Wednesday 25 August: Face-to-face GP appointments are a crucial part of the return to normal

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

714 thoughts on “Wednesday 25 August: Face-to-face GP appointments are a crucial part of the return to normal”

        3. He married his wife in 1964 in his early 20’s and, apparently he and his wife were devoted and faithful to each other.

          I wonder how much being so happy in one’s marriage is down to judgment, temperament or just good luck.

  2. Now Taliban fighters ‘stop Westerners getting to Kabul airport’ after they BANNED Afghans from leaving the country. 24 August 2021.

    Westerners in Afghanistan are being ‘blocked from getting to Kabul airport’ by Taliban fighters after the extremist group banned locals from fleeing the country, according to people on the ground.

    The militant group today issued an edict saying only foreigners will be able to access the airport for evacuation.

    A spokesperson for the group ordered locals to return home. Roads in the city have been blocked in a bid to stop Afghans from leaving.

    Hurrah!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9923593/Westerners-blocked-getting-Kabul-airport-Taliban-BANNED-locals-fleeing.html

    1. Sorry about this folks. I was so pleased about the mass exodus of muslim exports to the UK being stopped that I failed to point out that the bit about stopping westerners getting to the airport is not only contradicted in the quote but appears nowhere else. It’s almost certainly a piece of deliberate misdirection to confuse the readers.

    2. Sorry about this folks. I was so pleased about the mass exodus of muslim exports to the UK being stopped that I failed to point out that the bit about stopping westerners getting to the airport is not only contradicted in the quote but appears nowhere else. It’s almost certainly a piece of deliberate misdirection to confuse the readers.

    3. Sorry about this folks. I was so pleased about the mass exodus of muslim exports to the UK being stopped that I failed to point out that the bit about stopping westerners getting to the airport is not only contradicted in the quote but appears nowhere else. It’s almost certainly a piece of deliberate misdirection to confuse the readers.

    4. Sorry about this folks. I was so pleased about the mass exodus of muslim exports to the UK being stopped that I failed to point out that the bit about stopping westerners getting to the airport is not only contradicted in the quote but appears nowhere else. It’s almost certainly a piece of deliberate misdirection to confuse the readers.

  3. mng all, today’s usual coterie of virtual signalling:

    SIR – Shortly before the relaxation of lockdown restrictions I received a text message from my surgery (Letters, August 24) informing me that “despite restrictions easing on July 19 we still continue to operate the same as we have since the start of the pandemic”.

    My feeling on receiving this was that, if we cannot rely on the NHS to lead us by example out of the current risk-averse mentality, there is little hope we will ever return to normal.

    Robin Lane
    Devizes, Wiltshire

    SIR – My husband rang the surgery for an appointment with his doctor.

    The receptionist said the doctor would phone him to discuss his request. She phoned him later that morning and, when he asked to see her, she said she was working from home.

    I despair.

    Anne Fieldhouse
    Ramsey, Huntingdonshire

    SIR – I recently had a face-to-face consultation with my GP and, having dealt with the reason for my visit, the GP then identified something completely unrelated. As a result, I am now undergoing a series of tests.

    Had I only been able to have a telephone consultation this condition would not have been picked up.

    Colin Parsonson
    Gravesend, Kent

    SIR – My GP practice uses an online system called eConsult for handing all patient inquiries and appointments.

    I used to be a software designer and, had I been asked to design a system intended to give the appearance of enabling patients to contact their GP while actually preventing them from doing so, I would have come up with something pretty much like eConsult.

    The only alternative to using it is to telephone the surgery, wait in a long queue, attempt to persuade a reluctant receptionist to ask a GP to phone back, then be prepared to wait in all day for the call to come. When I want to make an appointment for our dog to see the vet, the phone is answered immediately and the dog is seen within the hour.

    Stephen Harris
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – The GP practice I attend offers a telephone appointment as a first port of call, very often on the same day.

    This is better than a face-to-face appointment for things like asking for a prescription if an old ailment recurs. It saves a 20-minute drive to and from the surgery and the doctor’s valuable time. I trust this will continue on request after normality returns.

    If deemed necessary, I have been invited to a face-to-face appointment that day or the next. On one occasion I had an X-ray two days later.

    The care offered by this practice has been exemplary during the pandemic. The main changes I have seen are that the walk-in blood test clinic has closed and I have to make an appointment for my warfarin level control.

    Ian Lander
    Oswestry, Shropshire

    Boots on the ground

    SIR – What price now the Government’s Defence Review, which cuts 9,500 soldiers from the Army on the brittle promise that “technological advantage will mean that greater effect can be delivered by fewer people”?

    If the last few days in Afghanistan have shown anything, it is that numbers count. Strategic patience is all – you must have the critical mass to sustain an operation. The Defence Review removes that capability.

    Technology can and must facilitate our soldiers, but it cannot replace boots on the ground. After all, it was not technology that enabled the Taliban to roll up Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, a feat that came as a strategic surprise to the West.

    The context in which the Defence Review was conceived has changed. Afghanistan is a disaster of strategic proportions with implications for our foreign policy, defence policy, for Nato and for our relationship with the US.

    If Britain wishes to retain any credibility and relevance with allies and adversaries alike, its response cannot be to cut 9,500 soldiers from the Army. The Government must revisit the Defence Review; these cuts have to be reversed.

    Lt Gen Sir James Bucknall
    Deputy Commander of Coalition Forces, Afghanistan (2010-11)
    Blandford Forum, Dorset

    SIR – Referring to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, says that “France does not forget those who have worked for her”.

    This is demonstrably untrue. In Indochina in 1954, France signed the ceasefire and abandoned the French and indigenous men of the GCMA, anti-guerrilla squads operating deep in enemy territory. They were hunted down and killed by the North Vietnamese over the following three years. In Algeria in 1962, the French abandoned the Harkis, several thousand men who had fought as auxiliaries against the rebels. They, too, were hunted down and killed.

    The foreign minister should make sure of his history before making such vainglorious pronouncements.

    David Miller
    Newton Abbot, Devon

    Heat pumps: a history

    SIR – Having had a ground source heat pump at work in our Victorian-era house for some 15 years, I remain astonished at the level of ignorance about these excellent devices.

    It was demonstrated by the Business and Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, with his claim that heat pumps “are still in their infancy” (Interview, August 22).
    In fact, they have been in Swedish homes since the 1970s. The technologically innovative company Robert Bosch has specialised in manufacturing them for many years.

    Stephen Hazell-Smith
    Penshurst, Kent

    Fine feline dining

    SIR – My grandparents had a cat called Smokey (Letters, August 23), upon which my grandmother doted. Once, when I was staying with them as a boy, my grandfather came in from the garden and asked: “What’s for lunch then, Daisy?”

    My grandmother’s reply was: “Well, there’s a bit of liver the cat won’t eat.”

    My grandfather was the gentlest of gentlemen and I never once heard him swear, but on this occasion he came close: “Well, if the blessed cat won’t eat the blessed stuff, then I’m certain I’m not going to.”

    I seem to recall a cheese sandwich being served.

    Robert Mizen
    Holt, Wiltshire

    XR grandstanding

    SIR – Extinction Rebellion is disrupting London again (report, August 24). I’ve heard interviews with representatives or sympathisers, and only once were they asked why they don’t protest in Beijing. No answer was given.

    Britain produces a tiny fraction of global carbon emissions, whereas China produces a large percentage and is still opening coal mines.

    Extinction Rebellion protests in Britain because it can. Our laws facilitate it and it gets maximum publicity. Beijing would have no truck with this, as the protesters know, but it would show deeper commitment if they tried. Their current approach is cowardly and sensationalist.

    Jennie Naylor
    East Preston, West Sussex

    Open-air schools

    SIR – Critics dismiss as impractical the Government’s recommendation of outdoor school classes to curb Covid outbreaks (report, August 19), but they forget the successful open-air school movement begun in 1907 during England’s tuberculosis pandemics.

    Fresh air was considered essential to prevent transmission of disease and improve metabolism. These schools were a government initiative, run by school medical services and part of an international movement driven by the medical profession.

    Tuberculosis, like Covid-19, affected all of society, and there was no cure until the 1950s. Early schools were like bandstands with open sides, but many were designed by architects, with sliding glazed screens on three sides, verandahs or many windows. Often classes were held outdoors. Knee rugs were provided to keep children warm.

    Frances Wilmot
    Leamington, Warwickshire

    Chesterton on Nazis

    SIR – In his criticism of G K Chesterton, Richard Ingrams (Review, August 21) overlooks the fact that, almost alone among men of note in the 1930s, Chesterton alerted people to the dangers of the Nazis.

    One recalls his cartoon of Hitler bending all the arms of a cross into the form of a swastika, with the legend: “Heaven forbid I should glory but in the Cross of Christ.”

    Reading Mr Ingrams’s critique reminded me of Chesterton’s line on St Francis, after Bishop Barnes said he was probably verminous: “He is … bitten by funny little creatures still”.

    Iain Colquhoun
    Swansea

    Matchbox labels can be miniature works of art

    SIR – The replacement of wooden matchboxes by cardboard ones was a sad day for phillumenists as well as model-makers (“Telegraph helps matchstick man keep his model hobby shipshape”, report, August 23). Collecting the printed labels, some minor works of art, kept many a child occupied – soaking them off, putting them in order, and learning from their advertisements. I still have mine.

    Philatelists probably feel the same way about the boring postage pre-printed on letters, which is now replacing colourful stamps, but at least Royal Mail keeps up interest with special issues.

    Peter Saunders
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    Driven to distraction by delays at the DVLA

    SIR – I too have been having difficulties since applying on June 3 to renew my driving licence (Letters, August 24), which has now expired.

    I completed an eye test at Specsavers but after several weeks was informed that the DVLA had not received my test report. I was asked to return to Specsavers to sign another form, so presumably my application is now once more at the bottom of the pile.

    The chief executive of the DVLA, Julie Lennard, formerly worked at the National Archives. She must now have an archive resulting from complaints at the complete lack of service.

    Doreen Turner
    Horsham, West Sussex

    SIR – I will be 73 in July 2022. Should I apply for the renewal of my driving licence now?

    Nigel Hodder
    Blandford Forum, Dorset

    SIR – Two months ago I posted my over-70s renewal form and licence to DVLA Swansea. As I sent it via recorded delivery I received confirmation from the post office that it had reached its destination promptly.

    Since then I have heard nothing from the DVLA and it has been impossible to make contact by phone (I hung on for ages and was then cut off) or by email (I filled a form in and at the end was asked for a number, which was supposedly sent to me when the DVLA acknowledged my application. I had received no acknowledgement or number).

    I am becoming increasingly worried as I am now driving without a licence.

    Lucretia Williams
    Bedford

    SIR – John D Frew (Letters, August 23) seeks to prove the status of his driving licence. This can be done on the DVLA website under “View or share your driving licence information”.

    This only requires the licence number (which he would have if he is renewing) and his National Insurance number. The status of his licence will promptly be revealed and can be shared with anyone else who needs to know, such as car hire companies.

    Martin Hodson
    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    1. BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart
      25 Aug 2021 8:23AM
      When I see videos and pictures of the XR numpties gluing themselves to a road or lying under vehicles, I’m always surprised that no one has ever urinated on them.

