on nose! 😉

    2. Thanks, Eddy!
      :-D)
      Glasses to be raised to all kind NoTTLers for these best wishes later this evening – then replaced on nose! 😉

    3. Thanks, Eddy!
      :-D)
      Glasses to be raised to all kind NoTTLers for these best wishes later this evening – then replaced on nose! 😉

      1. As usual i’m a bit late on the scene and might not have the time to go over the previous comments.

    1. For years i’ve n been saying the UK would have ben better off with Vlad in charge.

      1. Well yes & no, the country would be more secure from Muslim & Black invaders but not de facto serfdom & from exploitation by oligarchs & the state and any expression of discontent means arrest , conviction in a mock trial & death by firing squad or exile to a gulag

          6. Me too, Annie! (Oops, I think perhaps I should re-phrase that. Sounds like I have been assaulted by those terribly evil white men!)

    1. Our two 15 month old grand children would beat him at that. And put the spares in as well.

      1. Thinking outside the box….

        Take the lid off and put them back in the box. …….why complicate your life…

    1. Ms Brewer is stating the obvious, but the examples of such abuses are myriad. The number of double standards in the media and law are hilarious. Law does NOT apply equally. The real debate is why not, and when law stopped applying ‘commonly’.

    2. One rule for G7
      One rule for illegal immigrants
      One rule for populist sporting events
      One rule for Muslims

      Other rules for the rest of you suckers!

    1. I am beyond-belief stupid: I ‘identify’ as intelligent.

      [Sounds like I’m a Pinko!]

        1. As I was saying a few moments ago … I give way to the honourable gentleman …

    3. I’m surprised that, rather than check the testosterone level of the competitor, the IOC doesn’t test the DNA instead.

      2. I wonder if a male homosexual transes into a lesbian does he/she/it it become a transbender?

        1. You may well wonder, Richard, but I prefer to rely upon the DNA results to identify the person’s sex.

          I think you may agree that the unnecessary use of the term ‘Gender’, may only, in English, be applied to a grammatical construct.

  49. I am having trouble downloading a drawing of a chap from the Middle East in Hilaire Belloc’s cautionary vwerse about Lord Ali Baba

    1. And ………Taking the double Knee.
      Quite a number of years ago we had flown back from a holiday got into the car and were leaving Luton airport car park. No one insight at the checkout barrier just an empty glass window at the office. I tooted and up jumped a little chap who apologised as he had been talking to his god. I doubt if an apology would occur all these years later.
      also more recently on a visit to Whipsnade Zoo with our 5 year old grandson. There were a group of people ‘picnicking’, all of the same religious persuasion and some of them were kneeling and banging their heads on the grass verges.

      1. “banging their heads on the grass verges.” Obviously didn’t like the ham sandwiches in the picnic hamper.

      3. Are you sure it wasn’t the two Popes, Ready Eddy? (Yes, there are two of them.)

  51. Phew! That’s 28 High Density 4″ blocks shifted and I’m in need of a cool bath, mug of tea and a bit of breakfast!

          1. A wall.
            My so-called garden is a chunk of steep Derbyshire hillside and I am trying to create some bits that are actually level enough to do something with.

          3. When, it’s all level, BoB, be sure to plant some rhubarb – I can recommend Timperley Early.

        4. BoB, you are Winston Spencer Churchill and I claim my five bob postal order!

          :-))

  52. Headlines from various sources:
    _______________________________

    The Guardian: NHS alarm over 41% rise in number of UK Covid patients on ventilators

    The rise takes the number to just 227 in the whole country…
    _______________________________

    Daily Express: EU chiefs unveils plans to hold back City of London in bitter act of Brexit revenge

    A bit of an exaggeration as usual from the DE featuring Irish peat hag Mairead McGuinness issuing more dire warnings.
    _______________________________

    Independent: Brexit a ‘slow puncture’ for UK economy, says professor

    Jonathan Portes, professor of economics at King’s College London and senior fellow at UK in a Changing Europe, said Brexit would be “a significant but not catastrophic” drag on UK economic growth for many years. “Not a blowout, but a slow puncture,” he said on the fifth anniversary of the vote to leave the EU.

    A report from the Centre for European Reform in April said leaving the single market and customs union had reduced UK trade by 5 per cent by February 2021, on top of a 10 per cent hit to trade between the referendum and leaving the single market.

    Er, hasn’t something else happened to the world since leaving?

    Jonathan Portes is, of course, an arch Remainer who was a bit mad before Brexit but, like others, has become positively unhinged, like this one…

    Independent: Brexit ‘opposite’ of what UK needed, says Heseltine

    Lord Heseltine, the former deputy prime minister who is now president of the European Movement, has described Brexit as the “very opposite” of what the country needed following the pandemic.

    “Five years on, Brexit is far from ‘done’. It has only just begun and the forecast is ominous,” he said. “Storm clouds are gathering on the horizon, chief among them the threat to the Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland. The fishing industry has now voiced its betrayal and the Australian trade deal will slowly erode the competitiveness of British farmers over the next 15 years. Meanwhile, the financial services industry quietly moves its activities to Europe in order to escape the continuing Brexit uncertainty.”

    1. So the percentage rise for the NHS is the old trick whereby, for instance, you go from 100 beds and 50 patients to 10 beds and 9 patients and report a rise from 50% to 90% occupancy.

    2. 334699+ up ticks,
      Morning WS,
      Independent: Brexit a ‘slow puncture’ for UK economy, says professor,
      Fast track treachery from the tory (ino) party more like prof.

