Wednesday 27 November: Jobseekers are being put off by the soul-destroying recruitment process

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

702 thoughts on “Wednesday 27 November: Jobseekers are being put off by the soul-destroying recruitment process”

  1. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's site.

    Wordle 1,257 5/6

    🟹⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟹🟹⬜⬜
    đŸŸ©đŸŸšđŸŸ©âŹœâŹœ
    đŸŸ©âŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœ
    đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    1. Good morning Elsie
      Brain is only half awake, as shown by the silly mistake on the second line, but luck was smiling this morning…
      Wordle 1,257 4/6

      🟹⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟹⬜⬜⬜⬜
      đŸŸ©âŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸšâŹœ
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

  2. Morning Geoff and All
    Today's Tales – Smut week continues
    After a few drinks and small talk, she invited him back to her apartment. Just before they turned out
    the light, he asked, “How do you like your eggs in the morning?” “Unfertilised,” she replied.

    It was her first night at the Singles Bar and the handsome young guy had asked her home to watch some videos.
    “No funny business? Nothing serious?” she asked.
    “Trust me. We’ll just watch a few movies."
    “But what if I’ve seen the movies?”
    “Well, you can put your clothes on and go home.”

  4. The right care can transform people’s last days
    SIR – George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, argues in his letter (November 26) that modern medicine enables us to assist people in what he calls “intolerable and persistent pain” to commit suicide easily and “painlessly”. But this is surely the wrong conclusion to draw from developments in medicine.
    In fact, such developments enable effective management of pain for those suffering from potentially terminal illnesses. Where necessary, sedation is always an option. Here the intention is not to kill but to relieve pain. Death may result, however, because of increasing amounts of sedatives required for relieving pain (the so-called double effect).
    Our research and medical resources should rather be focused on developing palliative care so that people’s last days are not lost days, but provide an opportunity for reflection, setting their affairs in order, reconciliation with estranged loved ones and preparing for a good death.
    The hospice movement is well-equipped to deliver just such a service. Let us (and the NHS) support it.
    Michael Nazir-Ali‹London SW1

    Michael Nazir-Ali should try to see if his (imaginary) dying relative could be accommodated in his nearest Hospice.
    My own late wife and I have in the past both volunteered at our local Hospice, which I happened to visit yesterday to buy Charity Christmas cards.
    The conditions for entry (IF they have room) are severe. And their largely charity-supported services will definitely be truncated by the recent Budget's demands for higher NI and lower thresholds for 'salaried staff'. Finally, if those who do get admitted to the Hospice really cannot bear to live and wish to be despatched, the staff are unable by law to comply. I despair.

    1. Morning RC. From my, admittedly cursory knowledge, of the subject Mr Nazir-Alli is wrong here. Some cases are beyond the ability of sedation to relieve.

    2. One of our neighbours is currently receiving end of life care at home with necessary equipment being delivered to his house. He and his wife are philosophical about it.

      1. Ndovu, they should consider themselves lucky.
        When my late wife was in her last months I tried to access Domestic Hospice Care ("Hospice at Home") but was told it was all used up, with a waiting list. The End-of-Life care we received was a "Just in Case" kit of Midazolam and Morphine ampoules plus the telephone number of the District Nurse Service who could be asked to attend swiftly if/when needed. After her death the remaining ampoules had to be returned to the Pharmacy and all had to be accounted for.

          1. Ndovu, So have we. Both of us had volunteered there in earlier years and I try to support it now.
            When my wife had a fall which fractured her femur, it was "repaired" at the hospital on the Kent coast which I will not name. That's the one which is in Special Measures at the moment. She was kept in an Acute Unit bed for 19 days because it was over Christmas and the New Year and they claimed that a Care Package could not be put in place. I organised a Hospital Bed straight away plus locating a Care Firm and a Private Physiotherapist at my own expense (Community Physios on a waiting list again) but still they would not release her into my care.
            DON'T go to Hospitals, they are full of sick people (and "sick" Administrators)

          1. During my wife's "End of Life", the Marie Curie Nurses were wonderful, rolling up at 9PM and reporting on her in writing every 30 minutes till 07:30 so that I could get a (relatively) good night's sleep. I continue to support them with grateful thanks and monthly donations.

  6. Morning everyone. Just catching up with yesterday’s papers as i am on public transport todsy. Here’s yesterday’s “Secret Prisoner”. – a column I enjoy.

    “The greatest punishment inflicted by a prison sentence is often not the sentence itself but the chain reaction that results from losing your income. The first consequence is debt, which leads quickly to rent and mortgage arrears, to account closures and, from there, to the loss of your home. Once you have lost a home, with your credit-worthiness indefinitely black-balled, you may well struggle to get a reliable residential address again.

    I could use myself as an example: less than a year ago, I was a pretty prosperous company boss employing five people. I am unrepresentative, and yet the better you are doing, the bigger the mortgage and the school fee payments, the faster and more spectacular your fall.

    Among the worst affected by being rendered homeless by prison are state pensioners in social housing. Once in prison, a pensioner stops receiving his state pension. Often the direct consequence for a single pensioner, whether in social housing or a private tenant, is the loss of his home within weeks. Local housing authorities have no interest in holding scarce and sought-after properties empty for convicted prisoners, whether or not they are retired; private landlords cannot afford leniency towards absent tenants.

    It took me several months in prison, and the loss of my own home, to realise that the prison crisis is directly connected to the housing crisis. There are other crises connected to prison – drugs, mental health and domestic abuse among them – but homelessness is the only one that is also a direct consequence of a prison sentence. And whether or not you believe that rehabilitation should be part of the experience, the word itself – so connected to habitation – means nothing once you have nowhere to live on the outside.
    Having said that, there are wasters in here who, even if they were perpetually rehoused on release by a Scandi-style socialist utopia, would still screw up.

    Compassionate as I try to be towards all prisoners, I have developed a particular dislike for feckless dads who moan about how much they miss their kids while inside but never put their children first on the outside.

    Once I had been in prison for six months myself, I began to notice familiar faces back inside who had been released over the summer. The giveaway was the tan.
    The other day, waiting in the meds queue, I received a matey slap on the shoulder from Ben, with whom I had been padded up for a week at the end of June, just prior to his release. Though relatively bronzed, he seemed positively delighted to be back inside, especially with winter ahead.
    Ben, mid-30s, is a former squaddie (Royal Engineers) who had run his own building business. A few years ago, he started smoking both crack and heroin. After leaving jail this summer, he was soon back to his old ways and had shoplifted, then been tracked by the police back to industrial shedding, where he had been sleeping for three weeks.

    In theory, prisoners are not supposed to be released without a housing plan. There are bail residences and approved premises for newly released prisoners. But I heard directly from a prison worker that she knew of prisoners who have even been given a tent and released onto a campsite.
    Commentators on the prisons crisis often complain that electronic tagging is not being used enough. But the point of tags is that they are supposed to tie the wearer to an approved address. No address, no electronic solution.

    Ben is not stupid, nor is he bad-looking, violent or antisocial. What he needs is release into a residential rehabilitation programme, but almost all of these, my prison psychologist assures me, have been scrapped.

    To Ben’s credit he has no kids and, sadly, finds it hard to conceive of ever securing a settled future. For the time being, with a warm cell, a TV and three square meals a day, he’s happy.

    An effective prison cannot exist, I would suggest, in a country with insufficient housing – especially insufficient social housing. As soon as homelessness is a direct consequence of prison, then prison becomes a de facto home – something to fall back on. And this winter, thousands will fall back on prison – and reoffend to get here.

    Because of the vagaries of prison communication, this is a change to the subject that was advertised last week. Next week, the Secret Prisoner writes about making friends inside.”

    1. This makes 2TK’s spiteful and heavy-handed jailing following Southport even more pernicious.

      1. This account reads as well as Jeffrey Archer's Prison Diaries, which informed, appalled and entertained me when I read them (twice).
        EDIT: Sorry, missed out his Lordship's title.

        1. I too have read the Prison Diaries trilogy several times,roughcommon. They are a real eye-opener.

    2. Morning MIR. I'm not surprised to learn that the Prison Service is as incompetently run as everything else.

    3. "……he seemed positively delighted to be back inside."

      Have any Nottlers come across the short stories of O Henry? My father introduced me to his stories when I was a boy and his story The Cop and the Anthem is about Soapy, a tramp who tries to make sure he spends the winter months in prison.

      The Gift of the Magi is another story well worth reading. O Henry spent some time in prison for embezzlement and it was in prison that he developed his talent for writing.

      1. Wow this has just taken me right down memory lane! My dear late Dad gave me a book of O’Henry short stories when I was quite young. I remember enjoying them very much. Never heard anyone else mention him in all these years, so thank you for bringing a happy memory and an unexpected smile to my face.

  8. Gareth Roberts
    The truth about Labour’s ‘class war’
    26 November 2024, 6:54am

    Keir Starmer’s critics might have you believe that the Labour government is fighting a class war. They point to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s crackdown on private schools and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s attack on farmers. These initiatives certainly don’t appear to be just about money: whacking VAT on school fees and hitting dead farmers with inheritance tax won’t raise much cash in the scheme of things. But they will inflict totally unnecessary amounts of pain. Their targets are, supposedly, people with cash to splash, on behalf of the needy.

    But hang on: look at this government closely and it’s obvious that ministers aren’t horny-handed sons of toil. Well, Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, perhaps, but that’s about it. Despite Starmer’s attempts to portray himself as the salt of the earth – I’m not sure, but I think his father may have been involved in some role on the supply side of manual labour – and Labour’s nebulously defined mantra of ‘working people’, the party have the look of the extras hired to portray Injury Lawyers 4U in their advertisements. Plus, they’re cosying up to Blackrock, so this clearly isn’t about a simple dislike of the filthy rich.

    In fact, Labour’s disastrous first few months in office don’t resemble a class war at all. It’s something much worse: a civil war, and not the one Elon Musk thinks is ‘inevitable’ in the UK. No, this one is between factions of the middle class. It’s the progressive public sector vs the conservative private sector, with everything and everybody else used either as materiel or as collateral.

    Despite what we’re constantly told, there is no hatred so deeply ingrained in this country as the hate felt by the public-sector middle class for the private-sector middle class. The progressives really, really loathe productive, aspirational people who have put a bit of money away. They view them as anti-social. Wouldn’t that money be better spent by government, the think, redistributed where it could do some good, for asylum hotels or foreign farmers maybe?

    You can see this hatred in popular culture; it’s no accident that villains like Mr Curry in Paddington, the Dursleys in Harry Potter, or Ian Beale in Eastenders all fall into a similar mould. For some Brits, there’s nothing worse than such upstart trash: pushy, ungenerous, suspicious, climbing and grasping. Not lovely kind welcoming folk like us.

    This hatred makes the purpose of Labour’s policies nakedly clear. They are there to indulge the spite and envy of the public-sector middle class, who regard family farmers and people who send their kids to fee-paying schools as the lowest of the low.

    When you’ve realised this, a whole lot of things suddenly become a lot clearer. For the culture war is a proxy battle of this civil war. It isn’t only Starmer who is up to these tricks, however; unfortunately the rot goes much deeper, as Jaguar’s disastrous rebrand showed.

    The carmaker, in a doomed bid to shake off its fuddy-duddy image and reach a younger market, has binned its iconic logo. The result is puerile. The advert doesn’t really tell you anything about Jaguar. Indeed, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Jaguar has decided to stop selling cars altogether, if its advert is anything to go on.

    But the trouble is that this is no accident. Jaguar’s advert is something of an elephant trap, set to goad and smoke out the ‘wrong’ kind of middle-class person, who inevitably reacts in horror, and cement the status of the liberal elite, who turn a blind eye. The consuming disdain is so strong that, in the case of Jaguar, it overrides little considerations such as the bottom line or making a return for shareholders. It’s more important to be nice, not to display ‘vile hatred’ in the words of Jaguar’s managing director.

    It can be a good life being a prop in this battle, and who can blame the actors and other creatives involved for making hay. Good luck to ‘em. But I wonder if, sometimes, in their quiet hours, the genuinely talented among these troops stop and think, ‘These people are not my friends. I am being used’.

    This is all quite funny on the surface level, but it has serious consequences. Because if you were planning to stoke division, exacerbate resentment, and ratchet up tensions in society, I can’t think of a better way of going about it. When the majority of the population are constantly made to think about identity, race and sexuality, constantly psyched into line and prodded by the self-aggrandising holy busybodies of the ‘nice’ progressive white middle class for their own status game, the appeal of what we call ‘populism’ increases.

    The ads and fads, and even Labour’s spiteful policies, are just background details, mopping up operations. The progressive middle class (and that includes a large chunk of the Conservative Party) have already accomplished their mission. They have done incredible, possibly irremediable damage to Britain. They’ve rubbished the social contract, tanked the economy, bashed apart the continuity of a culture going back centuries, and turned a blind eye to mass displays of antisemitic hatred. But, for some Labour types, these consequences are worth it if it makes those on the other side of the class divide squirm.

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

    Samuel Porteous
    a day ago edited
    A terrific piece; and it's worth noting that all this contagion of hyper-liberalist nonsense evolved away from the ballot box; there's never been a majority for it, it was never in any manifesto; -so we need to be asking why so many socially anxious middle-class folks found themselves fooled into believing "Pride month" was about celebrating difference, that Black Lives Matter was about equality, that DEI initiatives were about fairness etc. The fetishization of identity and ethnicity has wreaked havoc not just with the public discourse and every institution, but the whole concept of morality, placing burdens of guilt on vast swathes of the populous for merely thinking a certain way and valuing things their parents and grand-parents did. This pollution of virtually every segment of society happened despite there being no collective consciousness that it should; do they call this a cultural revolution?

    Unlikely Explanation Samuel Porteous
    20 hours ago edited
    Amazing piece, such clarity of thought!

    Oh, and Jaguar doesn't actually build cars at the moment. And given the backlash it may never again.

    Running Dog
    21 hours ago
    As someone who left school at 16 with next to no qualifications to become an apprentice plasterer 'bish bash bosh' and who now has a few bob in the bank I am well aware of way the Labour party and 'progressives feel about me and my kind. The feeling is very much reciprocated.

    Yossarian Running Dog
    19 hours ago
    Well said. The rubbishing of those who master a trade and do well out of building a business on the back of that is unforgivable. Blair suggesting that half of kids should go to university was always utter bollocks. You’ll know how tough it is now to recruit youngsters who’ll get out of bed and do a days work. It’s decimated the building industry trades resource.

    LindR
    a day ago
    Excellent article but there is an extra point to be made – our new Prime Minister ordered the police and judiciary to arrest and gaol friendless, white, working class people for reacting to the Southport Massacre. Only a few of them were actually violent but the police and judiciary obeyed. It's not just the private sector he detests.

    John Dawson
    21 hours ago
    That's a very well observed piece Gareth – thank you. I was naturally entrepreneurial (in my genes I presume) even at university and some 50 years ago went on to found a small (eventually ÂŁ10 million sales or thereabouts) electronics manufacturing business, which is still alive to this day. I don't think many people who work in the public sector will ever know the stresses that come with running a company, including the fact that your house is on the line should you not make the grade and having to make good people redundant when times are hard, due to events beyond your control.

    My late father in law was very high up in Customs and Excise and heavily involved with implementing VAT. He occasionally sat in Cabinet and off the record told me of the politics of envy that was part of the way the labour government of the day conducted its business. That's where the 25% VAT rate on "luxury goods" came from. When you broke it down we ended up paying 8% on some parts ("professional") and 25% on others ("consumer") that all went into the same product. You couldn't make it up.

    I think envy/jealousy and virtue signalling to one's "tribe" is at the root of today's toxic politics – it's never gone away and is actually now more overt.

    1. That's a pretty good insight. Private sector generates the actual wealth though – something often forgotten by those luvvly suckers on the free money teat.

    2. I think that deep down the progressive middle classes know that as they produce nothing, and are reliant on the private sector for everything, they have a deep seated inferiority complex. Envy and spite result.

    3. I know all about the stress of making a business work and your house being on the line. Fortunately for us, it worked out okay in the end.

  9. Good morning all. 20 past 7 and it looks as if it isn't even trying to get light!
    Just think, if we'd not gone back to our normal, GMT, time, it would be 20 past eight!
    Steady rain with a tad above -1°C on the Yard thermometer.

    I don't think I'll be rushing into Belper this morning.

      1. Ah! But then you get sunrise a bit earlier than us!
        Or then again, you would if you were at the same latitude!

          1. What a lovely looking cat. I have no idea why but our Lab Poppy, two a few weeks ago, has an inbuilt hatred of cats. It's quite irrational as we have done nothing to encourage such a reaction. A few days ago she came across a ginger Tom under a hedge. In a split second she went into attack mode. Fortunately she was on the lead at the time, and so avoided a scratched nose or worse. This might have taught her a valuable lesson!

            Manners – 'Morning N.

          3. She’s gorgeous and so is Ziggy. They needed a home just over a year ago so as we’d recently lost Lily we were able to offer them ours. They soon took over.

    3. 'Morning, BoB. Don't despair – the Winter Solstice takes place at 9.19am on the 21st of December, so three weeks (and one day) to the longest night/shortest day.

      1. Grizzly would disagree with you, Hugh J, explaining that all days are of 24 hours' duration. It is the daylight hours which decrease until December the 21st and then begin to increase in length.

    1. Cannot access X these days, as the original login has been replaced by a flashing page. Goodbye X.

          1. I don't post much there or stay more than a couple of minutes but it's a good place to leave a pithy comment on a good post.

    2. First rate elucidation of the falsified carbon crisis. Who gains from this pseudo-scientific nonsense?

        1. That is why he was kicked out all those years ago. They do not like an honest scientist. That sort of thing curtails the hysterical (and very lucrative) activism.

          2. He has certainly been airbrushed from their official history. I'm not 100% sure whether he jumped or was pushed in the first instance, but he has made plenty of passionate videos explaining why their trajectory became incompatible with his measured scientific approach and the original purpose of the movement.

  14. Rod Liddle
    I made the mistake of reading a book that won the Booker Prize
    26 November 2024, 4:31pm

    I've just broken one of my own golden rules – never buy a book that has won the Booker Prize, because it will be crap. So I have only myself to blame. The rule of mine has held reasonably true, with a few exceptions, since the wonderful David Storey won it in 1976 for Saville.

    The committee, whoever is on it, will always choose a book which accords with their asinine political beliefs, especially if it is a ‘warning’ kind of a book. It never used to be quite like that, but that’s how literature is these days. Write a book from a perspective unloved by the metro chattering class and you’ll be lucky to be published, never mind awarded a prize. And so, last year, it was Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, in which a horrible right-wing government takes over in Ireland and starts carting people away. If only. And this year, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, which is set on the space station but is really about the state of our planet and global warming, natch.

    I don’t remotely object to writers concerning themselves with global warming: I think they should. But is it really the only thing to write about? Anyway, I read Orbital and thought it very underwhelming. As a philosophical discourse it seemed shallow. As a story it didn’t really exist. Nothing happens, apart from the earth suffering a typhoon down beneath. There were so many indecipherable word salads that I was tempted to give up. It was repetitious and not, like David Peace (and before him Gordon Burn) in a good way. At one point I thought I was reading Alain Robbe-Grillet. It’s not Ms Harvey’s fault, really. She tried. And the idea was I think a good one. But isn’t this why ‘serious’ novels generally do not sell well? The self-indulgence, the obsessiveness, the remoteness from the rest of us?