      It’s no less than they deserve.

    2. A 2nd BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart
      25 Aug 2021 8:32AM
      “….you must have the critical mass to sustain an operation.” writes Lt Gen Sir James Bucknall.

      Am I the only person who considers that, with the incessant Civilianisation of many support functions that Government Policy has been whittling away at that “critical mass” within the Armed Forces for decades?

    3. “It saves …the doctor’s valuable time. I trust this will continue on request after normality returns.” The thing is Mr Lander, the “valuable time” that the doctor is saving by not seeing you face to face is paid for by taxpayers. He can use that saved “valuable time” by playing a round of golf.
      I seen no suggestion anywhere that the per capita payment to GPs should be reduced in line with the reduction in service.

      2. ” It has gone full circle and become a penal colony” he could have added ‘run by penises….’

        Morning Minty et al

      4. 338102+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        Rest assured, we will get there via the lab/lib/con coalition input, they aim’t let us down yet.

      6. Yet most Britons (a) haven’t seen the above footage and (b) think it could never happen here.

  7. There was a time (within my lifetime) when corporal punishment was the traditional method for instilling a degree of discipline in schools. However, in much more caring times it has been banned and more progressive methods are now deployed to ‘maintain order’. Judge for yourself whether this litany of examples from the US represents progress….

    https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_dangers_of_going_back_to_school_after_a_year_of_covid_19_lockdowns

  8. ‘Fascist’ teenager hoped to print 3D firearm for violent revolution, court told. 25 August 2021.

    Matthew Cronjager, 18, is on trial accused of preparing a terrorist attack and on Tuesday, jurors were told he had hoped to build weapons using a 3D printer.

    Alistair Richardson, prosecuting, said the defendant had hoped to violently topple the Government in a revolution inspired by his racist ideology.

    He is alleged to have prepared by making plans for a storage bunker for guns, as well as trying to build his own firearm.

    Mr Richardson said the defendant provided instructions for the manufacture of a gun to an undercover police officer between October and December 2020.

    That the State is reduced to prosecuting morons as “Far-right” terrorists tells you how far we are from an actual presence. The information about the “undercover police officer” leads one to suspect a Stasi set up!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/24/fascist-teenager-hoped-print-3d-firearm-violent-revolution-court/

    1. For some reason the powers that be seem determined to invent a project fear far right threat, I think it is so the Left can say look the white population are just as bad or worse than the Islamic terrorists.

    2. Yes, manipulating an 18 year old to give you designs for a gun would be child’s play…

    3. Hmm. These reports should really be more detailed.
      Was the weapon to be a potato gun, a water pistol, a cup gun, or a Beretta*?
      As far as I know, and that may be very little, 3D printers use some form of extruded plastic. Real firearms are quite finely engineered and the materials used are intended to withstand repeated explosions (without blowing your hand off).
      While 3D printing technology now extends using metals in industrial processes, I doubt that any 18yo would have such an item in his bedroom.

      (The Glock 17, a 9-mm. pistol is accurate, reliable – and made almost entirely of hardened plastic. Only the barrel, slide and one spring are metal.)

      *As used by James Bond.

      1. Trigger mechanisms in the Glck are metal, too. Plastic warms up and expands too much, also isn’t good with wear contact.

  9. 338102+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Return to normal currently is a pipe dream the reset, replace political, rhetorical carrot flying in the face of the great reset.

    ‘This country should be rewarding care workers, not showing them the door’

    The Government’s policy on compulsory vaccinations for staff means the nation’s care home crisis risks becoming a catastrophe.

    This policy really is the pits in fast tracking a nation to the bottom & cannot be considered to be from inept governance but from a treacherous cold calculating group of politico’s and a hostile coup.

  10. The Power of Assertiveness

    The speaker from England stood up and said, “At last year’s conference we spoke about being more assertive with our husbands. Well, after the conference I went home and told my husband that I would no longer cook for him and that he would have to do it himself. After the first day I saw nothing. After the second day I saw nothing. But after the third day I saw that he had cooked a wonderful roast lamb.”

    The crowd cheered.
    The second speaker from America stood and spoke, “After last year’s conference I went home and told my husband that I would no longer do his laundry and that he would have to do it himself. After the first day I saw nothing. After the second day I saw nothing. But after the third day I saw that he had done not only his own washing but my washing as well.”
    The crowd cheered again.

    The third speaker from Ireland narrated: “After last year’s conference I went home and told my husband that I would no longer do his shopping and that he would have to do it himself. After the first day I saw nothing. After the second day I saw nothing. But after the third day I could see a little bit out of my left eye!”

  12. I’ve noticed this more and more recently, that when we get people being interviewed on tv and radio about inconvenient events that the lines keep breaking up just as it is getting interesting, almost as if the broadcasting equivalent of Nick Clegg has their finger on the off button.

    1. An infamous tactic deployed by the bBC R4 Today programme radio car. One would have thought with £5Bn pa in taxpayer funding such a minor snag for a national broadcaster would have been fixed after the first ‘fault’. Intriguingly, it was during ‘inconvenient’ facts being spread that these faults occurred most, if not exclusively.
      Having given up on bBC R4 over a decade ago it’s nice to see some ‘standards’ haven’t changed. Oh, wait…

  14. Protection from Covid vaccines wanes within six months, study suggests. 25 August 2021.

    In a reasonable “worst-case scenario”, protection could fall to below 50% for the elderly and healthcare workers by winter, analysis from the Zoe COVID study found.

    The Pfizer-BioNTech jab was 88% effective at preventing coronavirus infection a month after the second dose.

    But the protection decreased to 74% after five to six months – suggesting protection fell 14 percentage points in four months.

    Meanwhile, protection from the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine fell to 77% just one month after the second dose.

    We really need a new name for these applications since they are not vaccinations in the generally understood sense of the term. They are more a temporary deferment. One can see a development where one pays for a limited period of protection. Such a system of medical extortion would guarantee an income for Big Pharma that would dwarf that from a full inoculation!

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-protection-from-coronavirus-vaccines-wanes-within-six-months-study-suggests-12390006

    1. 338102+ up ticks,
      AS,
      I can almost hear the jingle on the hour, every hour on the telly,
      “A jabbaday keeps the virus at bay” a mantra chanted by all reset followers.

          2. Bad prime ministers could be good people but Blair and May are not just bad people they are both satanically evil,

        2. 338102+ up ticks,
          Morning AWK,
          That is guaranteed it is on the parliamentary canteen menu for all to see.

    1. Oh, they’re just Martians. Our bizarre behaviour over the last couple of years has been such that the Martians realised they could move in. No Earthling would notice any odd behaviour, especially as it was a legal requirement everywhere.

    5. Cindy McCain. The latest is that she has a secret half-sister. At her
      father’s funeral, when Cindy McCain said in her eulogy that she was “his
      only child”, her disinherited half-sister sitting nearby was
      dumbfounded.

      She was eventually caught stealing drugs from the charity she had
      established to distribute medicines to developing countries. After
      sacking the whistleblower who had revealed her actions, she disbanded
      the group. Then she told her husband about her addiction and checked
      herself into a clinic.

      She sounds lovely.

      Is the armband that Alex is wearing on his right arm covering up a swastika?

    1. Why is it ‘disgusting’? Have guns, will sell them.

      Frankly I find the american obsession with guns just as daft.

      1. You seem to be missing the point, Bidens hasty abandonment of Afghanistan failed to take into account that the Afghan army would fold without a fight & deliver into the hands of a terror group a vast arsenal of top of the line military weapons that they can use or re-sell and its got nothing to do with the right to bear arms as these are all military weapons that US civilians cannot legally own anyway.

  27. Spain’s Supreme Court made waves last week by becoming the first judicial authority in Europe to rule against the use of covid passports to restrict access to public spaces — specifically hospitality businesses (bars, restaurants and nightclubs). It is not the first Spanish court to come out against vaccine passports but it is the most important. So far, only five of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions – the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, Andalusia, Cantabria and Galicia – have proposed using vaccine passports to restrict access to public spaces. And all have been rejected by local judges.

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/spains-supreme-court-rules-against-using-vaccine-passports-to-restrict-access-to-public-spaces.html

    1. Good for them! Funny, yet another thing that doesn’t seem to have reached the mainstream media.

    2. I tried to go to the nakedcapitalism site, but they give me no option to reject cookies, unless I click on about fifty switches separately to switch them off, as far as I can see. So sadly, I shall have to give them a miss.

        1. How? Did I miss a “reject all” button?
          Did you realise, that you have to scroll down the list to find the ones that are switched on?

          1. Yes – but I must have turned most of them off on a previous visit. Only the ‘legitimate interest ‘ ones remained.

      2. Morning bb2 – I wanted to list the source but like you I tend to reject websites that make one reject dozens of cookies.

      3. I use an adblocker that automatically hides/removes the cookie pop-ups.

        On that note, there was talk of browsers doing this automatically. You set your cookie options and a site presents either all, local, none and thus you don’t get the annoying pop-ups.

        Ah, you say, most sites want to dump cookies on you, what do you do if that’s not offered? Well, in that instance, the none option is enforced and cookies are dumped completely, not a single one set.

    3. Remind me how long ago Spain was a dictatorship? An Irishman, Frank O’ something, wasn’t it?

  28. Senior officer accused of ‘groping’ female sailor removed from HMS Queen Elizabeth. 25 August 2021.

    A senior naval officer has been removed from HMS Queen Elizabeth after he was accused of having “groped” a British female sailor while on deployment.
    A defence source said that the officer’s behaviour was “unacceptable”, adding “we are getting sick and tired of it”.

    They added that the Royal Navy “demands the highest standards” and that “where an individual fails to meet these standards, appropriate action will be taken”.

    Rear-Adml Chris Parry, former naval commander, said: “It might seem old-fashioned, but in all circumstances a naval officer is expected to be a gentleman. If the Royal Navy is to maintain its competitive edge, our people in senior positions need to be role models and professionals in every respect.”

    The traditions of the Royal Navy are as Churchill noted when subjected to a similar tirade “Rum, Sodomy and the Lash”. Such incidents as this are the inevitable result of the feminisation of the Armed Forces! If events should conspire to involve us in a peer to peer conflict it would seriously degrade our already pathetic abilities to fight!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/24/senior-officer-accused-groping-female-sailor-removed-hms-queen/

    1. Have any ‘Wrens”* ever been investigated for LGBRQWERTOP actions onboard a ship (or a shore establishment), or would that be an affront to their freedom of choice

      Back in the ’70’s the Wrens Hockey Team, used to be deemed SLNR (Services No Longer Required) en masse and replaced, then love, it seems blossomed again with the new lot

      *Yes, know they are not called that any more

      1. As many of my fellow Nottlers will know The Good Ship Venus had a cabin boy.

        (I have put this verse behind a spoiler so as not to offend those who do not wish to be offended) :

        The cabin boy was Clipper
        An awful little nipper,
        He stuffed his arse with broken glass
        And circumcised the skipper.

    4. Groping a female sailor is ‘unacceptable’. So ‘If events should conspire to involve us in a queer to queer conflict it would’ be OK?

