Wednesday 24 March: Britain can now do more to address the lockdown’s toll on mental health

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),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/03/24/letters-britain-can-now-do-address-lockdowns-toll-mental-health/

679 thoughts on “Wednesday 24 March: Britain can now do more to address the lockdown’s toll on mental health”

  1. 7:40am and bright sunshine…Spring might actually have sprung(if only the snow would melt).
    6C expected today.

  2. History may well conclude that the lockdowns were a dreadful mistake. 23 march 2021.

    Historically, times of grave crisis have manifested themselves in dreadful privation. Yet one of the most remarkable aspects of the past year is that there has been no interruption to the supply of food or anything else as far as I can see.

    The shops remain stuffed with fruit and veg from around the world. A month’s supply of provisions can be ordered at the click of a button. A world in which you can get a pineapple delivered to your door within hours of ordering it is not in crisis.

    The fact that five times as many people died from non-Covid related conditions (some exacerbated by the lockdown) is a reminder of our mortality. Moreover, the deaths of around 600,000 people every year does not constitute an annual disaster but the normal end-of-life phenomenon.

    Morning everyone. Well I don’t know about historically but I regard it in the present as much ado about nothing; the lockdowns were the hysterical reaction of an incompetent and cowardly political class and in my view have probably saved very few actual lives. Stringent protection of the old at the beginning would have served just as well, whereas they did the opposite by sending the sick to nursing homes. That the supposed Covid fatalities form only one fifth of the normal national mortality statistics speak to the reality of this view. The government is of course lauding this program with some North Korean style propaganda of Mass Clapping and Silence to defer criticism and establish the idea that they saved us from worse but really they are saving their own asses from the view of posterity! The “Pandemic” was an unpleasant affliction; the Government response to it is an ongoing unutterable Economic and Social disaster!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/23/history-may-conclude-thelockdowns-dreadful-mistake/

    1. I think when the dust settles,the underlying cause will be more to do with Western economies that a virus.
      Something had to give.

    2. I suppose that all depends on who gets to write the history books, I’m guessing that lockdowns will be portrayed as a great success by the historians of the future.
      Or those that are allowed to write the history and are told what to say if they value their high position in academia, similar to now really.
      Especially those that see destroying the economy, impoverishing and culling the masses in order to save the planet and meet their carbon target as a price worth paying.

      1. Morning Bob. The First World War was regarded as a British and Imperial triumph immediately after. It required a further ten years before it was seen as the Calamity that it was!

        2. But it was a British and Imperial triumph in that the British and Imperial forces were, effectively, the last of the original combatants left standing with the ability to take effective action.

          1. It was a military victory Bob poisoned by the aftermath, most specifically the French insistence on reparations!

    3. …during the year to March 640,000 people died of all causes. One in five was attributed to Covid…
      …The fact that five times as many people died from non-Covid related conditions…

      An embarrassing error by the writer…

  3. Good Morning Folks,

    Noticed it was getting light this morning at 5am , bright start here at the moment.

    1. ‘Morning, Bob, the clocks will go forward on Sunday so then that ‘getting light’ will be 06:00.

      1. It will only be pretending to be 06.00. In reality it will still be 05.00 geographical time.

        1. Correct.
          I wish we’d stay on GMT the whole year round. It is the natural time zone for the UK anyway.

    1. There was a comment in the Mail this morning saying that parents who refuse to have their children take part in the Stage 3 tests for this vaccine should have their children taken away from them!
      Government propaganda working a little bit too well on the weak-minded, I would say.

  5. I hear that Andy Murray has had to pull out of his next tournament while suffering a groin strain while in bed on Friday Knight, so it just said on the news.

        1. Hip replacements are good, but surely he has enough money and prestige to gracefully bow out, rather than store up trouble for the future.
          But then, I have never had the ability or drive to become a top sports woman.

    2. The trouble with such classics is that they are so embedded in our culture that you know them off by heart.
      I didn’t actually read the book until I was an adult.

  7. Migrants entering UK illegally to be liable for removal at any time. 24 March 2021.

    Migrants who arrive in the UK by small boats or other illegal routes will be indefinitely liable for removal even if they are granted asylum under punishing proposals to be announced by Priti Patel.

    In what the government is billing as the “biggest overhaul of the UK’s asylum system in decades”, the home secretary will announce on Wednesday that how people enter the UK will have a bearing on the progress of their asylum claim and their status if that claim is successful.

    “Indefinitely liable” is a self-contradictory euphemism for never! Don’t be fooled, this is all sophistry and misdirection. No one is going to be deported!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/23/migrants-entering-uk-illegally-to-be-liable-for-removal-at-any-time

    1. Action Stations ……… etc

      Airborne Porcine Squad…… etc

      Or in the History of Jokes, Sayings and Promises Number 13

    3. The equality laws and HR Act will trump all this rearrangement of words in asylum law.

    4. This is just hot air for the masses.
      Stopping them is the best action, and telling the French that the UK will shoot at their warships/coastguard vessels escorting these people across the Channel will be a good start – but the talk must stop and the action must start immediately. Arrest them as tey get to the beach, but them in a prison ship, and take them away to somewhere not so nice – like Yemen.

          1. Jay is the only common corvid that I’ve not yet seen in my garden, here in Skåne.

          3. You’d better believe it, Dean. I had the first one cruisin’ down from birch utopia and gobbling down my filbert glut just three falls back-aways, Bro.

          4. Hey, Beatnik, the old nutcracker’s nut stashometer goes up 10,000 before returning to zero- that’s a whole heap o’ nuts, Dude.

          5. Um, I’ve only seen tits feeding from my feeders. I sit back and await the ribald comments!

  10. Biden bagpipes blunder, 24 march 2021

    Biden, who proudly describes himself as ‘five eights’ Irish once responded to a British journalist ‘BBC? I’m Irish’ and was clearly keen to remind Americans of his links this week for St Patrick’s Day. His POTUS account tweeted a video of him greeting a bagpiper in the White House with the caption ‘They really know how to make an Irishman feel special at the White House.’

    . pic.twitter.com/NDSGJt5fI1

    While no doubt intended in the best spirit, Mr S cannot help but note that the piper in question is playing Scottish bagpipes– as opposed to Uilleann pipes which are blown by inflating the bellows – and doing so while stood in a Scottish kilt, Scottish brogues and a Scottish Glengarry hat.

    No comment!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/watch-biden-bagpipes-blunder

    1. “The Minstrel boy to the war is gone
      In the ranks of death you will find him”
      Appropriate tune for Joe.

      2. Morning Stephen. One of the oddities of the United States is that its citizens are all proud to link themselves to the countries they came from except the one that gave them their Laws, Language and Government!

        1. That’s because we are the wicked Brits who wouldn’t let them play on their own and of course whisper it softly were Slavers!

        2. Our friend who lives in Nebraska, who’s grandparents were Russian immigrants, considers England (not Britain) to be the mother country.

          1. The political system is recognisably English! It is the system that Cromwell should have installed but did not!

      3. Morning Stephen. One of the oddities of the United States is that its citizens are all proud to link themselves to the countries they came from except the one that gave them their Laws, Language and Government!

  11. Morning all

    SIR – The anniversary of lockdown in Britain offers a time for reflection, but many will be looking ahead to the easing of restrictions as the vaccine programme progresses.

    While the Government has set out a route to more physical freedoms, the mental-health cost lags behind that of the infectious disease, and the full impact will not be seen for two or three years. It is not too late to avert a mental-health crisis, however.

    The Government’s £500 million investment in mental health as part of the 2020 Spending Review was a positive step forward, but we must go further. I believe that technology is our biggest asset and the only practical solution if we are to meet the ever-growing demand for mental-health support at speed and at a fraction of the cost of training new psychiatrists.

    By investing now in digital services that will enable people to access support on demand, we can avert the worst of the mental-health crisis.

    –– ADVERTISEMENT ––

    Dr Oliver Harrison

    St Albans, Hertfordshire

    SIR – I don’t understand why having nursing and social-care staff vaccinated against Covid-19 is causing such a furore.

    As with other professions, why can’t vaccinations be mandatory for people working in high-risk situations? If those caring for vulnerable old people are not willing to be vaccinated, perhaps they should find alternative employment.

    Kate Graeme-Cook

    Brixham, Devon

    SIR – Vaccine take-up among care-home staff is apparently at a dangerously low level. They chose their employment, but the residents who are being put at risk probably don’t have a choice of abode.

    If it is a case of human rights, don’t those of the frail, elderly residents trump the rights of the staff?

    Hilary Beck-Burridge

    Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

    SIR – People in this country are allergic to the word “compulsory”, which they see as an infringement of their liberty. So rather than saying it is compulsory for care-home staff to be vaccinated against Covid- 19, perhaps we should say it is one of the “essential criteria” for maintaining employment.

    Advertisement

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    All workers in the NHS have to get a jab for Hepatitis B or prove that we have antibodies against rubella before working with children. We have to complete certain courses or mandatory training to be in the job. If we don’t, we have to queue up at the job centre. The choice is ours.

    Dr Dipankar Bose

    Warwick

    SIR – Once again, the travel goalposts are being moved (report, March 23), so although the majority of the adult population will be getting vaccinated in the next few weeks, we will not be able to holiday abroad because we may bring a new strain back into Britain.

    Should we just wave goodbye to the travel industry?

    Philip Hall

    Petersfield, Hampshire

    1. A BTL response:-

      Robert Spowart
      24 Mar 2021 7:45AM
      Kate Graeme-Cook and Hilary Beck-Burridge should consider these words:-

      “Vaccination is the voluntary choice of every person.”

      It comes to something when Vladimir Putin can be upheld as a champion of personal liberty.
      Delete6Like
      Reply

      1. Not sure how Kate GC gets her letters published. She was a typical WRAF officer when I used to quaff a beer with her when I was a lad.

  12. 330704+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Could it be that continuing lockdowns is all part & parcel of conditioning the herd, making them / keeping them malleable & susceptible to the overseers agenda ?

    Wednesday 24 March: Britain can now do more to address the lockdown’s toll on mental health

    Should read,
    Britain will be seen doing more on many fronts along side the incarceration
    issue, starting on 24/3/2021 and an anti invasion force in play patrolling the Channel waters.

    1. I see Putin is talking common sense:-

      As usual. The only World Leader worthy of the name!

      Morning Bob.

    2. I see Putin is talking common sense:-

      As usual. The only World Leader worthy of the name!

      Morning Bob.

    3. Even if his comment is only for public consumption, I do get the feeling that the certainties of my childhood have been turned upside down.
      Imagine such thoughts ever crossing Uncle Joe’s or even Khrushchev’s minds.

      1. The Russian leader promotes voluntary choice, and the UK government bans people from leaving the country!
        We’ve certainly gone through the looking glass since our childhoods.

  14. Morning all

    Bristol violence

    SIR – Did the organisers of the protest in Bristol not realise that an event entitled “Kill the Bill” was guaranteed to result in violence against the police?

    Derek Wellman

    Lincoln

    SIR – One question springs to mind. Who attends a peaceful protest armed with fireworks and missiles?

    Jennifer Salmon

    Felixstowe, Suffolk

    SIR – The rioters have proved the point. The police do need more powers.

    Advertisement

    Heather Remblance

    Gloucester

    1. SIR – Did the organisers of the protest in Bristol not realise that an
      event entitled “Kill the Bill” was guaranteed to result in violence
      against the police?