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

    Finknottle
    15 hours ago
    I put Booker prize winning novels into the same category as the films of Ken Loach. They will be championed by the earnest critics of the Guardian and elsewhere, whilst the book sales and box office receipts would suggest they're less of a hit with punters who seem to opt for a bit of entertainment, diversion or escapism rather than being hit repeatedly in the face with some clunking social-justice sermon.

    My suspicion is that the "enjoyment" doesn't come from reading the book or watching the film itself, so much as being able to tell everyone, "Have you seen the new Ken Loach movie? Jocasta and I saw it yesterday at the Everyman, it's a searing indictment of … (insert cause-du-jour) …. and a story that really needs telling".

    I rather suspect it is the same with Veganism. The ability to tell people that you're vegan is 90% of the appeal.

    If, somehow, conversation about one's dietary choices and viewing and reading habits was banned, I think chickpea and quinoa sales would fall through the floor, and Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and the carnival of Booker prize worthies would be looking for a new job.

    1. I have never knowingly read any Booker Prize entrant. The cover usually tells you everything you need to know.

      4. I have read the novels of Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro both of whom won a Booker prize and both of whom went to the Creative Writing Course started by Angus Wilson and Malcolm Bradbury at UEA in 1970. Another Booker Prize winner from UEA was Anne Enright but I have not read any of her books.

        A certain level of pretentiousness is essential if you want to win literary prizes!

        1. Hilary Mantel won twice. I did read the first two of the trilogy but not the last one. The dramatisation seems to be getting good reviews.

          1. It's the pretentious use of the present historic that gets so wearing.
            Shame, because the story and the premise behind the books is a good one.
            I do think, however, for a better feel for that whole period, C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake books are better.
            He managed the incredibly difficult feat of using language that sounds authentic but not the dreaded "pish tushery". You are in a different era, but without needing a glossary or feeling you are being force fed history.

          2. I read the first one and I have the second (but haven't summoned up enough energy to tackle it yet). I don't like her writing, to be honest.

    2. I go further than that; if it has one of those stickers on it saying "shortlisted/longlisted for the Booker Prize" I avoid it. Actually, I avoid pretty much everything published since about 2016. Even longstanding favourite authors have been drawn into the net of political correctness by publishers. I just don't want to read it any more.
      Fortunately there are many second hand books I haven't read yet…

  15. Reeves Claims She Was An “Economist” at HBOS To Schools Charity

    Reeves’ team has been working hard at quietly editing her career history at HBOS ever since Guido exposed she wasn’t an ‘economist’ there, rather she worked in the complaints team. First her LinkedIn was changed, then her biography in The Times Guide to the House of Commons. Meanwhile, she ditched her previously much-loved line of ‘I worked as an economist’ at her CBI appearance yesterday


    One Reeves profile remains a lesson in revisionism. On Speakers for Schools’ website – a charity “dedicated to improving social mobility, offering young people free access to inspiring talks and work experience” – Reeves’ current bio states: “Rachel spent her professional career as an economist working for the Bank of England, the British Embassy in Washington and at Halifax Bank of Scotland.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a01f63155686238dff400ad27bf73c73f952b0b40051125fd7e1e79762c1fd38.png

    Presumably her team haven’t got around to updating this one yet


    26 November 2024 @ 17:15

    2. It will never appear on The Archers. It is a propaganda programme for the Bullshit Broadcasting Comrades. The truth is banned, taboo, verboten.

  18. 397477+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Try out your boycotting strength next shopping trip, in reality a good resounding breaking of wind showed appreciation as an after dinner gesture, NOW it is to be feared by the weak of mindset brigade as a wind of change, for the worse.

    Peoples boycotting power works and hurts to such an extent, you could end up with a farting cow deli.

    https://x.com/SandraWeeden/status/1861652780173209713

    1. This is why I have cultivated links to farmers and small businesses where I have personal connections to ask what is in the food chain!
      Blithely consuming stuff contaminated with additives funded by a known Malthusian would seem to be a little rash.

    2. Arla Foods Group is a Danish-Swedish multinational co-operative based in Viby, Denmark. It is the fifth biggest dairy company in the world and the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia and United Kingdom.
      Arla is the largest supplier of fresh milk and cream in the United Kingdom, producing over 2.2 billion litres of milk per year.
      As of August 2015, farmers were paid less per pint of milk by Arla than by supermarkets that buy directly.

      Why are British farmers under the control of a foreign company?

  19. 397477+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Try out your boycotting strength next shopping trip, in reality a good resounding breaking of wind showed appreciation as an after dinner gesture, NOW it is to be feared by the weak of mindset brigade as a wind of change, for the worse.

    Peoples boycotting power works and hurts to such an extent, you could end up with a farting cow deli.

    https://x.com/SandraWeeden/status/1861652780173209713

      1. Wasn't there a line about "life has just begun" by putting a gun against his head and shooting him dead?

  22. BTL Comment:-

    "The NHS is in this condition because of the policies of successive governments" Writes Geoff Smith.
    Well, yes, but only partially true.
    It is the upper echelons of NHS Management who have created this problem by diverting "resources" (aka money taken from the pockets of the Poor Bloody Taxpayer) into other fields such as DIE and permitted to do so by Government without the courage to clean out the Augean Stables that those upper echelons have become.

    1. About ten or so years ago I use to go to Spire in Harpenden for some NHS referrals. And the large carpark was always almost empty. The staff were few and far between and there were no obvious queues to see specialist's.
      But now the carpark is always rammed and consequently the departments are filled with patients and staff.
      So many professionals have skipped out of their NHS commitments, it's taken a huge toll on much needed treatment.
      After 10 years of promises for knee surgery I'm still waiting and still being fobbed off by the NHS.

      1. I am in the process of having knee surgery. I have been hobbling around for just over a year with a torn cartilage – incident with a very agile puppy – which our gp told me 'might knit together given time'. It didn't. It has slowly got worse. I had a private MRI scan (eventually, third time lucky, the machine had broken down for the first two attempts in Milton Keynes 45 miles away – I did get travelling expenses refunded, ÂŁ80) which did indeed reveal a torn left knee cartilage. I had a six weeks' wait to see a consultant at the Spire Lea hospital in Cambridge last week. I have been given an appointment date of 7 January to have my knee sorted. I was told I would arrive for 7.00 am and walk out at 11.00 am without crutches. Magic!! It is my first brush with anything involving a general anaesthetic. Only childbirth has seen me in hospital.

        The large carpark at the Spire Lea hospital, Impington, Cambridge was indeed full to overflowing. Inside it was just as busy as any nhs department, very ordinary people arriving and leaving all the time, long queues for the coffee machine.

        The sum total of scan, first consultation and operation – a few ÂŁs short of ÂŁ6,000.

        Expensive doggo.

        1. My problem is over 30 years old now.
          The specialist’s at Spire told me years ago that I needed the operation. Partial rebuilding.
          All the NHS has done is continually fobb me off.

          1. NHS continually fobs patients off, in the hope that they will FOAD before they get to the top of the list.
            Have you considered (weather permitting) of going to France, then buying a rubber dingy to get back (Having first posted your passport back home)? You'll soon be accessing private healthcare with no waiting lists and at no cost to you…… apart from via the taxes you have paid over the years.

        2. My problem is over 30 years old now.
          The specialist’s at Spire told me years ago that I needed the operation. Partial rebuilding.
          All the NHS has done is continually fobb me off.

        3. At the Spire Cambridge Lea, patients & visitors now have to enter their car registration at reception, in an attempt to stop other people parking there to go into the city. It has helped somewhat, but is still too busy. The car park at the other private hospital on Trumpington Road is similarly small.
          The private hospital in Peterborough used to be fine for parking – until Ramsay health took over some years ago and started offering NHS appointments. Quite often, patients & visitors have to park on residential streets close by.

          1. That is correct, I indeed had to enter our car’s registration number at reception (for a few seconds I had no idea what it was, I was completely blank, it is not something I have purposely memorised.

            Something like 80,000 cars chasing 25,000 available spaces daily in and around the city.

      2. Try Lithuania for treatment, half the cost, treble the care. I have had two knee replacements, painful recovery, but worth the effort.

  23. Jobseekers are being put off by the soul-destroying recruitment process

    We have been red taped and taxed out of employing and being employed

    1. Given how expensive it is to employ – let alone get rid of the clunkers – I have some sympathy with all these fatuous tests.

      1. It begs the question – what is the point of your average clunker getting out of bed and "actively seeking work"?

          1. We actually interviewed a few of them. They were obviously gaming the system by merely turning up.

    2. I guess the point is, if you're going to have to employ people and follow the strict protocol you need to make sure they are worth it.

    3. They are obviously 'Flying People' but their aircaft will not work, as they will not use their Cockpit

      1. I wish. Reduced to a lake today. Some natural brownies but mainly stocked (obviously) rainbows. I know, I know. Rivers are over the bank and the sea is mucky still from the storms.

        1. Yes, of course rivers are unfishable. I should have thought. My 'home' river is and will be for at least another week – and that assumes there's no more rain. Anyway, tight lines.

          1. I caught one very decent rainbow trout and my two accomplices had just one between them. Cold it was and the trout didn’t want to play. Both fish were released.

  27. Đ”ĐŸĐ±Ń€ĐŸĐ” ŃƒŃ‚Ń€ĐŸ, Ń‚ĐŸĐČарощо,

    Dreich at Tighe-McPhee and staying that way, wind North, 4-5℃ max.

    Dr Neema Parvini, aka the Academic Agent, thinks that Nigel Farage has gone walkabout and is not the Great Caesar we are waiting for. He's probably been nobbled, or he never was, or he 's an establishment safety valve deliberately planted to give some of us hope for a future overturning of the system.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L271PUvBnVo

    What do others think?

      1. The enemy may have plans or, more accurately, may have been given plans not to hold another election.

    2. He has always been ready to jump in and make his points. But has never really followed anything through with actions. Remember somehow the wheel nuts were close to coming off his car once……

    3. Well if one were worried that Mr Farage would continue to gain a multitude of voters for the Reform Party one would take even the tiniest opportunity to bad mouth him…..

      Morning Fiscal and all.

    5. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff
      [Mark Antony in Julius Caesar]

      When the chips are down Farage goes for mashed potato!

      His backbone is more like rubber than steel.

  28. Morning all 🙂😊
    More rain and very cold.
    I see someone in the UK has won 177 plus millions in last nights euro millions.
    It must be a very scary thing to have happen.

  29. Good Moaning.
    Like most NOTTLers, I have been around long enough to know something about the depths of cruelty and stupidity to which human beings can descend.
    However, this is case reported in the DM is astounding.

    "A mother who hid her baby girl in a drawer to keep her a secret from her partner and other children for three years has been jailed.

    The little girl had 'never known daylight or fresh air' until she was found weeks before her third birthday by the woman's partner when he returned to the house one morning to use the toilet after the mother had left, Chester Crown Court heard.

    The toddler, who had been fed milky Weetabix via a syringe, was so severely malnourished that she had the appearance of a seven-month-old infant.

    She had been left to 'fend for herself' without food for long periods of time, and did not respond to her own name. She was found with matted hair, deformities, rashes, a cleft pallet and other medical issues for which her mother had not sought out medical advice or care.

    She was left alone when her mother stayed with relatives at Christmas, and had never been given a birthday or Christmas present.

    The mother admitted child cruelty and was jailed for seven-and-a-half years."

    2. Good morning Anne ,

      Again, how did a child with a cleft lip and other deformities slip under the radar of health visitors and social services ..

      Where and how was the child born , seems like a very strange case, the parents also had other children , a cleft lip would have been spotted and monitored from birth , where were the family doctors, nurses etc…

      How can this happen today in the UK.

      Ah yes , I know .. yep I must remove my rose tinted glasses ..

    3. Yo anne

      The answer is simple, they treat her in prison EXACTLY the same as she treated her child.
      Solitary confinement,
      Fed fed on Wetabix,
      No health car care,
      No visitors
      No TV, radio, newspapers

      QED

    4. There is a Classic Age sitcom going around the repeat channels, where a staple gag during the entire series was this neurotic receptionist who kept her child in a drawer behind the counter. Whilst the police often came to sort out calamities at that leisure centre, I don't recall the SS turning up to do the receptionist for child abuse.

      1. I thought that.
        "Imperfect" child. Hidden away out of embarrassment and/or the result of inbreeding.
        Thought the mention of 'current' partners suggest she did not come from a peaceful community.

    6. Very strange and hard to imagine circumstances.
      I'm not sure jailing the mother is the best solution. Assited Education and attentive care might have been more useful.

        1. A 'rota' of inseminators might have helped.
          Plus children adapt to circumstances; they know no better.

        2. Babies who are left alone and given no nurturing quickly stop crying because there is never any response. Such cruelties were seen in the unfortunate babies & children in those Romanian orphanages many years ago.
          But, even so, it is odd that nobody responded to new-born baby cries, which would take some days/weeks to cease.

  30. Labour has just let slip the true cost of net zero

    The country that birthed the industrial revolution now has the world’s highest electricity prices and only the ghost of an industrial sector

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/11/26/TELEMMGLPICT000402239539_17326469008350_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqYHaHRqZzVuMJAn8HN8r1s4O2JF_w593QGlWaWVZxraI.jpeg?imwidth=680

    Annabel Denham Columnist and Deputy Comment Editor
    26 November 2024 6:21pm GMT

    Les jeux sont faits, Ed Miliband. The chips are down, the game is up. We knew Labour was no closer to solving the energy trilemma than scientists are to explaining dark matter. That, for now, we cannot have net-zero emissions, security of supply and affordability. We knew that using public money to import gas to manufacture CO2 was less a display of moral leadership on climate change than it was brazen hypocrisy.

    Perhaps most importantly, we knew that the pursuit of net-zero policies, regardless of cost, would impact our lives in ways the gentleman in Whitehall could not possibly foresee. It already is, as anyone who has driven into a clean air zone can attest. Yet the ruling class insisted on living in some alternate reality where there were no trade-offs; just cheap, abundant, secure renewables.

    So we should thank Bill Esterson, Labour chair of the Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, for letting the cat out of the bag. “We will all have to change our lives” if we are to decarbonise the grid by 2030, he has just admitted. Keir Starmer is offering no such candour; at Cop29, the climate jamboree many world leaders had the good sense to snub, the Prime Minister not only set us another target (an 81 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035), but peddled the line that he “won’t be telling people how to behave”.

    This will surely only be true in the most literal sense. Impose congestion charges in British cities, and people might be forced to travel by other means, or not at all. Foist mandates on car manufacturers to sell a certain number of EVs on penalty of hefty fines, and they may be forced to cut sales of petrol vehicles, pushing prices up and consumers out. Introduce green levies on energy bills – they now make up 16 per cent of electricity bills – and households will have to cut spending elsewhere. Did the Government “tell” us to change our behaviour? No, it just left us with no alternative.

    And we are only in the foothills of the transition. Yes, the UK last year became the first country to halve its emissions since 1990 – a milestone about which the eco-zealots remained surprisingly quiet. But this was achieved by accelerating existing trends, such as abandoning much domestic production, and we could rely on renewables because fossil fuels were there to provide baseload power. The next half will be far more painful – though the climate cult will likely dismiss such concerns, insisting that clean energy sources are low cost and jobs will be provided aplenty.

    Clearly, when wind turbines are running the marginal cost of energy produced is close to zero, whilst energy produced by gas has a positive marginal cost because we have to purchase the fuel. But gas-fired power stations are easy to build and link to the grid. Wind turbines, on the other hand, are costly to install and maintain, especially offshore. They don’t have a long life, are in places far from population centres, and are expensive to link to the grid. They also need backup when the wind doesn’t blow, or if it blows too hard. But these issues are hidden by government subsidy and delusional eco-hype.

    Yet the Tories are hardly in a position to challenge it – assuming they want to. The timetable they set for the transition to clean energy was excessively ambitious. They did nothing about the 2008 Climate Change Act, failed to dismantle the supposedly independent Climate Change Committee, and enshrined the Net Zero by 2050 target in law. As a result, the country that birthed the industrial revolution, and created the oil refineries and steelworks that transformed people’s lives, now has the world’s highest electricity prices – and only the ghost of an industrial sector.

    Some 199 years ago, the first steam locomotive carried passengers in the North East. Why did this breakthrough happen on our small island? For the same reason we pioneered large factories, mass electrification and gas for cooking: because we had cheap energy. No country in the world has ever prospered without it. That Labour fails to accept this is as alarming as its belief you can grow an economy by lavishing money on the public sector. It is making us poorer by the day, telling us we’re imagining it – and then giving an exasperated sigh when we complain.

    “The clean energy transition is unstoppable,” said the fanatical Miliband yesterday, as Vauxhall announced the closure of its Luton factory. “Unstoppable because clean energy is the route to energy security. Unstoppable because it is the economic opportunity of our time.” A noble lie is still a lie.

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

    13 hrs ago

    Milliband should be sectioned, he's a danger to himself and others.

    2. The old galvanised ash bucket we used for the ashes from our open fire became rusty and full of holes , so I bought a replacement yesterday from the most amazing den of hardware ,it is a proper ironmongers in Wareham ..

      It really is dark, full of things that only men who know their craft, those who require stuff , and loads of strange looking tools that are probably now part of long lost trades .

      They stock most things , and the ash buckets were suspended from the ceiling , wooden handle etc

      It really is a little place worth visiting for a nose around .. I think it used to be an old forge once , Wareham has many surprises , and that is one of them .

      Moh was playing golf , so that bucket was on my shopping list .. it was a lovely afternoon.

      Today is dark miserable 6c, and Moh golfing again .. He arrived home yesterday afternoon splattered in mud, kit washed and dried last night to be worn today!

      3. My dear old dad used a local ironmongers & hardware store in the 1960s & 70s – it was a treasure trove of just about anything a DIY enthusiast could want.
        When we moved to this area well over 30 years ago, we discovered a similar, independent, family owned place. It is still thriving, and the staff are so knowledgeable.

      4. We used to have one like that in Shrewsbury. It closed down about five years ago and there is nothing like it anywhere to replace it. Wareham is a long way to go for an ash bucket!

  32. Remix News & Views
    @RMXnews
    BREAKING: A German man, Paul S., was hit with a €5,000 fine for calling a judge "obviously mentally disturbed."

    Judge issued no jail time to a 30-year-old Syrian migrant who raped a 15-year-old German girl.
    However, slapped "Paul S" with a €5,000 fine for calling him "obviously mentally disturbed.." when he sent an email to the judge complaining about the sentence, he was convicted and hit with nearly double the fine as the migrant rapist.

    The Wiesbaden district court judge told the migrant during the trial: "You are well on your way to becoming a completely normal citizen here."

    That last sentence thrills the residents of OsnabrĂŒck.

  33. Yo and good day, from a cold, wet, soggy Costa del Skeg

    The Refuse Disposal Technitions have just been" it was too cold to open the curtains, to check if they are still wearing shorts…..

  34. The ludicrous COP 29 hot air emissions party – held in oil rich Azerbaijan – is over, and now that the dust has settled and all the inane emissions dissipated over the desert, Demosthenes examines the lies, fatuousness and corruption underneath it all in his article COP It Like It’s Hot .

    And o n this page today we are asking readers to vote on whether or not they support the police. Please vote above.

    If you have not already done so, please sign the petition to parliament calling for a new general election At 0800 this morning it had attracted 2,750,970 signatures, up almost 200,000 since 08:00 yesterday. It is not going to result in a new election, but it is highly embarrassing for the Labour tin pot tyrants, and might encourage more to cross over into the resistance. Please sign by following this link .