    5. One should never indulge with a subordinate, if one is a manager.
      If the subordinate gets a decent pay rise or a deserved promotion, the talk will be “Only ‘cos they slept with the manager” which may be true, but may be very unfair on the subordinate. Or, the subordinate submits to sex or whatever, because they fear for the effect a rejection might have on their career. So, by jumping their bones, you screw their career or act as a bully. Nice.
      And it’s up to the senior person here to understand and behave accordingly.

    6. The armed forces have to move with the times. We just have to accept and work with the advantages and disadvantages that feminization brings. Society has changed, and so has the recruiting pool. I knew some very good servicewomen, but also some appalling ones, and I suppose the position is no different now.

      The services are doing the best that they can within their resources and the politicians that call the shots. Whilst politicians, perhaps with the exception of Thatcher, have always been 2-faced and unreliable, a rot set in with Blair and his government. That rot has continued with all his predecessors, happy to burden the services then look away when the unwanted consequences need addressing.

      FWIW this incident involved off-duty alcohol-fuelled socialising. There but for the grace of God go many of us.

      1. The ladies are called in for National Service these days in Norway, and prove to be as good as the lads – with a bit less upper-body strength, admittedly.
        But then, maybe Weegie girls are made of sterner stuff? Similarly to Yorkshire lasses…

  29. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    More letters today about the non-performance of the DVLA:

    SIR – I too have been having difficulties since applying on June 3 to renew my driving licence (Letters, August 24), which has now expired.

    I completed an eye test at Specsavers but after several weeks was informed that the DVLA had not received my test report. I was asked to return to Specsavers to sign another form, so presumably my application is now once more at the bottom of the pile.

    The chief executive of the DVLA, Julie Lennard, formerly worked at the National Archives. She must now have an archive resulting from complaints at the complete lack of service.

    Doreen Turner
    Horsham, West Sussex

    SIR – I will be 73 in July 2022. Should I apply for the renewal of my driving licence now?

    Nigel Hodder
    Blandford Forum, Dorset

    SIR – Two months ago I posted my over-70s renewal form and licence to DVLA Swansea. As I sent it via recorded delivery I received confirmation from the post office that it had reached its destination promptly.

    Since then I have heard nothing from the DVLA and it has been impossible to make contact by phone (I hung on for ages and was then cut off) or by email (I filled a form in and at the end was asked for a number, which was supposedly sent to me when the DVLA acknowledged my application. I had received no acknowledgement or number).

    I am becoming increasingly worried as I am now driving without a licence.

    Lucretia Williams
    Bedford

    Well done, Doreen Turner; at last the name of the architect of this shambles is in the public domain. Perhaps someone will, at long last, start asking some awkward questions, but I’m not holding my breath. A pity, however, that you didn’t ask for a copy of the form, thus saving you the hassle of another eye examination.

    Yes, Nigel Hodder; get on with it man, as the delays appear to be increasing rather than shrinking.

    Lucretia Williams, under the Road Traffic Act 1988 you are not driving without a licence unless you have been advised in the interim to stop by, for instance, a doctor or optician.

    In my case a small glimmer of hope appeared yesterday – my MP has finally contacted DVLA for an “escalation”. It remains to be seen whether this makes any difference to my 3 months of waiting, where all attempts to establish contact with this hopeless organisation have been shunned. Everyone who is experiencing nothing but lengthy delays should be hounding their MPs in the hope that, sooner or later, some long overdue action is taken against tbose who are supposed to be providing an acceptable service in this hopeless outfit.

    1. I wonder if most of the people having problems with this used the paper form and post. I did mine online in April and got the new card in a couple of days.

      1. ‘Morning N. Standard 3-yr age-related renewals online seem to be going through eventually; it’s the non-standard, category-retaining renewals for those reaching 70 that are somehow beyond them. I reckon the arrival of Covid some 16 months ago has turned out to be a foolproof (so far) excuse to ignore all service standards.

          1. Ditto & I didn’t have to provide another photo, although the one on the renewal is somewhat paler than that on the previous.

    2. I had a Kafkaesque on-line chat yesterday with DVLA about transferring a reg number from an old car that has been SORNed for 10 years. Apparently because more than 5 years have elapsed they want it MOT’d, insured and taxed first. When I pointed out it was unlikely to pass its MOT and would be scrapped anyway, they effectively said: ‘Well, those are the rules’. I now have to send in the relevant paper form with a begging letter imploring them to use common sense.

      3. It’s tricky. If the registration plate is valuable, probably worth the expense of getting the vehicle through an MoT.
        Otherwise I heard of someone who worked hard to find a potential ringer, and then a sympathetic Testing Station.

    3. You can’t apply online for a renewal of over-70s driving licences unless it’s within three months of the expiry date of the current licence. This is supposed to be a faster method of renewal, but it means you will lose any entitlement to driving additional vehicles e.g. up to 7.5T or a 16-seater minibus. If you want to keep these entitlements, you must fill in a paper application form.

      1. Yes, and a medical will be required if the holder wishes to retain minibus, 7.5T categories.

        ‘Morning A.

        1. That is why it took me six months to get my licence. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have been able to drive a minibus to help out (and my camper is probably quite close to the limit of driving on a car licence).

    3. Yo SB

      but……… Covid Panic is the cause of death, not the symptom.

      Heads MUST Roll

    4. Golly Gosh. What would we do without “experts”?
      This is something that many of the pig ignorant peasantry were predicting some 18 months ago.

  32. Referring to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, says that
    “France does not forget those who have worked for her”.

    Hence, their love for us, after we ‘saved their Arriss’ in WWI & WWII

    No good deed goes unpunished

    2. Hence, their love for us, after we ‘saved their Arriss’ in WWI & WWII

      Over 50years ago, while travelling with a friend around France, I celebrated my birthday in a small restaurant off the beaten track in the Beaujolais region. The waitress was old enough to be my grandmother, she would certainly have lived through WWII. She made such a fuss of us, almost as though we were her own grandsons. It probably helped that my French was pretty good in those days, thanks to my father.

    2. Morning Belle. One likes to think that one would follow along and push them under a bus but failure is a possiblity. One might miss!

      1. Morning Minty ,

        How do we define bulllying from teasing ..

        Bullies usually have a deep problem , victims can become victims of their own percieved victimhood .. and leave themselves open to bullying .

        I have observed nastiness in others, but never been a victim apart from having my hair plaits pulled when I was a youngster at school, so I asked my mother for a haircut ! Problem solved .

    3. “Doesn’t apply himself, more interested in being the class clown, capable of so much if only he tried.”

      Well, Mr Handy, I earned in a month what you earn in a year. You tried – very hard – to teach me history when the world had almost no idea about OFDM, fibre optics or routing protocols. Seems I found my niche.

      Success is it’s own vindication.

      1. In fact, “nah nah nee nah nah!”
        :-)) Excellent response, Wibbling. That showed him.
        SWMBO was written off at school as being unable to learn languages. This is the woman who, in the last years, holds technical meetings in English, Norwegian, Swedish Danish, and can keep up in German. Social Finnish for after the meeting. A smattering of French and Italian, and even some Merkin.

        1. Morning Paul, my mother got a piano teacher around for an hour to teach me to play the piano. He left after 20 minutes saying “Your son will never play a note of music in his life” Ok so I still don’t read music but I can play anything by listening to it

      1. There are people from school, others from work, that if I won millions and they were begging and homeless – I would remind them of how they treated me back then – then ask them if they thought I should give them anything.

        1. I had £110,000 drop in my lap last year. If i mentioned a word to any family member i would never hear the end of it.

    7. I had a former school bully turn up as a patient. He hadn’t bullied me specifically, but anyone who was junior to him (he was in the year above). I recognised him straightaway, it was at least 15 years later. I don’t know whether he recognised me, but he was very meek & humble while in the chair and we never discussed school days.

    3. I’ve fallen asleep at my desk loads of times. It’s generally the most useful I’ve been.

    6. He showed his lack of trustworthiness the minute he took office and shafted Canada by shutting down a pipeline project.

      It’s USA first and to hell with the rest.

  36. The DT reporting that the Astra Zenica vaccine is losing support in the UK as a result of the scare over blood clots, Pfizer vaccine seems to be popular despite a recent report saying that the blood clot problem was similar to that of Astra Zenica. It looks to me that the EU and USA are not keen on the UK vaccine, possibly for political reasons.. The UK is not buying much of the AZ vaccine at the moment as they plan for the 2022 vaccine.

    1. No reports here about serious side effects of the Pfizer, but there are of the AZ.

      1. Young men getting heart troubles? Next told to refrain from sex? too much strain on the heart? Will the heart problems be passed onto any children they father? Good way of cutting whitey population? And who would the women turn to – the immigrants – another way of the WoW program – Wipe out Whitey.

    3. Good morning clydsider

      My doctor advised me not to have the Pfizer but to go for the AZ, I reacted badly to the second AZ jab , and haven’t felt quite right since .

      1. Good morning Belle! I am the same and really wish I had gone with my heart, and not had it! But with my family abroad, I felt I had to! Coercion or what?

        1. Hello Sue ,

          Moh and I thought that it would be a life saver ..

          Last year we , as well as many others thought we wouldn’t see Xmas .
          Then January came , and the numbers ratcheted up and husband who had been sheltering , meaning yes he was genuinely worried whether he would see his 75th b/day which was in May ..

          I was quite cavalier about the whole thing , but cautious about mingling , because we are here in the middle of the tourist route , and despite lock downs and rules , the whole area was still full of visitors / still is .. plus the Lulworth Camp Bestival which caused a huge spike in cases .

          How are you now, and do you think you are still having side effects?

          1. Switch off your tv for good, Belle, and if that’s not possible switch off for the ‘news’ – it is the only way to regain control of your mind and think your own thoughts. Also read Laura Dodsworth’s State of Fear which explains the brainwashing the nation has undergone and good advice at the end for dealing with it.

          2. Look in the Govt websites for the data.
            I made a spreadsheet to calculate things like infection rate & survival rate per capita, per infected, per hospitalised, per ICU (the latter is bad news, BTW. Don’t go there!)
            The survival rate per head of population in UK is late 99+%.
            In other words, not as bad as flu, where a surprising number fall off the perch – without a peep, never mind a lockdown or a passport.

          3. How many have died is the key not how many have/had it. This fig. is neveer ginen because it is over 99% recovery.

          4. Beeb radio now pushing for teens to get jabbed -when months ago the govt said they wouldn’t need it. The goalposts move yet again, more lies – – plus the beeb is STILL pushing out the already discredited deliberately misleading “xxx have died within 28 days of a + test.”

          6. Hi Belle!
            Sorry so late to get back to you!
            Life is quite full on at the moment!
            Yes, I think I am still having side effects. I could put it down to being very tired, with having the twins and daughter here 24/7, but I’m quite fit and healthy, and some days I feel absolutely drained.

          2. Sit tight, nothing lasts forever and it will eventually come to an end. Remember the witch hysteria in the seventeenth century. This is similar.

        3. Same here. But I haven’t had it anyway.
          Makes returning to the UK really difficult.

    1. Hundreds of millions? Specially built housing for breed-happy arrivals? HS2? Foreign Aid? Is there no end to our wealth?

      2. “Is there no end to our wealth?”