      YES

    2. Well done Heather Remblance! That’s exactly what the government wants you to think when their pets go on the rampage!

    3. The police have plenty of powers, Heather. They just need to apply them proportionally.

  15. SIR – Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, says that losing 10,000 personnel will make the Armed Forces “smaller but mightier”.

    Please may we expect the same of the Cabinet and the House of Lords?

    Felicity Foulis Brown

    Bramley, Hampshire

    1. Sadly Ben Wallace has form for talking utter bolleaux, and that utterance of his is no different!

  16. Morning again

    SIR – The census has to provide data that can be used by councils and the NHS to predict future requirements for education and health services.

    To get that data it traditionally asked only three mandatory questions – on age, gender and marital status. Today marital status is less likely to indicate that a person will produce babies, so there needs to be another way of estimating how many will do so, which is why the census asks about sexuality as well as gender (assuming that gay people are less likely to create a need for maternity places and schooling).

    It is not personal; it is not political. It is simply about planning.

    Sue Doughty

    Reading, Berkshire

    1. But how will the data be used, Sue D?
      Remember the law of unintended consequences – and an old man removed from the Labour Party conference some years ago under terrorism legislation – for heckling.

    2. If you think it’s “simply about planning”, Ms Doughty, I have a bridge to sell you.

  17. As veterinary professionals, we consider sentience to be a central tenet
    of animal health and welfare. Scientific evidence demonstrates the
    ability of animals across a range of species to have feelings, including
    pain and pleasure, and we have fought for legislation that places a
    duty on the state to recognise this in future policymaking.

    I am just off to talk to a Cow

    Wee Jimmy Krankie………………..

  18. I World map in the pink

    SIR – Well done to Robert Jenrick, the Housing Secretary, for having the Union flag and a portrait of the Queen in his ministerial office, thus exposing more BBC wokery (Letters, March 23).

    One of the pleasures of being appointed a minister is to rummage through the archives to find suitable office pictures. I chose one of the Queen, which was deliberately hung behind me at the Ministry of Defence to remind me whom I served.

    As the Minister responsible for defence diplomacy, I always enjoyed explaining to quizzical foreign visitors that the map of the British Empire 1924 was there to remind me and them of the unrivalled historic ties that the United Kingdom enjoys with so much of the world, a massive asset to be exploited now after Brexit by this commendably outward-looking Conservative government.

    Sir Gerald Howarth

    Chelsworth, Suffolk

    1. “a massive asset to be exploited now after Brexit by this commendably outward-looking Conservative government.”
      Is he being ironic, or just diplomatic?

  19. SIR — Experts warn that a daily rasher of bacon increases the risk of dementia (report, March 22).

    I am 94 and for at least 60 years have had bacon (preferably dry-cured smoked) and egg for breakfast most days of the week. My body might now be weak, but my brain is not.

    Donald A Wroe
    Ulverston, Cumbria

    Bravo, Mr Wroe, and long may you live on such a splendid diet. One of the main problems with the modern world—as you have discovered—is that it is filled with ‘experts’ who have no expertise.

    Coincidentally I have, at this very moment, a Tupperware® container in my fridge containing a back and a belly of pork that are dry-curing in a home-made mix of salt, sugar and black pepper. In a few days’ time I shall hang them to dry and mature for a week-or-so before slow cold-smoking them for 10 hours.

    I will then be able to enjoy some rashers, fried with some excellent free-range eggs, in the same manner as you are doing, Sir.

    1. Yo Mr Grizzle

      History of Jokes, Sayings and Promises Number 23

      Ex a hasbeen
      Spurt a drip under pressure

      Together= Expert

      1. Yo, Mr Effort.

        It is drips like them, and squirts like others, that make up the shower who control our destinies.

    2. Morning Grizz. I should be dead ten times over from my consumption of everything that is bad for you!

    3. Hmm, I wonder if he has cooked it for himself every day for those sixty years.

    5. Strange isn’t it that the more it’s said that this or that is bad for you the longer we seem to live.

      1. All those mediaeval peasants subsisting on pease porridge and a scrap of meat once a week – if lucky – their villages must have held 100th birthday celebrations on a daily basis.

          1. Good morning, Grizzly

            Please would you post some photos of yourself before you embarked on you ‘eat only once and day‘ diet and the effects it has had on you figure.

          2. Good afternoon, Rastus.

            I don’t currently have any ‘before and after’ photographs to show you; however, I can tell you that my starting weight was 116·9kg and I reached 99·0kg after embarking on my diet for a few months. I am currently in ‘maintenance mode’ on my one-meal-a-day régime, which means I am neither gaining nor losing weight (although I am enjoying my food). My intention is to go on another stricter diet for a few months to lose a bit more before returning to the maintenance diet. [I also take one vitamin D capsule and two omega-3 fish oil capsules daily].

            All in all I am healthier, more alert, feel very well, and sleep like a log these days.

    6. You have activated my salivary glands so I must ask Caroline produce some excellent bacon again.

    7. I’ve just ordered sone curing mix so I can have an attempt at makin’ bacon.

      1. I wished you’d asked me first, John.

        I don’t use proprietary curing mixes because they contain saltpetre (potassium nitrite) which can be injurious to health. All it does is make the product last longer, which is not needed if you freeze it like I do. All you need is equal parts salt (coarse salt preferably) and sugar (any type), with flavouring ingredients of your choice, such as black pepper, juniper berries, allspice). Cover the pork with some of the mixture and leave it in a container in the fridge for a day. remove it the next day and empty out all the liquid. Cover again with the curing mix and do this over and over again for a minimum of five days.

        After that time, rinse well in clean water, pat dry on paper towels, then rub all over with malt vinegar. Hang in a cool dry place, at a maximum of 15ºC, for a week. After that slice and use or cold smoke first. I slice mine and portion it up into bags before freezing it.

  20. Sussexes’ aide says all white people are ‘rife with internalised racism’. 24 March 2021.

    The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new strategist has claimed all white people are “rife with internalised racism and unconscious bias.”

    Genevieve Roth said she realised she was “racist” after marrying her black husband.

    “Race is an issue in our marriage because as a white woman of privilege, I have racist tendencies written in at a cellular level,” she said.

    If she is indeed racist as she claims, how come she married a Black Man?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/03/23/sussexes-aide-says-white-people-rife-internalised-racism/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

      1. ‘Like a Bull elephant’. Are you suggesting his árse is six foot up and the size of a serving hatch?

      2. More prep school humour I’m afraid. I have, as is my normal practice, hidden it with a spoiler so as not to offend puritanical Nottlers’ sensibilities:

        As a convicted rapist who had committed many sexual crimes was led from the court an outraged woman shouted at him:

        “You ought to be bloody well hung!”

        “I am, Madam, I am!” he smirked in reply.

    2. Many people who were not racist are becoming more so due to what people like her are saying.

      2. Yes, it seems the answer to racism’s being even more racism and segregation isn’t going well, except for the people looking to profit from it. Martin Luther King must be turning in his grave.

      3. I have certainly become less tolerant. I don’t loathe or hate Bames but i am seriously pissed off by people like Diane Abbot saying there are too many white people in this country. Or the constant whine of David Lammy and the lies told by David Olusuga.

        I know i am not racist because i have respect for Thomas Sowel and Trevor Phillips and the last time i looked they are black.

        Good morning, Stormy.

        1. I want Candace Owen to run for President,like Sowell her intellect shine through
          ‘Morning Phil

    3. The term Black Lives Matter is the most Racially disruptive statement made in years.

      If they said All Lives Matter, it promotes Unity, not just by colour

      Owzabouta all the other hues, do they not matter?

    4. Equally the bames who loathe England and white people – a lot seem to marry white women.

      1. Lammy and Henry are good examples of your point but as far as I know Abbott stuck exclusively to black men after a disappointing performance from Corbyn.

        And there are far more black men/white women relationships portrayed on the television adverts than white men/ black women relationships. Why is that?

        1. There are dozens of them, Richard. Often wealthy whinging slebs moaning about how they have been deprived.

    5. This appalling brain dump is rather disrespectful to her husband, I feel. Did she only marry him because he was a trophy black man?

    7. Ms Roth is not a racist, it’s her husband. She has accepted the possibility of dusky children, whereas her spouse has consciously selected a woman who will/could produce offspring lighter than himself. (no idea of their ages etc)

      1. TBF – if things get sticky on the employment front, a great future in the advertising industry beckons.

        1. In years to come someone will submit a doctoral thesis about 2020’s patronising TV adverts with their quantities of smiling people of African descent and appearance. Granted that advertisers tend to portray a fantasy world in order to increase sales, but where are the Chinese-Africans, the burqa clad glamorous muslims in M&S clothes, orthodox Jews at the gym, Indian Hindu families on holiday, and the very ,very dark skinned men from west Africa, etc? Good luck to all the Afro models and actors while it lasts!
          But it’s bizarre.

    8. Is the Duchess of Sussex half-white or a quarter white?

      Whatever the figure is it would be interesting to know the percentage of internalised racism and unconscious bias that she has herself.

    9. If she is indeed racist as she claims, how come she married a Black Man?

      Because she wanted to enslave him.

  22. Proud To Fart

    A little old guy goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor I have this problem with gas, but it really doesn’t bother me too much. They never smell and are always silent. As a matter of fact, I’ve farted at least 20 times since I’ve been here in your office. You didn’t know I was farting because they didn’t smell and are silent.”

    The doctor says, “I see. Take these pills and come back to see me next week.”

    The next week the guy goes back, “Doctor,” he says, “I don’t know what the hell you gave me, but now my farts, although still silent, they stink terribly.”

    “Good”, the doctor said. “Now that we’ve cleared up your sinuses, let’s work on your hearing.”

  23. Right o. Off to work.
    In other words, time to walk from the bedroom into the lounge.
    Slayders

  24. Excellent BTL comment on the Bristol Riots:-

    John Langdale
    24 Mar 2021 7:06AM
    On the subject of the Bristol riots, it feels depressingly clear to anyone who kept up with events in the American North West coastal cities last year that what was being attempted was a rerun of the tactics repeatedly being used by so called Antifa extremists there on a regular basis.

    The cities of Portland and Seattle have been subjected to months of rioting and destruction by people whose overt aim is simply the overthrow of society as it currently exists and its replacement by some mooted combination of Communism and Anarchy, despite these two “ideals” being mutually exclusive. In both cases they were aided by brain addled Mayors who conceded to their demands without realising that no concession would ever be far enough for them.

    The parallels with Bristol are obvious and steps need to be taken to ensure that these criminal agitators are not given the same free rein to cause chaos that they have been in the USA.

      1. That was the excuse, and yes, many of the attendees will have taken part expecting a peaceful protest to take place.

        I seriously doubt however that a peaceful protest was the intention of the organisers and strongly suspect that those peaceful attendees were deliberately used as cover for the violent anarchists of AntiFa to wreak their havoc on the city.

        3. Well, we are getting beyond peaceful protests. The police are making sure of that regardless of the rentamob thugs. The difficulty is that we, the people, have no access to firearms. The State does. We have seen that the police are prepared to do anything that they are ordered to do. If they are ordered to use rubber bullets and live ammunition, it is most likely that they will do so.

    2. And Biden in the US is going for it again, pushing for a complete fire arms ban. As apparently the 21 year old slammer who shot all the people in Colorado had ‘mental health issues’ and was bullied at school. What people like Biden can’t seem to get their heads around is a gun is an inanimate object. It’s the person who pulls the trigger that has the motive.