    Energy Watch: Demand at 0800: 40.877 GW. Supply: Hydrocarbon = 50.3%; Renewables = 23%; Nuclear = 7.2%; Biomass = 7.7% and Imports 8.7%.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

  35. The Met Office has urged people to read the fine print of yellow weather warnings to check whether they are at risk ahead of Storm Conall.

    Yellow weather warnings for rain were in place across London and the south of England on Tuesday night and Wednesday, indicating travel disruption, possible power cuts and the likelihood of flooding to “a few homes”.

    “This area of low pressure brings rain to southern Britain tonight and deepens further after crossing the UK to bring strong winds across the Netherlands later on Wednesday and into Thursday,” the Met Office said.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/26/check-weather-warnings-storm-alerts-conall-met-office/

    Talking about the weather .. sudden squalls can cause more damage than a weather warning . Shouldn't people look at the clouds , direction of the wind , humidity , drop in pressure , temperature ..

    https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/028beb887cf7d3d200b07231a3c844776dcc45db26c1b90ae0fa85c55dde78e4.jpg The weather stations as they used to be .

    3. Its just strong winds and heavy rain what is all the fuss about. Its all normal weather.

        1. Just the ongoing ‘let’s scare everyone to death’ campaign. To ‘Save our NHS’ from patients.

  36. Ndovu, they should consider themselves lucky.
    When my late wife was in her last months I tried to access Domestic Hospice Care ("Hospice at Home") but was told it was all used up, with a waiting list. The End-of-Life care we received was a "Just in Case" kit of Midazolam and Morphine ampoules plus the telephone number of the District Nurse Service who could be asked to attend swiftly if/when needed. After her death the remaining ampoules had to be returned to the Pharmacy and all had to be accounted for.

  38. 397477+ up ticks,

    Could we try using an old remedy, remember common sense ?

    Blanking Morrisons, Aldi, etc,etc, for one shopping day, by a million peoples nationwide is seriously felt at the check-outs and can only benefit the herd overall.

    The majority on ALL odious issues are being controlled by an odiously small minority, WHY.

    1. Convenience….
      Most Britons would put their heads in a noose if it would save them a few seconds or a ha'penny.

      1. 397477+ up ticks,

        Afternoon BB2,
        The majority voter has gone too far this time with fatal consequences, for both person and country.

          1. 397477+ up ticks,

            if left too late, like very shortly, it will all be explained five times a day at mosque attendance.

  39. A 'rota' of inseminators might have helped.
    Plus children adapt to circumstances; they know no better.

  40. Belated Morning All
    Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16a12d9e69c77d4eacaabd36ba25792a520caf662cf54196ab1234fefa94a71c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b37ae82a2d829eaa8e728b5ea48315749a2dad069da91739df5d971d80b5506.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08e5cd89957f0094d37527b3e67764b24dcf0906b2a8e070b42c56f04c316b06.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a42bc54370386ca6dec432bfe83f0b55909e11ce8f94608a896cc3de46fe0499.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d2f91e335c4175bf06900dd9d2338d901f5949e683b495184ebae9af4abc72a9.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/deac82cd05bcd84d06dc790b47fe4005b770daed616edeefb1971c725402492b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f51052b34b387de0c2ba762dc2d69ff1a13150db06bd3fee9e3e050c578931b3.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d2a51752fd8cd21304a380d8be91b53da30ce1f76b637aa9edaf9faafd3ca7f.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/baf2a300948d9c77a6857d1887cf33b822f9d0763481154cc3a633341f5963d2.png

    3. I've donated to goods to Sally Army. They don't appear to be Woke as of yet. Probably are on a management level. Barnardo's seem OK.

      Stay away from Oxfam.

    4. I think you'll find they help the "refugees". They certainly included a begging letter from the RNLI in their request for money which I received a couple of days ago.

        1. Now now, you’ll get a medal for that. Wasn’t it William Sitwell or Quentin Letts, one of the two, who got a temporary cancellation for saying the same thing?

    4. I bought a birthday card once with a cartoon of a cow floating in mid-air and her friend down in the field telling her to stop worring about the pollution and just fart dear. It was sent to a friend who got the joke and I've never been able to find it again either in-store or online.

    5. I buy Arla goats milk and lactose free milk.
      Better stock up on lactase tablets and buy direct from the farm.

    2. I totally get it.
      Like Starmer she can hardly say
      "Our Long March to destroy Western Civilisation has been temporarily thwarted.. stay strong.. we'll bring it down next time. We still have control over the children. In the meantime don't let up on the insults. They're lidderally Hitler committing genocide. I'll stick to meaningless positive slogans."

    3. I totally get it.
      Like Starmer she can hardly say
      "Our Long March to destroy Western Civilisation has been temporarily thwarted.. stay strong.. we'll bring it down next time. We still have control over the children. In the meantime don't let up on the insults. They're lidderally Hitler committing genocide. I'll stick to meaningless positive slogans."

      1. Wow. Are you going around naked until Sunday? 😅😅😅. Don’t know what you’ve done Rik but it sounds painful. Alf has broken two toes. RSCH A&E yesterday for 7 hours rather than SPH. Very wearying day. He broke them coz he got up for the loo in the night then kicked the door and, to top it all, fell over. Lucky he didn’t crash through the banisters at the top of the stairs. Bang on the head as well. So CT scan and X-rays.

        Then we were up early (for us) this morning to take son and daughter in law to Heathrow.

        2. Good grief, what a horrid accident. I hope he heals soon.
          A few years ago, I caught my big toe on a door, but couldn't drive myself to A&E or minor injuries because MH was out for the day. It turned out that I had torn the tendons, and have never fully regained function on that foot.

          1. It was amazing the number of foot injured who turned up at the hospital, I’d say about half a dozen.

        3. Good grief, what a horrid accident. I hope he heals soon.
          A few years ago, I caught my big toe on a door, but couldn't drive myself to A&E or minor injuries because MH was out for the day. It turned out that I had torn the tendons, and have never fully regained function on that foot.

      1. The gas comes from the fermentation of the feed inside the cow.
        To stop the gas, you have to stop the fermentation or capture the gas chemically and bind it to something.
        Either way, I don't a)think it's a problem, or b) want to go there.

        1. I don't care. It's completely unnecessary. It's being pushed by Gates.
          I'll wait and see whether it's got any harmful effects before I take part in another of Gates' mass medicating experiments.

          1. It’s unnecessary, and I fear that the law of (unintended?) consequences kicks in and the cattle starve to death.

      2. The gas comes from the fermentation of the feed inside the cow.
        To stop the gas, you have to stop the fermentation or capture the gas chemically and bind it to something.
        Either way, I don't a)think it's a problem, or b) want to go there.

        1. It certainly is. I cannot understand why he is able to walk around, why he hasn’t been arrested. It demonstrates how deep and wide the corruption is in our society. Blair “we have got our people in place in all the institutions in society”.

          1. He certainly has. His website TB Institute makes it quite clear he wants to influence future generations, young activists. He never went away.

    2. "emissions are natural, don't you fart when you eat your beans?" They do, but it's OK when they do it. They want to get rid of us. Neo-Malthusians.

      1. Whoops that was suposed to be a reply to Lisa on X
        Problem is I can't open the comments from X anymore on my PC.

  48. Mauritian Prime Minister Pours Cold Water on Chagos Deal

    Mauritius’s new Prime Minister, Navinchandra Ramgoolam, has said he has serious reservations about the Chagos deal. Just weeks into office, Ramgoolam has yet to outline specifics, but said he “wished to have more time to study the details with a panel of legal advisers“. National security adviser Johnathan Powell’s visit didn’t go as planned, then


    During his campaign, Ramgoolam slammed the timing of the deal, finalised barely a month before the election, calling it a desperate “sell-out” by former PM Jugnauth, accusing Jugnauth of “high treason”. The Chagossians oppose it, Trump’s camp is against it, and now even Mauritius is hesitating. Looks like Starmer’s the only one still cheering for the hand-over


    27 November 2024 @ 10:18

    1. Shame on James Cleverly & The Tottenham Turnip. Shame on the UniParty.

      Still.. plenty of other assets to give away.
      Don't forget.. once you give it away, you cant get it back.

    2. Unlike Starmer, Mauritius will no doubt have already worked out that a new President coming to the Whitehouse in 2025 might have some significant impact upon their relationship with Uncle Sam.

      See The Borgen Project article “How the U.S. Benefits from Foreign Aid to Mauritius”.

      Political and Maritime security are essential there.

  49. Mauritian Prime Minister Pours Cold Water on Chagos Deal

    Mauritius’s new Prime Minister, Navinchandra Ramgoolam, has said he has serious reservations about the Chagos deal. Just weeks into office, Ramgoolam has yet to outline specifics, but said he “wished to have more time to study the details with a panel of legal advisers“. National security adviser Johnathan Powell’s visit didn’t go as planned, then


    During his campaign, Ramgoolam slammed the timing of the deal, finalised barely a month before the election, calling it a desperate “sell-out” by former PM Jugnauth, accusing Jugnauth of “high treason”. The Chagossians oppose it, Trump’s camp is against it, and now even Mauritius is hesitating. Looks like Starmer’s the only one still cheering for the hand-over


    27 November 2024 @ 10:18

    1. Goes some way to explaining the "black hole". The Zoom meeting is taking a break, so I'm back for 5 mins.

  52. Ref the cattle-feed additive, Chat GPT came with this:
    Bovaer is a cattle feed additive developed by DSM that is designed to significantly reduce methane emissions from cows. The active ingredient in Bovaer is 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP), a synthetic compound that targets the methane-producing microbes (methanogens) in the cow’s rumen.

    How Bovaer Works:
    Cows produce methane as part of their natural digestion process, particularly in the rumen where microbes break down food.
    3-NOP inhibits a specific enzyme called methyl-coenzyme M reductase (MCR), which is essential for the final step of methane synthesis in methanogens.
    By suppressing this enzyme, Bovaer reduces methane production by up to 30-80% (depending on the dose and diet).
    Composition:
    Active Ingredient: 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP)
    Inert Carriers: To ensure stability and ease of mixing with cattle feed, it may include stabilizers or binders (depending on formulation and manufacturer specifications).
    Environmental Impact:
    The use of Bovaer has been shown to reduce methane emissions within hours of ingestion, making it an effective tool for mitigating the environmental impact of livestock farming.
    The additive has been approved for use in several regions, including the European Union, Brazil, and Australia, and is gaining traction globally as a sustainable solution for the agriculture sector.

    1. Frightening what these people are up to. We buy our meat from a butcher in Dundee and have it shipped. I do not need to ask them what they think about this.

      1. All our beef is grass-fed here, and our pigs are not injected full of chemicals like the Danes do.

    2. Frightening what these people are up to. We buy our meat from a butcher in Dundee and have it shipped. I do not need to ask them what they think about this.

    3. Safety of BovaerÂź
      As a retired Food Additives Safety Toxicologist (among other things) I used Google Scholar to look up the Legislative studies on the safety of BovaerÂź. Here is the link to the report if you are interested:

      https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6905

      A bit worrying are the last three sentences of the Abstract: (especially my emboldening):

      As the genotoxicity of 3-NOP is not completely elucidated, the exposure through inhalation of the additive may represent an additional risk for the user [i.e. the farmer]. The Panel concluded that the additive has a potential to be efficacious in dairy cows to reduce enteric methane production under the proposed conditions of use. This conclusion was extrapolated to all other ruminants for milk production and reproduction.

    4. Safety of BovaerÂź
      As a retired Food Additives Safety Toxicologist (among other things) I used Google Scholar to look up the Legislative studies on the safety of BovaerÂź. Here is the link to the report if you are interested:

      https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6905

      A bit worrying are the last three sentences of the Abstract: (especially my emboldening):

      As the genotoxicity of 3-NOP is not completely elucidated, the exposure through inhalation of the additive may represent an additional risk for the user [i.e. the farmer]. The Panel concluded that the additive has a potential to be efficacious in dairy cows to reduce enteric methane production under the proposed conditions of use. This conclusion was extrapolated to all other ruminants for milk production and reproduction.

  53. Sign in: I am not a robber. I tell it that every day!
    Wordle 1,257 5/6

    đŸŸ©âŹœâŹœâŹœâŹœ
    đŸŸ©âŹœâŹœâŹœâŹœ
    đŸŸ©âŹœđŸŸ©âŹœâŹœ
    đŸŸ©âŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœ
    đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    1. Chlamydia is a common complaint amongst both sexes .. Men and grubby foreskins and women with many partners .. It is an STD .. Women 's chances of conceiving are narrowed down because of the effect of infection of the fallopian tubes ..

      STD infections are everywhere now , and are affecting middle aged people who discover viagra enhances the sex experience ..

      Women/ divorced or what ever who clear off on holiday to the Gambia / Kenya .. Women and men who forget themselves wherever they go, including cruises are regretting their lack of integrity .

  60. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b04f442a742aa324fff8ea2c693015d00e85cf558284a31d6bbb88df83723fe.jpg Why does modern life need to be so unnecessarily complicated?

    Back in the 1950s and 1960s if I wanted to listen to the wireless, I'd simply plug it in and switch it on. If I wanted to change the channel I'd simply twiddle a knob. Same with the telly; I had a choice of BBC and ITV and that had the same operating sequence.

    These days — here, abroad — I need a degree in electronics to work out how to access TV (and radio) on your computer. Once I've done that I need a convoluted means of cabling (of approximately nine different types) to it connect to my TV set (or monitor); ymy Hi-Fi amplifier for sound; then on to my speakers to hear it.

    Those speakers also access my facility to play records and CDs and listen to radio. And all that is well before I need to consider attaching various (and numerous) peripherals to the computer. these include: a DVD-player; three back-up SSD storage units; a router for computer signalling; the main display unit; trackpad; keyboard; and charging facilities for Bluetooth headphones; DSLR camera; and iPhone.

    It's like spaghetti junction in there (good job all those cables are 'managed').

    All I want to do is watch (and listen to) The Day of the Jackal.

        1. Might have a PC or mble, charged? đŸ€”đŸ˜ although I can’t watch anything too long on either of those – eye strain, wouldn’t wish that on him :-))

      2. I’m enjoying watching the Eddie Redmayne series on Sky, Katy. I get Sky on a VPN for ÂŁ29 a month for the whole package.

        1. I might have to catch up on The Blacklist at some point, Sky have the UK rights. Silly enjoyable tat. James Spader has a whale of a time.

        2. Him outdoors does similar Sky Sports, Grizz. But I don’t say anything….(Royle family, character Nan, which I’ve also been watching, in between Better Call Saul N/flix)….I’ll look out for the Redmayne series 🙂

    3. Just think of the suppliers rubbing their hands in expectations of your next visit to buy yet another cable, though. Got to scrape a living together somehow.

    4. I haven't been able to watch DVDs since I bought a new telly because I've not yet worked out how to connect the telly and the DVD player. The old telly had a SCART socket but the new one doesn't. Pretty sure there is a different type of cable that will connect the two devices but need someone more tech minded to take a look.

      1. HDMI nowadays – I think you can get a Scart/HDMI adapter on Amazon
        PS How are you today?

        1. My chest feels calm but my stomach is unhappy and I had a funny turn at my desk this morning which seems to have been largely solved by dimming the computer screen. My funny turn is on record though, as I went and sat in the first aid room with one of the nice building management guys until it passed and he's just been back to check that I'm OK. Turns out he has a heart murmur. Amazing what you find out by talking about these things. Another colleague has been living with a leaky valve for the past ten years.

          1. You might want to consider a blue light filter as well. The operating system should have one in the display settings.

  61. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Farewell, Kamala Harris. It’s been a brutal fortnight for the outgoing Vice President. Following her devastating loss on 5 November, the failed nominee has been subjected to days of vicious briefing and revelations about her dreadful campaign. Whether it was spending millions on celebrity endorsements or getting rejected by the ‘Hot Ones’ podcast, the Democrat bid of 2024 will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

    But for those who fear that Kamala’s loss means an end to her infamous gaffes: don’t despair! There are already reports that the defeated VP now plans to run for California Governor. Nixon, without the charm, if you will. Well, if anyone can make Gavin Newsom look like a statesman, it’s surely the woman who coined such aphorisms as ‘A friend in need is a friend in need.’

    And, for comedy lovers everywhere, there was one final treat last night. The Democrats’ Twitter/X account posted a post-recorded thank-you video for her supporters in which she managed to stutter and stumble her way through 30 seconds of words:

    I just have to remind you, don’t let anybody take your power from you. You have the same power that you did before Nov. 5, and you have the same purpose that you did. And you have the same ability to engage and inspire. So don’t ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.

    In the words of one writer: ‘No video like this would ever have been released by a politician who is not hated by her staff.’

    Steerpike
    WRITTEN BY
    Steerpike
    Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

    1. Tautologous statements and their near neighbours are the best friends of the airheaded:

      A friend in need is a friend in need
      I went to see him personally
      Love is love
      The evening sunset was beautiful
      Please R.S.V.P.
      Either it is or it isn't
      It is what it is

      I suppose we all do them at some point but she's made a career out of them.

      1. Mildly bad, Hague appears to be wandering further and further to the Left the older he gets.

  64. Back from Belper having done more shopping that I intended.
    At least I avoided buying things to go into the freezer!

    3. After rounding the sheep up in such an independent fashion I was expecting that first dog to drive off on the quadbike LIKE A BOSS.

  66. Chatting recently with an acquaintance, who helps with the welfare of wrong'uns, aka the prison system. An inmate was grumbling about something, so he replied matter of factly "If you don't like it, don't check in." Naturally the inmate made a formal complaint so my pal was obliged to have a meeting with one of the management.

    1. He should sell one-way package holidays to Fuzzy Wuzzy Land to illegal immigrants – it would be marvellous if he made a success of it!

        1. Kipling referred to Sudanese people as such and so, of course did Corporal Jones who informed us that they did not like it up 'em.

          Godfrey Bloom referred to Bongo Bongo Land which borders with Rwanda and the Sudan.

  68. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    On a bus journey in Transylvania last summer, I got talking to a young Romanian man who works in Yorkshire and who had been back home visiting his relatives. He told me how hard it had become for Romanians, particularly elderly people like his grandmother, to make ends meet with inflation so high. He blamed the war in Ukraine for the massive spike in energy prices and said that the conflict ‘needs to end soon’. With times so hard, he told me that some people were becoming resentful of handouts to Ukrainian refugees. I thought of my bus conversation when I saw the BBC report that a ‘Far-right, pro-Russian candidate’ had taken a ‘surprise lead in Romania’s presidential election’.

    Georgescu wasn’t even the most fancied ‘nationalist’ candidate

    The reaction in western liberal-elite circles to the success of the ‘ultranationalist’ Calin Georgescu in the first round of voting this weekend has been one of shock and horror, with much clutching of pearls.

    For a start, Georgescu – who won almost 23 per cent of the vote – wasn’t even the most fancied ‘nationalist’ candidate; that was George Simion of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians. But Simion only got 13.8 per cent.