    1. I didn’t think one was allowed to have a lora people ta dine.

      I’ll get me coat.

          1. I haven’t seen him post anywhere for ages unless he is posting on the Speccie where I stopped posting when they became subscription only.

          2. He’s on Twitter quite a bit – his account was banned and he made a new one – @giveusaquid. He was also on Parler until it was shut down.

        2. You don’t put that type of coat into the dry cleaner’s! Just bung it in the washing machine.

  55. Phew! It’s a scorcher out there! Glorious sunshine – I’ve come in to cool down.

  57. Russia Fires Warning Shots at British Warship in Black Sea. 23 June 2021.

    Russia used bombs and gunfire in “warning shots” against a British Navy destroyer in the Black Sea, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Wednesday.

    A Su-24 aircraft dropped four bombs in waters near the Royal Navy destroyer H.M.S. Defender and a border patrol ship fired its gun to divert it after the British vessel entered Russia’s territorial waters off Crimea and refused to heed radio warnings, the ministry said, according to the Interfax news service. Russia alleged the ship was 3 kilometers (2 miles) into its waters when the incident occurred and reversed course after the firing.

    The U.K. and its allies don’t recognize Crimea as Russian territory after Moscow annexed the region from Ukraine in 2014.

    Hmmmm?

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-23/russia-fires-warning-shots-at-british-warship-in-black-sea

    2. Even Wiki acknowledges that, “The official result from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was a 97 percent vote for integration of the region into the Russian Federation with an 83 percent voter turnout”.

      1. Every country in the EU and Britain were invited to send observers to the referendum vote.
        Shock horror…nobody turned up!
        They knew they would be seen as qualifying the result…and that could never be.

    1. Professor Hunter ofr the Norwich School of Medicine was interviewed today on Sky News.

      He pointed out that after this length of time it is obvious to all that Covid isn’t going to go away, and we better start thinking how to live with it.

      I’m amazed that no one in Government has considered his thinking.

  59. Viktor Orbán goes to war on the European parliament. 23 June 2021.

    The European parliament may be the bloc’s most democratic institution. But stuck in its own echo chamber, it is unable to grasp that its efforts to enforce common ethical standards risk a very unethical violation of member states’ sovereignty and democratic processes. Orbán’s proposed reforms to the EP won’t be listened to – but they certainly deserve attention.

    Orbán is right to seek to reform the EU though I would prefer to abolish it! The European Parliament is a toothless talking shop! It cannot initiate legislation, which means that it cannot even reprimand or sack its own executive. It is a mere rubber stamp for the globalists who are insinuated into the process via the European Commission. The whole organisation is corrupt to its very core. It was specifically created to bypass the European Demos and render them voiceless in decisions about their futures!”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/viktor-orb-n-goes-to-war-on-the-european-parliament

    1. Wow, is Orban trying to emulate that great reformer, Cameron? In the same way he will be told to ‘eff orf and keep quite while following the EU diktats.

      Will he call a Magyarexit?

      1. When the Eastern countries joined they’d had enough of their totalitarian masters but joined for the money thrown at them. when that stops, they’ll want out.

        1. They have one thing going for them..they’re not in the Euro.
          The Finns i know regret joining the Euro and losing the Markka.

          1. Most of the Scandi countries retained their own currencies – I bet they’re glad they did,

      2. Yes, but Orban has superior testicles to Cameron.

        Indeed I believe Cameron wants to be up-to-date and become a trans and that he will start with a trans-plant – Ovaries to replace testicles.

        1. 334699+ up ticks,
          R,
          Talking testics, the wretch camerons must be on vid. somewhere as in his take on animal husbandry and his approach to the pigs
          head sitting on a platter.
          Did he really have people voting for him ?

    1. The Windrush people themselves came here to work – and staff our new NHS. Their descendants have been a scourge on our streets with their gangs, knifecrime, druglines etc.

      As for the people illegally arriving here now from France – send them back!

      1. 334699+ up ticks,
        Afternoon N,
        Be better in the long to keep the illegals we have, NO MORE
        and deport the politico’s, execute a number of persistent
        lab/lib/con party members as a
        detergent, a clean wash of the whole treacherous issue is needed.

    2. Good afternoon T-B The bulk of the UK recovery after WW2 was done by the 100000s of military returning from the war and my generation which added to their numbers when they came of working age. The MP who asked the question about the Windrush affair was muttering something as our PM was answering. I wish I could lip read . Our PM is an embarrassment at PMQs. He does not answer questions properly and attacks noisily at the least opportunity. A Conservative asked him about a local link up of a railway in his constituency, which BJ said he would consider but added a caveat that it would be expensive. Esther McVey asked him why he continued with HS2 which has gone up considerably in cost. He said that HS2 would continue and would benefit all of Great Britain. Too many SNP MPs were allowed questions. Starmer, Davey and Blackford were fobbed off with aggressive irrelevant answers.

    3. Is Boris aware that the Mayflower settlers started the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people?

  61. The recent media comments about Enid Blyton made we wonder what happened to Noddy when he grew up. And then I remembered that he learnt how to play the tuba and then joined George Harrison, Joe Brown and Jules Holland ‘Between a rock and a hard place’ is the expression we might apply to those whom the woke wish to persecute. We used to say ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.’

    Anyway here is Noddy in action:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMJEtLjnO7E
    ]

    1. Noddy, what happened to him?

      The lovely area where we lived for 16 years untill we moved here 21 years ago, had a wonderful happy postman whose nick name was Noddy ..