  25. ‘Morning All

    #CovidClownWorld

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89c193a1bbc1e762256bda9f1e9edb828f8b99c9cbdd49fcd30b0fd1e92f5cc5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a8dd9915fed2a815e22f5d4a4c53010e0bb36e254af4cfd59504ac7cbbdd2aa.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a56daaa20cba7d739079cb390a3c6a2997e4409daca286aa95205ebb84ce2573.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/119d39b382099bff3124d35f21c7360bb5188f1d862c27354229aefd4e815e6b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d4ac875449729d8c889f05815e80333d843f81946bb51df87beb0fb968e32826.jpg

  26. Blimey. And I thought planning where to park in Colchester High Street while MB popped into Superdrug was a problem.
    (Love the typos – the writer shows the same attention to details as, presumably, the canal pilot. The company name is Evergreen.)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/24/suez-canal-blocked-ship-unable-turn-around/

    “Suez Canal blocked by huge container ship after it runs aground

    The blockage caused a pileup of at least 100 vessels seeking to transit between the Red Sea and Mediterranean

    24 March 2021 • 4:09am

    The Suez Canal in Egypt was blocked on Tuesday after a massive container ship ran aground.

    Traffic through the busy waterway was halted in both directions by the 400-metre long and 59 metre-wide cargo ship.

    The blockage caused a pileup of at least 100 vessels seeking to transit between the Red Sea and Mediterranean, according to ship brokers and mapping data compiled by Bloomberg.

    Julianne Cona, who posted a picture on Instagram of the Ever Given from a nearby vessel, said the “ship is super stuck”.

    “They had a bunch of tugs trying to pull and push it earlier but it was going nowhere. There is a little excavator trying to dig out the bow.”

    The Ever Given is registered in Panama and was en route to Rotterdam from the Yantian in China when it got into difficulty.

    According to online reports, the vessel had travelled through Taipei and Malaysia, and was scheduled to arrive in Rotterdam at the end of the month.

    It arrived in the Suez Canal on Monday night before getting stuck on Tuesday. It remained jammed early on Wednesday.

    The Ever Given’s bow was touching the canal’s eastern wall, while its stern looked lodged against its western wall.

    Several tug boats surrounded the ship, attempting to push it the right way.

    “There was a grounding incident” in the Suez Canal, said Alok Roy, fleet director of BSM Hong Kong, the Ever Given ship manager. There have been no reported injuries or pollution, he said.

    The ship’s operator, Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, wasn’t immediately able to respond to a request for comment.

    Ship tracking data showed the Ever Given still in the same position as of about 2am Wednesday in Cairo, with vessels backed up on either side.”

    1. It is prolly a devilish Chinese plot.

      Incidentally, WHY do the teenage “journalists” put the same information in TWICE?

    2. 330704+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      Am I to believe then that the tailback is affecting Colchester high street, bloody hell that is amazing.

    3. Should I expect a delay in delivery of my printer ink refills I ordered last night then?

  28. From a Gab poster:

    On Monday Parliament debated the issue of vaccine passports in response to the petition which gained 290,000 signatures.

    However,

    the Government has decided as the next step to issue a Call For

    Evidence. It is a sort of public consultation which anyone can

    participate in.

    The full title is: Open Consultation. COVID Status

    Certification Review Call For Evidence It is vital that as many people

    as possible tell the Government why vaccine certificates are a bad idea.

    If all the petition signatories did this we would overwhelm their system and we might frighten them into having second thoughts.

    The closing date is 11.45pm on 29/3/21 so we have days to do this.To do this you need to go to the link below and submit your comments

    https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/covid-status-certification-review-call-for-evidence/covid-status-certification-review-call-for-evidence
    Edit
    That was quite cathartic,small suitcase packed and money for new front door set aside………

  29. I think Johnson and his gang use the wrong flag.

    They should get new ones…

    G A T E S D A V O S O R O S

    would do nicely.

  30. Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913-14, or rather less than 8 per cent. of the national income. The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries, from working excessive hours. The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.
    A. J. P. Taylor.

    Golden days. Probably the Apogee of English Civilisation! Alas how are the Mighty fallen!

  31. I see Priti Awful is going to “stop benefits” for those who enter the UK illegally.

    Yeah, right. Like her “promise” to stop the cross-Channel flood.

    Incidentally, as leaving the UK will be illegal – and, I assume, attempting to return to it – WHY are these daily hordes not put adrift in their rubber vessels – suitable holed?

    1. Morning Bill – I have just heard her on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme at 8.10.
      It was preceded by an illegal immigrant who had come through France, got a false passport and ultimately crossed over the Channel on a boat.
      He was adamant that that was perfectly legal. He also said that some of the men who came over that way would get their family to come over to join them. He also said the UK had plenty of space for immigrants
      Priti Patel seems to want to stop the illegal crossings as it involved Criminal Organised Gangs [COG]who are smuggling people, drugs and weapons into the UK. I wonder what the weapons are for and where they are being distributed.
      She wants to assist people who want refuge in the UK to apply in countries which are safe and assist them, if successful, to come to the UK. Hong Kong was her example. She could not say which countries would accept our rejects.
      It seems to me the government will carry on with immigration which is damaging this country.
      Why can’t these illegal immigrant men stay in their countries and fight for freedom.
      I suspect we are accepting people from abroad who are at war with each other and may continue their struggle in the UK.
      There could eventually be civil war in the UK for which we will not be prepared. I hope all our ammunition dumps are well guarded.

    2. For some time I have been suggesting a force of immigrant underwater expulsionists with snorkels armed with sticks with sharp needles attached so that they can puncture the rubber dinghies from underneath.

      Aficionados of P.G. Wodehouse will remember that Bertie Wooster used such a weapon when he crept into the bedroom of the sleeping Sir Roderick Glossop and punctured his hot water bottle.

  32. Whatever trends start in the US, inevitably infect the UK. The latest is ‘polyamorous families’ which have now been made legal in Massachusetts.

    Would the ladies here tell me what they think of this? In my humble opinion it is not only child abuse to deprive babies and young children of a mother, let alone a female presence, but by excluding women, isn’t this an example of misogyny?

    Why do so many on the far left have to be so perverse in their opinions, and why do they loathe things that have worked well for the human and animal populations since the beginning of life on earth?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65eb224a4577a45851fb8d502c0391ac2777b710813f83567e00e8fe165dc672.png

    1. Morning Sguest. The Social Order is breaking down and all the Freaks are coming out to play. It will all end badly!

        1. I’m glad you appreciate my self-restraint in holding back from what I really wanted to say 🙂

      2. I might be permitted to add, these people are profoundly stupid.
        I once thought the cause of this ridiculous gender miss-identity could be the amount of oestrogen that could have crept
        into some of our water supplies but ……………….

    3. Babies and small children need a mother. Or a female mother figure, such as an ayah, nanny etc.

    4. Situations like that make you understand Mozzies’ disdain for the West.
      Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

    2. Morning Rik and Nottlers.

      There is no need to vaccinate, sorry, experimentally inject children with who knows what. As is the same for all those who are not extra vulnerable to a flu like disease. As Dr Vernon Coleman says in his video the flu and coronavirus have virtually identical symptoms and nobody has suggested vaccinating the whole population. And certainly Parliament has never discussed vaccination certificates in regard to flu.

      I hope everyone on here who wishes not to partake in this human experiment will comment on the link you put up but suspect, if it is decided not to introduce the certs and that’s a big if, other companies and organisations may make it a requirement for employment in the future.

    3. 330704+ up ticks,
      Rik,
      The fault lies initially in the party & adoration via the peoples, may one ask “did the likes of rotherham etc,etc,etc, distress the voting pattern any”

      The peoples are giving these mass uncontrolled immigration, malady constructing political groups consent at every General Election, especially seen over the last three decades.

      The peoples supporting these political peoples are doubly dangerous and many also parents.

    4. My thought exactly when I read it in my local rag. Children are not in the high risk category.

    1. Apropos my comments last night about Vitamin D3 as an inexpensive way to boost the immune system. This was pointed out to by my consultant, a black man, who said that nobody in this country will get enough vitamin D from sunshine in this as it is not strong enough and doesn’t last long enough to have that effect even in a long hot summer.

      Perhaps there are no piles of bodies in 3rd world countries as they seem to be grouped around the Equator and therefore have a natural immunity from many diseases due to the sun.

    2. After a period before Mandela arrived South Africa has become a third world country again. They seem to have the worst of both worlds – Covid and poverty.

    2. 330704+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Probably on a veggie diet resulting in the hangdog look
      whilst visiting a meat pie bakery.

    3. Gawon………he’s missed his appointment at the barbers………….again 😉

  36. Hello Boros….

    “There are those who wrap themselves in flags and blow the trumpet of patriotism as a means of fooling the people”. George Galloway.

      1. The SNP, bankrolled by Soros, isn’t interested in Scottish Independence.

        That’s just the headline story.

        The SNP wants to destroy the UK, which is why Soros backs it.

        1. So it would seem. A few years ago the SNP had most of the MPs and most of the MSPs a convocation could have voted to secede. With an overwhelming majority such a vote would have been legitimate*. That did not happen. It did not happen because the SNP is about bossing a small country, but with a sheltering uncle – the UK -to sort the worst of the deficiencies.

          * see Kosovo.

          1. I think that as we’re all citizens of the UK and NI that everyone should get a vote about destroying the UK.

            Not just the Scots.

          2. That is most definitely not how it works. Please see the UN articles on this (I’ve forgotten which one.)

          3. If it doesn’t, then it should. We’re all citizens of the same country. Nobody is a citizen of England and nobody is a citizen of Scotland.

            In any case, if the Scots got independence, it would be a massive failure and England would have to clear up the mess.

            Who tells the UN what to do ?

            Soros.

            That’s why Alex Soros can pop in to see the UN Sec Gen Antonio Guterres any time he likes. Guterres is clearly on the billionaire globalist payroll !

  37. Dominic Raab to call on Nato allies to ‘face down’ threat from Russia. 24 March 2021.

    He will warn that Russia is deploying new and disruptive technology to threaten democracies and open societies around the world, and will say that the UK fully backs Nato as a military deterrent and a “strong, united, political bulwark against Moscow’s destabilising activities”.

    And he will say that this includes Russia’s development of new, cutting-edge missile systems built to evade conventional defences, as well as state-backed cyber-attacks that target sensitive data, try to interfere in elections, or spread disinformation about coronavirus.

    Where are these Democracies and Open Societies of which he speaks? The UK is an Authoritarian Police State. Europe is governed by an unelected Marxist cabal. The US and France are led by corrupt sexual deviants and Germany by a stranded Soviet Union spy! All have a controlled MSM that produces nothing but Lies and Disinformation!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-raab-nato-blinken-russia-b1821346.html

      2. The Soviet Union was never “Russia” anyway; Russia was only a part of it. There was also Byelorusk, Ukraina, Uzbekistan etc, etc.

    3. Do not forget Murrelovane ia.

      A country ruled by a lying demented midget, who spends Mr Barnetts money, though she hates him, then asks for more

      Wants ‘Freedom from England’, but demands our ships are built on the Clyde

  38. Dominic Raab to call on Nato allies to ‘face down’ threat from Russia. 24 March 2021.

    He will warn that Russia is deploying new and disruptive technology to threaten democracies and open societies around the world, and will say that the UK fully backs Nato as a military deterrent and a “strong, united, political bulwark against Moscow’s destabilising activities”.