    Georgescu left Simion’s Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) in 2022 after controversial comments he made about the two leaders of the Romanian Iron Guard, and stood as an independent this time. He was given little, or no chance. Polls in October put Georgescu on 0.4 per cent of the vote; even in November, he was predicted to get only 5.4 per cent. But the ‘man from nowhere’, who fought his campaign mainly on TikTok, stunned everyone. Cue the inevitable calls that somehow Russia fixed the election, which always occur when someone who’s not approved by the liberal elite wins an election. Georgescu has indeed hailed Vladimir Putin as a ‘man who loves his country’ and campaigned on a Nato and EU-sceptic platform. He has called, like Trump, for the Ukraine war to end swiftly, and opposes any more military aid to Kiev. But until any hard evidence comes to light, claims that the Kremlin was behind his success, should be dismissed as just sour grapes.

    What Georgescu did, and did brilliantly, was to directly address the concerns of ordinary Romanians and that’s why he won. Unlike other candidates, he was bold enough to make the link between the continuance of the war on its borders and Romania’s economic hardships. Although inflation has fallen, from a peak of 16.76 per cent in November 2022, to around 5 per cent today, it is still the highest in the EU. The at-risk-of-poverty rate is the highest in the EU too.

    It’s all very well to be dismissive of calls for a negotiated settlement to end the war in Ukraine when you’re a well-off Eurocrat flying across the continent to various think-tank conferences and can cope easily with the ‘collateral damage’ of sky-high energy bills, which you can probably claim on expenses. But when you’re an elderly pensioner in a country where winters can be incredibly severe, it’s a different story altogether.

    Georgescu tapped into this disconnect. He said he was standing ‘for those who feel they do not matter, and actually matter the most’. Romania’s farmers are among that number. They’ve had a particularly hard time of it of late, with a terrible drought this summer. They’ve also been hit badly by cheap Ukrainian grain imports coming through the Black Sea port of Constanta. A key part of Georgescu’s plan is to reduce imports and give more support to agriculture.

    While other politicians seem focused primarily on Ukraine, and pledging loyalty to supra-national organisations like the EU and Nato, Georgescu made it clear that his sole concern was Romania. Does that make him ‘far right’? If so, what a strange world we live in.

    The more one looks behind the shock/horror headlines the more understandable his success becomes. As has been the trend throughout 2024, candidates of the incumbent parties fared poorly. Since 2021, Romania has been governed by a ‘grand coalition’ of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL). Neither of their candidates made it through to the second-round. In one sense, the eclipse of the PSD and PNL candidates was predictable as it follows continental trends, but a protest vote against the governing parties could have ended up going elsewhere and not necessarily with Georgescu. But what he did was speak, unapologetically, the language of the country’s forgotten millions. That language is Christianity. Romania is the most religious country I have ever visited in Europe. There are churches – usually beautiful ones – everywhere. More than 80 per cent of its population identify as Orthodox Christians, and around 5 per cent as Roman Catholics.

    What he did was speak, unapologetically, the language of the country’s forgotten millions

    Family ties are perhaps stronger here than anywhere else in the EU. Parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren come before everything else. Georgescu, a devout Orthodox Christian himself, recognises this, which explains why he did so well. In his book ‘Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European football‘ Jonathan Wilson tells the moving story of what happened when a 27-year-old footballer called Florin Piturca died suddenly in 1978. His father, a cobbler named Maximilian, was so distraught he spent nearly all the money he had building a tomb where he could sleep next to his son in the cemetery. He slept there every night until his death in 1994, even defying a demolition order from the Ceausescus. As he lay dying he said: ‘I have waited for this day for a long time. I am very happy that soon I will see my son again’.

    Sophisticated western liberals of a certain stamp would no doubt scoff at such a tale of simple devotion, but the hysterical over-reaction to Georgescu’s win only shows the cultural differences that now exist between elite voices in western discourse and the more devout, family-orientated eastern half of Europe.

    Straight away after it was confirmed that Georgescu had topped the poll, we were informed, in an echo of Hillary Clinton’s infamous ‘basket of deplorables’ comment, that it was ‘uneducated’ Romanians who had voted for him. Again, behold the irony, those who claim the loudest their support for ‘democracy’ are the ones who reach for the insult book whenever a democratic result goes the wrong way. It is clear that, in the name of ‘democratic values’, the naughty Romanians weren’t meant to vote the way they did.

    In the second round, due to take place on 8 December, expect ‘democratic forces’ to come out strongly in support of the neo-liberal ‘reformist’ second-placed candidate Elena Lasconi, a former television presenter and a strong supporter of the EU and Nato. Lasconi herself has said that Romania now faces an ‘existential fight’ for its democracy. But she could have a hard job stopping her opponent. Left-wing supporters of the PSD, particularly elderly ones, are more likely to vote for Georgescu with his populist economic message. And Georgescu is also likely to get most of the votes of those who voted for George Simion (13.86 per cent) in the first round.

    Combine social conservatism, patriotism and love of country with economic populism and prioritise on cost of living, bread and butter issues over ‘political correctness’ and ultra-woke identity politics, and you’re on to a winning formula. It has worked well for Viktor Orban in Hungary and for Robert Fico in Slovakia, both of whom also want the Ukraine war to end swiftly, and it has worked well for Georgescu in Romania.

    ‘There’s no East or West, there’s only Romania’, he said on Monday. ‘We remain committed to European values, but we need to be committed to us and our families, to our children, to our ancestors’. ‘Insular Christian nationalism’ as it has been called in a Guardian editorial, isn’t a threat to democracy. It’s actually democracy in practice.

    WRITTEN BY
    Neil Clark

  69. Lord Hague named University of Oxford Chancellor
    The former Conservative party leader will be formally inaugurated early in the new year
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/27/william-hague-named-university-of-oxford-chancellor/

    Not sure that any of the others would have been any better.

    BTL

    He peaked too early : he was brilliant as a schoolboy, outshone Blair with his quick wit at PMQs and then something dramatic must have happened.

    Did he have a lobotomy because he lost his wit, his affability, his humour and his common sense? Now he is a dullard with as much charm as he has hair on the top of his head.

    2. She's fantastic. Thanks for posting. Never heard of her before. Still not quite sure what her name is.

          1. She would suck you in and blow you out in bubbles.

            Eat you for breakfast (with or without a pint mug of tea).😂

          2. She would suck you in and blow you out in bubbles.

            Eat you for breakfast (with or without a pint mug of tea).😂

  71. From Coffee House, the Spectator,

    The government has today announced a ÂŁ45 million work drive, with proposed changes to the welfare and out-of-work support systems, in a bid to get more people back in work and off benefits. In particular, the government has said that it wants to tackle the statistic that one in eight young people aged between 18 and 24 not currently in employment, education or training. It plans to do so by offering skills training to teenagers with institutions such as the Premier League, Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4.

    There is no doubt that we need to get young people earning or learning again. Over three quarters of a million young people are not studying, working, or looking for a job – an increase of 48 per cent in just two years. A third blame poor mental health and a record number cite long-term sickness.

    How do we get teenagers to do work experience with the RSC if we tell them the theatre is a ‘middle class pursuit’?

    The UK is the only major economy where the employment rate has fallen over the last five years, yet ONS data suggests nearly a third of UK businesses are suffering from labour shortages. The government seems to want to alleviate this through a combination of stick and carrot: talking tough, threatening to take away benefits for those who don’t take up opportunities, whilst also launching a ‘youth guarantee’ scheme which pledges access to training, apprenticeships or work experience for all 18 to 21 year olds.

    It sounds promising, but as ever the proof will be in the execution. Without careful boundaries and regulations, any ‘training’ offered to young people may become a mere box-ticking exercise, much like apprenticeships have.

    Governments like to boast about the increase in the number of apprenticeships, and how they should be seen as a viable alternative to university, but this is a farce. In reality over half of the apprenticeship levy is used on low-skilled jobs or re-labelling existing posts, whilst over half of apprentices say they do not receive the mandated training requirement (some receive no training at all). For too many businesses, apprenticeships have become an excuse to pay people poorly (apprentices are more than ten times more likely to get less than the legal minimum wage) and re-badge low-skill roles. Much like with university degrees, the government needs to improve the quality, not the quantity, of opportunities given to young people.

    I am also sceptical about how the government wants to encourage people to work in more creative trades whilst simultaneously recommending that ‘middle class bias’ be removed from the curriculum, and school trips to theatres and museums be replaced by more ‘relatable’ activities such as football club tours. This philistine curriculum review is not only deeply patronising to children from poorer backgrounds, but it also is ironically exclusive, firmly entrenching the middle-class advantage the report believes exists.

    All children deserve access to cultural capital, and by fixating on what is ‘relatable’ or ‘accessible’ we lose sight of what is aspirational. How do we get teenagers to do work experience with the Royal Shakespeare Company if we also tell them that the theatre is only a ‘middle class pursuit’, rather than a universal pleasure?

    This contradiction seems to be symptomatic of governments’ confused approach to education, and in particular creative education, in general. The social and financial importance of our creative industries is often woefully underlooked and underestimated. So whilst the prospect of young people working with the RSC or Channel 4 is in theory a good thing, it is far from clear how this fits with the current picture of arts provision in schools.

    A survey of nearly half of England’s secondary schools found that nine out of ten had cut back on lesson time, staff or facilities in at least one creative arts subject. More than 40 per cent of schools no longer enter any pupils for music or drama GCSE, whilst enrolment in arts GCSEs generally has fallen by 40 per cent since 2010. This creativity crisis is now often what really makes the difference between state and private schools: at Winchester College, students can take classes in wood carving and sculpture, perform in a 240-seat theatre, or refer to 2,000 books in its art library; yet some state schools don’t even have their own choir or orchestra due to budget cuts.

    If the government wants to inspire and motivate young people, it needs to put its money where its mouth is and ensure its youth guarantee scheme does not become a mere box-ticking exercise that fails to align with pupils’ skills or the country’s needs. In his book The Aristocracy of Talent, Adrian Wooldridge writes that the ‘Labour party was [once] the party of merit rather than levelling, and opportunity rather than equality’; this employment drive, and the future of education policy, shall surely put this to the test.

    WRITTEN BY
    Kristina Murkett
    Kristina Murkett is an English teacher, private tutor and journalist

    1. I thought that they were looking for workers in the construction trades to build the promised gazillion houses for immigrants (well according to the daily mail).
      It may not be as glamorous as a premier league secondment but maybe it would be a touch more realistic.

    2. "Premier League, Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4."? Where are the apprenticeships for the likes of Bedford trucks in Luton, plasterers, builders, electricians, you name it?
      Oh, sorry, these industries don't exist any more.

        1. Wasn't that Ford Transit van production?
          The move being agreed by Gordon Brown a short while before Labour got voted out of No.10?

          Bedford Truck were hived off to AWD and, over a few years, were asset stripped.

          1. Could have been. I knew one commercial firm from Luton got paid by the EU (with OUR money!) to relocate to Turkey.

    3. When we ran a computer retail business, we had a YTS trainee (government funded) who was taught about computing and how to sell. It was handy for us as we couldn't afford a fully trained salesperson on the then minimum wage. What the trainee got out of it, apart from being able to put his stint on his CV I am not sure (there is a certain amount of Catch 22 about starting out in work; you need experience to get a job, but you can't get experience unless you've got a job).

  72. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    This is one of a series of posters that adorn the walls of Westminster Underground station, through which many MPs and aides travel to work. On Friday, MPs will be voting on whether or not to legalise assisted dying. The posters, funded by a campaign group called Dignity In Dying, present a series of individuals happily contemplating the prospect of ending their own lives. The vibe is feel-good, joyful and glossy, somewhere between a cosmetics brand and Kamala Harris ‘24. I think they are the creepiest ads I’ve ever seen.

    When this bill was introduced a couple of months ago, I didn’t have much of an opinion on the issue. I’d read that things were getting pretty weird in Canada and the Netherlands, so I was wary. But the case for legalising euthanasia is undeniably powerful. Many people have experienced at first or second-hand situations in which the end of a person’s life becomes unbearable for the person themselves and for their loved ones. It seems only humane to give suffering people, in certain very limited situations – this bill applies only to terminally ill adults with six months or fewer to live – control over how to end their lives.

    As the public debate unfolded, however, and opponents of the bill asked awkward questions of it, it became apparent to me that its supporters didn’t have convincing answers. Most pertinently, they couldn’t explain how weak and vulnerable people won’t be persuaded that it’s their duty to do the right thing, by a conspiracy, articulated or otherwise, of over-stretched healthcare staff and exhausted relatives. All the supporters have offered is an insistence on the primacy of individual choice, emotional stories, and aspersions on their opponents. The first two are important to consider, but you surely have to go further than when it comes to such a momentous change.

    If the pro-bill arguments are thin it’s not just because they haven’t nailed the legislative details, but because they haven’t been forced to think the issue through before. For instance, they too easily dismiss the concern that this bill puts us on a ‘slippery slope’ to more state-sanctioned killing. They appeal to the legislative process, as if that is what counts. Regardless of parliamentary process, if you don’t like the vision of the future a certain law implies, it’s perfectly OK – it’s necessary – to say no, we’re not going one more inch down that slick path.

    Those who don’t think that slippery slopes exist, or who believe that everything branded ‘progress’ is automatically good, might review the seemingly unobjectionable Gender Recognition Act of 2004 and ask themselves how we ended up, in 2024, with the highest judges in the land ponderously debating the definition of a woman. More immediately, they could ask whether passing this bill makes it more or less likely that future legislators will come round to the philosopher A.C. Grayling’s view that the six month period should be extended or abolished – so that, for instance, depressed people can be helped to end their own lives. Grayling might be out of line with the bill’s sponsors on the detail, but he is perfectly in line with them on the principle.

    It’s jarring to see an MP endorse sentiments like this: ‘If you don’t like the idea of assisted dying, don’t seek medical assistance to arrange your own death. If liberal democracy means anything it is this: that every individual should be free to live their life in the way they want, so long as doing so does not harm other people or interfere with their freedom to live their lives as they want.’ No, liberal democracy does not mean everything in society is like shopping – if you don’t like it here, go down the street. Contrary to this almost Randian faith in the maximisation of individual freedom, democracy entails recognising that our personal choices are always enmeshed in networks of social connection and obligation, whether we want them to be or not, and that lawmakers have to consider societies as systems, not just groups of individuals. (In other circumstances, many of the same MPs recognise these truths to a fault. You can advertise euthanasia on the Tube, but not cheese).

    I don’t ever want to live under a state that facilitates the death of its own citizens

    Obligations to protect the vulnerable weigh against individual freedom. In this particular contest I want the law firmly and unequivocally on the side of life over death. In theory at least, liberal democracies, unlike brutal autocracies or theocratic death-cults, place the highest value on human life. I can’t believe that supporters of the bill think it’s a good idea to use the analogy of pets being put out of their misery. Doing so suggests that they don’t view human life as special at all.

    Questions of process to one side, the bedrock principle is that I don’t ever want to live under a state that facilitates the death of its own citizens. No, I don’t want to open that question up at all. Similarly, I’d be opposed to capital punishment even if we could be sure there will be no false convictions, which we obviously can’t (although in both cases, the problems with the process derive from the flawed principle).

    We should all admit there are no solutions here, only trade-offs, and the trade-offs are awful, because the facts of death and illness and suffering are awful. Opposing the bill means accepting that some people will suffer for months more than they otherwise would, no matter how good their palliative care is. That brutal truth must be admitted and confronted, at least confronted as much those of us who aren’t actually undergoing the suffering can do so.

    I haven’t heard the bill’s opponents deny this, however. I have heard the bill’s supporters deny or avoid the trade-off they are proposing. They pretend there will be no cases of coercion, when of course there will be, human nature and the state of our public services being what they are. The most honest argument for the bill – even if it’s not one I buy – is a utilitarian one: that the injustice and cruelty thus perpetrated will be outweighed by the suffering prevented.

    But it’s always hard to make utilitarian arguments persuasive because they seem so mechanical and inhuman. Unthinking emotionalism and the avoidance of uncomfortable truths make for better rhetoric, which is why this bill may well pass on Friday. Although I was already leaning against it, intellectually, it was those grotesque ads which really crystallised how I have come to feel about assisted dying. State-managed death is being wrapped up as self-fulfilment. I don’t feel good about that. I feel sick.

    This article originally appeared on Ian Leslie’s The Ruffian.

    WRITTEN BY
    Ian Leslie
    Ian Leslie is a journalist who writes The Ruffian Substack. His next book, John and Paul: A Love Story In Songs, is on the relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney

    1. Had a couple of beers last night with Second Son, 23. I asked him if he'd been following this discussion, and his opinion was most definitely NoTTL in approach: He doesn't trust that the facility would not be abused, and even become compulsory.
      One so young and cynical – I was so proud!

    2. " It seems only humane to give suffering people, in certain very limited situations – this bill applies only to terminally ill adults with six months or fewer to live – control over how to end their lives." That's how they'll sell it, but the reality will be far different. In no time the remit will be broadened and the safeguards watered down. We only have to look how the abortion law began and ended to see that happening.

      1. Suicide is against the Qu'ran so you won't see Muslims taking up

        your Government's kind offer.

        That's why the advert. is only directed at whites.

      2. Suicide is against the Qu'ran so you won't see Muslims taking up

        your Government's kind offer.

        That's why the advert. is only directed at whites.

  74. This is a bit naughty – or merely careless. It's an initiative by the NUJ, not the BBC, though I don't doubt that many of the latter's employees will willingly take part. The Times is reporting it correctly (indeed, the GB News report was posted later). Must do better.

    As for the NUJ….

    BBC sparks outrage after staff urged to wear Palestinian colours and keffiyeh in 'workplace day of action'

    GB NEWS
    Susanna Siddell
    27/11/2024, 07:41

    The BBC has sparked outrage after its staff were urged to wear Palestinian colours and a keffiyeh for a "workplace day of action" for Palestine.

    The action day – which is set for tomorrow – has been organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to demand a ceasefire, the release of hostages, as well as the overall end of violence in Gaza. The TUC has urged individuals to "wear something red, green, black or a Palestinian keffiyeh to visibly show solidarity".

    The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) echoed the TUC's call to action, condemning Israel's attacks which are reported to have killed 135 Palestinian journalists since the October 7 attacks. In a statement, it said: "The NUJ is urging branches and chapels to show support on the day and amplify the union's calls."

    However, these calls have caused concern amongst Jewish BBC colleagues, who claimed that the action would infringe the corporation's impartiality guidelines, as well as offending other staff members. One journalist said that they had rethought their union membership after the "hypocritical and antisemitic" move.

    "BBC journalists, who pride themselves on impartiality and who fought to keep their NUJ free of politics, are being encouraged to break the BBC's editorial guidelines by supporting a political cause," they told The Times.

    They added: "It is also a shocking attack on Jews. Where is the day of action to support the journalists being killed by their own governments across the Middle East, including by Hamas?

    "Where is the NUJ support for Russian journalists that are being held behind bars on trumped up charges by Putin's regime, those dying or working in perilous conditions in Ukraine?"

    Another staff member said that they were "dreading the thought of walking past anyone protesting at work".

    Meanwhile, journalist Charlotte Henry has revoked her membership after it imposed the workplace day of action, saying that it "has become a hostile environment for Jews, and I can no longer be a part of that."

    https://www.gbnews.com/news/bbc-impartiality-staff-urged-to-wear-palestinian-colours-keffiyeh

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/media/article/bbc-staff-urged-to-wear-palestinian-flag-colours-and-a-keffiyeh-8qx3cjgwt

    1. ""BBC journalists, who pride themselves on impartiality"

      Funniest thing I have heard in years – split my sides laughing.

    3. To be fair to the media, when the Sky News team and LBC radio reporter had to flee from direct threats of violence in Birmingham during the far-Right insurrection, they did come together in solidarity against the awful assault on our free media. Oh, hang on, my memories coming back – no, turns out they buried the whole issue because the perpetrators were not white.