      His hat was similar to the one the cute little Noddy wore, Noddy the postman was rather stooped , probably from years of carrying postal sacks and riding bicycles , and he clomped around in shorts no matter what the weather was like .. because we were half rural , he sometimes turned up in his red van .

      Remember when Post office vans were old fashioned and sometimes a bit smokey .. Noddy put himself out for people , and he would some times allow an elderly a quick lift to the bus stop ( remember when we had buses )

      All the local dogs loved him , I have always had spaniels , and they knew when he was about… remember 1st and second class post , he always had a little treat for the dogs , dog biscuit or dried liver treats ..

      On a hot day , one of us would give him a cold drink . Noddy was one of the most flatfooted bod I have ever seen , huge feet , and just with an amazing ability to clump along with his load … no matter what the weather , he always wore his Noddy style hat .

      We were very sad when he retired , and if I remember correctly , he didn’t last much longer after retirement .. that sometimes happens .. Guys like that were more than postmen , they knew all the gossip and he felt we should all keep the gollies away , because Britain was changing too quickly .

      1. I do enjoy his wearing the same old clothes and hat with a bell on it as he plays the tuba in the clip I have posted above.

  62. UK and EU expected to declare sausage war ceasefire next week
    Negotiators should push back looming Brexit ban on British bangers in Northern Ireland to buy time for more talks.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/23/uk-eu-expected-declare-sausage-war-ceasefire-next-week/

    This means – as it always means with any dealings our feeble politicians have with the EU – that Britain will cave in and Boris Johnson will boast about having got a great victory.

    1. 334699+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      People will intentionally muddle up feeble for treachery, for the good of the party name, even though the party is (ino)

    2. The EU is doing the same thing it did in Ukraine and Bosnia. It is using people for control.

      The Eu cares nothing for Ireland (either of them) it just wants a toe hold into the UK. Any effort to suppress, hinder or disrupt the UK is to be grasped desperately.

      Boris and his negotiators need to take the simple stance of ‘sod off.’ This isn’t about sausages or even trade. It’s the EU wanting leverage to control the UK.

      1. That Boris Johnson agreed to a border in the Irish Sea when he had promised the electorate there would not be one surely means he should be removed from his position as prime minister, sacked for bringing his political party into disrepute and kicked out of Parliament for low treason.*

        (* With his horrible flabby body he could not rise to high treason as the bar was too high and so he had to do a sort of under the bar limbo and go for low treason instead.)

    3. Hi Mr T,
      ref. your musings about the Doctor last Sunday after Mass.
      IMHO the pfizer vaccine is probably safe, but Astra Zeneca seems to knock some people for six. As you said that you take anticoagulants, the risk of an AZ stroke is possibly lower (am not medical, that’s so just a guess). I know of a woman in her 70s who recently had a stroke after the AZ jab, and survived, but also a woman in her early forties who died. If you are overweight, that is definitely a risk factor.

    3. HSTs with the old Paxman Ventura engine, the one with the screaming turbo-charger, were VERY prone to the engine cooler group getting clogged up with rosebay willow herb seeds at this time of year and cutting back to low power because of overheating.

      1. I am always puzzled that Sir James Dyson hasn’t adapted his technology to create an air filter system for engines.

        1. The principle used by Dyson in his cleaners, cyclone air filtration, was used by the Class 50s when they were first built for the WCML North of Crewe and the noise gave them the nickname “Hoovers”.

          When the wires went up to Glasgow and they were transferred to the western Region the system was removed.

          1. I read that the 50s became a lot more reliable on the WR. Was that due to the removal of the filters or was it because of another mod?

          2. Filter removal.
            Totally changed the sound of them, though I never got to hear them very often before the modification.

          3. I read that the 50s became a lot more reliable on the WR. Was that due to the removal of the filters or was it because of another mod?

    1. As Grimes observes in response, the appalling intellectual snobbery of Sara Morrison and Shazia Awan demonstrated why the Remain side lost.

      And I’m assuming that the black woman sat on the same side of the table as Grimes was also a Leaver; she was shouted down as well, so no protection for her. Wrong sort of black person…

      1. Thats why we left with those sort of people running things no wonder the EU is such a mess.

    2. I’d like to know why ‘Her Friends’ voted to leave and that was intelligent wheras Mr Grimes’ wasn’t.

      Equally, yes, we’re going to live with the decision. Has it not crossed your mind, madam, that *that is why we voted to Leave*?

      Fundamentally it comes to me right, you wrong, me no know why.

      1. If he had called her a haggard old witch whose recent lobotomy went badly wrong and that she should be in a institution for mental defectives she would have been most offended.

        The nasty old bat clearly thinks she has a right to insult people but they must not answer her back.

    3. The Remainers’ bitterness still warms the cockles of my heart during these depressing times.

      1. 334699+ up ticks,
        Afternoon M,
        These orchestrated depressing times were NOT on the REAL UKIP agenda we wanted OUT, total severance, NOT to be overseen by a party that a split second before the final tally
        on the 24/6/2016 were rabid eu.

        Even ALL LLC Brexiteers “leave it to the tories” the peoples who could not believe as with their best of intentions would not be honoured, went back to supporting the political pro eu coalition.

        The coalition as I have said before truly believed ALL their eids had come at once.

  65. Make the most of the sun today, folks. Rain for the next few days (on and off)

    Back to my garden seat…

    1. 30C and really humid.Just waiting for the rain and thunderstorm to start.