    And he will say that this includes Russia’s development of new, cutting-edge missile systems built to evade conventional defences, as well as state-backed cyber-attacks that target sensitive data, try to interfere in elections, or spread disinformation about coronavirus.

    Where are these Democracies and Open Societies of which he speaks? The UK is an Authoritarian Police State. Europe is governed by an unelected Marxist cabal. The US and France are led by corrupt sexual deviants and Germany by a stranded Soviet Union spy! All have a controlled MSM that produces nothing but Lies and Disinformation!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-raab-nato-blinken-russia-b1821346.html

  39. “The reason we have vaccine success, is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends.” Boros.

    As 99% don’t need vaccination and will recover naturally, Boros was surely correct.

    After all, why vaccinate individuals who don’t need vaccination unless it’s about the money.

    Unless of course the motive is even worse.

  40. 330704+ up ticks,
    Could this be payback time in regards to the 24/6/2016 result ? that will continue in the same vein until we agree to returning to the silicone breast
    of brussels.
    Considering the toxic trio politico’s were pro eu contented rubber stampers
    right up until the 24/6/2016, that they were understandably upset, loss of eu pensions etc,etc.

    YEAR OF LOCKDOWNS HAVE COST BRITISH ECONOMY £251 BILLION

  41. It’s being reported the whining about Patel’s fake “Crackdown” on illegal gimmegrants is already cranking (sic) up by the usual suspects with the usual cries “inhumane” “racist” to the fore………….

    I’ve an idea………..

    I’d be happy to take a lucky-dip of the immigration policies of any of
    the 150-odd non-Western countries and implement them here tomorrow.
    That’d be perfectly fair and just wouldn’t it??

    1. With 2 Pakistani men being given the death sentence for raping a woman in front of her kids, then those who come here and rape should be deported back there for the same sentence. If they come here for the much quoted “better life” then they should behave better. , but , ,While they behave like the savages they are then they should get the same sentence. No lawyers – no ifs, buts or anything. I’d certainly have no conscience about their despatch.

  43. No doubt everyone knows that Bristol kicked off again last night…

    BBC news channel and MSM papers are full of the action plus there are plans to repeat the event later this week. The Bristol Evening News labelled the perpetrators as political activists. The Bristol police were joined by officers from neighbouring forces and had the upper hand this time.

    The protesters this time seem to have a plan and can mobilise at short notice. The event went through the night which is keeping the police from their beds and repetitive protests could eventually wear them down. Protests in other cities could also prevent reinforcements being readily available.

    Bearing in mind how the police have let everyone down by allowing our statues to be trashed…the defacing of our war memorials…failure to protect our Veterans…arresting old ladies for walking in isolated areas and much more…should the protests be frowned upon or should the keyboard warriors take some of the blame? We sat at home…we typed our comments and nobody in power took the slightest bit of notice. The thugs may not share our disgust at trashing war memorials etc but the anti freedom laws do affect everyone plus the violent scenes bring everything to the fore with the kind of coverage not afforded to peaceful protests.

    Spring is here and a long summer awaits so we are likely to see the violence escalate until the police are out numbered and out maneuvered. Perhaps we should prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

      1. Plus they identified the weakest link after the Bristol police stood back and allowed a statue to take swimming lessons.

        1. The police’s selective surrenders to the left remind me very much of the government’s surrender in its dealings with the EU. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove selected Northern Ireland, British Fishing waters, clear rules for the financial sector as the key areas on which they would give way in order to get a “deal”.

          Not surprisingly the opportunistic EU saw this as a weakness which had to be exploited – hence the shambles in Northern Ireland, the deliberate and unjustified thwarting of the British at customs points and the current disgraceful behaviour over vaccines.

          It is all part of the same thing: show you are weak and you deserve to be beaten.

          If the Police let left wing rioters get away with destroying our history while brutally attacking old ladies and right wing protests, if politicians give way to the EU where they need to stand firm, allow illegal immigrants to stay and treat them lavishly regardless of expense and danger of infection, and if a rugby team kneels to BLM before its matches then what can they expect?

          1. And while China threatens so Johnson reduces our Armed Forces…

            Another sign of surrender.

            Peace has to be fought for.

          3. Cyprus: The woman who ran that bar was far wiser than most of the female politicians in the UK – and had bigger t*ts!

        2. I listened to James Whale yesterday and Monday saying that the police must be able to identify the sods who tried to set fire to the police van, with police inside, and do them for attempted murder. There appears to be plenty of CCTV footage. The excuse that they had no prior intelligence sounds like absolute rubbish.

          1. And these thugs are better organised…

            No banging the drums of war but rather just appear and get stuck in right away.

          2. I think these thugs chose their perlice farce with some care. The “rainbow” ones are less likely to be tooled up.

    2. The police sowed the wind when they did nothing in the 2020 BLM protests and the Bristol statue-dumping escapade. They are now reaping the whirlwind as the violent demonstrators realise they can get away with it.

    1. 330704+ up ticks,
      Rik,
      The reset new style neighbourhood watch.
      Ps
      The grass is nearly 6′ tall.

  46. Good morning, my friends,

    At last some news to cheer us all up!

    It is encouraging to see that, against strong competition from Kermit the Frog, Prince Harry, the Sixth in line to the British throne, has landed the much sought after position.

    Prince Harry’s new Silicon Valley job: helping guide you to ‘an all-round better life’

    Duke of Sussex lands ‘impact’ role with Californian life coaching company – his first foray into the corporate sector
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/23/duke-sussex-gets-new-job-silicon-valley-startup/

    The position of chief impact officer is relatively rare in the corporate world, but Mr Robichaux described it as “a meaningful and meaty role”.

        1. He’ll be sure to tell the world’s press about it – in private, of course.

    2. “a meaningful and meaty role”.
      Yup to con the gullible out of charitable donations using the Royal brand to fund a lavish lifestyle for Robichaux and associates
      Harry the useful idiot

        1. The lunch time BBC news reader thought it amusing as Call me Harry’s new boss was speaking about the good relationship they are likely to have./

    5. If someone is stupid enough to pay him for doing nothing, at least it means the British taxpayer won’t have to fork out to keep him and his gold-digger wife. The alimony can come out of his earnings.

      1. Wait till he gets hit for US income tax on those “earnings” plus his UK income. Then the squeals will start.

    6. I saw “coaching company” and thought crumbs, surely they’re not going to trust him to drive a bus!

      1. Perhaps the coaching company mentioned is the legendary Wells-Fargo.

        The “Deadwood” Stage would seem the most appropriate route for Ginge, and the one best suited to his intellect.

  48. ‘Morning, all.

    Lee Hurst, a British comedian, has had his Twitter account reinstated following a suspension for ‘tweeting’ a joke about the sainted eco-warrior, Greta Thunberg, for which he’s refused to apologise. Pity there’s not a few more like him who will not be bullied into submission. He wrote:

    “As soon as Greta discovers cock, she’ll stop complaining about the single-use plastic it’s wrapped in.”

    Needless to say, this brought a shitstorm of criticism down on his head from the usual wankerati, including Jeremy Vine and a chap called David Baddiel – who he? A quick check reveals that Baddiel is a British comedian who himself fell foul of the ‘woke brigade’ for causing offence when he appeared in ‘blackface’ in a sketch taking the pish out of black footballer, Jason Lee. But Baddiel – who’s a member of the Liebour Party – is Jewish and while he thinks putting on ‘blackface’ to mock niggers is fine, he’s very vocal in his condemnation of racism in the form of antisemitism. Typical bloody lefty hypocrite.

    1. She might not have discovered cock yet but she has already discovered its usual partner bull which is what she gives us!

    2. She might not have discovered cock yet but she has already discovered its usual partner bull which is what she gives us!

    3. Baddiel was funny when he first appeared but soon the cloak slipped and he appeared as a shitty leftie

      1. You’ve got to appear as a vocal leftie or you just don’t get exposure on the BBC.

      2. He objected to the use of the word “Yid”, seemingly unaware that it’s the Yiddish for “Jew”.

      3. The effigy looks to have a gleam of intelligence, more than the original has anyway.

          1. Well she couldn’t make it quite as pinched and nasty as it normally appears, or she might have been accused….of something (greenophobia?)

            ed. It’s hard to say how much of Greta’s face is structural and how much is expression, in the flesh.

  49. What happens when Priti Useless threatens to beef up border control?

    The illegals set sail in larger numbers to beat the non existent deadline.

    1. Her new plan?. Supposedly a “tougher ” but legal, route into the UK and harder to stay here coming from safe countries. HAHAHA. Once here their same culture lawyers will instantly ensure they stay.

        1. 330704+ up ticks,
          Morning H,
          Confirming peoples consent or not via the polling booth on the 6th May.

          2. 330704+ up ticks,
            H,
            I do beg to differ in the nicest possible manner, the one untried option that has NEVER been tried, ever, is to drop support / votes of the lab/lib/con coalition en masse and join / support / vote
            en masse for say Ann Marie Waters, Laurence Fox, Robin Tilbrook.

            The real trouble constructors are those that continue in the party first, best of the worst voters vein, drip feed the daily odious decline.

          3. It’s too late even for that.

            Besides…voting those people in will lead to violence and that’s coming anyway.

          4. 330704+ up ticks,
            H,
            As much as I would like to agree with you the untried alternative
            MUST be tried first, the last resort has not yet been reached.

            The lab/lib/con coalition support / vote has been a country killer from the outset, agenda, complete submission to brussels.

            In many respects i cannot blame the politico’s / parties as much as those that continue to return them & parties to power, just
            alternating them, then whinge.

            The electorate it can now be seen are conducting a bloodless civil war at every voting opportunity, but are blind to the fact that “their” parties are identical in treacherous agenda.

            There is NO true opposition to the lab/lib/con coalition.

          6. 330704+ up ticks,
            H,
            The referendum proves that, we are nowhere near totally out.
            But, it has to be proved to a great many that IT DON’T WORK
            clear cut, without doubt.

            The only way is to starve these parties of support / votes if they continue to operate as overseers then it shows that voting is a calming opium for the herd.
            One way or tother an alternative to the toxic trio must be found
            before bloodletting begins in earnest, it amazes me that it has taken so long of having their children raped & abused plus a multitude of other odious issues countrywide without countrywide retaliation, it has surely got to be reaching the red zone on the enough is enough on the anger gauge.

      1. Her “plans” won’t work whether they are in the future let alone the past.

        All mouth and shalwar khameez – that daft bint.

        1. The non-white woman in charge of immigration – is screwing it up.
          The non-white bloke is in charge of our finances – and screwing it up

          There may be a plan.

          1. ……and the non-white lady solicitor pointed out on the lunchtime TV news that Priti’s plan won’t work.

    3. She needs to get rid of legal aid for foreigners, the Human Rights act, the scumbag lawyers and virtue-signalling judges first.

  51. “Hairy. Do you wanna make an “impact” with Mommy tonight? Then just do as the nice man tells you and put on the onesie.”

    1. I have an impact driver in my garage. It’s more use to someone with depression through occupational therapy than that vacuous pr@t.

  53. Just back from my morning stroll, no longer grey and miserable, but the weather is still not showing signs of spring yet.
    Amazing how people seem to get on as best they can, doing their best to give a greeting and a smile when you pass them on the street.
    Tomorrow is another day with more highlights planned, flowers on Mother’s grave, it would have been her 100th birthday.