        …or the number ways we can waste it and thus beggar ourselves.

      3. No, there’s a huge end to ours. We’re over 16trilion in debt.

        Government doesn’t care though. It just keeps spending.

      2. Those arriving with 10 kids – who will be making a LOT more of their kind when they get breeding.

    5. Shooting them one day, grants of riches the next.
      That’s how to baffle them into giving up!

    1. The lanc that I managed a trip in had seats for five or six passengers. Hopefully the floor was not just the bomb bay doors

      Disappointing, they were your basic economy seats and there was no drinks or food service.

      1. Had heard a totally made up rumour that the 640 in the plane from Kabul will be putting in compensation claims for lack of seats, seat belts, no in flight film, no stewardesses or choice of tea or coffee. The UK govt is likely to offer an interim payment of a million each to start wth.

    1. The kinetic energy created by the rapidly rotating roll provides current to the QI charge coil for the phone. Very clever and efficient.

          1. See top of page. Thanks for asking.

            Pickles did that with the kitchen roll – I hadn’t realised just how much there was in a roll until the morning when I opened the kitchen door!

        2. No. Silly things, and my 1920s power to the house would not take the current. I do however have hybrid.

        1. Absolutely Plum , I really loved their early stuff, and I saved my pocket money , I am sure I saw them in Kingston in those early days .

          I had loads of momentos , and they would have been worth a fortune now.

          1. My personal five favourite Rolling Stones (in order). They never all played together but would have been my first choice if they could have done:

            1. Charlie Watts.
            2. Brian Jones.
            3. Bill Wyman.
            4. Mick Jagger.
            5. Mick Taylor.

      3. I went to see the Stones a few times, too. Wolverhampton and Birmingham, if I recall correctly.

    1. I’m sure they will get far better support and treatment than humans will get here if my recent experiences for a relation are anything to go by. Unless you can afford to go private you’re stuck with antidepressants prescribed in a GP phone call and being put on a waiting list with a 1-minute ‘assessment’ phone call 364 days later to avoid waiting for more than a year.

    1. It never was a vaccine. If you are double jabbed you can still catch the virus and pass it on. No different from someone who has not been jabbed.

      1. But it has always been passed off as a vaccine Delboy, it’s led to a lot of confusion and typically lies that are attached to such a faked up rushed off placebo.
        I suspect we have all had BCG, polio, MMR and other Vaccines in our youth and have never had to have a secondary job for any of them.
        I’m certainly not having a ‘booster’ the other two jabs have caused me too much stress and two visits to A&E.

        1. I’ve had no reactions to any of the jabs I’ve had – except possibly typhoid when I felt somewhat whoozy that evening. I’ve had booster jabs for tetanus (DTP) and Hep A etc but I won’t be bothering with a booster for covid.

          1. Felt awful after a flu jab some years ago, never went back. Caught the flu the same year – wasn’t any fun at all, that. Heart worked so hard, it felt tired! Felt bad after a cholera shot too, aged anout 10. Otherwise, been OK.

          2. I didn’t bother with the flu jab till last year, but flu is nasty – had it a few times but not since 1995.

  45. We have never worn a mask we have not had any jabs.( nor flu in the past). We consider the jab is more risk to us than covid.

    1. Thanks for the links. This information has to reach a larger audience. With the media being bought and paid for it is difficult to see how this can be achieved.

      1. Delboy morning. Just after posting links, usual power cuts this end all day, so apologies for not responding sooner. I do agree with your points and the challenge getting the real info out to people to disseminate.

    1. Over 5000 evacuated from dangerous Afghanistan – – over double that evacuated from totally safe Calais this year alone.

    2. Oh (sarc) I bet you feel proud Minister Patel. You have clearly not done much else in the promise made in the stopping of the invasion, that has saved at least 60 boat loads.
      As I was informed by my own parliamentary representative The UK has a proud record of helping people fleeing persecution oppression or tyranny from around the world.
      But have any of the people who claim to represent the public ever asked the public ?

  48. Who will keep us safe? Who will ensure that a young woman with two small children can walk to the shops and come home safe?

    2. Good question HP it was reported that a young girl was raped in broad daylight whilst taking her dog for a walk and this time for a change the assailant was described as black with an African accent. You can bet your boots he’ll never bee found he probably has no official identity.
      What have our stupid political classes subjected us all to ?

      2. “What have our stupid political classes subjected us all to?”

        I think the real question, Eddy, is: “Why do we continue to sit on our arses and allow the stupid political classes to get away with these (and other) abominations very day?”

        We used to elect politicians to represent us, stand up for us, and ensure the defence of the realm. Why have we, and they, given up on that?

        1. I agree Grizz i’ll see if i can post the most recent stupidity that is going on now in Oz I use to think that our own politicians and civil service might be the worse on the planet, but these Australian authoritarians don’t leave much to the imagination. They are beating up arresting and fining people who are not sitting on their arses. Some people have been arrested for crossing a road in border towns between NSW and QLD.
          Personally I am beginning to understand what this is all about as Walter mentions below. Lets face the facts it’s supposed to be an illness that people can catch or not, it’s as people have mentioned not much worse than a flu epidemic. People just got on with life when it happened. The governments have turned terrorist toward their own populations.

          2. He’s so right they even had tanks on the streets of Sydney at the end of last month. I can’t find the clips i looked at earlier today, they must have bee far too accurate for people to see.

          5. He’ll suddenly find that he’s been given Covid and is either very ill or dies.
            I have been noting the number of “anti” people recently, who suddenly get something after they speak out.
            I start to wonder if there is Arkansacide taking place.

          8. Saw that yesterday. I expect he has been cancelled, stripped on his MPship, made bankrupt and arrested.

  49. Gus news. Vet says that, although Gus looks poorly, he is actually stable and on the mend. No temp; fur neat (scratty fur is a “sign”); eyes bright. He grooms endlessly (another good sign).

    More bed rest -and indoors for 48 hours.

    My great anxiety was that whatever poison he ate would damage liver/kidney etc. Vet adamant that if that had happened, he’s have a temperature and be in a real decline by now. We think that whatever it was was eaten on Saturday.

    Fingers crossed.

    2. Good news. Perhaps, just perhaps you’re overworrying? Easy for me to say here, as I’m sure we’d be the same.

      1. Waiting for the headline “People depressed because immigrants coming into country every day.”

      1. Nah – all the locals are cat lovers. There are rats everywhere and poison is put down to kill them. I suspect that is the source.

        1. Any signs of a bite on Gus , Bill

          There is a nasty spider called the wasp spider which gives a nasty nip, and even people react badly .

    6. He will sleep it off now. It used to take our cat (Sooty) three days to recover after eating something that had been poisoned. It perhaps wasn’t neat poison, but an already poisoned rodent that was already on its way out and not so fleet of foot.

      1. Thanks, PM. V encouraging. Gus is sound asleep and has been since we got back at 11.15

        1. That sounds about right. At least showed some interest and ate some of it, he didn’t say ‘absolutely nothing for me, thank you!’

  50. Last week I e-mailed a company for a price on servicing an item I have, gave all the details of it they wanted. Instant e-mail reply stating I would get a telephone call within 1 working day from a member of staff. Still waiting, but just got an e-mail offering to sell me stuff. They won’t be getting my cash.

  52. Just had text from mate. His Cavalier King Charles just died an hour ago. Same chap with the 94 yr old M/law with fractured shoulder and going into care home- and his wife has a Disabled badge ( genuinely needed ). He’s been a friend for nearly 50 yrs – The stress is taking its toll on him.

      1. Thanks – He only had a daughter with his first wife but not mentioned her for decades, so I assume there is no contact between them. No other offspring. Any mention of her from me to him and he quickly changes the subject back. I think i’m the nearest to another “family member” he has. Certainly seem the most loyal.

    2. Regular contact from friends can be a life saver, even it’s only a quick e-mail to show you’re thinking of them.

  53. Just returned from Morrisons! No salad veg. Meat counter reduced in quantity. Frozen food down to 25%.

      1. Morning Grizz. He forever hated that he sold the stores when he saw what the morons did to it! Eventually they banned him from the yearly stockholders meetings.

        1. Morning, Araminta. And they call that ‘progress’. I call it ‘greed and stupidity’.

  54. OT – I have a new nagging medical ishoo.

    The MR advised (= instructed) me to contact the GP lot. Filled in the online form (like you have to) at 8.15. 8.30 phone rang – could I manage 9.15. I could and did and was home by 9.45 with some antibiotics. Quicker than in the old days…

    1. Good that they sorted you out so promptly. You must also find ways of dealing with stress. Breathing techniques can be quite helpful.

      Hope you can still drink on those anti-bio’s.

    3. We’ve no complaints about our GP surgery – the doc rang OH the other day and booked him in for a face-to face an hour later. Referral under way for minor surgery. Yesterday another appointment with a consultant and another blood test done.

      1. The MR had a similar on Monday. Perhaps things are creeping back to normal.

        Certainly I find sending an online message infinitely preferable to hanging on the phone for half an hour…

      1. Nah – saw very sensible senior nurse – the MR taught her English – which persuaded her (a) to do A level – and then – with the A levels – (b) train to be a nurse.

    5. Yo Bill

      That is the Power of the Nottler(s)

      You have so many followers, thathey dare not upset you!

    2. University places are a mere bagatelle to this creature who is steeped in the blood of tens of thousands of innocents! He’s a monster!

      1. You praise him. Blair will revel in being called a monster. Probably award himself a commendation for it. That PoS signed the “Uman Rites” act – which allowed the scum of the planet to come here and be protected from their crimes elsewhere – while putting us in danger AND making us pay for them to live here.

        1. 338103+ up ticks,
          Morning W,

          Wonder if he awarded himself the order of the willy watcher ?

    3. That’s because Euan runs an apprenticeship business – it’s all about self-interest with the whole family. Even little Leo must be grown up by now. I expect we’ll hear from him soon.

        1. Cherie? She’s trying to overturn the men only rule at the Garrick Club at the moment! There is nothing these people won’t stick their noses into!

          2. If the slot-gobbed maven is so bothered by this, why doesn’t she organise a women only club?

          3. Would’t she then have to fight to get men allowed in? – or is discrimination ok if one-way?

    4. That’s not what is in the article. He didn’t criticise his dad let alone tear into him. He said that the aim had failed and that many going to uni would be better off, surprise surprise, doing apprenticeships through his company. His motivation for the interview are publicity and money; a chip off the old block. . . . .

  56. What will the next two variants (propaganda) of the “Covid-19 virus”, after Delta, be? Epsilon and Zeta? Or Echo and Foxtrot?

    Either way, they can Foxtrot Oscar (or Phi Omicron if they understand that better!).

  57. Just back from stripping (the wallpaper in the hall)

    With reference to the loo roll holder/mobiles/ladies, it seems lots of phones are lost down the pan, as lotsa ladies carry them
    in the back pocket of the jeans/trousers/shorts

    That will not apply to the good ladies on here, who all have posh handbgs

    1. I hardly ever use a handbag – certainly not a posh one! Perhaps I’m not a lady……..

        1. In public loos I use the doorhandle for hanging any bags. Not the floor, which is invariably wet.

          1. So the straps go on a handle which has been used by GOK how many unwashed hands, because the wash basins are usually outside the WC (for those who bother to use them). The safest place is probably the coat-hook, if there is one.