        1. Yep..that’s where its coming from.St Petersburg is 3 degrees warmer than here.
          BUT…the storm started about 20 mins ago ..its bucketing down and the temp is now 21C.

          2. You’re out of touch Bill.They’ve been here for years.
            WW2 was last century.

          3. All the more reason for Vlad to claim that “the Russian minority” in yer Finland want to be integrated into Russia.

          4. Sorry Bill you’re still out of touch .
            Finland was part of the German axis forces and could have been absorbed into the USSR..same as the other Baltic countries but it didn’t happen.
            Lots of Russians holiday on the Finnish lakes.Some own their holiday homes.

          5. You are so easy to wind up!

            Ownership of holiday homes = good reason for the plot on which they stand to become Russian.

            Vlad’s ploy worked in the Donbas.

  66. UK denies Russia fired warning shots near British warship. 14 minutes ago

    Moscow’s defence ministry was quoted as saying that HMS Defender entered Russian territorial waters near Crimea while a patrol ship fired warning shots and a jet dropped bombs in its path.

    But the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said “no warning shots have been fired at HMS Defender”.

    The MoD said the Russians were carrying out a gunnery exercise in the Black Sea and provided prior warning of their activity.

    “No shots were directed at HMS Defender and we do not recognise the claim that bombs were dropped in her path,” it added.

    The Russians say they did and the Brits say they didn’t? ‘Tis a puzzlement to be sure!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57583363

      1. It seems, we may have as many as Four ships at sea, must be close to a 2020/2021 record

        Defender, the USS Queen Elizabeth and her two escorts

        1. Send them to Calais, where the carrier could be renamed HMS Patel & be employed to make France a safer place to live.

          1. I understand, that the French are going to open up a canal system from the Med to English Channel, so migrants can be delivered, by barge, to Dover,with touching French soil, making UK the ‘first stop’ for them

    2. 334699+ up ticks,
      AS,
      More likely cannon shots were fired from the White cliffs area of Dover, the target seemingly returning overladen coastal protection craft.

    3. “No shots were directed at HMS Defender and we do not recognise the claim that bombs were dropped in her path,”

      Maybe not the smartest statement to broadcast…..there may be a next time.

  68. Right, by popular request, 1st lot of the Wall:-
    A stack of 60 Concrete Blocks:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff9c8be3c5f69ffffc8bd5f76d264e767ec3ff0fed4e4dfae9a6c2c495fbaf95.jpg

    One view of the wall with a dozen blocks ready for when I begin mixing mortar:-https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29825cac85ae573df1f276e8ce1b4ec5af48c6549a28504d357e23a255d1a994.jpg

    8′ of concrete ready for a 5 block run x 5 course build. 25 blocks needed for this bit, which will need two mixes of mortar:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1f2abefa163ac062f698e088fbbd4507a407a0ca7ec975b8bcef1fc49117bb61.jpg

    A view of the other direction:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89fe7dbe06f127dcbd8b2c9d6a2cb569e01d8e737628006fa9a1af29a3e45728.jpg

  69. 2nd lot of photos:-
    A view of part of the garden with the big stack of blocks and where they were carried up from at the lower left where the patch of grey is:- https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30c08f9553b830d37f1772dd3441a7be65c8f80c328aa8174ce26c281afa5d21.jpg
    Looking down the steps that the blocks were carried up with the apple tree leaning over at an angle:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20594fec268d122f64bee6bdec8528b3e83746897473f84eabd39b5170557bf2.jpg
    From the apple tree looking to where the blocks were lifted up to:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3997dee40a7d9826ea59791c80e01820ed3b36890624ce318572f5e63b554d5a.jpg
    Looking up the steps from where I lifted the blocks from:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9faea85bd3dbc221a7fc49345d63ea48135f171635aab6473dde0018bcd6527a.jpg

    1. Where is the house in relation to the building site?

      Are you north or south of Bonsall? Pounder Lane?

      1. South at the bottom of Clatterway.
        That bit of the garden is on the Cromford side and up the hill a bit.

  70. And a last couple for the benefit of the Birthday Boy, Happy Birthday by the way, shewing why using a sack barrow was rather impracticable:-
    The lower steps below the pick up point:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ed27e6b29d4b8342e96d4ba42c84f50a8542721be614e5c5fb949c8be70c6ac.jpg

    And this is how much room there is to get the barrow past the woodstacks:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86442857de239e265ec3e7a69dbd2b06030f14dd4341f7dc16fb81f5a928b882.jpg

    1. Watch out the ides of the woodstacks don’t give way because of (a) the weight of the wood and (b) woodworm eating the wooden walls. Two of mine have suffered that way. One repaired – the other waiting for a year’s worth of logs to be removed.

      2. One of the frames of a log stack I made this year has collapsed already. We have had so much rain and wind that it could not withstand.

    2. Are you not making yourself extra work Bob.

      I thought you had a dodgy knee.

      It is understandable that you need hard challenges , but I am sure I cannot be the only one to wonder whether you would be better off enjoying an abode with less hard graft and chill factor ..

      Please don’t injure yourself for an end target that appears to be nigh on impossible .

      1. I’ve neglected the garden for the past 30 years. It was neglected for at least the 30 years before that and I’m still able bodied enough to cope.
        Besides, it stops me getting too bored!

        1. Seriously, using a few planks and a sledge moved with rope and pulley and you could shift several blocks/sacks at a time with less effort.