    1. How come China’s economy is now bigger than before all this started and every other country has trashed its economy and put millions out of work?

    1. Yo walter

      The ‘smugglers’ aka Day Trip to Dover organisers have more boats than the RN

  57. There’s been a lot of talk of the annual death count (with references to ‘excess’ deaths and the five-year average) so I thought I’d dig out some data. The link below will provide you with the relevant Excel file. The figures are for England and Wales only. I’ve included an extract to which I have added annual changes in recorded deaths and population.

    The 2020 total of 608,002 was 77,161 up on 2019. This is a big increase. There’s no trickery here whether comparisons are made year by year or with the average which (for 2015-2019) was 532,077. Those five previous years saw rises (8.2, 8.3, 28.2) and falls (10.7, 4.6) on the prior year. The 28K rise in 2015 was caused by the bad flu winter of 14-15, the 10K fall in 2019 by the mild flu winter of 18-19.

    The recorded number of Covid deaths (E&W) for 2020 was 70,150 so a simplistic conclusion is that without the virus, the 2020 total would have risen by 7,011, an ordinary number. The big question, of course, is how many of those 70,150 deaths really are Covid but even if you knock 20% off, you have 56K Covid and 21K other, an annual increase exceeded only three times in the previous 50 years.

    As an aside, the annual population increases since 2000 are frightening…

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/12735annualdeathsandmortalityrates1938to2020provisional

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e2b0df9aa341f165886359f76b381590b371869421b16e5b907888f43c8a27a.jpg

    1. Why would you want to arbitrarily knock 20% off the 2020 figure? The whole point of using excess deaths is to try to weed out the number of non-normal deaths. i.e. those from COVID.

        1. At least. Think of the ‘flu, pneumonia, cancer deaths – all shoved into the “covid” category.

          2. ‘Flu and pneumonia deaths will be included in the average number. It’s the excess deaths over and above that figure that includes true COVID deaths as well as those caused indirectly by the ‘protect the NHS’ and lockdown measures, i.e. undiagnosed cancers, suicides, murders, heart attacks and strokes, etc. As I keep saying, it is difficult to separate them out to determine the real COVID death figure, especially with the nonsensical 28 day limit for ‘death with COVID’ which inflates the figures. Whether that is by 20% is debatable. Still, it keeps thousands of Statisticians in employment.

      2. I should add, the interesting figure will be the 2021 excess deaths, which I speculate may well be lower as many of the people who would have died this year died last year.

        1. The figures for week 12 published yesterday showed lower than the five year average number.

          2. Not especially – we had some hard frosts in February and the last couple of winters were milder.

          4. Show off. Wait till you get old and your blood thins and it feels cold even when it is 25ºC….

          6. I never change into shorts here! The last time I wore shorts was in the Little Desert in Australia.

          8. I’ve been very wary of week-by-week or month-by-month comparisons. The whole year is much safer. A bad flu winter can cause a big rise in the early months and lead to lower figures during the rest of the year, especially late on.

    2. How many died of other causes because the NHS closed down, and how many will die in the future because of delayed treatment, crashed economy, crashed education.. etc?

        1. Yes, but the effects aren’t likely to be reflected in the 2020 figures above.

          1. They should appear in the excess deaths. The problem is separating them from true COVID deaths.

        2. Other than 2020, ”the highest number of deaths in a single year since 1961 was in 1976 when there were 599,000 deaths in England and Wales” according to the ONS.

          That puts 2020 into some perspective and allowing for population increase, 1976 was worse.

          1. The population increase has of course been massive. It’s often said that we’ve always been a nation of immigrants and whilst that isn’t untrue in itself, as Douglas Murray pointed out in his Strange Death of Europe book, in the entire 2000 year period prior to Blair flinging our borders open, no more than a few hundred thousand people in total came here.

            The invasions of the Dark Ages consisted of a few thousand warriors from other parts of Norther Europe, who mated with native girls (whether by force or consent) and integrated. The nature of current migration patterns is in no way comparable.

          3. There are more old people now now than there were then as the average age of mortality has increased in the last 50 years. Many of those were culled by the virus or by other effects of the response to the virus.

    3. You’re missing the vital statistics by age compared to Covid deaths. The ones I’ve seen show ‘with Covid’ deaths’ being significantly less than the excess for people of working age and below, and the reverse for those above. This suggests the former are dying because of anti-Covid measures, either not seeking or being denied adequate treatment, and the latter through over-counting and those already at death’s door being culled.

      1. I’m not missing any statistics. The subject is simply the annual death count, much used by commentators. The 2020 figure is up by 77K on 2019 and by 75K on the five-year average. You cannot hide these figures.

        Deaths are up because of Covid even though the Covid death total is inflated.

        1. You cannot categorically state that.

          Look at the figures from the perspective that the genuine long term rate is over one thousand and the real aberration relates to several years of below average mortality sorting itself out.

          1. “You cannot categorically state that.”

            I can and I have. I can’t see how anyone can fail to understand the simple conclusion that there was an unusually large increase in deaths in 2020.

          2. We regularly get blips. But is it really that unusual, particularly when you take the unusually low numbers of deaths over the last few years?

            There have been such blips many times over the last 100 years; never with the reaction of this Government.

          3. As I said to Bob above, I agree that there’s been an overreaction but a 77K jump is not a blip. It’s a powerful argument for the lockdown fanatics.

          4. Look at total deaths as a proportion of the total population for each of those years and I suspect you will find that 2020 is nowhere near as exceptional as the bald increase figure suggests, particularly if one takes into account the far older average age of that population.

          6. I don’t think there will be many lockdown casualties in the 2020 figures. They’ll show up in subsequent years.

          7. Old people in homes dying of dementia – exacerbated by the lack of contact with their families.

          8. See the article I posted above. 2020 was the worst year since 2008. In other words, not that bad, when age adjusted.

        2. Death by Covid or through our response to it? Yes, people have died directly from Covid, but without an age analysis those figures are highly misleading and are being used to justify lockdown when lockdown itself is causing many of those deaths.

          From a personal perspective, my friend is one of your excess deaths. He committed suicide because he lost his job and couldn’t cope with lockdown. Let us think of people like him before commenting on excess deaths.

    4. If the “simple mortality rate” is actually over the 1,000 mark, the years 2003 to 2020 are significantly below that.

      That would suggest that there was a very significant number of people who would normally have died in those years, but who, for whatever reasons, were surviving longer.

      It would also suggest that there may still be significant numbers of excess deaths still to come, which are nothing of the kind, just a return to normal long term trends.

      1. “If the “simple mortality rate” is actually over the 1,000 mark, the years 2003 to 2020 are significantly below that.”

        There’s a very simple answer to this. Those years saw big increases in the population by immigration, mostly young people. The proportion of older people dropped significantly.

        1. I do not believe that that explains the figures. Just from observation, people have been living longer, it can’t carry on forever.

          Look at the average life expectancy and look at the average age of so-called Covid deaths. That strongly suggests that the aged are being killed and that there was a much bigger pool of aged people to die.

          1. No. The age-adjusted figure fell markedly from around 2005 because of very large numbers of young immigrants.

          2. If one believes the net migration figures, which to be fair I do not, there is a significant turnover at the lower end too, with net migration not reflecting totals. The authorities don’t have a clue who comes, who stays and who goes and the age profile of the population has been rising over that period too.

            We will no doubt see dramatic equivalent falls over the next few years, unless there is a real pandemic that kills all age groups, rather than mainly the elderly and infirm.

          4. That too and I also doubt that many of those young Europeans will have featured in any census figures.

          5. Average life expectancy probably reached its peak sometime in the last 20 years and is now falling – due in large part to obesity and other comorbidities.

          6. And as I have been arguing since the onset, there was a significant “backlog” of very old and frail people who would die of almost any disease passing through the general population, many of whom were effectively killed when the NHS shifted Covid people, but it could as easily have been a strain of ‘flu, into care homes.

    5. What ever way it is spun there is nothing really remarkable about the figures for 2020 compared to the dystopian measures taken and the fear that was drummed up.
      If you was looking back at those figures in a hundred years time you would be wondering what all the fuss was about, there is no real sign of a pandemic.

      1. Pardon me, Bob, but the increase is significant. If anyone were to argue that it doesn’t justify the measure imposed on the country I would agree but 77K is a big number.

        1. But only 15,000 higher than 1979 with a far higher population and with most of the hospitals closed.

          2. Why irrelevant William when, with 20% i.e 10 million fewer people, for 17 years the total number of deaths was >575,000?

          3. You cannot compare the 70s with today. Health was poorer even 40+ years ago. People are living longer now (though there are limits!). The steady fall through the first two decades of this century shows that.

          4. But many of those older people reached their upper limits – they were culled by the virus, or dementia or heart disease, and the lack of treatments.

          5. The DoH had a policy of trying to encourage the elderly to live healthily for as long as possible without chronic morbidity so that the end when it comes comes swiftly akin to suddenly falling off one’s perch. It could be that the first two decades of the 21st Century saw this policy bearing fruit. And, given as you point out there are limits, perhaps from here on it there will be an annual harvest of similar numbers?

          7. Because the figures since the 90s have shown a steady fall. The 2020 total should be compared with recent years.

          1. ASMR was in the attachment I provided. It had been falling for many years and continued to fall, especially recently as millions of young immigrants. It then jumped sharply last year.

          2. What do you make of this quote from the article that I linked then?

            “Figures for age-standardised mortality rates in England and Wales only go back to 1981, when the number stood at 1,666.5 deaths per 100,000 population.

            The equivalent rate for England and Wales in 2020 is estimated to be 1,043.5 deaths per 100,000 population, according to provisional ONS data.

            This would be the highest mortality rate since 2008.”

          3. This is another bogus ‘snapshot’ comparison. ASMR is recorded as far back as 1942 and fell consistently until last year’s big leap.

          4. I’m a little surprised by that, because the article was in the Irish Examiner, and the quote is attributed to Sarah Caul, ONS head of mortality analysis.

        3. 1968 – Hong Kong ‘flu.

          60,000 dead – and no one – apart from the bereaved and the hospitals – knew anything about it at all. Oh, and undertakers.

          1. About 6 months ago we were told that there were 80,000 deaths from flu in the U.K. in 1968. We were so shocked, a) because that’s the year we got married and we heard nothing about it and b) it seemed a huge number.

            We looked it up and that is what the ONS said – up to 80,000 deaths from flu in the U.K.

            Alf mentioned this figure to his podiatrist a few weeks later and she was so shocked she also looked it up. However it seems the figure has been massaged in a downward direction. Their figures can no longer be trusted. BTW said podiatrist confirmed what she had read the next time Alf went.
            Edit: Interesting,y, having looked it up again, it now says “up to 30,000 deaths from flu in the U.K. 1968”.

        4. Yes – it is a significant increase – but unless that figure is broken down we will never know whether they were hit by the virus or the other factors.

        5. This is a fact free zone. Such a significant increase in deaths will be dismissed by any excuse going.
          Co morbidities is a typical out! Obviously a new phenomena that has not had any effect in previous years.

          I wonder how many deaths last year (and for the next few years) will be the result of missed medical treatments?

    6. Good post, thank you.
      However the mortality rates have fallen compared to the 1990s.
      And when you observe that the official population figure has risen by 16% between 1997 and 2020 (Bliar Labour policy), it is not surprising that deaths 2020/1997 increased by 9%.