          3. I hang my bag around my neck, always, in public loos. I favour shoulder bags so there is a long loop available.

    4. When was the last time that you saw a woman carrying anything in a back pocket, let alone a phone?

      The shelf is there so people have somewhere to put the phone whilst wiping their backsides after using it on the loo. I use the bath edge.

      Edit: I’ve just looked at the bums of over a 100 women passing by outside the coffee shop I’m in (for research purposes only!). The vast majority have either no rear pockets or ones that are clearly fashion accessories. Only one had anything in their back pocket, a phone, but she was in loose sweat pants that were being pulled down to show her thong. I did try a similar exercise on chest pockets but stopped as I forgot what I was trying to do.

      1. Saw a rather large curvy bottom half ( OK she had a massive *rse ) and the jeans were so tight someone else must be helping her to get them on. Phone in back pocket – well, half of it – other half of phone stuck out and clear to grab, a perfect target for a thief to grab the phone, shoving her so she’d topple off the heels in the process. What an idiot..

      2. For the last 18 months, I’ve been carrying just my debit card in my side pocket. I’ve been liberated from carrying cash or a bag.

      3. We have a bidet in the downstairs loo and in the bathroom upstairs. Far cleaner. Far more hygienic.

          1. Certainly it is a feat to master those with a powerful shower jet with a surprisingly invigorating squirt which shoots up vertically from the base of the apparatus.

        2. I prefere a bath or shower not on of these french things so they do not have to bath.

  58. I still have my CPC and HGV licence but haven’t worked with the industry for 20 years. There’s no way that I’d drive for the money and conditions now available. The shortage is structural, albeit exacerbated by the nonsense of the government’s Covid actions (who’d have thunk that severely limiting training, stopping testing and furloughing drivers, many East Europeans happy to drive in their own country whilst picking 80% wages from we taxpayers, would make matters worse?) and is little to do with Brexit – there were 60,000 vacancies even then.

    It’s time for the government to get involved. Open up testing. Subsidise new drivers by eg allowing them to recover the cost of their training in full from reduced tax.

    Leave the Army out of it. I don’t mind using them in emergencies, but stepping in here would be reprehensible. Besides, how many HGV drivers does the Army have given that so many support services have been privatised?

    1. Advert. for HGV drivers locally in Sussex offering £28,000 pa

      ………………hardly a fortune!

      1. Seeing how much train and tube drivers are paid for far easier, safer and less challenging jobs makes me weep.

        1. Road haulage is private business, and really sharp competition. Railways, well, …

          1. You get and retain staff by having competitive wages. I can see why people choose to do something else.

    2. The problem is most haulgage firms have not bothered to train drivers and this is the result after many years.

    3. I remember reading an article about HGV drivers in Germany. They had brought a load of men from the Philippines, who were expected to live in their cabs at all times. They had to do all their cooking outside, and didn’t even have a shower block at the firm’s headquarters. Worse, they had no health insurance, which is mandatory in Germany.
      That was some years ago, so I hope the resulting outcry caused some improvement in conditions.

  59. Afternoon all!

    Sooo, we were warned by the not bought and paid for scientists that mRNA vaxx can lead to antibody dependent enhancement which will make even the common cold dangerous. Then we’re told by the establishment scientists that the symptoms of the Delta Variant are a headache, sore throat, sneezing and a runny nose. 2+2=4, doesn’t it?

    1. That’s what the health institue is recommending here. Also, you get immunity to the non-vaccinated strains, too.

      1. Imagine if Covid had just been ignored, we might have had a surge in deaths and then it might well have fizzled out.

          1. The Swedish health authorities had the same stupid attitude to Hep B jabs for dental staff (mandatory here in the UK) – they were virtually unobtainable, the attitude being “you know how to protect yourselves”. Rubber gloves do not protect against needle-stick, which is one of the main causes of infections.

    1. Over 800 self-indulgent owners are responsible. No sensible Chihuahua would put up with it.

  64. On this day, 2019.

    Test cricket returned to Headingley today after a year away and England have made a good start against India. I doubt the match will come anywhere near the excitement of the fourth and final day of the 2019 Test against Australia, when Clark Kent and Superman made the Aussies cry.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e904ee0405ea06f78c5c4a281f7a4d3dadb818096314520dfbdcd4d4faaea66.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/510036cfb8966d1242041f6d11369d72c9f20d233b6a19ebaa3dcaa771702808.jpg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wamtTEVFDiA

    1. If wickets are falling that fast, it’ll be the same for England – and a low scoring Test over in three days.

    1. Just read that Poland has ended their evacuation flights out of there.

      Also an Afghan pop star (surprised me) – has said “the world has let us down”. Really? – the whole world should be ready to instantly move and accommodate 40m people??? – after spending god knows what in your country for decades?

    1. Brexit has very little, if anything, with a shortage of HGV drivers. There was a massive shortage before Brexit, Covid actions explain the increase and all countries have seen increasing shortages.

      The lack of British vessels is only to be expected: you can’t magic up vessels and fishermen overnight. I would be surprised if we could ever find enough fishermen even if we have the vessels; working on a trawler is hard, dirty, dangerous and low-paid work – fine if you came from a fishing family but unappealing to everyone else.

      1. Many fishing boats were scrapped and their owners put out of business after we joined the EU. The huge Spanish trawlers put paid to our fishing industry.

          1. No – but I gather you and Phizzee both think they are good. We probably don’t eat enough fish to warrant setting up an account – OH is not really a fish eater.

          3. Pesky Fish picked Devon crab. The sweetest you will ever taste. £17 for 250gms. I know that sounds expensive but it is enough for four starters or two main courses.

            Simpsons on the Strand charged £20 for about 10gms. Nice though.

          9. I can never be bothered watching telly in the daytime. Certainly not food programmes. I watch less and less telly these days – apart from the Scandi thrillers – we’ve got into those.

    2. 338102+ up ticks,
      Afternoon P,
      It would be a very pleasing sight to see him in the dock at Nuremberg 2 .

      1. How much do they cost and would a fisherman/consortium be able to finance one and run it profitably after wages, finance costs, insurance, fuel etc??

        1. If we are desperate for a British Fishing Fleet – you’d have thought the government might have put some sort of lend lease in place to enable those experienced but without sufficient funds to put to sea. Otherwise it’s a case of ‘Well we’d better let the EU bods carry on fishing UK waters otherwise there will be no Fish ‘n Chips’…..

          1. Sell quotas to the EU boats whilst building own vessels. All catch to be landed in the UK.

        1. Years ago we bumped into a friend whom we hadn’t seen for a while. She told us she was 7 months pregnant with her first, although she was still wearing tightly-belted jeans. She was by no way obese, just rather large-framed.

          1. Someone I knew at the time I was pregnant with my first one was also pregnant at the same time but she didn’t realise it till she was about seven months gone. Hers was born a couple of weeks after mine. She was quite large and certainly not wearing anything tightly belted.

  70. Cricket: England v India.

    India 67 for 9 wickets. Bowler Curran on a hat trick… last wicket being reviewed.

          1. Wrong. I thought it was always the Butler.

            I saw it years ago, when
            The baddie character wasn’t a copper, he was just pretending to be one. The genuine copper was in disguise as one of the other characters.

  71. Good afternoon all.

    As the summer draws to a close, I can’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. What happens next? What happens in the Autumn/Winter when ‘cases’ start to rise, normal winter ‘flu puts pressure on the NHS, new scary variants emerge? Will we have another winter like last year with tiers, lockdowns, cancelled Christmas?

    We have lived with Covid restrictions for so long that we have forgotten that we never did anything like this before. An average of 10,000 elderly people die each winter of ‘flu and we don’t bat an eyelid. Look at newspaper headlines from the last fifty years and you would see ‘NHS Winter Beds Crisis!!’ And yet, we never thought to shut down the whole country to ‘protect the NHS.’

    Was this a one-off, emergency response to the outbreak of a new virus, never to be repeated? Or are lockdowns just what we do now? Was there any debate on this in Parliament? I must have missed it if so.

          2. One of my favourite speeches.
            No-one with that level of eloquence in Westminster nowadays.

    3. It was a Fear and Control virus, handing millions over to companies to come up with a substance that did???? and the company is not responsible for any side effects.It also enabled the govt to tell more and more lies, threatening people to stay indoors, under threat of arrest, court, fines and a lifelong criminal record. – and while stuck in their homes, the govt imported ????? of immigrants and shipped them to hotels all over the country. When the govt realised some of us weren’t sheep – they had to ramp up the fear – then againto a 3rd jab. They CANNOT admit to what they have done – THEY DAREN’T.

      1. The ‘virus’ was not nearly as lethal as they were hoping and the ‘vaccine’ is proving more lethal and injurious in its very early stages than their wildest imaginations could have expected. Reiner Fuellmich thinks they have panicked and brought forward their plans by ten years because the world had started to wake up… Brexit, Trump… These three factors will prove to be their undoing, it is crumbling around the edges. It is a house of cards whose foundations are built upon fraudulent lies. The truth will out however hard they try to keep it under wraps, it is what truth does. It is already out there. One day someone will run with it.

    4. Covid is part of a series of events leading to a clusterf*ck; 40+ years of common market, 50 years of failed educational reforms, 70 years of the free for all known as NHS, etc etc.
      The UK now consists of a massive and entitled public sector, an underclass and a squeezed middle that has been further eroded by gimmegration and energy policies that have served to transfer jobs to the developing world, specifically SE Asia. Norman Tebbit is about the only Conservative politician left alive, the rest have been overwhelmed by figurative bodysnatchers. I used to view that D Icke as a nasty anti-semite, but now I wonder whether the quaint, old but familiar, Jewish conspiracy has been kicked into a ditch by some enormous force of darkness.

      1. You forgot to mention debts of £70,000 per taxpayer rising at well over £10,000 per taxpayer last year, unfunded liabilities such as state employee pensions and expected student loan losses of well over another double that, trade/capital balance losses of £3,000 per taxpayer per year, and all the other signs of living beyond our means on the nation’s credit cards and selling the family silver.

        1. Yes, and shame on me because I forgot to remove the adjective ‘nasty’ when describing Mr Icke senior.

      1. It has been taken off the burner for the summer months (it had been boiling for too long and boredom had set in with an accompanying glaze). Afghanistan was put in its place instead for a little light relief. Covid will be refreshed and replaced on the burner in the autumn with the temperature increased for maximum effect. BOO !! I’M BACK !!

      2. It has been taken off the burner for the summer months (it had been boiling for too long and boredom had set in with an accompanying glaze). Afghanistan was put in its place instead for a little light relief. Covid will be refreshed and replaced on the burner in the autumn with the temperature increased for maximum effect. BOO !! I’M BACK !!

      3. Our lives haven’t been our own for so long now, we live at the whims of the State. The freedoms they have given us (which are ours by birthright) can be taken away at any moment. Has this relatively-free summer just been a reminder of what living feels like, to force us to have the franken-jab if we want it to continue?