        2. That’s silly because you would never be able to operate one. You don’t know where the steam lever is or the whistle chain. Who’s going to look out for the signals? On top of that where are you going to find a fireman to shovel all the coal? There’s nowt funny about a funnycular! 🤣

    4. Concrete walls and stacks of logs !
      Are you expecting an invasion or a siege Bob ?

  74. Q: Why do you think there’ll be lots of new trans entries into women’s sport?

    A: Easy money – big prizes at Wimbledon and Ladies’ Golf Majors

    1. The nonsense will change when real women suddenly find that professional sport is dominated by the newcomers and their own ability to earn a living is hit hard.

  75. Face-off in the Black Sea: Moscow summons UK ambassador after Putin’s forces ‘drop bombs in HMS Defender’s path and fire warning shots’ as Russia demands BRITAIN explains why Royal Navy was inside ‘their waters’ off coast of Crimea

    Russia said a ship fired shots and an Su-24 dropped bombs near HMS Defender
    But the MoD flatly denied Russia’s claims, saying no warning shots were fired

    Britain said it believes Russia was carrying out a ‘gunnery exercise’ in Black Sea
    British military attaché to Moscow has been summoned to the defence ministry

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the flare up showed that Russia’s ‘aggressive and provocative policies’ in the Black Sea and nearby Azov Sea constituted a ‘continuous threat to Ukraine and its allies’. In a tweet, he called for NATO to cooperate with Ukraine in the Black Sea.
    By JACK NEWMAN and WILL STEWART FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 12:14, 23 June 2021 | UPDATED: 15:45, 23 June 2021

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9716689/Russian-military-fires-warning-shots-British-destroyer-fighter-jet-drops-bombs-path.html

    1. The next rounds may be a bit closer if they violate Russian territorial waters again.

  76. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/295f1a2090844773caa0a1c9f0cd259ee65304280a9e8cc1216116e7a6ad2793.png May I respectfully suggest that those “more than half of” teachers “in England” who support this indiscipline be summarily sacked as enemies of the state?

    They should all be redeployed as street-cleaners, sewage-workers and in a few other necessary-but-undesirable jobs. Any failure by any of them to turn up for work and they will be unpaid with no recourse to state benefits (after all, they despise the state). No work: no food, no shelter. The huge number of boats arriving at Dover, daily, should be sold to them so that they may sail, unhindered, to whatever country shares (and admires) their mindset.

    Education will not suffer. Indeed it will improve if those who are intent on poisoning the minds of ingenuous pupils are removed and thus prevented from performing their acts of sedition.

    Such action will also galvanise the minds of others whose sole intention is to destroy the minds and souls of future generations.

    1. Nineteen per cent of teachers in England thought climate change was more important for further funding than science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects.

      Who on earth do these congenital bloody idiots think are going to solve any genuine responses to climate problems other than scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians?

      1. Ah but Sos, you know this isn’t about science. It’s a religious observance to appease the Goddess Gaia, with St Greta of Davos as intercessor.

  77. A DT BTL

    Cancel Marks & Spencer’s !

    A commenter posted something on
    here I thought was a joke yesterday. I was wrong. It was true. M&S’s
    new ladies underwear range is ‘inspired by the tragedy of the death of
    George Floyd.’

    Speechless. This must stop. Cancel Marks & Spencer’s !

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGhh

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/george-floyd-m-s-b942048.html

    2. I think I posted that OLT, they are not doing themselves any favours are they, unless of course they are trying to capture the BAME market !

      2. The ‘flagship’ M&S store on Oxford Street, the one nearest Marble Arch, is stuffed full of Muslim shoppers from the houses and estates behind Edgware Road and parts of Mayfair.

        Where once M&S cornered the market in underwear made in Nottingham their stuff is now made in Bangladesh. They should go figure!

      3. The ‘flagship’ M&S store on Oxford Street, the one nearest Marble Arch, is stuffed full of Muslim shoppers from the houses and estates behind Edgware Road and parts of Mayfair.

        Where once M&S cornered the market in underwear made in Nottingham their stuff is now made in Bangladesh. They should go figure!

    4. New underwear range for ladies …… inspired by the death of a violent, drug-using career criminal who attacked a pregnant woman??? Did they even think this through, or seek the opinion of some real women in refuges? What a way to alienate their core customers. Would have made more sense to be ‘inspired by’ a notable woman of colour. There must be some to choose from.

      1. I must admit that the female flesh on display in the advert is a refreshing “bumps, lumps & all” change to the normal “plastic” models you normally see.

        1. Some of them wobble a lot, though. I thought the whole point was to keep it all firm….

      3. I was already never going to buy another piece of underwear from them due to the utterly crappy quality.
        C&A all the way now!

    3. If a patriotic citizen would go out there and sink her, modern Plod would probably arrest them for criminal damage.
      I doubt there is a patriotic citizen left in Brighton anyway.

      1. No, BB2, they’re all fastened tightly to each others genitals and anuses.

        Altogether a major cock-up

  79. I noticed sos mentioned this below but here’s the latest on what appears to be another threat to ‘Freedom Day’.

    For the life of me I cannot fathom how these virulent variants keep popping up just before each major change in lockdown rules. Poor old Boris, defeated at every turn by a capricious virus. It must be so frustrating for him.

    https://twitter.com/GillianMcKeith/status/1407699608042708993

    1. Well, Gillian, since no one does anything to resist – no widespread civil disobedience – “they” may well larf their heads off. They have won.

    2. Too late. We’ve now moved to Delta Double Plus Ungood Variant.

      I’m prolly (©BT) too late with this – I imagine you’ve all died, already?