    7. The population seems to be increasing by nearly 500,000 per year………. no wonder they are concreting over all our green spaces.

      They’ve kept up the fear factor by adding the 2021 figures to the 2020 ones to keep the covid numbers rising. They should have started counting again in January.

      1. they are concreting over all our green spaces.

        The golfers will be pretty peed of, when the get to play again

        All the Courses will have been converted to Crazy Golf

        1. Which reminds me: a Colchester golf course joke.

          “A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and inform the other if there is sex after death.

          Their biggest fear was that there was no after life at all.

          After a long life together, the husband was the first to die.

          True to his word, he made the first contact:

          ” Marion …. Marion ”

          “Is that you, Bob?”

          “Yes, I’ve come back like we agreed.”

          “That’s wonderful! What’s it like?”

          “Well, I get up in the morning, I have sex ,I have breakfast and then it’s off to the golf course.

          I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple of more times.

          Then I have lunch (you’d be proud – lots of greens).

          Another romp around the golf course, then pretty much have sex the rest of the afternoon.

          After supper, it’s back to golf course again.

          Then it’s more sex until late at night.

          I catch some much needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again”

          “Oh, Bob! Are you in Heaven?”

          “No — I’m a rabbit in Braiswick.”

        1. “inner JSP’ is terribly debilitating and could lead to a fit of apoplexy resulting in one’s sudden demise or being banned at the very least! 🙂

          1. You can take JSP out of the Nottlers’ forum but can you take the inner JSP out of the Nottler?

          1. “Not necessarily dissent – just some differences in interpretation.”

            Umm…

  58. Mr Grizzle’s Swedish next door neighbour (Mr I Kea) has just dropped by and offloaded

    2 double door glass fronted display units
    1 double doored bookcase
    3 double Six drawer bedroom units (160cm)
    i single Three drawer bedroom unit (80cm)
    1 bedside table, metal, non officer, black….already fixed

    Time to do a Shackleton….. I may be some time

    After Garden storage bunker assembled of course

      1. ‘when you discover the bits that are missing’

        If I have found the bitz that are missing,…… they are not.

  60. One day after imposing a 5-day ultra-strict lockdown set to take effect over Easter weekend (presumably to head off any holiday-inspired spread), German Chancellor Angela Merkel has abandoned the plan, though Germany is still planning to extend its current restrictions through April 18.

    1. Can’t make their minds, the Chermans. Invade or not in invade? Treaty with Russia or no treaty? Reunite or stay apart?

      1. Invite a million migrants just before the Brexit vote, expecting to be able to shove them straight over to the UK after the vote to stay – and hand control of our borders to brussels- – oops – -that little plan didn’t work out well.

  61. Priti Useless has noticed the local elections are approaching…

    She thinks she is sounding tough with the new immigration rules which will have no baring on the inward numbers even if she followed through with her proposals.

    Hate to say it but the rise of the right is now the only option we have to save this country.

    1. Interesting that the Bbc News was presenting it as ‘Priti is defending her proposals’. Apparently she’s on the back foot to start with, with Charidees describing her proposals as ‘inhumane’. If that’s the reaction she must be on the right track.

      1. They are nipping her in the bud. Something we didn’t do when Blair opened the borders and then everything got well out of control.

  62. Just read the Health Warning on my packet of cigarettes which advises “Your smoke harms your children, family and friends”

    Well, not under lockdown it bloody well doesn’t. My children left the nest more years ago than I care to remember and inter-familial visits are verboten. As for my friends, I’m not allowed to mix with them under pain of a fine or imprisonment.

    High time the Government updated these damn’ silly Health Warnings.

  63. The Sultana was in Tesco buying a few items. The list included A4 notepads. Upon inspection she saw that they were made in China. No Sale. This is mind-boggling. The UK and Scotland used to have lots of paper mills producing paper for the myriad printers and publishers in Edinburgh and elsewhere.

    2. We bought some garlic in Morrisons the other day. It was only when we got home we read the label that said Grown in China. Surely we don’t need to ship garlic that far. Won’t be buying that again.

      1. I read that something like 40% of all the apples grown in the world are from China. So all those products containing apple juice, it’s probably Chinese.

  64. Italian authorities raid vaccine factory amid false fears AstraZeneca doses being hidden for UK. 24 March 2021.

    Italian authorities raided a vaccine factory amid fear 29m AstraZeneca jabs meant for developing countries were hidden supplies meant for the UK.

    The raid meant AstraZeneca fell victim to more vaccine disinformation after the British-Swedish company was falsely accused of hiding the doses.

    The erroneous report spread like wildfire across European media because Brussels is threatening the UK with an export ban on millions of AstraZeneca doses from its Halix plant in Leiden, the Netherlands.

    They are completely losing their marbles now. Soon there will be a business in bootleg vaccines. This is assuming of course they don’t go completely loopy and start a war! Don’t laugh! The War of Jenkins’s Ear was about just that!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/24/italian-authorities-raid-vaccine-factory-amid-false-fears-astrazeneca/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

  65. Why the left is silent on grooming gangs. Spiked. 24 March 2021.

    Tackling sexual violence is firmly back on the agenda. With one exception.

    It is clearly not ‘fashionable’ on the politically correct left to express solidarity with white working-class girls from dysfunctional family backgrounds who are systematically abused by men of Pakistani Muslim origin. Consumed by their intersectional politics, where being non-white and Muslim are viewed as ‘oppressed’ characteristics and being white is considered to be a source of structural advantage, modern ‘feminists’ are unable to express any kind of genuine sympathy for vulnerable white working-class girls who are victims of grooming gangs. Instead, they find it far easier to indulge in ‘glamour feminism’ and express solidarity with the likes of Meghan Markle, who has framed herself as a ‘victim’ of royal cruelty. This is nothing but comfort-zone feminism.

    Feminism! No wonder I have always despised it! It has always been a vehicle for the female elites to enrich themselves both financially and socially at the expense of the less well-off female population. Doing that it could never risk its own reputation for virtue and thus abandoned all those outside its own Social Circle! Poor white Girls? Drop dead!

    This is a very good article. Well worth the reading.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/03/24/why-the-left-is-silent-on-grooming-gangs/

  66. Here’s an interesting story. A left-wing government plans a mass cull of a native species which is over-breeding. Surely that’s not in their nature? Well, perhaps it is if it negatively affects one of the targets of left-wing hate…

    Seriously, there are concerns about the tactics.

    Landowners and stalkers ‘fear the worst’ over plans for new deer management regime

    New system could mean legally-enforceable targets each year for the number of deer estates must shoot

    By Richard Baynes

    Stalkers and estates are bracing themselves for the imposition of major changes to deer management in Scotland, which they fear could wreck stalking businesses and have serious welfare impacts.

    The Scottish Government is expected to approve a raft of measures to drive deer numbers down when it publishes its response on Wednesday to last year’s expert report on deer in Scotland.

    The Deer Working Group (DWG) report was drawn up after concerns that deer herds have swollen to unmanageable levels, damaging woodland and peatlands. It is thought there could be a million deer in Scotland now, with perhaps 400,000 of those red deer. Conservationists say deer numbers should be cut by half or more.

    Deer managers say they expect the Government to approve much of the report, and gamekeepers say they are expecting “the worst,” while conservationists say they expect the government to accept all the report’s recommendations.

    Among those recommendations was an upper limit of 10 red deer per square kilometre the Highlands, a significant reduction of the population in some areas.

    It said rules on night hunting should be relaxed, with the closed season for stags scrapped, and the open season for hinds extended until April.

    The report also suggested a “planned cull approval system”, likely to mean NatureScot setting legally-enforceable targets each year for the number of deer estates must shoot. Under the current system voluntary agreements are negotiated between deer managers and the Government nature agency, with compulsory powers rarely used.

    The report said the level of damage done by deer was unacceptable but some estates fear a drastic reduction in deer will mean not enough animals for paying clients to shoot.

    https://twitter.com/kilmanybirder/status/1374393227042648064

    On Tuesday, the Scottish Association of Gamekeepers (SGA) chairman Alex Hogg said: “We are bracing ourselves for the worst: a state-endorsed erosion of a Scottish wildlife icon.

    “The report’s recommendations on lengthening the open season by around 15 weeks effectively legitimise year-round killing and remove the welfare protections groups such as ourselves fought hard to protect.

    “We are also concerned for our members’ mental wellbeing. Effectively the Scottish Government will be asking them to kill and gralloch heavily pregnant females way into the spring. These are pregnant mums which will have moving young, bigger than the size of a hare, inside them.

    “If politicians back this, perhaps they should be made to experience it first.”

    The Association of Deer Management Groups, which operates the current largely voluntary system of deer management alongside Government agency NaturesScot, also expects big changes.

    Chairman Richard Cooke said: “It’s a reasonable expectation that the Scottish Government will accept much of what the deer working group has recommended.”

    Last year in response to the DWG report, Cooke said: “Fundamentally this report is about further heavy reductions in deer numbers which would have a devastating effect on an important rural industry in the remoter parts of Scotland.”

    He said deer had become demonised, and the impacts of other herbivores such as sheep were being overlooked.

    Mike Daniels, head of policy and land management for conservation charity the John Muir Trust, said: “We hope and expect the Scottish Government to accept all of the recommendations in the [DWG] report and to timetable their implementation as soon as possible.

    “The independent expert group spent two years thoroughly researching and reviewing this issue in great detail. They have made clear and practical recommendations. It is essential these are all implemented in order to deliver the step change needed to tackle the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis we face.”

    If the Government does accept most of the recommendations it is also likely to have major impacts on the deer management side of NatureScot. It has until now worked with DMGs on a voluntary basis, and staff will fear a greater element of compulsion could sour relations and make it more difficult to get their job done.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/24/landowners-stalkers-fear-worst-plans-new-deer-management-regime/

    1. Interesting that a conservationist wants to cull thousands of deer. It would appear the reason is Climate Change?
      I know they do that and have done for years but it does seem to be ironic.

    3. I would prefer to depopulate Scotland than slaughter wild animals, but if they insist, let’s use helicopter gunships.

  67. A group of guys, all turning 40, discussed where they should meet for lunch. It was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons because the waitresses had big chests and wore miniskirts.
    Years later, at age 50, the friends once again discussed where they should meet for lunch. Finally it was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons in Uxbridge because the waitresses were attractive. The food and service were good and the beer selection was excellent.
    Ten years later, at age 60, the friends again discussed where they should meet for lunch. Finally it was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons in Uxbridge because there was plenty of parking, they could dine in peace and quiet with no loud music, and it was good value for money
    Ten years later, at age 70, the friends discussed where they should meet for lunch. Finally it was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons in Uxbridge because the restaurant was wheelchair accessible and had a toilet for the disabled.
    Ten years later, at age 80, the friends discussed where they should meet for lunch. Finally it was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons in Uxbridge because they had never been there before.

    1. Good afternoon, Spikey.

      Are the cats in your avatar related to BT’s cats?

    2. Good afternoon, Spikey.

      Are the cats in your avatar related to BT’s cats?

  68. Well, that was a voyage of discovery.
    I had to take MB to a town located surgery for his second Bat Clap jab.
    I haven’t driven around Colchester town centre for months; the council seriously does not want human beings infesting the borough.
    What with bicycle lanes, bus lanes, one way systems and myriad little streets blocked off I began to feel like a motorised lab rat.
    Oh, and the place looked like The Bomb had dropped; is there any connection?