  75. Annabel Denham
    Labour has just let slip the true cost of net zero

    The country that birthed the industrial revolution now has the world’s highest electricity prices and only the ghost of an industrial sector

    Annabel Denham Columnist and Deputy Comment Editor 26 November 2024

    Les jeux sont faits, Ed Miliband. The chips are down, the game is up. We knew Labour was no closer to solving the energy trilemma than scientists are to explaining dark matter. That, for now, we cannot have net-zero emissions, security of supply and affordability. We knew that using public money to import gas to manufacture CO2 was less a display of moral leadership on climate change than it was brazen hypocrisy.

    Perhaps most importantly, we knew that the pursuit of net-zero policies, regardless of cost, would impact our lives in ways the gentleman in Whitehall could not possibly foresee. It already is, as anyone who has driven into a clean air zone can attest. Yet the ruling class insisted on living in some alternate reality where there were no trade-offs; just cheap, abundant, secure renewables.

    So we should thank Bill Esterson, Labour chair of the Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, for letting the cat out of the bag. “We will all have to change our lives” if we are to decarbonise the grid by 2030, he has just admitted. Keir Starmer is offering no such candour; at Cop29, the climate jamboree many world leaders had the good sense to snub, the Prime Minister not only set us another target (an 81 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035), but peddled the line that he “won’t be telling people how to behave”.

    This will surely only be true in the most literal sense. Impose congestion charges in British cities, and people might be forced to travel by other means, or not at all. Foist mandates on car manufacturers to sell a certain number of EVs on penalty of hefty fines, and they may be forced to cut sales of petrol vehicles, pushing prices up and consumers out. Introduce green levies on energy bills – they now make up 16 per cent of electricity bills – and households will have to cut spending elsewhere. Did the Government “tell” us to change our behaviour? No, it just left us with no alternative.

    And we are only in the foothills of the transition. Yes, the UK last year became the first country to halve its emissions since 1990 – a milestone about which the eco-zealots remained surprisingly quiet. But this was achieved by accelerating existing trends, such as abandoning much domestic production, and we could rely on renewables because fossil fuels were there to provide baseload power. The next half will be far more painful – though the climate cult will likely dismiss such concerns, insisting that clean energy sources are low cost and jobs will be provided aplenty.

    Clearly, when wind turbines are running the marginal cost of energy produced is close to zero, whilst energy produced by gas has a positive marginal cost because we have to purchase the fuel. But gas-fired power stations are easy to build and link to the grid. Wind turbines, on the other hand, are costly to install and maintain, especially offshore. They don’t have a long life, are in places far from population centres, and are expensive to link to the grid. They also need backup when the wind doesn’t blow, or if it blows too hard. But these issues are hidden by government subsidy and delusional eco-hype.

    Yet the Tories are hardly in a position to challenge it – assuming they want to. The timetable they set for the transition to clean energy was excessively ambitious. They did nothing about the 2008 Climate Change Act, failed to dismantle the supposedly independent Climate Change Committee, and enshrined the Net Zero by 2050 target in law. As a result, the country that birthed the industrial revolution, and created the oil refineries and steelworks that transformed people’s lives, now has the world’s highest electricity prices – and only the ghost of an industrial sector.

    Some 199 years ago, the first steam locomotive carried passengers in the North East. Why did this breakthrough happen on our small island? For the same reason we pioneered large factories, mass electrification and gas for cooking: because we had cheap energy. No country in the world has ever prospered without it. That Labour fails to accept this is as alarming as its belief you can grow an economy by lavishing money on the public sector. It is making us poorer by the day, telling us we’re imagining it – and then giving an exasperated sigh when we complain.

    “The clean energy transition is unstoppable,” said the fanatical Miliband yesterday, as Vauxhall announced the closure of its Luton factory. “Unstoppable because clean energy is the route to energy security. Unstoppable because it is the economic opportunity of our time.” A noble lie is still a lie.

      1. Over 50 billion from trudeaus government to bribe EV battery manufacturers to build their factories in Canada.

        That has turned into a real winner for us.

    1. Public sector pen pushers that have never had a proper job and have had long careers of failing upwards deciding how industry should run their businesses and what they should make.
      What could possibly go wrong

    2. I am missing Mr Young in a weekly podcast format. He found a nice balance with Nick Dixon doing The Weekly Sceptic.

    3. I am missing Mr Young in a weekly podcast format. He found a nice balance with Nick Dixon doing The Weekly Sceptic.

    4. Where are all those 'green jobs', then?
      They could always make you buy a Jaguar.. using the full force of the Law. đŸ€Ą

      1. DEI -Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

        Jaquar has signed up to this for its workforce and its customers.
        This advert, thought by many to be just a spoof, is in fact totally serious as reviewed by this Engineer and lawyer:

        https://youtu.be/16zZBjnlshE?si=XlpvmxmBP0s6_1C2
        With the need for the Government to achieve target market penetration for fully electric cars it may well have to legislate for inclusivity for both EV and J symbols to be implicit in the + symbol of LGBTIQA+.

    5. Poor EV sales are not the guvermunts fault

      Potentail buyers have cometo realise they are crap (EV's as well)

  78. They say there's one born every minute…I just found that out by buying a 2025 calendar from someone in Ireland, who'd moved from England to there. Increase in cost is quite eye-watering. Husband's language is peppered with bog ******, various ***** and ***** re NI Agreement. I think I have my Christmas present…..eeekkk….

    1. And you could have bought one of our hedgehog ones! No propaganda, just pics of real hedgehogs…….

      2. I just ordered two, one for me and one for owner of new hog house – it will be loved. I have a large collection of old calendars, especially Japanese ones. Thanks for nudging me, Ndovu (I included a small donation)…Kate x

        1. That’s very kind of you Kate – Did you do via PayPal and the website? I can’t see it in the PayPal emails.

          1. It was a WorldPay transaction, luckily I kept it 😀
            Transaction for the value of: GBP 19.00
            Description: Order 38167 with The British Hedgehog Preservation Society Shop
            From: BHPS TRADING LTD
            Merchant’s cart ID: wc_order_RbMQLeSBKmazG-38167-1732721404
            Authorisation Date/Time: 27/Nov/2024 15:30:51
            Worldpay’s transaction ID: 33357653957
            This is not a tax receipt.

          2. and here’s the receipt:
            [Order #38167] (27th November 2024)
            Product Quantity Price
            BHPS 2025 Calendar 2 ÂŁ13.90
            Donation (Roundup) 1 ÂŁ0.60
            Subtotal: ÂŁ14.50
            Shipping: ÂŁ4.50 via UK Rates
            Payment method: Pay with WorldPay
            Total: ÂŁ19.00 (includes ÂŁ3.07 VAT)

          3. Ah! That’s why I didn’t get the notification….. that’s the BHPS. We’re Help a Hedgehog Hospital. But BHPS do good work so that’s fine. Ours is a bit cheaper though, at ÂŁ9.50 +ÂŁ2.00 postage.

          4. Oh no…I hadn’t realised…do you by any chance have an occasional newsletter or similar…I’ll sign up to make sure I order from you in future x

    2. And you could have bought one of our hedgehog ones! No propaganda, just pics of real hedgehogs…….

  79. Some of the Arabs who today call themselves Philistines claim to be direct descendants of the Canaanites who were displaced by the Hebrews led by Moses. Some of them also think this happened in 1948 but that aside, ancient Canaan actually pretty much equates to Syria Palaestina as it was under Ottoman rule (1517-1917), which is to say the whole region. Including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria as well as "Palestine". Egypt was also ruled during this time by the Ottoman Turks. Some of the Arabs in Gaza then may well be of Canaanite descent but that doesn't alter the fact that they hail from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria and not Judea and Samaria. Also many of them (famously including Yasser Arafat and Edward Said) are Egyptian.

    1. But, but, but…one can only blaspheme the one true God and that would be the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.

    4. We used to have blasphemy laws to protect the Established Church. They were removed in the seventies, I think. We do NOT need new blasphemy laws, especially not to protect islam.

  81. Pro-Kremlin populist party to form regional government in Germany. 27 November 2024.

    A Kremlin-friendly populist party is set to form its first regional government in Germany, after signing a coalition agreement with Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD).

    Sahra Wagenknecht’s Left-wing BSW has agreed to prop up the SPD in the eastern state of Brandenburg, where the latter party narrowly secured victory in state elections in September.

    The German people are turning toward Russia because as the sabotage of the Baltic Pipeline and the anti-Russia sanctions have revealed the United States is not a friendly power.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/27/pro-kremlin-populist-party-to-form-regional-government-in-g/

          2. I started following him during the ‘pandemic’ – his descriptions of the German politicians are a revelation.

          5. I started following him during the ‘pandemic’ – his descriptions of the German politicians are a revelation.

    2. Since Brexit I have been unable to purchase long seamless vests from Germany despite them being advertised online. This is evidently because the EU put all manner of barriers to our trade with EU countries.

      My wife phoned our German friends Monika and Peter and it so happens that Peter wears the same vests. He is buying two packs of three and will post them on to me.

      When I mentioned that all the alternatives in the UK have an uncomfortable seam running down one side Peter explained that the Hermko factory is a very old one and as such valued and protected by the German authorities.

      If only we had kept similar industries as opposed to importing crap from Cambodia.

    3. The real divide in politics is pro-Agenda 2030 or against it, and BSW is on the right side of that divide.

  82. Comment from an American economist:

    When the markets finally
    figured out that President Elect Trump’s Tariff threats to Canada and
    Mexico, were more of a “Border Control” thing than an economic
    sanction. That took the spotlight off of trade issues, and opened up
    much needed dialogue between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Just the
    mention of tariffs, opened the dialogue. Good call………….
    .

    It appears that Mr Trump has got it right !!

      1. There is never any retribution for bad, lazy or corrupt negotiators in the Civil Service, so why bother to try hard?

  83. BBC Verify Cites Farm Tax’s Architect as Neutral Expert to Defend Biased Figures

    BBC Verify is out defending itself after its pro-farm tax bias and poor reporting quality attracted ridicule. The main post on its website is a long justification for its reporting on the IHT changes. Funnily enough it’s not promoting this one on social media


    The article goes through various differing positions held by stakeholders – the government and farming groups. The very first think tank the Verify team consults for comment happens to be one CenTax. Co-conspirators will remember that one


    “The CenTax think tank has studied the impact of APR and BPR reliefs.

    CenTax’s co-director Arun Advani argues that the government’s estimates of the number of agricultural estates likely to be affected by the capping of both reliefs at £1m combined – up to 520 estates a year – seems reasonable.”

    Advani is then extensively quoted. What Verify makes no mention of is that his reports on APR and inheritance tax have formed the basis of Reeves’ policy. This has been admitted by the Treasury


    There is no mention of the fact that Advani has pushed for state expropriation of farmland that is sold as a result of APR’s removal. Readers are unaware from the article that Advani, along with CenTax co-director Andy Summers, is one of three “wealth tax commissioners” who consistently push for huge tax hikes. Using CenTax and think tanks like the IFS as vehicles to do so


    Advani is close to the government – he has boasted that Labour is “genuinely listening” to him and Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray was the keynote speaker at a parliamentary reception to officially launch CenTax. No mention of that from the BBC either


    Verify fronted an “independent” expert who is actually senior Labour activist to defend the Treasury in its previous coverage of the Farm Tax and quietly changed its article once under scrutiny. Seeing as their team confuses hectares for acres they probably aren’t the place to go to for reasoned coverage of this policy


    27 November 2024 @ 15:10

      1. The Danes have already banned this practice. And I don't approve of kosher slaughter for the same reason.
        What might be reasonable food hygiene when leading a nomadic life in hot regions several thousand years ago, is not necessary in a world containing refrigeration.

  87. Well, ain't heredity a funny thing! It often seem to do a sidestep and pop up in unexpected places.
    Grandson, quite voluntarily, chose to do a day's baking with granny today.
    He is as good and organised as his paternal uncle. It just comes naturally to him.
    I've been able to step back and leave him to it. In fact, I've had a low key day as a lowly baking tray liner and kitchen porter.

      1. Chocolate Swiss roll x 4
        12 fairy cakes.
        A chocolate chunk (bigger than chips) traybake divided into 2.
        Pineapple and sultan cake; again divided into 2.
        Grandson went home with 2 Swiss rolls and a rack of baby pork ribs that he planned to marinate and turn into something scrumptious.
        Oh, and at lunchtime he helped clear us out of chicken fricassee and sweet and sour pork loin.
        Lots of comfort food on a drab day.

  90. I have just read the most horrible story .

    Snake Island is known as one of the most dangerous islands in the world, and is considered too hazardous for humans, with visitation to the island prohibited by the Brazilian government and permission only granted to select researchers and scientists.

    The dangerous yet critically endangered venomous golden lancehead inhabit the island, featuring a fatal venom that can kill humans within an hour after entering the bloodstream.

    A YouTuber even managed to evade authorities and sneak his way onto the island in 2023, and luckily made it out alive without encountering any of the deadly predators.

    He took a long boat ride and ventured to the famous lighthouse on the island, all while wearing some hard metal armour to protect himself from any attacks.
    But why is the island so heavily populated with particularly dangerous snakes?

    Golden lancehead vipers are one of the deadliest species of snakes in the world, so much so that nobody lives on the island anymore.

    From 1909 to the 1920s, people did live there to run its lighthouse, but a tale tells that the last lighthouse keeper and his family were killed when a load of snakes made their way into their house through the windows.

    But the reality of it is that Ilha de Queimada Grande's dense population of snakes started about 11,000 years ago, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

    When sea levels rose to isolate the island from mainland Brazil, the snakes on the island, believed to be jararaca snakes, evolved differently to their mainland relatives.

    This is because snakes left on the island had no ground level predators, so they they could reproduce rapidly, though having no predators meant they also had no ground level prey, so to eat, the snakes slithered upward and preyed on migratory birds that would seasonally visit the island.

    Usually, snakes stalk and then bite their prey, coming back after their venom had taken effect.

    Golden lancehead vipers can't track birds, so their venom evolved to be very potent and efficient, estimated to be three to five times stronger than snakes on the mainland.

    It is capable of killing prey almost instantly.

    It is estimated that the island is so heavily populated with snakes that there's a snake for every square metre in certain areas, with a bite from a golden lancehead carrying a seven percent chance of death.

    If it doesn't do that, it can cause kidney failure, necrosis of muscular tissue, brain hemorrhaging and intestinal bleeding.

    So yeah, Snake Island is somewhere to steer clear of then.

    1. Afternoon Belle. The worlds deadliest serpent is the Australian Tiger Snake. I once took an early morning Bush walk in Tasmania to discover the bulldozed track literally covered with snakes warming themselves. Though they moved aside (slowly) it was still an unnerving experience.

      1. Why are snakes on this planet, and what on earth were they like in Jurassic times , what was their purpose and why are they the way they are .. long , threatening , ferocious and just there?

        3. Evolution is a wondrous thing, everyone and every thing has its niche. Poor old snakes lost their legs. Our slowworm, a lizard with vestigial legs, is on its way to joining them.

    2. I love snakes, Belle, but wouldn't like to have a Golden lancehead viper sharing my bed. I'm more fearful of spiders.

          1. I know. But they are amazing (not that I'd want one anywhere near me). Australian (of course). Boy, did that continent let God give free rein to his sense of humour fauna wise and then pretend it was evolution.

    3. Stuff of nightmares.
      As a child, I had a fixation that there were snakes under my bed. I used to leap from the bedside mat into bed.
      I KNEW they weren't there, but it looks weeks to get that stupid obsession out of my head.

  91. Well, the weather certainly cleared up! Rain stopped and the sun came out.
    Now a clear sky and, if the sky does not cloud over again, the temperature, -1°C a short while ago, seems set to plummet overnight.

    Just got a start made on restacking the smaller of my wood shelters and I've been up chopping some logs I sawed back in September.
    A couple of old photos of the logs I'm working on,
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e28fc3a511cf53058ea81c9e5506cdca80e738525032dbc331c3db1de3e89ca5.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86e287ea6b163509ae588e18a3107ad78e8cb1edd683c15e619e613d66111494.jpg Of the couple of dozen on the front row, I've 8 left to chop.

  92. Signing off. Miserable day. Rained throughout. Cats livid. Still, I finished the "Church Going" book that I mentioned last evening!

    Have a jolly evening

    We are busy for the next few days – family and all that. So:

    A mardi. Play nicely.

  94. Interesting. Guido (Fawkes) has the following article: HAGUE BEATS MANDELSON TO BECOME OXFORD CHANCELLOR

    I thought i’d post a comment along the lines of “is there a difference?” only to find that “comments have been closed.”

    Edit: comments appear closed across all the articles on the site.

    ?!!

    1. Read further down…

      Site Maintenance Ongoing
      Guido is doing some site maintenance which requires the comments to be turned off for a short period. They will return


      27 November 2024 @ 14:21

  95. Wordle Wednesday 27 November.

    Wordle 1,257 4/6
    A vernacular Par Four!

    I cannot show my divets; the 'shifting' icon is missing.

    1. Wordle 1,257 4/6

      🟹⬜⬜⬜⬜
      âŹœâŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸšâŹœ
      đŸŸ©âŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœ
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

      1. Thanks to a stupid error, I managed a tie.

        Wordle 1,257 4/6

        đŸŸ©âŹœâŹœâŹœâŹœ
        âŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœđŸŸš
        âŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœ
        đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

        1. I see myself heading towards a cocktail of meds but for the time being, 5mg per day of beta blockers and echocardiogram scheduled for 6 December.

      4. Shuffles in last with 5. I just didn't get the obvious!

        Wordle 1,257 5/6

        🟹⬜🟹🟹⬜
        đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœâŹœ
        đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœâŹœ
        đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœâŹœ
        đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    2. I should have used my favourite start word for an Eagle but plopped for a different one for a Birdie.

      Wordle 1,257 3/6

      đŸŸšâŹœâŹœđŸŸ©âŹœ
      âŹœâŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœ
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    3. I should have used my favourite start word for an Eagle but plopped for a different one for a Birdie.

      Wordle 1,257 3/6

      đŸŸšâŹœâŹœđŸŸ©âŹœ
      âŹœâŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœ
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    4. I should have used my favourite start word for an Eagle but plopped for a different one for a Birdie.

      Wordle 1,257 3/6

      đŸŸšâŹœâŹœđŸŸ©âŹœ
      âŹœâŹœđŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœ
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    5. Another Four here, Rene – same divots again? It took me ages to get this one, but in the end I think it was the only possible word left!

      Wordle 1,257 4/6

      ⬜🟹🟹⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟹⬜🟹⬜⬜
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    6. Me too.

      Wordle 1,257 4/6

      🟹⬜⬜🟹⬜
      đŸŸ©âŹœđŸŸ©âŹœâŹœ
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©âŹœâŹœ
      đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

    7. On my iPhone in Wordle I go to ‘See Stats’ then ‘Share’ then ‘Copy’ and then back in the blog comment press in the box and ‘Paste’

  96. Found this below the line from another commentator on the Daily Sceptic (i assime the facts are true”:

    “And in the news today, Judge Jeremy Richardson, King’s Counsel, lacing his comments with Left Wing Political Views, declared that HATS ARE RACIST in sentencing a British Protester Against the Murder of British Children to six years in prison, plus 3 more on licence after that, saying the protester was easily identified by

    ” a distinctive ST. GEORGE’S FLAG BUCKET HAT he was wearing.”