    3. Anything I mention should be checked, double checked, and then checked again..

      And then you’ll see I was right! };-))

    4. Yeah, I have a strong feeling that the news is total fiction, in fact it’s a bad film that’s supposed to play on our emotions and keep us on the edge of our seats. Not me, I’ve checked out of the BS.

    2. I expect people will ask where’s polygon and what the hex is goin’ on ?

      Last night flicking through the channels i think it was channel 4 there was a program about Dogging. It was absolutely filthy and disgusting. What a bunch of absolute filthy retards those people are. But having said that I only (no honestly) watched it for about 5 minutes. Mainly truck drivers. And Tarts.

      2. And to think I didn’t watch Alan Davies dog rescuers, if only I’d known…

      1. Probably right Bill, you must have seen it previously it’s quite long I don’t have time or the inclination to read all that stuff.
        Anne quite often posts articles from Conservative Woman.

  82. That’s me for this gorgeous day. Spent virtually all of it outdoors in shorts and T-shirt – and my sunhat.

    I don’t understand the Black Sea malarkey – it seems odd that the Admiralty should deny that they were warmed off by bombs and shots – which the Russians confirm, but that the US and other NATO vessels neither intervened nor commented.

    Could it be that the Royal Navy made a mistake in navigation? Shirley not… We are world beaters… (yawn).

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. The navigator that sailed into Iranian waters and got them apprehended has probably now been replaced, as well as the officer that ran HMS Astute into the island of Skye. Or maybe not.

      1. Some silly tw@t in RN drove their frigate aground near Oslo some few years ago.
        Don’t rate their skills at avoiding the world!

        1. Worser…
          from the BBC: ” The warship was in the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa earlier this week, according to the British embassy in Ukraine. It said the UK and Ukraine had signed an agreement to jointly build warships and construct two naval bases.”
          So the UK government is going to build warships in the Ukraine despite having said that it would not build RN warships in an independent Scotland? Erm, that is a bit off.

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57583363

          1. Why is it a bit off?
            Once Scotland chooses independence why should rUK not go to an alternative?
            What would make Scotland so bloody marvellous when they decided the rUK isn’t worth sticking with yet the EU is?

          2. It is the kind of behaviour that we’d expect from the EU. There is expertise in Scotland in building warships. We will continue to be an ally of rUK. When was the Ukraine ever an ally, or friend, of the UK?

          4. Errr…
            The last big warships we bought, crammed full of Scottish expertise, leak.

            Sturgeon has absolutely no intention of being a friend of the rUK.

          5. Sturgeon is not Scotland. The French company Thales were responsible for the clever stuff on the 2 big boats.

  84. 33 days since i last smoked a cigarette. Saved over £400. Seeing as Crypto currency has fallen through the floor i invested it there. Buy cheap and all that.

    Sense of smell and taste has improved and lunch at Lauro’s yesterday was superb. Also my heartburn has vanished.

    If there are any smokers on here and you don’t want to involve Government prodnoses i suggest you research a supplement called Cytisine. Works a treat.

      3. Ooh, is it your birthday? Sorry; been missing in action. Singing “Happy Birthday to Oberstleutnant” broadly upwards and right a bit. You’ll probably hear it; I’m loud.

      1. These Foolish Things

        Jack Strachey (composer) and Eric Maschwitz (aka Holt Marvell) (lyricist)
        ‎wrote this rather beautifully haunting melody.

        Unfortunately somebody in a rugby club corrupted the lyrics so please don’t unlock the spoiler if you are offended by vulgarity..

        The remnants of a torn French letter
        The syphilitic pain that won’t get better
        And when I pee it stings
        These foolish things
        Remind me of you.

          1. Ooh! Michael Green – The Art of Coarse Rugby!
            Read it years ago – one of my Dads favourites, along with Spike Milligan!

          2. His series on “coarse sports” would ring a bell with most people who played any games after they stopped taking their own sport seriously.

      1. Champix. After 10 days i just didn’t bother sparking up. No willpower needed.

  85. On a cheery note, the film “the Producers”, with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, is on BBC1 on Friday night. It is my favourite comedy film. Other comedy films that I like include, “Galaxy Quest”, “Get Shorty, and “The Blues Brothers”.
    Do Nottlers have favourite comedy films?

    2. Agree re the Producers.
      I liked the Crocodile Dundee first two, then the franchise deteriorated.

    4. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid…though I know all the punchlines.

      M*A*S*H. The tv series is good but the movie is true to the book.

      Woody Allen one-liners but these days I can do without the films.

      And the Carry Ons are still fun. I have simple old fashioned tastes.

      1. MASH, one of the very few series that is right at the top on both TV and at the cinema.
        The suicide is simple sketch, where she saves Painless, and the look on the nurse’s face as she flies home is embedded, as it were.

          1. 1 change battery
            failing that

            2 learn lip reading
            failing that

            3 accept that you’re past it and get the MR to talk you through the episodes
            failing that

            4 if you still can’t get it, accept that dementia has finally got you by the ball/s

          2. I remember watching MASH in the late 70s early 80s – no canned laughter. All the episodes I have been able to find on e.g. You tube etc have the dreaded laugh track. It was much better – more poignant- without.

      2. Kind Hearts…

        With you on Butch Cassidy.

        I am having great fun because brilliant, adorable grand-daughter (who lives in Bastein Park Road) is – aged 14 – deeply into films. I sent her my all time top 20. She is working her way through…!!