    1. I drove through Cirencester yesterday on the way to collect some cards from our printer – it was like a ghost town – nobody about because all the shops were shut. Hardly any traffic either. I bet councils are losing a huge amount in parking fees.

  79. With every day that passes, I find I like the EU more and more!

    Grim vaccine nationalism is shattering the EU’s founding myths

    The preferred typography of Brussels, which sees its own leaders as mature statesmen and British ones as clowns, has been turned on its head

    PATRICK O’FLYNN

    The Men Who Stare At Goats was a dark comedy, based on real-life efforts by the US Army to harness magical psychic powers as a weapon. Were a film to be made about the EU Commission’s attempts to harness the power of vaccines to combat covid-19, it would surely need to be called ‘The People Who Stare At Fridges’.

    Because that’s where millions of doses of the brilliant Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine – which has just posted rave reviews for safety and efficacy in its large-scale US trials – seem destined to remain.

    More than 1.3 million doses sit in fridges in Germany and a similar number in France, while other EU member states also have hundreds of thousands of doses each stored unused in their chiller cabinets.

    Our own deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van Tam last week set out the rather obvious point that “vaccines don’t save lives if they are in fridges, they only save lives if they are in arms”. But that is to overlook the magical thinking of the Commission and major national leaders in the EU.

    Via multiple stupid or petulant interventions – including Angela Merkel stating she will not have the AZ vaccine herself, Emmanuel Macron falsely branding it “quasi-ineffective” among older people and the suspension of its roll-out in many EU countries, despite contradictory advice from the European Medicines Agency – public confidence in the jab has been shot to pieces.

    A new poll by YouGov of 8,000 people across seven European countries shows more people now consider the AZ jab unsafe than safe. That includes 55 per cent of Germans and 61 per cent of French people. Trust in the jab has also plunged by around 20 points in Spain and Italy.

    A less arrogant political elite might detect that now would be a good time to crawl away in shame, but the Commission and its allies in major EU capitals are doing just the opposite. Not only are they demanding that millions more doses of the Oxford-AZ vaccine are delivered to their refrigeration facilities, but they are even proposing to impose a blockade on exports of it from a factory in the Netherlands to the UK, where Brits are snapping it up with alacrity.

    As we “jab for victory” – posting new record numbers for inoculations on two days running over the weekend – and see Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths plummet, the EU finds itself in the early stages of a deadly third wave.

    Now there is dark talk within the Commission of legal patents being ripped up and even of factories being commandeered as once cast-iron property rights upon which advanced economies depend are suddenly rendered insecure.

    With no apparent awareness of irony given her institution’s tardy approach, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared the war against Covid to be “the crisis of the century” and said no measure against it can be ruled out.

    The British Government’s response has, so far, been calm and measured. The fact that vital ingredients for the Pfizer vaccine upon which the EU is heavily dependent are manufactured in the UK has been noted. But ministers say that to envisage retaliatory measures on the back of an as yet hypothetical threat to our own supplies would be “unhelpful”.

    Instead they are gently reminding the EU about the importance of permitting legally-binding contracts to be fulfilled.

    The preferred typography of the European Union, which sees its own leaders as assured and mature statesmen and British ones as clowns and outlaws, has been turned on its head. It is the European governing class which is flailing and failing, while the British one is smoothly rolling out a triumphant programme of public protection.

    This is not good for the self-image of the Commission. The finance commissioner, Mairead McGuinness, found it hard to handle yesterday when Andrew Marr confronted her on his programme with the assessment of our own eminent immunologist Professor Sir John Bell about the EU’s approach: “Crackers.”

    “Frankly, none of us has had a great Covid,” was the best she could come up with, before repeatedly name-checking the threat posed by “the UK variant, which is harder to treat” – as if Britons should feel guilty for exporting death to the EU. In fact our scientists just detected the variant first, because we are better at that kind of stuff too.

    Our pivoting to a “first doses first” policy has also been vindicated by subsequent data about the high proportion of overall protection conferred by the first dose, leaving EU countries which have generally concentrated on double-dosing a far narrower cohort of people again looking flat-footed by comparison.

    One question now hangs above all others over the EU’s illogicality: Why are they now apparently determined to implement “Operation Dog In The Manger”, to ensure more Oxford-AZ doses are sent to countries where they won’t be used rather than being shipped as per contract to the UK where they would be?

    The answer, I fear, is that this is now the only way in which the European Commission can demonstrate an advantage of EU membership to those still in the club. That advantage is that a country can avoid being beaten-up.

    “Look how big and strong we are, that we can punish an economy and society as powerful as the UK and think what we could do to you were you to follow in their footsteps,” is hardly the most noble exposition of the cause of European political integration. But right now it’s all they have.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/22/grim-vaccine-nationalism-shattering-eus-founding-myths/

    1. “The fact that vital ingredients for the Pfizer vaccine upon which the EU is heavily dependent are manufactured in the UK has been noted. But ministers say that to envisage retaliatory measures on the back of an as yet hypothetical threat to our own supplies would be “unhelpful”.” Wake up. Being “unhelpful” is the only language the EU idiots understand.

    2. “The fact that vital ingredients for the Pfizer vaccine upon which the EU is heavily dependent are manufactured in the UK has been noted. But ministers say that to envisage retaliatory measures on the back of an as yet hypothetical threat to our own supplies would be “unhelpful”.” Wake up. Being “unhelpful” is the only language the EU idiots understand.

  82. I see Plod won’t be pursuing any criminal charges against the owner of the dog that attacked the seal in the Thames, presumably because she’s a wealthy QC and would pull every trick in the book in Court? Let’s see what the RSPCA does…

    1. Perhaps they couldn’t or wouldn’t think of a charge that would stick.

      How about outraging public decency. I am positive if it was some working class bloke off a sink estate they would have thought of something. They stink.

      1. Just imagine that Tommy Robinson’s Yorkshire terrier terrorised a big cat which had escaped from the zoo!

  83. And the latest joke is that the Daily Mail is reporting that Prince Hostage will be working for Rupert Murdoch’s daughter-in-law with the role of ‘combating disinformation’. Perhaps he could start with his wife.

    3. My introduction to Bristol was when I was at prep school in Bath and went home at the end of term by train to Truro (changing at Bristol Temple Meads and Plymouth) thence the branch line to Falmouth and the ferry to St Mawes.

      It would probably be considered irresponsibly cruel to make a child of prep school age take that journey unaccompanied today but I didn’t mind.

      1. My MiL (now 90) reports being put on a train at the age of 4 ‘in charge of the Guard” from Folkestone to Charing Cross. Being met by a relative and thence taken to Paddington and put on another train to Plymouth and being met by another relative. Today Social service wouldn’t hesitate to take such a Child into ‘Care’….

        2. HG was placed on the Harwich boat train at Manchester Piccadilly, with strangers, and they were told (asked) to let her off at Bury St Edmunds or Ely, I can’t recall which, to be collected by her grandmother.

          She would have been about six years old at the time.

      2. My MiL (now 90) reports being put on a train at the age of 4 ‘in charge of the Guard” from Folkestone to Charing Cross. Being met by a relative and thence taken to Paddington and put on another train to Plymouth and being met by another relative. Today Social service wouldn’t hesitate to take such a Child into ‘Care’….

  85. The MR just back for acting as a car-park volunteer at the GP surgery. 400 people vaccinated in 4 hours. With military precision, she reported.

      1. None. Lots of patients brought Twix, Kit-kat etc for distribution to the volunteers.

        One thing she noticed was that most people gave a cheery wave as they drove away; some studiously avoided eye-contact!

    3. Evening Bill – I got my second jab yesterday and I have been out of sorts since. The jab was 2 months since my first. Both jabs were Astra/Zenica. About 2 hours after the jab at 3pm the pain in my joints increased to the extent it was painful to walk and other joints were more painful than normal.
      I had a good night’s sleep and the pain was much reduced in the morning but my temperature was slightly higher than normal. I felt ill and had to wrap up well in the house as I felt cold and lethargic. At noon I had slight atrial fibrillation with a pulse rate of 98 and blood oxygen level fine at 98 – probably this had nothing to do with the vaccine as AF is a regular occurrence for me. I went back to bed after lunch and listened to the 1pm news. I felt better when I got out of bed.
      However the vaccine did have an effect on my heath but I recovered within 24 hours

      2. Something similar happened to my neighbour after his jab; I met him this morning, nearly a week afterwards, and he was still suffering joint pain, but not as severely.

    1. Right now, Humza Yousaf will be deploying all his resources to counter this dangerous ruling by a subversive court.

  87. DM Story

    Boris warns EU that vaccine blockade could mean businesses FLEE its borders after Brussels targeted UK with threat to ban exports to countries with high jab rates – as AstraZeneca says 29MILLION doses seized by police at Italian plant are NOT for Britain

    What on earth is Boris Johnson waiting for?

    Time to ditch his abysmal WA.

    Time to ditch the frightful deal.

    Time to go for WTO trade terms and regain control of our borders, Northern Ireland and our fishing waters.

    Time for Compliant Haystacks to admit that he has made a grave error and that the politicians in the EU are not our friends but the actual European people are.

    1. Leaving aside the need to selectively cull populations of creatures that have increased beyond what the regional environment can support, I cannot fathom the mentality of men who kill any creature for ‘sport’.

      1. I think you will find that the French and Maltese eat the songbirds. Cultural innit.

        1. Galileo’s daughter confined to a Convent sent her father a pair of Song Thrushes to cook and eat…..

          2. There is a French children’s song about plucking feathers off a lark’s body parts – Alouette, gentille alouette . At least in ours about four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, the birds sang when the pie was opened. :o)

          3. Even more disgusting is a Chinese dish where they batter and deep fry a fish while still alive. It is supposed to be still moving when on the plate.

          4. Don’t get me onto Chinese dishes. I lived in Hong Kong for a while and although these dishes were not legal, they were known about – monkeys brains. It’s too gruesome to repeat here, but it is referred to in The Years of the Hungry Tiger by John Gordon Davies.

          5. I can understand when a population is starving they would eat anything but why now?

          6. These were the rich – it was a delicacy. There was a special table for it with a hole in the middle…

          7. Same in Papua, when my Father visited a long while ago. You were haned a long, 4-pronged fork to eat with – he didn’t.

          11. I worked with a Chinese Malaysian guy who said his grandfather still met with friends to indulge in that, nasty.

          12. My father was served that, I always thought he was telling a traveller’s tale. but the description was so vivid and so revolting I always wondered if it was true.

          14. I was a guest at a Japanese banquet where one fish course was to be eaten raw.
            To show us it was fresh it arrived on a plate still wriggling.
            They then turned it over and served us the pre-carved slithers.
            Presumably the rest was turned into soup.

            I’ve eaten many dreadful dishes in Japan, yet I still think that overall it is one of my favourite cuisines, because of the sheer quality and variety of the food.

          22. Ah! You’ve been reading Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel!

            What a wonderful book!

            By the way, I have some Maltese friends who say that they are infuriated at the killing of migrating birds and there is a strong movement to stop this outrage, perpetrated by a handful of deeply unpleasant men.

        2. Galileo’s daughter confined to a Convent sent her father a pair of Song Thrushes to cook and eat…..

        3. Another proof that the people of the continong and us have a chasm of difference.

        4. Another proof that the people of the continong and us have a chasm of difference.

      2. I think you will find that the French and Maltese eat the songbirds. Cultural innit.

    2. Leaving aside the need to selectively cull populations of creatures that have increased beyond what the regional environment can support, I cannot fathom the mentality of men who kill any creature for ‘sport’.