    “Judge Richardson said the HAT gave the lie to the defendant’s claims that he had NO RACIST INTENT when he attended the disorder at the hotel.

    “He told Greenwood: “I’m entirely satisfied you went to the area of the hotel with a view to participating in RACIST MOB VIOLENCE.”

    “YOU TOOK A HAT AND WORE THAT HAT WHICH UNDOUBTEDLY HAD RACIST CONNOTATIONS.”

    Some public comments:

    — “So here we have a Crown Court Judge in England openly stating that wearing a hat with the flag of our country is in itself Racist

    Unbelievable.”

    — “Six years! I thought I had been born in a serious country with an illustrious past

    And an exemplary legal system
”

    [So Palestinian and Terrorist Flags are fine, but the Flag of England is racist???
    and HATS ARE RACIST???]”

      3. Me too. I'm so wedded (or is that welded), to my hat I was thinking of wearing one in bed.

      4. Me too. I'm so wedded (or is that welded), to my hat I was thinking of wearing one in bed.

  97. UK running 45% on gas just now. 22,5% wind, 6,5% nuclear, 12% imports – and a few bits 'n pieces.

  98. Matthew Lynn

    Britain is closer to bankruptcy than anyone feared

    Local councils across the country are close to insolvency, but the real problems lay in Westminster

    27 November 2024 3:11pm GMT
    Matthew Lynn

    If it was a company the shares would have crashed, and the liquidators would be getting ready to take control. The National Audit Office has today refused to sign off on the UK’s accounts, citing a lack of information from local authorities on their potential liabilities. They can hardly be blamed for that. The grim truth is that the country’s balance sheet is a mess – and we may be a lot closer to bankruptcy than we realise.

    The Chancellor Rachel Reeves may claim to have taken the “tough decisions” to put the national finances back on a “solid footing”. The trouble is, the people whose actual job it is to examine the books don’t see it the same way. The NAO today warned of “severe backlogs” in the audits of local authority finances which meant it did not have “sufficient, appropriate evidence” to sign off on the Whole Government Accounts, which combines the figures for more than 10,000 public bodies.

    Translated from the restrained jargon of the accountancy profession, the message was simple. The numbers are about as reliable as Rachel Reeves’s CV, and we’re not putting our names to any books with more cooking than the final of Bake Off.

    It is perfectly right to do so. In reality, local authorities have liabilities that are almost impossible to quantify right now. Eight councils have declared bankruptcy since 2020, typically as a result of bad investments as local finance offices try to trade their way out of the dire shortage of funds they face. No one really knows how many more might have made investments that are just as risky, or what kind of losses may eventually be racked up.

    But the real problem is not just bad investments. They can always be ring-fenced or unwound. It is the soaring cost of a dysfunctional government machine. Local authorities face bills that are running away from them. The idiotic “war on landlords” has driven up rents, vastly increasing the cost of housing people who have nowhere to live. The price of social care for the elderly is rising all the time, and the increase in National Insurance will drive up the costs of homes that will be passed onto councils.

    There are an increasing number of illegal asylum seekers – sorry, “irregular migrants” – that have to be looked after. And the courts are imposing backdated equal pay legislation that may land authorities with bills running into tens or hundreds of millions. Add all that up, and it is a surprise that more are not bankrupt already.

    The central government is hardly in any better shape. The cost of gold-plated public sector pensions is going up all the time, with estimated liabilities of ÂŁ1.3 trillion, although the true cost may turn out to be far higher. The outstanding stock of student loans is estimated to come to another ÂŁ225 billion, and may be virtually worthless as no one has any real idea what percentage of them will ever be repaid.

    Six or seven universities may soon go bust, again hit hard by the rise in NI, and will have to be bailed out at huge cost, or else wound down in an orderly manner, which unfortunately won’t be much cheaper. Net zero is turning into a huge drain on resources, with the endless virtual-signalling pledges on climate change racking up liabilities that no one had bothered to property tally up. The list goes on and on.

    Asked how he went broke, an Ernest Hemingway character explains. “Gradually. And then suddenly.” The harsh reality is that the UK has been gradually running out of money for the last twenty years. We don’t know precisely how close to running out of money we are. But the NAO decision is a sign that the endgame may well be a lot closer than anyone realises right now. And the “gradually” could turn to “suddenly” any day now.

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

    1 hr ago

    IMF bailout, here we come. Not the first for a Labour government either and hardly surprising.

    5. Neither we in the UK or any of the EU member countries would be in such dire financial straits had we all sought good trade relations with Russia and China and avoided the stupid US capture via NATO which has given us a war in Ukraine and an energy crisis.

      I just hope that NATO can be disbanded and good relations with Russia rapidly rebuilt. Otto von Bismarck understood the importance of having good relations with his neighbours and in particular with Russia.

      Someone also needs to urgently tell the small Baltic States to halt their anti-Russian rhetoric and instead get along with their immensely powerful neighbour. Old fashioned diplomacy for which we were once famed needs to return.

      We now see just how despised the western leaders have become in their own countries from Starmer and Macron to Scholz and Tusk.

      I pray that President Trump will attend to these issues and take the advice of the better members of his team ignoring Sebastian Gorka’s rants and telling Lindsey Graham to shut up.

        3. I agree entirely. NATO has been the vehicle by which the US has dominated European governments and facilitated its arms sales to those member countries which arms and systems have to be manufactured in the US and operated under US supervision.

          The second problem which has encouraged the incestuous relationship between NATO and the EU is that both are based and headquartered in the same city.

          The representatives of both organisations eat at the same restaurants and socialize and their children attend the same schools.

          I rather hope President Trump will pull the plug on NATO funding. That should finish it off.

    6. Neither we in the UK or any of the EU member countries would be in such dire financial straits had we all sought good trade relations with Russia and China and avoided the stupid US capture via NATO which has given us a war in Ukraine and an energy crisis.

      I just hope that NATO can be disbanded and good relations with Russia rapidly rebuilt. Otto von Bismarck understood the importance of having good relations with his neighbours and in particular with Russia.

      Someone also needs to urgently tell the small Baltic States to halt their anti-Russian rhetoric and instead get along with their immensely powerful neighbour. Old fashioned diplomacy for which we were once famed needs to return.

      We now see just how despised the western leaders have become in their own countries from Starmer and Macron to Scholz and Tusk.

      I pray that President Trump will attend to these issues and take the advice of the better members of his team ignoring Sebastian Gorka’s rants and telling Lindsey Graham to shut up.

    8. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness.
      Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

      Basic housekeeping. Stop idiotic unaffordable expenditure – start with HS2, Net Zero. There are many, many others.

      2. Stop all the benefits to the dangerous, unwanted lot, and that will very quickly stop the attraction of coming here, and save billions every year, and vastly improve national security and personal safety.

    9. IMF bailout, here we come.

      Jeezzz.. and Matthew Lynn calls himself an economist.
      Since March 71 we have floating exchange rates.. and it's nigh on impossible for UK to go bankrupt.
      As for the IMF.. Poor old Jim Callaghan didn't grasp that he had in his power *unlimited credit*, and went to the IMF when he needn't have.

    2. Does the Pope know who she is and what she represents? Also I wonder "Pope Francis has shown great leadership on addressing the global issues of our time and building bridges of dialogue among faiths." How so Deputy Prime Minister?

  101. FBI Most Wanted Terror Suspect Arrested
 in Rural Wales

    Simon Kent27 Nov 2024148
    2:14

    One of America’s most wanted terror suspects has been tracked down and arrested in rural Wales some 21 years after a double bombing attack in San Francisco.

    The BBC reports Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, is in custody after an operation Monday backed by counter terrorist police and North Wales Police.

    The fugitive now faces extradition to the U.S. after being arrested at a remote property near woodland in north Wales by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA).

    The NCA said the Berkeley, California-born runaway was arrested at the request of U.S. authorities and appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Tuesday, where extradition proceedings began.

    “He was remanded in custody,” a spokesman said noting the apprehension came some 5,000 miles from San Francisco where the alleged crimes were committed.

    The FBI has previously called the suspect an “animal rights extremist” and was the first alleged domestic terrorist to be added to the U.S. agency’s most wanted terrorists list.

    File/FBI Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division Michael J. Heimbach announces extreme animal rights activist Daniel Andreas San Diego as the latest addition to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List on April 21, 2009 at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty)

    There was a reward of $250,000 (£199,000) for information leading to the 46-year-old’s arrest.

    CNN notes San Diego is charged in the U.S. with planting two bombs that exploded about an hour apart in the early morning of August 28, 2003, on the campus of a biotechnology company in Emeryville, California.

    The fugitive is also accused of setting off another bomb with nails strapped to it at a nutritional products company in Pleasanton, California, a month later.

    “Daniel San Diego’s arrest after more than 20 years as a fugitive for two bombings in the San Francisco area shows that no matter how long it takes, the FBI will find you and hold you accountable,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

    “There’s a right way and a wrong way to express your views in our country, and turning to violence and destruction of property is not the right way.

      1. Yes just like the father of the Southport stabber. The one who should have been deported to face trial in his own country but who was represented by a certain human rights lawyer and given leave to stay.

  102. Each and every time these events happen 'they' up their security.

    There is a natural human limit to this and their walls would eventually be breached.

    And quite possibly not by a white indigenous.

    1. I particularly like this rendition, as Varnus lets the echo die away before continuing. Gives a feeting of size and majesty to the music.
      Did you ever get to play such a behemoth of an organ, Geoff? Father got to play in St Hilda's, Hartlepool, when a young man and well before I was born.
      https://youtu.be/FHNLdHe8uxY?si=0_Pp9EDEwQ5zXbqo

      1. Not quite, Paul. In my late teens I had lessons from the then assistant organist at Carlisle Cathedral. Thankfully, at sixteen-ish, I was prolly too old for his tastes.

        I've since played at St Edmundsbury, and once accompanied my old protége in the organ loft at Ely.

        I still have a '*virtual organ' project, festering in the lounge. It's a 1980's full size organ console from the 1980's. Cost me ÂŁ380 on eBay. I junked a vast number of circuit boards. It had all the musical qualities of a cheap toaster.

        I was going to re-purpose a couple of MIDI keyboards, but the hardwood sections I bought were somewhat tapered, and therefore unsatisfactory. And I'm no carpenter.

        Things have moved on. There's a company in Devon who can supply high quality keyboards, in an Oak frame, for a few hundred quid each, including thumb pistons. I already have the encoder and decoder boards to conect the (43) stops to the 'pooter.

        With vision issues, the soldering up may have to be 'contracted out'. Part of me thinks I should just stick it all back on eBay. Maybe.

        But virtual pipe organs are rather awesome. *Visit contrebombarde.com .

        And enjoy…

  105. Evening, all. Will have to disappear at some time as I have to attend a Zoom meeting. I suppose it's better than having to drive to Walsall at this time of night.

    I suspect many "jobseekers" are put off by having to lose money if they come off benefits (and – shock, horror! – actually have to go out and do something). I know that doesn't apply to everyone, but I have known quite a few who would be better off if they didn't work and milked the benefit system instead.

    1. When one looks at the difference between not working plus benefits and working sans benefits the extra hourly rate, assuming you even beat the benefits, is a few quid per hour in most cases, if even that..

      1. Bearing in mind that being on benefits brings with it other, well, benefits like free prescriptions, help with council tax etc …

  106. As far as I know, il Papa has built no bridge of dialogue with my faith. Has he been getting tips off the muzzies?

  107. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    What is the purpose of Private Eye? I know it’s supposed to be some kind of anti-establishment satirical magazine, boldly holding power to account and standing up for the little guy. But I must say I’m finding its response to the extraordinary police doorstepping of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson rather puzzling.

    You would think that this supposed thorn in the side of the powerful would sally out in defence of a fellow journalist being visited by the police because of something she posted online – not out of love for the journo in particular, but for the vital principle of free speech.

    Should Pearson have had a notepad stashed in her dressing gown pocket just in case the cops came calling?

    Sadly, however, it seems any such principles have fallen by the wayside. Private Eye’s bi-weekly print schedule has finally got round to covering the Allison Pearson case and far from taking aim at the extraordinary overreach of Essex Police – say, by highlighting its woeful record of solving actual crimes – it has run a personal attack on Pearson herself. Pearson finds herself in the ‘Street of Shame’ column for allegedly ‘misreporting’ her encounter with police at her Essex home.

    After plod came knocking earlier this month, Pearson and the Telegraph had reported that she stood accused of a ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI), for a tweet the previous year. However, it later transpired she was under investigation for inciting racial hatred under the Public Order Act (a charge which has now been dropped entirely).

    Private Eye‘s piece takes great issue with this discrepancy, essentially suggesting Pearson deliberately misled people. It sneers at her explanation: ‘Pearson, a journalist with 40 years’ experience, declared that she might have misheard the officers because she was “pretty shocked”.’ Instead, it insists this reflects her ‘characteristic grasp on factual accuracy’, as if she were just waiting for the police to visit so she could misrepresent the force.

    It’s an extensive charge sheet against the conservative journalist, which Private Eye uses to write off the entire episode – yet its arguments scarcely stack up. For one thing, wouldn’t anyone, journalist or otherwise, be pretty shocked to have police turn up at their door on a Sunday morning? Should Pearson have had a notepad stashed in her dressing gown pocket just in case the cops came calling? It seems that in its dislike of Pearson, the magazine has forgotten the human element in all this. In any case, what is Pearson supposed to have gained by wrongly claiming she’d been accused of something else?

    Private Eye gives much weight to a transcript released by Essex Police to dispute Pearson’s claims, which it says provides a ‘pretty comprehensive rebuttal’. The ‘transcript’ comprises just three lines spoken by an officer. Along with the force’s dubious assertion that ‘Essex Police supports free speech’, it clearly aims to present the police in a favourable light. An inquiring investigative magazine might be minded to ask why we haven’t been given the full transcript. Indeed, if the dispute is so cut and dry, why not release the bodycam footage, too?

    In any case, whether or not Pearson reported what happened accurately, by using this minor factual discrepancy to rubbish the entire issue, Private Eye seems to be wilfully missing the wood for the trees. Whether it was an NCHI or anything else really shouldn’t matter – no one should be visited by the police over tweets, least of all Pearson. Numerous legal professionals have said her tweet came nowhere near the threshold for criminality, as proven by Essex police dropping the case. It’s nonsense to say that Pearson’s backers should have stopped defending her when it became clear she had been investigated for the far more serious offence of inciting racial hatred, for which the maximum penalty is seven years behind bars. Indeed, this fact makes her case more chilling, not less.

    The Street of Shame continues to say that ‘there remains an important issue at the heart of all this’. Readers can probably think of some. Free speech, perhaps? The egregious waste of police time? The chilling effect on journalism? The fact that Essex Police upgraded Pearson’s case to a Gold Unit usually reserved for terror cases?

    But none of those quite makes the cut. Instead, at last noting the outsize police resources devoted to this case, Private Eye asks: ‘Why, as with the shocking overreaction to the vigils for Sarah Everard in 2021, do the police appear to reserve their most heavy-handed action for cases in which they themselves are the ones being criticised?’ This may well be an issue. But it’s notable that Private Eye chooses an apparent instance of two-tier policing that’s three years old here. It’s almost as if it can’t bring itself to notice the more glaring recent examples of varying police priorities because it’s politically incorrect to do so.

    In case you thought this anti-free speech line was an isolated incident, the same edition also carries a spoof piece justifying the police’s decision to knock on Pearson’s door:

    ‘We have woken up to an Orwellian, Kafka-esque nightmare dystopia where the police can just turn up, knock on your door in the middle of the day, and subject you to a polite request for a quiet word! And all because someone, somewhere, has taken offence at your tweet to your 189,000 followers – which was so innocent that you deleted it immediately, and then told the police you couldn’t remember what it was!’

    In its desire to make light of Pearson’s ordeal, Private Eye manages to turn her doorstepping by the police into ‘a request for a quiet word’. It then implies, contrary to mountains of evidence, that the only people who need fear a knock on the door by the police are those who have tweeted ‘libellous drivel and lazy misinformation online’ – in other words, people who probably deserved it. It also attempts to suggest the right is only concerned about Pearson’s case for cynical reasons. In fact, Pearson’s treatment has been labelled ‘Stasi-like’ by a Labour MP, criticised by old-school lefty Suzanne Moore, and even called out by Sir Keir Starmer himself.

    In the end, it seems like only the ‘liberal’ left have been unable to see the Pearson case as a disturbing case of police overreach. Other to have taken aim at Pearson include ex-BBC hacks at The News Agents podcast, who have accused Pearson of a ‘persecution complex’, and the production company behind Have I Got News For You in a now-deleted tweet. A writer in the Guardian has called it a ‘non-scandal’ and cries that ‘“free speech” has been weaponised’.

    These establishment figures may delude themselves that they’re speaking truth to power, but they share, as Niall Gooch noted earlier this year of Private Eye’s editor, Ian Hislop, a ‘concept of the Establishment [that] seems to be stuck in about 1952’. And that explains a lot. Only someone so out of touch with the reality of social power today could call themselves a liberal, yet see the police being sent to a journalist’s door and cheer it on.

    WRITTEN BY
    Laurie Wastell
    Laurie Wastell is an associate editor at the Daily Sceptic.

    1. ""free speech” has been weaponised".

      About time too. I never thought I'd see the day when The Guardian got something right..

    2. Gave up with the Eye years ago. It stopped being funny and it stopped satirizing what turned out to be called "woke".
      Sad, really. Used to look forward to it's arrival.

      1. I remember years ago James Goldsmith sued Private Eye for libel. His lawyers dug up some rarely used criminal libel law and prosecuted Ingrams. In an interview Ingrams stated that he couldn’t get his head round the concept of the threat of being imprisoned for something he had written ( this being England in the 1970s).
        He has lived to see his successor revelling in this possibility in 21st century UK.
        I began buying Private Eye when I was sixteen but stopped subscribing many years ago. Like the humourists in ‘Have I Got News For You’ Private Eye sold itself for a mess a pottage as they all wallowed together in the BBC trough.

      2. At one time, Have I Got News For You was a certain Friday night programme.
        Haven't watched it for years.

    3. Private Eye have always taken the piss out of Allison Pearson – she is the model for Polly Filler.

    4. Hislop is a pompous, self-important little git. I stopped watching HIGNFY mainly because of him. He was instrumental in getting rid of Angus Deayton from the show.

      What would Peter Cook Think!

  108. From the Daily Telegraph

    A Netflix reality TV star was spared jail after being caught attempting to smuggle drugs worth ÂŁ150,000 to Britain from Thailand.

    Olga Bednarska, who has appeared on the dating show Too Hot to Handle, was stopped by customs officers at Manchester Airport in October with two large suitcases filled with 40kg (88lb) of cannabis.

    She was handed a suspended sentence at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty.

    The court heard Bednarska, 27, had agreed to take designer goods from Phuket, southern Thailand, back to Britain in exchange for ÂŁ18,000.

    Bednarska said the drugs had been given to her by ‘Tex’, an associate Credit: Instagram
    Sentencing the Poland-born reality personality, Judge John Potter said she had amassed a ÂŁ16,000 debt before flying to the south-east Asian country on Oct 10.

    The court was told that Bednarska met an “associate” at the airport before checking into a hotel “free of charge” and being given “spending money” and the two suitcases.

    The associate then asked her to provide personal items to “cover up” the goods she had agreed to take with her.