        I feel like a prisoner let out on day release. Look out, here comes the parole officer…

        1. Well, that’s what they want, certainly. A lot depends on how strongly we push back over the next year or so.

  72. Edit 2> updated in light of Bill’s comment. If you don’t want to see the cricket score, don’t unmask the comment below.
    My internet autocorrect is playing up. It says India, not England, all out for 78.

    Edit: sorry, Bill, the comment below made a spoiler alert unnecessary.

      1. A bit late, Bill, others had given the score. For the benefit of those reading where the difference in posting times is lost, I posted my edit before you put in your comment.
        Going forward, this can be avoided by using the spoiler icon that I’ve just discovered – it’s the one with a line through an eye No need to shout!

          1. Er, capital letters in bold look very much like shouting to me. I can see why you might be peeved, but why not rejoice in the good news and the implicit motivator not to miss the highlights?

          2. Actually, I don’t watch creekit any more. My SHOUT was on behalf of those NoTTlers who do and who get really cheesed off when scores (of any sport) are broadcast here.

            As far as this match is concerned, if India were skittled out for a handful, I expect Engerland to suffer the same fate. India then make big score in 2nd innings – England panic and lose. I recall lots of first innings low scores at Headingley over the years. Something to do with the Yorksheer morning humidity…

            You read it here first.

          3. OK, fair enough, that’s fine by me. However, I suggest you also direct people on how to mask content with the the spoiler icon.

            As for England’s reply: Gotcha. Check elsewhere. I’ve done enough spoiling for today. Bye for now.

          5. Er, capital letters in bold look very much like shouting to me. I can see why you might be peeved, but why not rejoice in the good news and the implicit motivator not to miss the highlights?

  73. Ex-Mrs Gove on holiday rotas.
    When MB and I were in business we made sure that our holidays didn’t clash with that of senior staff.
    Our sons – though both with school age children – took great care to make sure one was working when the other was on holiday.
    But then none of us was actually running a country, so what did we know?

    “Having been married to a Cabinet minister for a number of years, I am more than familiar with the notion of the family holiday being scuppered by more pressing events.

    So I must confess I have some sympathy for Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who found himself in the sub-optimal (and sub-optical, in political terms) position of being on a beach when the situation in Afghanistan imploded last week.

    That said, these things aren’t unavoidable. For example, we have this very clever thing in the office. It’s called a rota.

    What happens is, everyone says when they want to go on holiday and then the lovely assistant, who is in charge of it, makes sure that not everyone does so at once, so that if something Very Big happens — such as, for argument’s sake, Allied troop withdrawal — there’s always someone competent on hand to cover it.

    Just a thought.”

    1. Maybe he did have someone competent left in charge and, in any case, wasn’t Johnson taking charge? That would explain his not rushing to get involved. But, then, when did facts, perspective and balance matter to the media and politicians?

      2. Apparently a junior minister – Lord Ahmad – was delegated to take care of Afgaf affairs; he was on holiday at the same time as his boss.
        As were the Permanent Secretaries at the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.

    2. He doesn’t even know that mass immigration has ALREADY destroyed “our” communities. Where English people felt safe walking home in the dark, now having to be afraid of being stabbed and mugged, by someone the govt doesn’t even know are here.Where English people can live on the same street for decades – yet now are the only English speakers on that same street. Small villages and towns are now being forced into massive growth, purely because of so-called diversity and multi culti – – which have destroyed the places. The only “communities” are the immigrant ones – who claim they want to integrate – then just want to force THEIR ways and rules – on the people who have to pay for them – while hating us – and laughing as their bank accounts get OUR taxes, handed to them as non-contributed to benefits.

      1. The way I see it is , people like that are severe and not very smiley .

        We cannot read them, the way we can our own .. Many of us are clued up and experienced enough to suss bods out or give them the benefit of the doubt , but I don’t think I have ever met a smiley bod from other places, even doctors are rather severe and unreadable , and they talk too fast and wobble their heads abit or jab fingers etc.

      2. Don’t blame them – who wouldn’t leave a 3rd world shlthole for a welcoming U.K. – blame us for allowing politicians and do-Gooders to let them in, shower them with free goodies and encourage them to operate as before in our super multi-culti environment.

    1. There was an incredible lengthy list of armaments left behind published on ZH a day or two ago – unbelievable volumes of kit and ammo….

      1. One wonders who was flying the Blackhawk helicopter, presumably someone trained by the Americans who knew which side was winning and changed allegiance.

        2. So how on earth do we trust anyone who has betrayed their country to translate for the British .. Remember all the double agents Britain coped with , Remember Cambridge and Oxford had nests of spies ..

          We must be blinking mad to want to entertain the idea of thousands of bods with close contacts in Afghan and Pakistan who are now floodinginto the UK.

          Blimey , look at the traitor King of ours who abdicated , and how he danced with the N###s in Germany .

          We have been training commercial pilots , and accepting Arabs and such like into Sandhurst and Dartmouth , once people get a toe in here , we will be a lost cause, and I FEEL VERY uncomfortable having SUNAK as Chancellor and many other doubtfuls whose eyes shine at the thought of gold and other glittering prizes .

          Boris and his father do not possess an altruistic streak between them, Cameron was of that ilk as was that woman from Maidenhead .. they are all shockingly grasping greedy globalists .

          I can smell them all from here.

          1. I am sure the refugees welcome crews won’t change their minds even if their own families are raped or killed.

      2. If there are any rocket launchers they could easily be used to bring any evac plane down that was going to breach the deadline.

    1. The President of the United States of America made a peace deal with the devil he knew on behalf of the USA and its allies:

      Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America

      February 29, 2020

      which corresponds to Rajab 5, 1441 on the Hijri Lunar calendar and Hoot 10, 1398 on the Hijri Solar calendar

      The undertakings of both parties to the agreement have been violated in respect of the USA and allies failing to remove their military by 1 May 2021 and the Taliban who it now appears to be habouring hostile militant groups from ISIS-K.

      Raab has today been talking about having a dialogue with the devil to find out what the hell (s)he intends to do next. I guess he does not envisage the Taliban as being the soul beneficiary.

      https://youtu.be/tto_nmsND_o

  78. Oh goody – just seen a “new addition” to this small town. Walking along, hood pulled low over his face, jeans , defying gravity and halfway down his underpants. You can guess the rest. I’ll expect a rise in mixed race babies in about a years time.

      2. But not to capitalise the pronoun.

        One day the stupid people will be moved to a different planet – the moon, perhaps. When there, they can create a country that doesn’t use capitals, full stops or apostrophes and revel in the ‘evolution’ of the language.

        While suffocating.

  83. The El Salvadoran government is preparing for its new era of relying on bitcoin as its primary means of transacting by installing 200 bitcoin ATMs – which are already popular in the US and in Europe.

    1. I have some investment in cyrptocurrency but for a government to rely on it is idiotic. It can be manipulated by outside agency. Just ask Elon Musk.

    2. There are times when I wonder what a cryptocurrency is. But many others when I don’t.

    3. What comes out of a bitcoin ATM? hot air?
      Or has someone invented a system of printing on bits of paper that you own a certain number of them?
      You could improve on that by using something more durable…metal perhaps?

  84. HAPPY HOUR for beavers…whaddya think NoTTlers?
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4eacda5edee1a7d33f045faf127d7785b20f7a8e076de39f09d37c0c91e9ec8.jpg

    Beavers could return across Britain as they are given ‘native species’ legal protection to allow their release into the wild.
    Supporters of the movement say beavers can help in the fight against flooding but farmers have warned there is a risk that beavers could threaten livelihoods.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9923947/Eager-beavers-make-comeback-Rewilding-success-return-Britain.html

      1. The animals could even cut the flow of water from flooding by up to 60 per cent via the dams they create, according to one study.

    4. There are beavers at Firstborn’s place. They chisel points on trees and drop them into streams. Normally no problem, but the buggers can get pretty big, like a medium dog. Nice to have some wildlife, though.

    1. I must correct that…. the person who calls himself the President of the US is in league with them. Not for nothing is he called China Joe. The interesting question is: Why is he in league with them?

  87. Talking of face to face appointments. My next door neighbour has developed a rash all over his body. Phoned our surgery Monday and was told to strip and take a photo of himself in the mirror and take a close up of the rash on his skin.

    Meanwhile, back at the farm, the district nurse phoned me up yesterday telling me our surgery had phoned them to make an appointment with me. That was it. No explanation of any kind whatsoever to the District Nurse. I had to fill her in on what was going on.

    Then I read the following in the Telegraph on Sunday:
    “GPs are ignoring orders to allow patients face-to-face visits despite the easing of lockdown restrictions, The Telegraph can reveal.”

    I think it’s time that people picket their surgeries or conduct sit ins.. Shame them into doing their jobs.

    Anyone got other ideas?

      1. Get immigrant patients taking an hour each with using translators – -and they’ll only see 8 or 9 people a day – who won’t have paid in anything.

        1. But all these “refugees” ARE doctors and surgeons – so they can talk to the patients in their own language…

          (I’ll get me stethoscope)

      2. Do you realize that is more or less the same wage for American GP’s? The difference is over here the state pays them. Over there they have to work because their patients pay them with their private insurance. I always say that the American system is better for that one single reason. An American G.P works for your money and can’t afford to not see you. No visit, no cash.

    2. How about GPs are paid for the patients they see instead of those on their lists? Not that HMG would even consider it!

      1. That would create ‘value for money’ – an unacceptable capitalist concept.

        The NHS is built on the socialist principle of ”lowest common denominator’.

  90. A posting on the TMS website earlier today

    Where did you watch THAT Stokes innings?

    I have no idea if this is true but it makes a good story

    Where did you watch THAT Stokes innings?
    Text 81111 (standard message rates apply)

    SMS Message: Listened to the Stokes innings whilst detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. The landing went mental when the winning runs was scored. from Anonymous

  93. Over the last week r so there has often been a low faraway hum in the air. This is the sound of combine harvesters at work. It has been sunny here for the last two days. I expect that in the next day or two the harvesters will arrive at the field behind our house. The farmers like to cut the wheat when it is dry, as drying it in the barns/silos is expensive

  94. I sympathise with women that they are more likely to be killed by a man than vice-versa, but this I despair at the cheap aren’t-we-women-victims of https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/polices-sexist-focus-claudia-lawrences-complex-love-life-dangerous/

    The Police’s concentration on a murder victim’s family, friends and acquaintances isn’t sexist, it’s logical and appropriate. The vast majority of murder victims knew their killer and the reasons for keeping a relationship secret are often reasons for murdering someone. Sex workers feature in a high proportion of murder victims, many working unknown to their relatives. Despite perceptions, serial killers are rare, eg the FBI estimates they are responsible for around 1% of murders in thevUS.

    There have been plenty of fly-on-the-wall documentaries covering murder investigations over the past few years. Perhaps journalists should do their research first.

  95. That’s me gone for the day. Grey and drizzling most of it, curses. Gus condescended to nibble about a tablespoon of food. He seems to be a bit brighter – but, then, he did this time last night. We’ll hope that the improvement is real….

    Have a jolly evening building a cupboard for your Afghan lodgers to keep their guns.

    A demain … DV

    1. Lucky you. Brilliant sunshine here all day … blinds down, sitting in the dark!
      ….and the garden needs watering!!!