    3. I feel very tearful .

      We have been looking out for the returning Ospreys for about 10 days now.

      Blighters are using glue in Britain as well.

      Import other blasted foreign cultures here and what do you expect .. They are eating everything , and I often wonder about missing pets as well.

      We are so worried re the absence of many varieties of finches we normally see in these parts .

      1. An osprey perched on an apricot tree when we were on one of our dog walks through the apricot-and-cherry orchards in the south of France. It took flight when we were about fifty yards away from it. We were not far from the string of étangs that thread the coast and the river that feeds into one of these was only a quarter of a mile away. It was an amazing sight.

        I did not know about the glue…. I haven’t heard of this before. It is truly awful.

        There has been an absence of fieldfares and redwings that usually frequent our village green during the winter months. And this spring I haven’t heard the usual song of the missel (sp?) thrush which I usually hear when taking Poppie for a walk in February and March.

        2. Our mistle thrush (thug) policed our Sorbus Hupehensis again this year chasing off blackbirds, goldfinchs, green finches, great and blue tits, siskins and any other birds who tried to take the white berries. Disappeared again now probably until next year.

          Edit – white.

    4. Wiki:
      “in July 2020, France was poised to outlaw “glue-trapping” (French: chasse à la glu) of birds (thrushes and blackbirds within quotas), using sticks covered in glue, after the European commission threatened legal action and fines. However in November 2020, Advocate General Juliane Kokott ruled that glue-trapping was compatible with the 2009 EU Birds Directive, and an allowable exception to the directive’s ban of bird lime use.”

  89. 330704+ up ticks,
    breitbart,
    UK to Leave Lockdown ‘Once and for All’, Boris Pledges

    Reality being lockdown valve throttled down in the control bunker up until close of voting on the 6th May, then resumed on the 7th May.

    The wretch cameron knocked the @rse out of pledges completely.

    1. Yeah, right. Boris was supposed to be “dead in a ditch” if we didn’t leave the EU on a certain date. It came and went and we hadn’t, so I don’t believe a word of it.

      2. A naked housing estate.
        How dare you expose your grandchildren to such things.
        };-O

  93. That’s me for today. Managed to lash up repairs to the garden table – it’ll last a few more years. The MR was very pleased….

    Market tomorrow – to buy a fat, halal pig and to look out for some impact officers (not the chief one, obviously).

    A demain.

    1. Braised pig cheeks sat on a white onion soup. They liked it on Masterchef.

      Have a nice evening.

    2. Bxxgger the garden table; did you procure chaise longues for the ‘kittens’; Augustus would prefer a leftie, BTW …

      1. They already have free use of ALL the chairs, sofas, beds in the house….as well as luxuriously fitted baskets in front of the AGA….

        2. It’s only a matter of time before you are reported to the RSPCA for kitten cruelty…..

    3. Hmmm, Bill, Impact Officers? Are they the ones that will take a smack in the face, or those that delight in impacting their truncheons on little old ladies?

  94. This evening’s 6pm news on Radio 4 had one of those reports that the BBC does so well, giving the impression of being objective while expressing an opinion with a careful selection of quotes presented in a careful sequence.

    Piti Pratle’s asylum law proposals were being discussed. The fate of Syrians featured prominently. While the state of their country is a miserable one, they’re not the only applicants. No mention was made of the origins of many of the Beach Boarders. One legal expert said that the proposals breached international law and would be difficult to implement anyway. She didn’t follow up with “so let’s not bother” but she might as well have done.

    When will someone speak out and say national interests override international virtue, levels of immigration are now very dangerous and, because of that, that the principle of asylum and sanctuary has been debased?

    1. Gosh, that kind of thing used to make me so angry in the days when I still listened to the BBC. So blatant once you’ve cottoned on to what they’re doing.

    2. I have a close friend from that region. He tells them off – his idea is that if you are of fighting age you should be back there making it better not hiding in England while others do the fighting.

    3. The ‘Dover Beach Boys’ is an international racket par excellence.

      The racketeers are operating in France, procuring rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) and buoyancy gear, recruiting ‘refugees’ and charging thousands of Euros for the voyage.

      By definition none are refugees; France was not their first port of call.

      To complete the package, the UK Border Force is escorting the invaders safely ashore.

      The ‘customers’ are invariably, young men of military age – and unknown religious and cultural loyalties.

      This is MAD.

      I wish Gilbert and Sullivan were alive …

      Another operetta?

      Yes: The Dover Beach Boys.

    4. If they’re coming here from France (which is not, as far as I know, a war-torn country), they have already arrived at a safe haven and are not asylum seekers. They are illegal economic migrants.

    1. Stupidity is not punishable by death. Nor is it cured by ignoring it.

      Stupidity is an exponentially-increasing worldwide pandemic for which there is neither cure nor palliative treatment.

      1. Even Douglas Adams couldn’t get rid of hairdressers and telephone sanitation engineers…..

  97. A new one on me. Earlier I popped into Sainsbury’s for a couple of items and spotted a 10year old Speyburn Single Malt for a very reasonable price as things things go. It could be rather moorish (sic)….

    2. Kwiksave used to do an own label malt that was simply the barrel ends from the various distillers bottle with little effort made to blend them so you often got what could easily have been an expensive single malt at a bargain price.
      A friend of mine used to buy half a dozen over a couple of weeks and then try and work out what was in them!

      2. I remember Kwiksave. They sold a Czech lager called “Laughing Monk”. It was very good.

        1. Time for this again…
          Name three fish that begin and end withe letter K
          Killer shark
          Kwiksave haddock
          Kilmarnock
          (It’s a pla(i)ce in Scotland)

  98. There’s a yarn over on Breitbart with a video showing two cops warning Laurence Fox about breaking lockdown rules.

    Neither cop was wearing a helmet or cap and both had their hands in their pockets.

    1. What exactly does he mean by ‘Stop’? After saying come one come all. Who is he trying to convince?

    4. Mind blowing hypocrisy from China Joe.

      The dolt was always a nasty piece of work, ‘leader of the free world’ some sick joke. Kamala Harris as President, even sicklier. The Harris woman laughs like a hyena. The world has gone to Pot.

  100. An open letter to Dame Cressida Dick, Met chief.

    With your ideology and imprinting of common purpose even you must also understand that anarchy will prevail if you choose to go soft on Antifa, BLM and other violent protesters who hijack peaceable protests. Perhaps it even suits your rainbow agenda.

    To bend the knee, to dance in the streets with Antifa and knock over old ladies and fine people sitting on a park bench will end in anarchy because you will have lost the support of the majority of the subjects of the United Kingdom.

    In Bristol you have witnessed the flames. They too will engulf you.

          2. Her life’s business won’t be burned, and if it comes to violence, she’ll lock herself in her staff car whilst her Constables are murdered. The precedent has been set.

  101. From the you-couldn’t-make-it-up files:

    On Tuesday Democrats held a hearing on the election transformation bill HR1 that will ensure the party that cheats will never lose another election.

    During the subsequent hearing on Wednesday one of the Democrat witnesses argued that removing dead people from the voter rolls is “voter suppression.” This is because there may be mistakes in determining if someone is dead or not and therefore should or should not be removed from the voters’ registers.

    The United States? No, The Union of Soviet States of America!

    1. Delete ”Soviet”.

      Insert ”Soros”.

      It won’t happen because the Dems are only playing games.

      Donald J Trump is de facto President of the United States.

    1. A fantastic voice.
      DT Obits failed to include an example of his singing, so I posted that very clip onto the BTL comments on the page.

  105. 330704+ up ticks,
    Dt,
    Travel latest news: Boris Johnson warns of new border restrictions with France ‘very soon’

    May one ask,
    Will this interfere with the reset / replacement Dover campaign ?

      1. Had some King Edwards baked today … wonderful …. went well with Hebridean Smoked Salmon.

    3. We used to buy sacks of unwashed potatoes as they lasted much longer than the washed ones. Same with carrots the washed ones turn to rubber in less than a week.

    1. Three Nottler birthdays coming up in the next three days – so this is highly appropriate!

      1. I liked George Segal, sometimes. James Clavell was an enormous writer though, a great talent.

  109. I presume the new BBC boss is an Arts Graduate:

    Ibeg your pardon? Run that past me again. As part of the big shakeup announced last week, the BBC is cutting its global business and economics coverage and moving the World Service business team to Salford. The strategy casts doubt over the future of Radio 4’s flagship Today programme’s (excellent) dedicated business presenter.

    How anyone at the Beeb can have lived through the last year — furlough, livelihoods in suspended animation, a socking great recession, record government debt issuance, astonishing pharmaceutical breakthroughs, supply chain disruption and trade wars — and thought, you know what, we should scale back our business and economics journalism, frankly beggars belief.

    The legendary short-seller Jim Chanos recently said he thought we are living in a golden age of fraud. To be thinning the ranks of business hacks at such a time is the very antithesis of public service journalism. It’s a bit like surveying the state of the world in 1940 and deciding that you’ve got too many war correspondents on your books.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/03/24/bbc-apparatchiks-have-made-yet-another-idiotic-error

  110. Evening, all. If, by “Britain”, they mean the government, they “can” do more to address the problems they’ve caused to people’s mental health by lockdown, but I very much doubt it’s high on their agenda.

  111. What a lot we have learned in the last 12 months. About the people we live alongside.

      1. We used to have a squaddie from Lane End, near High Wycombe, whose nickname was Levi.

  112. We will have a treat tomorrow; after 47 days in office, the new POTUS will hold a press conference …

      1. Yes, me, for about two hours now!
        I had to get up early to make sure my son made an early appointment. Just as well I did – his alarm mysteriously failed!

          3. Bramley. The eggs are one of those old pre-Christian traditions that have survived in central Europe. They bring fertility for the year, or something like that.

          5. No! They are plastic, and are surprisingly expensive, so I put them carefully away for next year! Anyway, we got loads of apples last year, so they seemed to work!

          7. We usually have bees or wasps living in our roof. I would like to organise them a bit better, eg put a box out for them. Last year there were suspicious wood-chewing kinds of noises from the part where the wasps were.

          10. There’s masses of snow on the higher ground near us. Skiing would be brilliant if the resorts had been allowed to open. I’m afraid skiing is on the globalists’ hit list.
            The greens have been targeting it for years, claiming it destroys the environment in the mountains etc.

          12. Central Europe. My address is unknown to my ex, also I spend a lot of time in a country where zealots hunt on the internet for people who have said or upvoted non-correct things, so….

  115. Prince Harry’s transformation into a Californian hippy is complete – pity no one knows what he’s on about

    WTF cares

    1. Yes, he is clearly going to be a rich mine of nonsense for the tabloids now.
      The job description for the Chimpo looks remarkably like his job for the royals – socialising to bring in new business or donations.

  116. Finland will resume administering the AstraZeneca vaccine from next Monday, but only to people over the age of 65, according to a statement released on Wednesday by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

        1. Use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people under the age of 65 may continue after Easter at the earliest, THL added.

          1. I think this is a bad decision to administer an experimental treatment to the whole population, but all the other countries are rushing headlong into it too.

    3. I wonder about the EU.
      They pi$$ed all over the AZ vaccine & stopped administering it, then got all cross with the UK, and threatened to keep all the AZ to themselves – just not administer it? What logic is that?
      Good morning, BTW!

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