    On Oct 20, Bednarska flew from Phuket to Manchester Airport and was questioned by Border Force officials upon her arrival.

    The court heard she initially told them she had packed the suitcases herself and that she had not been asked to take anything with her on behalf of someone else.

    Samuel Eskdale, prosecuting, said: “She was then asked who paid for her flights and she said her friend named ‘Tex’. She said they wanted her to bring back designer clothes and watches.

    “The officers asked her to unlock the suitcases, but she could not provide the code to do so. She then confirmed she had been given the suitcases at the airport.”

    Cannabis weighing 39.4kg and worth ÂŁ157,600 was found in vacuum-sealed packages concealed by clothes inside the suitcases.

    As Judge Potter sentenced Bednarska, who had no previous convictions, he told her: “I am not going to send you to prison. That will mean you will be released from custody.

    “Over the course of the last few years, you have found yourself in financial difficulties. You have simply lived beyond your means.

    “You decided to place your trust in someone you hardly knew. You were acting under the direction of others, potentially for further profit.”

    A judge said Olga Bednarska had lived beyond her means and accrued a ÂŁ16,000 debt Credit: Instagram
    He added: “I am sure you can imagine the harm that wholesale value drugs have on our communities when they are sold for profit. You have directly contributed to this by agreeing to do what you did.”

    Bednarska, of Newcastle upon Tyne, was given a 20-month prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to complete 15 days of rehabilitation.

    1. And what would have been her sentence had she been caught in the opposite direction in Thailand?

      1. She would probably have spent the rest of her pathetic life in a real hole of a prison, or even faced the death penalty.
        She was stupid enough to rack up a vast amount of debt, and she knew exactly what she was doing.
        These vacuous, talentless airhead 'reality stars' & 'influencers' are a waste of oxygen.

    2. Just as well the

      "personal items to “cover up” the goods"

      didn't include a St George's Cross hat. She'd be facing life in prison

    3. Olga is a stunner.. I/she/ them have reluctantly agreed to carry out the intimate body search(es).

      1. What's the deal?
        About 200$ per hour..
        That's not bad.
        It's all I could afford.
        © Woody Allen 1973.

    4. Her invitation to be a Labour MP is in the post – eminently qualified. Doesn't do due diligence, no regard for the law, free clothes and hotel accommodation …

  109. Just been out in the yard and it's a tad above -3°C on the Yard Thermometer and the gritter has just gone up towards the village.

  110. Off topic, but picking up on the Beaujolais Nouveau tale from last week.

    This year the quality improved with price, something that often is not the case.

    Whether the most expensive was over twice as good as the least is open to debate, I think it may have been but only just.
    The entirely subjective approach was to drink half a bottle initially and then the next day finish it up and taste the next half bottle and compare.
    Each day there was a definite improvement.

    As they were all pretty good I would opt for twice as many bottles of the cheapest, but then I'm a cheapskate drunken slob!

    1. I think Beaujolais Nouveau Day is one of the smartest Marketing moves ever – I remember (did it start in the 90's?) us all from work piling down the nearest Wine Bar and glugging away on chilled red wine!
      They used to throw it away didnt they?

    1. That was excellent – I particularly enjoyed the bodywork and sensuous lines – the car was quite nice also….

          2. I’m not sure – the young ladies dont seem to have any keys about their persons (or not a lot else to be honest), so perhaps not….

    1. I like this song – its very mawkish but still emotional and quite stirring.

      I've seen Max Boyce live and he's very good – it obviously helps if you're into Rugby!…..

    2. Is it just me, or are strange things beginning to happen??

      – a peace deal (of sorts) in Palestine
      – relative quiet in Ukraine
      – Chagos Islands deal being reversed

      This looks very promising for The Donald – despite (or because of?) some of the very weird but possibly very wonderful above appointments……

      1. All those phone calls.
        Perhaps saying "what you get you keep, but it had better stop before I take over"

    3. Odd how the last three districts to call for the house are full of Democrat ballot buggers.
      Why has it taken so long?

  118. From Coffee house, the Spectator,

    Third time lucky for Kemi Badenoch. The Tory leader’s first two attempts to crush Keir Starmer at PMQs failed. Today she began by attacking the chancellor whose career is in quicksand and who admitted to the CBI that her smash-and-grab budget was so destructive that it mustn’t be repeated.

    ‘I’m not coming back for more borrowing or more taxes,’ said Rachel Reeves on Monday. Kemi asked Starmer to repeat that pledge in the house. Not a bad question. Starmer said he couldn’t write ‘five years of future budgets’ at the despatch box. Not a bad answer. Kemi’s team should have seen it coming.

    She boasted that Starmer had made an embarrassing admission by failing to endorse Reeves’s pledge. Well, sort of. She then quoted the PMI index and asked why business confidence is crashing. Sir Keir ignored this and brought up to Kemi’s loose remark two weeks ago when she endorsed Labour’s investment pledges.

    Other backbenchers did her job far better

    ‘They haven’t got a clue what they’re doing,’ said Sir Keir.

    Kemi should have anticipated that rebuttal as well. Then she came to the farming crisis, an astonishing own-goal by Labour, but she only mentioned it in passing before moving to the issue of biscuits. Yes, biscuits. The boss of McVitie’s recently criticised Labour’s financial strategy and Kemi joked that business people are struggling to ‘digest the budget.’ No one laughed.

    Continuing this bizarre routine, she described the deputy prime minister as a Ginger Nut which is probably the nicest thing Angela Rayner has ever been called. Is Kemi being paid to find cuddly nicknames for the cabinet? Finally, leaving it very late, she moved to the day’s big crisis, the threatened loss of 1,100 jobs at the Luton van works. Knowing this was a hopeless mission she walked straight into the trap she’d laid for herself. Starmer demolished her with facts.

    ‘The EV mandates at issue in this case were introduced by the last government,’ he said. ‘She was the business secretary who introduced them.’

    Gales of laughter greeted this unremarkable comment. Kemi has achieved the impossible: she makes Starmer look like a cross between James bond and Noel Coward.

    Other backbenchers did her job far better. The member for Gordon and Buchan, Harriet Cross, named a recently bereaved farmer, Sarah, whose holding is threatened by the chancellor’s tax-raid. Starmer lifeless eyes swivelled towards her.

    ‘I’m grateful to her for raising the case’, he said in his thin, anxious voice. ‘Send me the details and I’ll certainly have a look at it.’

    Sure he will. Another file for the shredder. Stephen Flynn of the SNP suggested that Starmer might feature in ‘scam awareness’ week on the BBC. He declared that Labour ‘claims to protect pensioners only to pick their pockets.’

    Well said. Why didn’t Kemi point that out? It’s not hard to sum up Labour’s objectives.

    Send Granny to Narnia.

    Put Farmer Giles on suicide watch.

    Dump everyone else on benefits.

    Labour’s Matt Western accidentally revealed why Starmer wants to freeze pensioners to death this winter. The cash is being sent to Ukraine to fix their energy infrastructure. Western lamented that the war with Russia has left 80 per cent of Ukraine’s grid ‘damaged and destroyed.’ (If Ed Miliband was in charge, the figure would be much higher). Western told us that ‘this important ally’ needs more power generators. OK. And what sort? He didn’t specify but diesel is the fuel of choice for portable generators. Sir Keir duly pledged £370 million ‘to support the energy sector in Ukraine.’ Which is astonishing. Our taxes are being used to heat homes in Ukraine while our pensioners endure hypothermia in their icy bungalows. And Ukrainians get toasty-warm fossil fuels but our citizens have to pay sky high bills for non-twirling windmills and feeble winter sunshine. The message is clear. Britons must emigrate to enjoy the benefits of their own taxes.

    Daisy Cooper begged Sir Keir not to renovate any NHS buildings on her patch. She boasted that her local hospital has ‘eliminated 65-week waits’ and ‘met all three cancer standards’ despite the ‘terrible buildings’ which are ‘life expired.’ There is a plan to replace the old hospital but Cooper’s own statistics argue against it. A spanking new building is a distraction, clearly, and our NHS heroes can work miracles irrespective of their physical surroundings. The spirit of the Blitz will save the NHS. Thank you, Ms Cooper.

    Lloyd Evans
    WRITTEN BY
    Lloyd Evans
    Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic

  119. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Not since the summer of the 2022 invasion have Russian troops been making more progress in Ukraine. Last month alone, they took almost 200 square miles in the Donetsk region. Just 15 miles now separate the Russian forces from entering the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. If Russia succeeds, a sixth region will be swallowed by hostilities.

    What’s changed? Russia’s ranks are swelling with highly paid contractors and fresh North Korean reinforcements, while Ukraine’s forces are thinning fast. Desertions are adding to crippling manpower shortages. Officially, some 90,000 Ukrainian soldiers have deserted (almost half of them this year), but the unofficial number is much higher. Desertion is becoming a crisis. Unless it’s addressed, no ‘victory plan’ will halt the Russian advances.

    The number of deserters has become so unmanageable that in August Ukraine passed a law forgiving soldiers who went AWOL for the first time as long as they agreed to come back. This has had a calamitous effect on discipline, essentially giving men permission to flee. Soldiers who have been fighting Russia for years without relief or rotation, often in positions that seem hopeless, saw it as their chance for immediate leave and a transfer to a more desirable brigade.

    The law was intended to rescue the army’s plummeting numbers. Desertion is punishable by up to 12 years in prison, and to lock up thousands of men when they are badly needed on the front line would be a mistake. But the lawmakers ignored the warnings from military commanders that such a law – unprecedented for a country at war – would thin the fighting lines where the battle was most intense. ‘It is not a step towards illusory democracy. It is a step towards defeat,’ said Dmytro Kukharchuk, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Assault Brigade. ‘Any violation of the laws of war must have consequences. Any precedent of no punishment encourages the wider public to do the same.’

    As soon as the new law was passed, an eight-strong unit fighting in the Donetsk region decided to leave. One of the soldiers – let’s call him Ihor – tells me his story. ‘When we heard about the law, we called the lawyers,’ he says. ‘They told us to wait a little while the first deserters were forgiven. When we understood how this mechanism works, we left. I was feeling sick, went to the hospital and never came back.’

    Ihor says the deserters are not, by and large, men who think the war is futile – they just think that staying in their own position would be suicide. Every war has battles in which the men being sent over the top know their chances of survival are slim. Ukraine is the first country to give them the option of leaving and then volunteering elsewhere. In Ihor’s case, he had come to believe his life – and that of his comrades – was about to be sacrificed for no purpose other than to satisfy the sadism of a bad commander.

    ‘This person, using family connections, came and almost destroyed our combat unit with incompetent decisions,’ Ihor says. ‘We completed his task, but when the Russians returned fire, he wanted to punish us for what he saw as failure by sending us to the trenches to die. For us, this was the last straw.’

    Soldiers in Ukraine can’t transfer brigades without their commander’s approval and the bureaucratic procedure can take up to a year. This became one of the main reasons for today’s desertions. Under the new law, soldiers who voluntarily return can select a new brigade – as Ihor did. Now he serves under a new commander in Russia’s Kursk region while waiting for an official transfer. ‘We are in this war until the end,’ he says. But even he disagrees with the new desertions policy, thinking it saved his life but could lose the war. ‘The front line is collapsing and one of the main reasons is desertion,’ he tells me.

    Only reforms inside the army will stop the military from fleeing, he says. He wants to make the transfers easier and introduce a rating system for commanders, where soldiers would anonymously assess their competence so as to root out bad leadership. ‘The butchers-commanders must be held accountable, not promoted,’ Ihor says.

    Plummeting morale among the troops is also taking its toll. Thousands of soldiers have been on the front line for almost three years, while others have been fighting since Russia invaded Crimea and the Donbas ten years ago. Kyiv has so far failed to conscript enough people for the understaffed brigades, let alone provide troop rotations or retirement. Most ‘rotations’ are just transfers from one hotspot to another, from Pokrovsk to Chasiv Yar and back.

    At first, deserters and draft-dodgers were seen as deeply unpatriotic. Now, feelings are mixed. Some deserters position themselves as patriots who are pushing for reform. One was Serhii Hnezdilov, 24, who left the army last month after five years of service and announced his decision on social media. He demanded reforms to service terms and a fairer mobilisation process. ‘Five million draft-eligible men tell us this is not their war and that we, the military, must be there until victory,’ he said. ‘The authorities remain unable to have a serious dialogue with
 citizens who do not fulfil their civic duties.’ He is now in custody and is likely to be given the full 12-year sentence: public desertion poses a far greater threat to the state than thousands that go unnoticed. Some have condemned him, while others argue that when the only paths to demobilisation are desertion, injury or death, the choice is clear.

    ‘The soldiers hoped that soon they’d be relieved by replacements ready to step in,’ says Artem Chekh, a Ukrainian writer and soldier. ‘Meanwhile, civilians expected the soldiers to keep wading through that mess, ensuring a comfortable life in the rear for everyone not in service. The dominoes could fall very soon. It could start next March
 Because many people have set themselves specific terms of service: three years.’ He thinks more will be leaving after three years, with or without permission. ‘[We are] hostages of war and of the system – a system content to let things slide until they explode. And soon they will.’

    The recruitment crisis led the Ukrainian parliament to lower the draft age from 27 to 25 in April. Politicians planned to offer a clear route out of the military: permission to leave after 36 months’ service. But this clause was removed at the request of army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. Such promises cannot be made before the war ends, he argued, as Russia has the larger army and Vladimir Putin has nearly four times Ukraine’s population to draw from for conscription. Lowering the draft age seemed to treble the number of soldiers-in-training to 35,000 a month. But numbers have since fallen back to about 20,000. In the summer, all Ukrainian men aged between 25 and 60 were obliged to visit enlistment offices and update their military registration documents. Those who didn’t were placed on a wanted list.

    There are still many ways to dodge the draft

    Men who fear the draft rarely walk on the streets. They leave home only for special occasions and when they do they take taxis. When I was in my home village in the summer, I saw a man using a bicycle to weave between houses when the authorities gave chase. There has been anger from many rural parts of the country that men in towns and villages are being singled out while men in cities roam free. ‘War for poor,’ people call it. In response to the outrage, last month the authorities kicked off a nationwide hunt for draft-evaders. Police raided restaurants, bars, comedy shows and concert venues across the country. One such occasion was a concert in Kyiv by Okean Elzy, Ukraine’s most popular rock band. On 11 October, thousands of fans leaving the concert venue were met by enlistment officers, police and secret service agents. They were asked to produce their military registration documents. Those who resisted were arrested. Many started running away and the crowd sided with those targeted, shouting ‘Shame!’ when police dragged them towards the car.

    Viktoria Beha was one of the concert attendees who witnessed the detentions. ‘Shouting “shame” at any detention has become an automatic reflex for Ukrainians,’ she tells me. ‘No one seems to care if the men detained are lawbreakers or if they are innocent.’ The men were playing up for the cameras, she says. ‘One man threw himself on his knees and screamed on video, pretending to be illegally detained. As it turned out, he had not updated his data in the military centre.’

    There are still many ways to dodge the draft. Exemptions can be booked due to health or critical employment – or, in extreme cases, by buying fake disability certificates (up to £20,000). A cash pile worth £5 million was recently found in the home of a medical authority leader in the Khmelnytskyi region. Other tricks include marrying disabled women or divorcing to pose as the single father of a child. Volodymyr Zelensky, reportedly outraged by the spike in exemptions, has ordered an audit. Kyiv plans to conscript 160,000 in the coming months, but even this will raise the manning of units only to 85 per cent.

    Zelensky’s adviser said that Ukraine’s allies have been pressuring him to lower the draft age further still to 18. The President has refused, explaining this is a war for Ukraine’s future and there are only so many young men it can afford to lose. Ukraine has already lost a quarter of its 40 million population either through deaths or people fleeing abroad. The UN predicts that Ukraine’s population may halve again to just 15 million within 75 years. Most men under 25 don’t have children yet and the war has meant three deaths for every birth.

    Time for changes is running out. Russian forces are just four miles from Pokrovsk, a rail and road hub – the key to seizing the Donetsk region. Once home to 60,000 people, the city braces for battle. The 11,000 who remain have been urged to flee. Outnumbered and outgunned, Ukrainian soldiers are fortifying the streets, but without fresh reinforcements they won’t hold out for long. This will soon become an acute dilemma for Zelensky. He can’t afford to lose more of Ukraine’s land – but who will stop Putin if more soldiers decide to walk away?

    Svitlana Morenets
    WRITTEN BY
    Svitlana Morenets
    Svitlana Morenets is a Ukrainian journalist and a staff writer at The Spectator. She was named Young Journalist of the Year in the 2024 UK Press Awards. Subscribe to her free weekly email, Ukraine in Focus,

    1. There are no North Korean troops fighting in Russia. There are North Koreans and possibly Soldiers in the east of Russia simply because there is a shared border and transportation links as both nations trade amicably with each other which is only sensible.

      Russia exports grain and other cereals to North Korea and the latter supplies sundries to Russia including steel.

      Ukraine is and always has been an utterly corrupt country. It is presently committing war crimes by targeting civilians using drone warfare and cluster ammunitions provided by the US and possibly the UK.

    2. The feast of Epiphany. The last day of Christmas here in Spain when Spanish children even those who had previously had their stockings filled by Santa Claus, are visited by the Three Wise Men and given presents, some (if their parents are of the old school, and some are) always get a little bit of coal to remind them that they could have been better behaved.
      This petition for a general election might be Starmer's little sack of coal. Irritating but nothing to worry about.

    3. The Feast of the Epiphany (la Fete des Rois). Will they have an epiphany? Don't hold your breath.

    4. A no confidence vote that the govt should win easily, unless someone* wants them out.

      *not us, obv.

      1. I fear our politicians in opposition aside from a few notable exceptions won't be very effective. This needs someone with a bit of bite, because the government's charge will be, "so the opposition doesn't believe in democracy". An easily shot down argument but needs playing with a bit of good rhetoric.

        1. Agreed. If the Cons can muff it, they will. And the House of Commons isn’t the place for rational definitions of what democracy means – they will just trade the usual pathetic sound bites and insults.

    5. A no confidence vote that the govt should win easily, unless someone* wants them out.

      *not us, obv.

        1. I suppose I retain the odd ounce of humanity despite intense provocation by hideous misfits like Starmer.

          I feel that just as we might put a cat or dog to sleep when there is no prospect of life and no alternative, so we should seek a painless end to this Starmer’s idiotic presence in government and the rest of his lying and dissembling cabal.

          1. Erm, I didn't equate feeling sympathy for him with wanting to end the Labour tyrannical rule in this country. IMO the latter is not a question of humanity, but more of preservation of our country. While I support the latter, it brings with it absolutely no sympathetic feeling towards the man himself. Or were you feeling sorry for him in away that suggests putting him to sleep like a terminally ill cat or dog? (I don't think that's what you mean… :@)

  123. I didn't see yours when I posted mine – but then I am not into Spanish practices anyway 🙂

    1. When I was child in Argentina, Christmas decorations were removed on 12th Night (January 6) and the presents left by the Three Wise Men was a consolation and distraction from the removal of the decorations. Here in Great Britain, things are different these days: the decorations are usually removed on Boxing Day or at least before the end of the year.

      1. I keep my decorations up until Twelfth Night. I don't normally put them up until Advent has started.

      2. When the 'Eco' rooted Christmas tree I planted and brought indoors, decorated, the following year it didn't survive Boxing Day . We woke up to find the bluddy thing infested with creepy crawlies which had woken from hibernation and had come alive with the warmth in doors. Said tree and decorations were promptly placed in the garden!