        This is what I sent her:

        Kind Hearts and Coronets – best comedy EVER
        The Ladykillers – very funny – terribly dated – young Peter Sellers
        Dr Zhivago – classic story
        Lawrence of Arabia – historical and SAND
        The Ipcress File – best spy film for me
        The Draughtsman’s Contract – very clever – lovely music – beautiful dialogue and acting
        Monty Python’s Life of Brian – UNIQUE – impossible to make today
        2001 A Space Odyssey – sci-fi – brilliant two-thirds – last third WEIRD
        A Passage to India – classic
        Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – best western for me – funny but puts B + K in a VERY GOOD (WRONG) LIGHT)
        The Graduate – ask MUM if she agrees.
        A Room with a View – classic
        Once upon a time in Anatolia – Turkish film – shot in (almost) real time. Subtitles (phew!!)
        Howard’s End – class clash – adolescence – very moving
        The Day of the Jackal – plot to kill General de Gaulle. TENSION lasts till the last frame.
        The 400 Blows – French
        The Leopard – Italian but in English
        Cinema Paradiso – Italian
        Lacombe Lucien – French about WW2
        Au Revoir les Enfants – French about WW2

        1. It will be interesting to hear what her top 20 are today.
          I know my grandchildren enjoy going to the cinema, but I get the impression it’s as much about the outing as the film itself. They seem to watch films on their tablets.

          1. Nah – she hasn’t got a tablet. She watches films for the intellectual pleasure.

            As I have said before, a most unusual young woman.

          2. It intrigues me.
            Coming from a family of artists, sculptors, stained glass creators, etc. etc. many of whom were women, and seeing my granddaughter doing similarly, but using IT to research, I retain hope for the future.

            The talent completely bypassed me and mostly my children and to see it reappear is marvellous.
            My son can’t quite believe how skilled his children are.

        4. African Queen
          Ice cold in Alex
          Where Eagles Dare
          Force 10 from Navarone
          Saving Private Ryan
          Tombstone
          Ill met by Moonlight
          Open Range
          Schindler’s List
          Doctor in the house
          The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the two sequels.
          The Longest Day

        5. “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – best western for me”

          Seriously?

          What about :-

          The unforgiven.
          The good, the bad and the ugly.
          Once upon a time in the west.
          High Noon.
          The Searchers
          Red River.

          I certainly have those as being better than Butch Cassidy.

      3. I like pretty much all of the carry on films too. Smutty British humour with a beast of a cast of actors with sublime comic timing. That’s the humour I grew up with, and still very much enjoy.

    6. “Some like it hot”, “The Producers” and thirdly Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”.

      Edit: Woody Allen’s “Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask”. Another Gene Wilder film!

      1. Assuming my memory isn’t playing tricks,the sperm scene into the condom is a classic.

      3. The final scene in Everything you always wanted to know was utterly hilarious. The rest of the film was hit and miss for me.

          1. Generally I really like Gene Wilder, it’s Woody Allen I find very hit and miss.

            I love Stir Crazy, See no evil hear no evil, blazing saddles, and young frankenstein.

      1. Shadowlands
        The Big Lebowski

        Comedies:
        Life of Brian
        Arthur (“I fell out of the Goddamn car”)

      2. Shadowlands
        The Big Lebowski

        Comedies:
        Life of Brian
        Arthur (“I fell out of the Goddamn car”)

    8. Blazing Saddles.

      Any Pink Panther.

      Weirdly, Mrs Doubtfire, the Nutty Professor. Coming to America was very nice.

      I do like Shrek, as it is my life story.

  86. Had a text come in at 5pm. A lady telling me her mother ( 80 ) had a fall this morning at 10 am. hit her forehead, blood everywhere, Rang for an ambulance straight away – – – – – – At 5pm – – STILL waiting for the ambulance.Doctors won’t go out to anyone !!!
    Pity she’s not an immigrant in a rubber dinghy – thye NHS would be lined up waiting for her.

    Can’t stay on – got to go.

    3. When you sort it out send the details to GB News and see if they pick up on it.
      Good luck, the world needs more people like you,.

    4. As I mentioned at the time, the ambulance for my 87yo mother after she fell (broke a hip) took 15 hrs. I rang 999 three times and they contacted me 3 times during the night. I was unable to take her to hospital because moving her was too painful. Perhaps I shall, call the border force next time. Apparently, I am to receive a letter of explanation.

      1. My second cousin aged 87, fell backwards off her little piping stool and hit her head, shoulders and back on the hearth. This happened about 2 pm and she was told the ambulance would be there within 7 hours! At 1am they went to bed and at 3am the ambulance arrived! Ann decided not to go to the hospital and went back to bed after being examined!

        1. Had you not written “her” I might have thought you were writing about BT and his ladder.

          4. True.
            But I’m guessing we would all have enjoyed the tiktok, were it available.

        1. She has come through the op but needs physio to become mobile. Unfortunately, they are flumoxed because she is unable to understand the instructions. She remains in a recovery hospital. In 6 weeks the muscles become wasted if not used and she will be bedridden.

          1. It doesn’t take long for the muscles to atrophy. I’ve got very unfit from inactivity over the last year and several months.

          4. Marginally; I need to do exercises to improve it, but I’ve been having difficulty with those because my hip has been so bad. I’m still waiting for an X ray – envy of the world? Pah!

    5. Hmm, I can only advise, Walter, KBO but very, very loudly with the aid of you (probably) useless MP.

    6. That is not new though.
      MIL fell about five years ago. A neighbour called for an ambulance, it never came.
      Her doctor flatly refused to make a house call.