          1. Mate has rung about his dog dying – it appears the dog jusi sighed and rolled over. They have put it in its basket because it looks peaceful, will take it to be cremated Friday. Says he wont get another because of his age – he said that last time.

          3. My condolences to your mate, walter. He should get an older rescue dog; they can grow old together (and it’s easier to get an older dog; there are fewer people willing to take them on).

          4. With his disabled wife and her mother at 94 just gone into a care home he realises he’s getting old. He has had enough. I actually suggested the same idea earlier to him but he might have had enough stress.

          5. Dogs help you relieve stress; stroking a dog has a BP-lowering effect and induces endorphins. Not to mention the social life when you’re out walking (perhaps he might volunteer for the Cinnamon Trust which walks dogs for those unable to do so?).

          6. I guess there are a thousand hoops to jump through to get a rescue dog, if they haven’t all been shot to stop people, well, rescuing them. Just ask Conway.

          7. Have you been trying the rescue centres? I missed out on seven dogs before I got Oscar (and I only got him because the first choice turned him down). It might be a bit easier when people finally start to go back to work.

          11. It’s hard to believe it – I know, I’ve been there! – but I’m sure there’s a dog out there for you. In the end, when I thought I’d never find another dog, Oscar came into my life. He’s a little beggar (literally at mealtimes!), but I love him to pieces and he’s helped me through some bad times.

      1. Our two are very close.
        When Little Cat was missing in action last year, we weren’t overly concerned until Big Cat was concerned, and started pining. Then we went round banging on doors and attaching “Wanted” posters to lamp-posts. It all settled down when Little came rushing back a couple of days later – we reckoned that he was locked in someone’s garage. Big was much relieved.

      2. I have just spent 15 minutes in the rain urging him to return from the maize field across the road – and come indoors…..

        He must go half a mile away wen he is hunting.

        The only good thing is that they have both been conditioned to respond (eventually) to a whistle.

        He sniffs Gus and gives him a “paws up…”

    2. I’d only relax after i’d got off the plane again. The Taliban aren’t rational, so expect anything. Those 640 that got on the plane. It would only have taken one with a vest on underneath all the loose clothing at the back, take that rear door off – and . . . .
      Or even one jumping on the outside and pulling the trip.
      There were a few women on that plane – were they checked out? certainly not by male USA soldiers.

      1. The Taliban are heathens. They do not share any of our western values and are the scum of the Earth. The Megalithic Man was more human than this scum.

        The prize fool, decrepit madman Joe Biden has created a monumental crisis in Afghanistan. No sentient human being could credit this Biden creature with any achievement yet already the MSM are pretending that his evacuation of Americans is somehow a success story.

        The facts remain that the idiot Biden shot both feet off by ordering an evacuation of troops whilst relying on the Afghan forces to defend Kabul and having given the Taliban the OK to take Bagram Airport and multi billions worth of state of the art military equipment, equipment now destined for China and Pakistan where it will be reverse engineered and deployed against the West.

        The world is in a very dangerous place when we are ruled by idiots under the thumb of the CCP and the Davos Clowns.

        Boris Johnson has clearly bought into this shit storm presumably on the advice of his Rockerfeller graduate pillow whisperer. The fervour he has shown for experimental jabs, masking and lockdowns leave me to despise Johnson and his hopelessly incompetent government. Globalist Clowns all.

        1. Biden has also shown weakness and confusion to the Chinese and Russians, who likely cannot believe WTF. Watch out for an assault on Taiwan, or something of a similar nature. Additionally, who in NATO can believe the US will come to their aid (he wrote, with a border wih Russia – Harry Meneely too).

          1. Biden should be sectioned under a mental health act – and locked up.

            Meanwhile, he should be impeached for senile incompetence.

          2. Agreed. Taiwan is at greater risk under Biden’s maladministration.

            I reckon India will also be greatly concerned now that China has presumably acquired state of the art US weapons technology which will be used against them in the disputed region of Kashmir and in the border areas.

          3. Russia and China are “negotiating”.

            “You get Taiwan and we’ll have Ukraine, we won’t interfere if you don’t”..

            “Let’s go in on in on the first of September, while the Yanks and NATO are getting pissed on in Afghanistan by the Taliban, and worrying about Iran, with their Nukes, with Israel threatening to bomb the shit out of their sites.”

            By the time Biden’s had his tena changed it will be fait accompli.

    2. Sir Geoff’s granny’s preferred bats? 10 wickets in hand, some fair few runs in the lead. Shirley England would have to do something silly not to win this match.
      Kiss of death?

    5. They seek him here, they seek him there, those Nottlers seek him everywhere, is he in heaven or is he in hell, the elusive scarlet Elf & Safetynel

    6. I’ve been grappling with bureaucracy (before and after my riding lesson), plus shopping and gardening.

  100. I look forward to peaceful protestors, those principled protectors of our rights, burning cities to the ground should any administration propose that some human rights laws might need amendment or even repeal.

    The limits to protest are not for Extinction Rebellion to decide

    The confusion over how to deal with their disruptive antics shows the danger of our unclear protest laws

    PHILIP JOHNSTON

    A hallmark of a free society is the right to legitimate protest. The key word in that sentence is legitimate. Who decides? What are the boundaries? As the climate pressure group Extinction Rebellion (XR) begins its latest campaign of disruption in London and other cities, people whose lives are disrupted by their antics are entitled to know whether their rights are also to be respected by the law.

    Activists have set up a giant pink “crisis talks” negotiating table in Covent Garden which the police cannot move because XR members locked their arms inside it and the structure could collapse on them. As the demonstrations spread dozens of arrests have been made.

    I had imagined that existing statutes covering criminal damage and obstructing the highway were sufficient to set the parameters for legitimate protest. Overstep them and you get nicked. However, it turns out that matters are not so straightforward.

    In September 2017, a protest was staged at the biennial Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair held at the Excel Centre in east London. The campaigners, opposed to the arms trade, lay down in the middle of the road, attaching themselves to two heavy boxes. The police took 90 minutes to remove them and they were arrested and charged with wilful obstruction of a highway.

    At their first trial before magistrates, however, they were acquitted. The district judge said that given their right to freedom of peaceful assembly under the European Convention on Human Rights, the prosecution had to prove that “limited, targeted and peaceful action, which involved an obstruction of the highway, was unreasonable”. The judge considered a 90-minute disruption to be “reasonable”. At appeal, a higher court reversed that decision so it went to the Supreme Court, which just a few weeks ago ruled that the original decision to acquit should stand.

    This is the so-called Ziegler judgment (named after one of the protesters) on which the XR organisation is now claiming legitimacy for its disruption. An XR spokesman said: “The landmark Ziegler ruling confirms our legal right to peaceful protest and we expect the police to respect those rights.” The Met has been placed in an impossible position trying to navigate between statute laws and court rulings that appear to undermine them. Here is another example of judges muddying previously clear waters.

    Section 137 of the 1980 Highways Act makes it an offence “if a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway”. That might sound clear enough but in a High Court ruling dating to 1965, judges held that “lawful excuse” should encompass “reasonableness” and this test has been applied ever since even if it was not what Parliament intended.

    The Supreme Court cited this in its Ziegler judgment. “Whether or not the … obstruction is or is not an unreasonable use of the highway is a question of fact. It depends upon all the circumstances, including the length of time the obstruction continues, the place where it occurs, the purpose for which it is done, and whether it does in fact cause an actual obstruction as opposed to a potential obstruction.”

    This is the confusing background to the Government’s latest efforts to get to grips with the law on protest through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This measure has itself become a target for militant protest under the menacingly ambiguous Kill the Bill slogan.

    The question is whether it is even possible to set out the parameters in statute. The Bill introduces a new offence of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” and includes provisions to make noise unlawful if it is “seriously harmful or oppressive”.

    Would this cover that annoying chap Steve Bray who stood outside Parliament for months during the great debates over the EU bellowing Stop Brexit? Quite a few MPs and broadcasters who had to endure Mr Bray’s shouting wished that someone would cart him away. But they had to put up with it while the rest of us watching on TV recognised his right to say what he felt. After all, what is the point of protest if not to get yourself seen and your views heard? This clause should be taken out of the Bill.

    But the rest of the proposed legislation is not the heinous attack on liberty that its detractors maintain. Moreover, whatever XR says about the Supreme Court ruling does not confer carte blanche for a small number of campaigners to stop hundreds of thousands of people going about their daily lives thinking they are entitled to do this because of the existential nature of the climate threat.

    There is a certain lofty disdain shown by XR protesters towards the rest of us because they believe the causes they espouse are so important that they justify extreme action. How can you be selfish enough to complain about not getting to work on time when the world is about to fry?

    None the less, there is a general sense that the balance between the rights of protesters and those of everyone else is seriously out of kilter. The Bill will empower the police to clamp down on peaceful gatherings where they might result in “serious disruption to the life of the community”. But what exactly does that mean? Police chiefs fear that giving them the discretion to limit protest under certain conditions means they will have to adjudicate between protesters, commuters and businesses on the basis “of broad and ambiguous criteria”.

    So, to return to the question of who decides the legitimate boundaries of free protest in a liberal democracy, the answer is Parliament, so MPs and peers have a duty to get this right. The joint parliamentary committee on human rights recently concluded that the Bill contains provisions that are “unnecessary and disproportionate and confer unacceptably wide and vague powers to curb demonstrations on the Home Secretary and police.”

    In passing this new law, therefore, Parliament must ensure both clarity and certainty. When XR activists return with their superglue and pink tables next year they, the police, the courts and the rest of us should know where we all stand

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/24/limits-protest-not-extinction-rebellion-decide/

    1. The latest XR antics are just to get our support for a draconian bill that can then be used against anti lockdown protesters. It will never be used against the Establishment’s pets.

    2. The Supreme Court is fannying around. A bunch who have no contact with real life as lived by millions of sweaty, harassed, tired and over-taxed commuters. Why else would they uphold the “right to protest” of trouble makers (who could have protested in Hyde Park) over the right of thousands of workers to get to work on time?

      1. Time to close the ‘Supreme Court’ (an Americanisation) and give power back to the Law Lords under the Lord Chancellor, while retaining the very final appeal to the Monarch.

    3. There’s peaceful assembly and there’s basic law breaking, like criminal damage and obstructing the highway.

      They can protest, no worries there, but when they block the road they must be removed. If they then set about blocking the pavements the police arrest them. It is clear how destructive Khan is that he does not act immediately for those he serves, preferring to pander to the irrelevant minority.

  101. The UK responded with unprecedented speed to implement the decision to airlift people out of Afghanistan on what is being called “Operation Pitting”.

    I quote; “The RAF has worked in harmony with @BritishArmy, @RoyalNavy, Afghan authorities and aid agencies.”
    “Operation PITTING has been a Whole Force effort from the RAF.” is another quote.