      After a day or two one of the nurses from the doctors practice was persuaded to visit and diagnosed a concussion.

      We flew over and her that must be obeyed tried getting the doctor to make a house call but all that she achieved was to be banned from the surgery for abusing the doctor.

    1. But… that’s how the EU works. It functions on a ‘this is what we permit’. Our entire political class think the same way.

      1. That’s authoritarian liberalism for you. There are virtually no libertarian governments anywhere.

    3. As soon as you divide the populace into those who have accepted the jabs versus those who have rejected the therapies you will have broken the very notion of freedom. It is called positive discrimination and is a thoroughly bad thing.

      Our government and its ‘behavioural psychologist’ medical advisors are so removed from reality and the Truth as to render themselves as demonic fools. Needless to say most are in the pay of China and have vast investments in Pharma companies.

      As ever, there will be a reckoning.

      If I were Johnson, Hancock, Whitty, Vallance, Van Tam, Farrar, Ferguson, Drosten and their associates in this epic pandemic fraud I would top myself now and save further imminent exposure and embarrassment.

      The prospects for Bezos, Dorsey, Zuckerberg, Schwab, Rothschilds, Rockefeller’s, Clinton’s and Obama’s are equally dire. Everyone knows that there is a small cabal of demonic occultists who sit above the Bilderbergers and whose combined intent is to destroy us and rule the roost. All that remains is their exposure.

      The alternative will be convictions at a Nuremberg 2 trial where hopefully they will meet their end(s) for crimes against humanity by hanging, electric chair or life imprisonment.

      1. Life imprisonment? Why the soft ‘humanitarian’ (hah!) option? It was the Liberal types who banned proper and fitting punishments for the crimes against ‘humanity’.

  88. Forgot to mention earlier, the Van passed it’s MOT this morning.
    Only £105 for the work needed & test.

      1. It’s even more breathtaking in reality. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you might get a bit of the experience.

  92. No surprise in this ‘new’ figure. 2 million more than ‘they’ thought – and that doesn’t include many more living under the radar. I just hope any who are living off benefits will be refused settled status. Having said that, I reckon a few dozen East Europeans (maybe not so much with the Bulgarians and Romanians) would be preferable to a single one of the south coast invaders.

    https://foxhole.news/2021/06/23/2-million-more-eu-citizens-living-in-britain-than-initially-thought

  98. Evening, all. I sometimes think they want everybody to be dependent on the state. Independence is a dirty word.

    1. Evening Conway,
      Except for them of course! They really deserve wealth and power and we’re just the herd.

    2. Evening Conway,
      Except for them of course! They really deserve wealth and power and we’re just the herd.

      1. We had a bit of a tussle today getting his vet wrap bandage off his leg where the cannula had been. He was NOT happy, but we survived with the help of a friend holding him (and a muzzle to stop him savaging us). He seems to have forgotten that (I suppose the slices of ham helped) and is curled up in his bed, asleep, now. He’s on two doses of paracetamol a day and that, so far, has gone smoothly. After a week he needs to have his pancreatic enzymes checked again to see how he’s doing. I do hope that all will be well. I’ve been researching bland diets with less than 10% fat that won’t break the bank and think I’ve found some in a local supermarket. I bought some tins of low fat dog food so once he’s finished the salmon I opened this morning he can have those. The vet recommended Chappie, of all things, but Rufus is for working dogs and thus is VAT free. I’m all in favour of avoiding sending money to Brussels (yes, I know we’ve “left”, but I bet the b@stards are still sending money there and keeping it quiet).

        1. What about white frozen fish fillets? Very cheap from a supermarket, and very bland, but healthy on its own or mixed with something a bit more solid.

          1. That’s a possibility, but I’d have to get them in specially, so I’m going to use up what I’ve got that fits the bill first. I normally feed kibble with a small amount of meat, so I’m looking for a low-fat kibble (and think I’ve found one locally that’s a reasonable price – and VAT free).

          2. White fish and boiled rice is what my vet recommended when one of my PCs wasn’t well.
            Not too pricey

        2. Hi Conway! I wasn’t sure if you’d seen me mention that my vet daughter suggests turkey mince instead of chicken, as its even more bland! I just stick it in a casserole dish with water in the oven/microwave and the pack will do 5 meals with kibbles and pills!

          1. Thank you (and to your vet daughter). I’ll get some turkey mince (and white fish fillets, as suggested by mola2) when we’ve finished the salmon. Nothing but the best for Oscar! He’ll be eating better than me at this rate!

    4. If you make people dependent on handouts from the state you have a captive electorate who will vote for the continuance of their hopeless and meaningless lives. This is the principal tool of the leftists and has been for generations.

      Only idiots accept free things. They have not the wherewithal to realise that their submission to the orthodoxy will keep them in relative poverty forever.

      Those who reject this narrative and choose to work hard and compete always do best and create wealth for themselves and others. Above all they retain pride in themselves and transfer this pride to others.

  99. Evening, all. I sometimes think they want everybody to be dependent on the state. Independence is a dirty word.

    1. If the arsehole actually said that as reported he should be held to account.

      Hey, Johnson, you fat arsed lump of jellyfish lard, what do you have to say about this precious oik and his opinions.

      Thought not.

      1. It’ll be denied if he did say it. We knew that was what they believe anyway.

    2. I have a problem with the words ‘VIPs’ and ‘football’ in the same sentence. It’s just a silly game, get over it.

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