    A link:https://twitter.com/RoyalAirForce/status/1430467160091119618
    Watch this video of how @RAFBrizeNorton has supported the Operation and read more here: https://bit.ly/2WsenUW

    Now, here’s the thing. This operation has a code name. Normally a committee would take a month to decide on a code name.
    The expression “Whole Force” suggests that lots of resources were involved, i.e. lots of RAF planes, pilots and ground crew.
    As far as I can ascertain the RAF has 42 large transport planes. How many are being used in this operation? What proportion of total RAF resources are being used, planes and manpower? What have we got available if something else cropped up tomorrow?
    When the UK RAF eventually decided to assist with a disaster in Mozambique, it took three weeks for the RAF to get its act together. Three weeks to get men and planes organised and actually start to do something. Three weeks. For this operation in Afghanistan, in what is hiostile territory, unlike Mozambique, a Commonwealth country, it took less than 3 days.

    The conclusion I draw from this is that the UK government very likely knew about it well in advance and prepared for it well in advance. Why would that be?

    1. The use of the UK military to transport hordes of 3rd world savages to the UK is simply insane, far better had it been for the RAF to bomb the Taliban & have the Royal Navy fire cruise missiles from ships & submarines at Taliban concentrations .

    2. I imagine the withdrawal of troops has been long in the planning simply because it had to be.

      The bit I am surprised at is the desperation there seems to be to import countless dross.

    1. They don’t care. They’ve no interest in the environment, they’re just pathetic communists who want other people’s money given to them to create a world in their image.

      The incidentals of the environment don’t bother them. They’re meant for ‘greater things’ – like shutting down our economy.

      Frankly, I’d like to force feed these useless wasters their coffee cups, plastic bottles and graffiti cans.

    2. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such a demonstration made their point by leaving the site of their protest in a better state than it was before they arrived.

          1. Very green; members of the CA plant coverts, maintain hedgerows, keep vermin in check and generally care for the countryside, which means leaving no litter after they’ve marched.

  105. GPs are improving their work-life balance while worsening the life-death balance of everyone else

    Distress at being unable to see a doctor in person has hardened into cynicism – it’s no wonder long-suffering patients are losing it

    ALLISON PEARSON

    Anew NHS advertising campaign offers advice for people who are experiencing a persistent cough or prolonged stomach pain: don’t hesitate to seek advice from your GP.

    “Good luck with that!” “Yeah, right.” “You’ve got more chance of getting into Kabul airport than of breaking into our surgery.” Or simply, “What’s a GP?” Those were among the printable responses to the suggestion that anyone who may have cancer should consult their doctor.

    What did the Department of Health think the reaction would be? “Goodness, yes, silly me. I must stop ignoring the cramps and diarrhoea I’ve had for four and a half months and make an appointment to see my GP at once. Which, in actual fact, I have tried to do for 23 successive days, picking up the phone at 8am, but the Gorgon gatekeeper says I still can’t see the doctor. Instead, I must fill in the eConsult, which my husband calls the eInsult. If you can’t find your ailment in the drop-down menu, they tell you to dial 111 and, if you do eventually get through to 111, they tell you to… make an appointment to see your GP. Gah!”

    Distress at being unable to see a doctor in person for well over a year has hardened into cynicism. There is mounting anger that a highly-rewarded, once highly-respected profession continues to insist that it is “fully open” when personal experience suggests it is hiding behind an increasingly threadbare Covid sofa. I was sorry, but not at all surprised, to read that GP practices are facing a “torrent of abuse” as patient frustration boils over. According to a survey by the British Medical Association, more than half of GPs and a third of hospital doctors have experienced verbal abuse in the last month. The BMA calls on the public to be “kind and considerate” when contacting GPs.

    How about the doctors’ union tries being “kind and considerate” to patients by not insisting on strict Covid measures (more unnecessary by the day) which supposedly keep their members “safe” while jeopardising the health of the population. As long as social distancing is maintained in surgery waiting rooms, there will be no return to normal face-to-face service. I’m sorry to say, that seems to suit a lot of GPs just fine.

    The shameless British Medical Association sought to obscure its role in the crisis by publishing a survey which found that “having more doctors at surgeries is the most important change patients want to see”. Well, yes. Having the GPs we already have do their job in person would be even better.

    But who is backing those GPs who don’t want to return to normal working because – unlike shopworkers, waiters, district nurses and delivery drivers – they are at risk from a fast-receding virus? That would be the BMA, which demands yet more funding from the Government for GPs who prefer not to see the men and women who pay their salaries.

    Back in May, The Telegraph won an important victory for readers who had suffered terribly, even dying prematurely in some tragic cases, after being unable to obtain a diagnosis in person. In response to the furore, Dr Nikki Kanani, the medical director for primary care of NHS England, updated its guidance to say that patients should be able to see a GP if they so wished. Arrogant and unaccountable doctors knew better. The BMA’s GP committee passed a vote of no confidence in Dr Kanani, saying the change of stance was “tone deaf” and “not based on the needs of the profession”. God forbid a tone-deaf profession should respond to the needs of its patients.

    Unbelievably, since the easing of lockdown restrictions, access to GP surgeries has remained unchanged. In some areas, fewer than four in 10 appointments are conducted face to face, with “digital triage” – so beloved of the unloved Matt Hancock – weeding out the time-wasters and hypochondriacs. But what if they’re not malingerers?

    Cancer cannot be diagnosed on the phone. Isn’t that what all those NHS adverts are basically admitting? And yet, instead of blaming the GPs for not seeing patients, the Government elects to chide patients for not seeing the GP. At this point, we might note that doctors in other European countries continued to see sick people throughout the pandemic. They wouldn’t get paid if they hadn’t.

    “Stay at Home” – which must count among the most successful messages in the history of the health service – may yet turn out to be its nemesis. Name me another developed country with a hospital waiting list that could soon hit 13 million.

    Am I the only one who winces when Sajid Javid says what a wonderful job the NHS is doing, while, every day, radiographers are finding advanced, untreatable cancers in younger and younger patients who should have been referred last year by their GP?

    People are still scared to go to hospital, still dying in great pain at home. Not because of Covid per se, but because they know that cruel coronavirus regulations mean that, once they enter a hospital, they may never see their family again.

    My friend’s mother, Yvonne, got a letter from the hospital saying her chemo was at an end because, during lockdown, cancer treatment would only continue for patients they thought might live. With remarkable good humour, the 74-year-old accepted her death sentence, but with one reservation. “Whatever happens, please let me die at home with you,” she begged her husband, John, and their two daughters.

    Sadly, five weeks ago, having tried and failed to get hold of that elusive creature called a GP, Yvonne’s family had no choice but to call an ambulance. Spreading tumours and fluid retention had enlarged Yvonne’s stomach to the point where “Mum looked like she was pregnant with triplets”. Her pain was off the charts.

    Being in hospital was every bit as bad as Yvonne had feared. Only one person was allowed to visit daily for an hour. Eighty-year-old John needed to show constant proof of a negative test. Yvonne’s daughters, Sarah and Cathryn, were told by a doctor that while their mother was still receiving treatment for pneumonia and sepsis, they couldn’t visit her because she didn’t qualify as “End of Life Care”. Once the doctor took Yvonne off antibiotics, which actually seemed to be helping, Sarah and Cathryn could go to her bedside, but their mother would not be allowed water because she would then technically be classified as dying. Yvonne’s girls were distraught. All they wanted was to be able to hold and reassure their mother, for such time as they had left together in this world.

    It was then that an angel of mercy appeared in the form of a palliative care nurse. Let’s call her Marie. When Sarah and Cathryn told Marie about their mum’s situation, she snapped: “For God’s sake, I’ve had enough of this Covid b——s!”

    The nurse told Sarah and Cathryn that the hospital hadn’t had a single Covid case for four months, yet managers still refused to exercise leniency towards relatives who were “in absolute bits” because they were missing the final days of a spouse or a parent. Marie told Sarah and Cathryn that they and their dad could go onto the ward to see their mum any time of day or night and to tell anyone who dared challenge them: “Marie says Yvonne is End of Life Care.”

    The voice of good old British common sense – kindly, no-nonsense, fundamentally decent – has been drowned out by hysterical, health and safety jobsworths these past 17 months. But we still recognise it when we hear it, don’t we? What a difference between the instinctive compassion of the palliative care nurse and self-interested doctors and their unions.

    Like Marie, I’ve had enough of this Covid b——s. It bars patients from waiting rooms their taxes have paid for. It gives unions and NHS bureaucrats an excuse to string out the crisis indefinitely for their own selfish ends. It allows hospitals to treat dying men and women, and those who love them, with appalling, arbitrary inhumanity. It lets GPs improve their work-life balance while worsening the life-death balance of everyone else.

    The BMA seems shocked that long-suffering patients are finally losing it with doctors. I’m not, are you?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/08/24/gps-improving-work-life-balance-worsening-life-death-balance/

    A couple of nights ago, BBC East Midlands featured a small Derbyshire practice (6 GPs). The receptionists were quite phlegmatic about some of the public abuse, understanding the public’s frustration, unlike the one GP interviewed who was particularly unsympathetic and observed that so much time was taken out of a day because of the need for constant disinfection (yes, he really did).

    At no point in any of the discussions I have heard has anyone mentioned the real cause of pressure on the NHS and GPs, namely the huge increase in the population which hasn’t been matched by a similar %age increase in provision. It’s not just since Covid that it’s been necessary to repeatedly hit the redial button on the phone at 8am in order to bag an appointment; that’s been going on for at least 15 years

    1. Global warming was a fail.
      It’s now climate change.
      When that’s a fail it will be over-population.

      The fact is that it really will be down to over-population, assuming that the actual problem isn’t the changes in that great big yellow/orange looking thing in the sky.

        1. Phenomenal, George – and quite frightening.

          It illustrates very clearly that climate change (emergency) is bollocks and it is over-population that will be the ruination of the planet.

          The only saviour will be a visit by all four horsemen of the apocalypse to thin that population down to manageable size.

  107. It will be interesting when the human rights lawyers start suing the UK, USA, France, et al on behalf of Afghanistan citizens for infringing their rights and not getting them out with their entire extended families.

    1. You are not alone in thinking that, we will see what their version of gratitude is. the ones that have turned up and formed grooming gangs, drug gangs, people trafficking etc certainly show none.

    2. Hmm, as well as disposing of the ‘Supreme Court’ – see my earlier post – the UK should end its membership of the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act. Only then will we be able to sling the unwanted, and often criminal, dross out without the shyster lawyers trying to earn loadsa wonga in appeals, etc.

    3. Will that be before or after families of those claiming US citizenship sue their government for leaving them behind?

      Not sure how American they are but they have the documents.

  108. Good night all.

    Smoked haddock on a bed of spinach, all covered in a cheese sauce for supper.

        1. That was our school song! We sang it at prize giving which was held in the City Hall in Newcastle! Our music teacher played the organ (but not as well as Keith Emerson!) and it was all very jolly!

          1. That would depend on how fresh the linen is.

            Try wilted spinach anointed with olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper.

    1. Morning AW.

      I recall it being reported a decade ago or thereabouts that there was an Afghani saying: “the Americans have all the watches, but we have all the time….”

  113. The ‘Complementarity Principle’ Could Increase the ICC’s Global Legitimacy [c/o Durham University] https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/25/08/2021/complementarity-principle-could-increase-iccs-global-legitimacy what’s not mentioned is the Western instruments behind Kenya’s elections and the attempt to buy off / fund Raila in advance [and this continued up to the last election in 2019] who, every time, lost comfortably. Another attempt to divert, buy off “democracy”

Comments are closed.