  124. I'm bruised but vindicated – and going to war with the police

    Together we will fight these insanities one by one and put the onus onto the authorities to justify their absurd actions

    Allison Pearson
    26 November 2024 8:01pm GMT

    I stand proudly before you this week as a Non-Crime Non-Hate Non-Incident. Not quite victorious – still a bit too bruised and vulnerable for that – but entirely vindicated. After 11 horrible days, last Thursday afternoon Essex Police admitted what any sane person had known all along. "No Further Action," the email to my solicitor said. There was no case against me, and never should have been. Sending two officers to my home on Remembrance Sunday to inform me I was accused by some anonymous "victim" of "stirring up racial hatred" in a year-old deleted tweet was such outrageous police over-reach that it made headlines around the world. "Britain Polices Speech but Not Much Else", the Wall Street Journal observed tartly. "The British 'bobby', previously armed with only a nightstick and common decency, has become an Orwellian snooper," wrote Dominic Green in the article.

    Other reactions from the Land of the Free were equally incredulous. Elon Musk called the UK "a tyrannical police state", which may yet have damaging, real-world consequences with our biggest trading partner. (President-elect Donald Trump has already announced tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China; it could happen to Starmer's Stasi Britain if right-hand-man Musk encourages Trump to play hardball against the enemies of free speech.)

    As my friend and colleague Daniel Hannan wrote on Sunday from South Carolina, Americans simply cannot believe that the home of Magna Carta is pursuing "two-tier" justice, allowing the bad guys to run free while hounding innocent civilians for saying something that hurt someone's feelings.

    I was blessed, of course, to have high-profile figures like Lord Hannan, Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, Sarah Vine, Lionel Shriver, Toby Young and the brilliant Free Speech Union (they offered wise counsel and paid for my excellent lawyer Luke Gittos) speaking out with ringing clarity on my behalf. (The Tory leader rang to congratulate me on Thursday evening and I was in such a state of elated relief I was jabbering and could barely hold a conversation with her. Sorry, Kemi.)

    The wholehearted support of The Telegraph's editor, Chris Evans, and our phenomenal news desk showed the coppers at Chelmsford HQ what great investigative work should look like. Seemingly more interested in drag queens than drug dealers, the irredeemably woke higher echelons of Essex Police were taught a short, sharp lesson: don't mess with the real boys in blue – our crack team of reporters who exposed the force's pitiful crime-solving statistics. Our campaign has elicited calls from some of the most distinguished coppers in the land for the use of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) to be urgently reviewed, if not banned altogether.

    A great news organisation like this one can shine an unforgiving spotlight on wrongdoing even – make that especially – when the wrong arises in an arm of the state which has a duty to exercise its power with caution and common sense. It may have been my name in the headlines this past fortnight but, make no mistake, The Telegraph was fighting, and continues to fight, for freedom of speech and to protect tens of thousands of men and women (even children for crying out loud) from these ludicrous, draconian instruments. (Do you think there is a bet among police to see who can record the nuttiest NCHI? If so, the dirty pants on a washing line incident has just taken a commanding lead.)

    The support of you, my readers, Planet Normal listeners and well-wishers meant the world. True to form, many of you managed to extract bitter comedy from the sinister absurdity imposed on me by the police. Bill wondered: "It's so deeply unfunny that I have to ask whether it's a crime to hate Non-Crime Hate Incidents?" Careful how you go, Bill; jokes are on their little list!

    Earlier this week, when the Prime Minister announced that "perpetrators of spiking will feel the full force of the law" Melanie commented: "When I first saw that I thought Starmer said "perpetrators of speaking" and I wasn't even surprised."

    Anna reminded me that one of the tests during witch-hunts in the 16th century was for the accused woman to touch her accuser. If the person said they felt pain at her touch the woman was declared a witch and put to death. "Not much change, then," said Anna wryly.

    Unsurprisingly, trust and respect for the police are in freefall. Several of you joked that you would have more chance of getting elusive coppers out to your burglary/car theft if you posted something "offensive" on X (formerly Twitter). Al, a longstanding Telegraph subscriber, spoke for many: "In my sixties, white, male, worked hard, paid taxes all my life. As a young man always had a healthy respect for the police. I now feel contempt and hate towards them. Why is that? It should concern them because it doesn't bother me in the slightest."

    It really should concern them. Essex Constabulary, and other forces, would do well to remember that, in this country, they police by popular consent. Sir Robert Peel established the nine principles of policing, which were described by Charles Reith in his New Study of Police History as "unique in history and throughout the world, because it derived, not from fear, but almost exclusively from public co-operation with the police, induced by them designedly by behaviour which secures and maintains for them the approval, respect and affection of the public".

    If the British people believe their police are acting to silence unhelpful dissent among the majority in order to cosset minorities with "protected characteristics", at the behest of a repressive state, then friendly co-operation will be withdrawn, and we should all fear what chaos follows.

    While prosecutions against mainly white, working-class Southport rioters (and trigger-happy tweeters) were railroaded through in record time, no charges have yet been brought against the men involved in a fight with police at Manchester Airport in July this year, in which a woman police constable had her nose broken.

    Police chiefs are fretting about "community tensions", I suspect. (This has led Reform UK to take the extraordinary step of threatening to bring a private prosecution.) I'm afraid this looks a lot like the opposite of their job description: policing with fear and favouritism.

    Responding to widespread criticism of the way officers are recording NCHIs, Lord Herbert, the chairman of the College of Policing, told The Telegraph that trust was "being damaged by the perception that forces were getting involved in mere disputes" at the expense of tackling crimes. It is not a perception, my Lord. It's now generally accepted that the police show more zeal in tackling bad thoughts than bad men. Officers have largely ignored the statutory guidance introduced in 2023 by Suella Braverman when she was home secretary. "I said police should only intervene if there is a serious threat," Braverman told me.

    We agreed that, although your columnist can get a bit excitable on occasion, serious threat to society she is not. At the very least, I think I am owed an explanation from Essex Police and Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington. So, here are eight questions:

    1. Who thought it was appropriate to send two officers to my house on Remembrance Sunday?

    2. Why was my original Non-Crime Hate Incident escalated to a criminal investigation under the Public Order Act? Who thought that was a credible charge when two former home secretaries, a law lord, a former solicitor general, three KCs, two very senior police officers and the nice man who works in Coral the bookmakers beneath my office all looked at my tweet and said it didn't "come near the threshold" for criminal investigation?

    3. Why did Essex Police say it was "unethical" for me to write about my deeply upsetting experience and why did you report The Telegraph to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) as if the paper didn't have a perfect right to expose your behaviour? I understand you confirmed which tweet of mine had supposedly caused offence and the identity of my accuser to the Guardian. Do you think that was ethical? Oh, and why was the redacted transcript of my doorstep conversation with officers leaked to The Sunday Times in a clear attempt to discredit my account?

    4. Instead of apologising for what Labour MP Graham Stringer called the "Stasi-like" behaviour of Essex Police, why did you double down in a further attempt to scare and silence me, announcing that Gold Command was taking over my case? How was that proportionate?

    5. Do you feel proud of using police powers to scare a law-abiding middle-aged woman when people in our county can't get your attention for actual crimes?

    6. Why did Essex Commissioner for Police Roger Hirst give an interview to LBC in which he talked about "crimes" like mine attracting prison sentences of up to seven years. I wasn't charged with any crime, was I?

    7. Whose decision was it to declare No Further Action? Did the CPS tell you that there wasn't a chance in hell of obtaining a conviction because no one in their right mind thought my tweet incited hatred?

    8. More generally, your force records 700 NCHIs every year and that number has been increasing. Do you think that is a good use of police time or do you think the taxpayer would prefer you to track villains not opinions?

    Eventually, I will have answers from the police to all those questions. The case is now in the hands of my superb solicitors. But what can we do about the metastasising cancer of Orwellian "hate crimes" that have such a chilling effect on people's ability to speak and post freely?

    Actually, there's quite a lot we can do. (Look what people power achieved after Nigel Farage's debanking scandal.) If you or a family member or a friend has been approached by the police over a hate crime, please get in touch with me. Don't feel ashamed or stigmatised; you're almost certainly not the one who needs to feel shame. Where appropriate, I will draw public attention to specific NCHIs. Together we will fight these insanities one by one, putting the onus onto the police to justify their actions.

    You can submit a Subject Access Request (Sar) to your local police force to find out if you have ever been investigated for a hate crime or had an NCHI recorded against your name. If you have, join the Free Speech Union (FSU), which has had quite a bit of success getting them removed from people's records (I recommend joining the FSU anyway – this nightmare could happen to anyone).

    That mirthless munchkin Yvette Cooper was apparently all set to lower the bar for NCHIs so even more unwary tweeters and cheeky kids in the playground could have their collars felt. But the Home Secretary quickly changed her tune after my case drew embarrassing attention to officers wasting their time on trivial cases. She now says police will be told only to record NCHIs when there's "a clear risk" to community tensions under new "common sense" guidance.

    Twaddle. Such guidance already exists and is ignored by police who are keen to boost their results by nabbing low-hanging fruit like me. How else do you explain an imam who called for attacks on Jewish homes being ignored while I am the one accused of inciting racial hatred? Farcical.

    Police should not record any episodes as NCHIs if they conclude no crime has been committed because it will show up if a person has to do an enhanced DBS check when they apply for a job. The police should also be consistent when it comes to which reports of possible hate crimes they investigate: stop treating some ethnic or religious groups as more worthy of protection than others.

    One officer, among the scores of police who emailed to commiserate with my predicament, described his foundation degree in policing thus: "It was as though they had gathered every Left-wing nut-job they could find and forced us to listen to them and then parrot back what we had been subjected to. One of the main messages permeating through all of it was the need to protect the strands of diversity. I think they had identified seven or maybe nine groups at the time. Black people, religious groups, women and so on. These were like protected species, this diversity drive was massive and constant, we were hardly prepared for day-to-day policing."

    Instead of teaching police their job is to protect specific groups from the wicked majority, the College of Policing needs to make sure police are better trained when it comes to understanding the vital importance of free speech and what legal protection it enjoys under the law. Free speech is not a nice add-on; it is the core of who we are as a nation.

    Personally, I want to see NCHIs scrapped altogether, and I won't rest until that happens. I'll be damned if they're going to upset someone like they upset me. Non-crime hate nonsense is fundamentally un-British and encourages a snitch society which is inimical to our national character. Relying on an allegation of "hate" from a third party and then allowing individual officers to decide what is "proportionate" is a recipe for injustice as well as a serious threat to liberty. I agree with Young when he says, "We should repeal all the laws that have created speech crimes and revert to the English Common Law principle that all political/contentious speech is permitted unless it's overwhelmingly likely to lead to an imminent breach of the peace."

    As for me, my mood goes up and down; sometimes happy it's over, angry it ever happened at all. On Thursday night, I am giving a talk at a sold-out charity do for the Sick Children's Trust. Normally, I would go along in high spirits to such an event, glad to meet lots of readers and be of use for a great cause. The truth is, after what Essex Police did to me, I will look out over the audience and think, "Are there people who think I am the person my anonymous accuser said I was?" That's what a hate crime allegation does.

    If I have just one tiny regret at not getting to go for my voluntary interview at the police station, it's that Allison's Army never got a chance to assemble outside Chelmsford HQ. Our riot would have been the politest in history, wouldn't it? Sandwiches, thermos flasks, canvas fold-up stools, poo bags. "After you, no after YOU!" Jolly cross with the police, mind you.

    Luke the solicitor and I had planned what we would do when the police asked me questions about the long-forgotten tweet. Instead of saying, "No comment," I would reply each time: "It's a free country." "It's a free country." "It's a free country."

    And we must go on saying it for as long as we have breath, or they'll take it away. Let them try.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/26/allison-pearson-vindicated-non-crime-hate-incident-essex

    2. Ah Bless I really feel your pain Allison now imagine you weren't a high profile DT columnist able to call on the support of the paper and many of the great and good and the best solicitors in the land
      Welcome to our world

          1. Possibilities:
            1. Someone in the police establishment wanted to expose NHCI for the nonsense that it is and so picked on someone with a high-profile to get support from the public.
            2. Someone in the police establishment (or higher) thinks NHCI is a good thing so what better way to cow the population than to harass someone with a high-profile.

          2. I've always thought your number 2 option. I tend to think the police were used and fell for the mischief hook line and sinker. But then that's because you can only con those who want to be conned. They do have form for taking preposterous bait through their own failings in righteous zeal recall. Nick and the inner ring of child murderers in government, the Cliff Richard saga and so on.

            'They', whoever set this up, needs just one high profile scalp to start making official clampdown a 'cause celebre'.

    3. It only went well because she's a wordsmith and has a widely-read platform to shout about this stuff.
      If it were you or me, we'd not even make the toilet paper, never mind national news. So, how many others have been caught in this situation and we haven't heard about?

    1. BoB, you could take over as Prime Minister. Most of those in government couldn't even run a bath if their life depended on it. Lol.

  126. I feel very disillusioned with my country.
    It's quire clearly on the road to self destruction.
    We need someone or something radical and to urgently to take proper control. Before it's too late.
    I think I'll pop off to bed now.
    Good night all 😮

    2. Hello, Conners

      I am writing here as this is the latest of you emails I could see. Thank you so much for your suggestions s to why I was getting locked out of signing petitions. You were right – I HAD somehow barred that gov site – I must have somehow put one of their emails into spam or something.

      So again thank you for bothering – I would have had no inkling, and wouldn’t have thought of it. I am surprised that I must have blocked from both my email addresses that I tried – silly me!

  133. Mayor of Casterbridge BBC4..

    Alan Bates ..

    Hardy's stories are usually so bleak .

    I will probably nod off soon, the fire is on and the room is warm , and need to ask Pip spannel to hurry up in the garden , last minute wees.

    1. I remember following the TV series of The Mayor of Casterbridge in the 1970s when I had just moved to Allhallows near Lyme Regis. And of course Alan Bates played Gabriel Oak to Julie Christie's Bathsheba Everdene in the film version of Far From The Madding Crowd.

      They showed a film version of Jude The Obscure on TV recently. Probably the most harrowing of Hardy's novels.

          1. I don't suppose it's very attractive to women, either, Tom.
            Maybe the sign should read "No sex" – as if it's not obvious…

  135. News which is both sad and not sad; Jim Abrahams left a legacy which makes us all laugh.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/11/27/jim-abrahams-director-writer-airplane-naked-gun-obituary/

    Jim Abrahams, who has died aged 80, was one of three badly behaved American schoolboys who went on to reinvent screen comedy with quick-fire spoofs such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun.

    With his friends, brothers David and Jerry Zucker, Abrahams began his career on stage in Los Angeles in the 1970s performing a sketch-revue show, Kentucky Fried Theatre, in which they delivered spoofs of TV ads and film parodies. In the process (though they did not know it at the time) they inspired the NBC producer Lorne Michaels, who visited the show in 1974, with the idea for Saturday Night Live, the longest-running comedy in television history.

    In an interview last year Abrahams recalled that to get material for their sketches they would leave a video recorder on all night, “because that’s when the stupidest commercials and TV shows and whatnot were on”.

    It was through this process that they stumbled upon a 1957 melodrama called Zero Hour!, based on an Arthur Hailey potboiler about, as Abrahams put it, “a guy with PTSD who takes off in a plane and has to overcome his demons to land the plane in the woods”.
    tmg.video.placeholder.alt JWNBROLN8Oc

    Though they did not know one end of a camera from the other, the three friends formed a filmmaking team, known for short as ZAZ, bought the rights to Zero Hour! and came up with a plan to remake the film as a parody using straight actors to do the script deadpan as if the film had been redubbed.

    However, as no one seemed interested in lending them the money to make it, their first film was The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), a feature-length compilation of their stage spoofs for which Abrahams wrote the script and for which they hired a then unknown director, John Landis, who would go on to make such blockbusters as The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London and the Thriller music video.

    Then came Airplane! (1980). Lifting the plot and dialogue wholesale from Zero Hour!, the ZAZ trio applied their ingenuity to turning it into comedy gold, with lashings of slapstick, puns, innuendo, visual gags, non-sequiturs and non-stop silliness.

    Leslie Nielsen, a 1950s romantic lead best known from The Poseidon Adventure and Forbidden Planet, was cast as Dr Rumack, who delivers the much quoted line: “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley” after being told “Surely you can’t be serious!” Nielsen relished the challenge, recalling that when he read the script “I told my agent: ‘Don’t tell them, but I’d pay them to do this part.’ ” Getting other straight actors on board took some persuasion, however.
    Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! He said that when he read the script he said to his agent 'Don't tell them, but I'd pay them to do this part'
    Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! He said that when he read the script he said to his agent ‘Don’t tell them, but I’d pay them to do this part’ Credit: Landmark Media/Alamy

    When Peter Graves (of Mission: Impossible) looked at the script for his character Captain Oveur, whose defining line (said to a young boy visiting the plane’s cockpit) is “Billy, have you ever seen a grown man naked?”, he nearly threw it in the bin.

    Robert Stack (of Written on the Wind and The Untouchables), who played pilot-on-the-ground Rex Kramer, got the point immediately. When Lloyd Bridges, the man in the tower, was asking about his character’s motivation Stack said: “Lloyd, there’s a spear gonna fly into the right wall and a watermelon’s gonna burst on stage left. Believe me, no one’s looking at us!”

    The outlay on Airplane! was a mere $3.5 million, but it became an instant classic. Audiences had never seen anything so funny. Before Airplane!, jokes in comedies tended to come along intermittently, often with heavily trailed punchlines, but one critic likened watching Airplane! to “being strafed with a joke-howitzer”.

    The film made $83 million on its release in 1980, eventually grossing $171 million worldwide and launching a comedy franchise, from Police Squad TV shows to the Naked Gun movies, and in the process turning Leslie Nielsen into the face of deadpan ZAZ-style comedy.
    tmg.video.placeholder.alt pdss1HvNifc

    The son of a lawyer, James Steven Abrahams was born on May 10 1944 to Jewish parents in Shorewood, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    He became friends with the Zucker brothers as a boy, sharing a love of the Technicolor movies of 1950s Hollywood and poring over copies of MAD magazine, which, with its elaborately detailed film parodies (“Saturday Night Feeble”, “Beverly Hills Cop-Out”), would be a key influence on their brand of comedy.

    After Airplane! came the shortlived ABC TV series Police Squad (1982),which expanded on Airplane!’s madcap formula but was modelled on TV cop shows such as the late 1950s police procedural M Squad, which starred Lee Marvin.

    In Police Squad Frank Nielsen was the bone-headed, ever-incompetent Lt Frank Drebin, and each week a guest star was killed off during the opening credits. Critics loved it and it was nominated for two Emmys, but audiences could not cope with the sheer number of rapid-fire gags and visual jokes. It was cancelled after just six episodes, the head of entertainment at ABC telling a press conference that the series “didn’t work because you had to watch it”.
    tmg.video.placeholder.alt ih78dz2XyLc

    ZAZ turned down another Airplane! (Airplane II: The Sequel was made by another team), but after collaborating on the war-film spoof Top Secret! (1984), starring Val Kilmer, and Ruthless People (1986), starring Danny DeVito and Bette Midler, they revived Lt Frank Drebin for The Naked Gun, which also starred Priscilla Presley (a Dallas regular) as Drebin’s love interest Jane, and the former American football player (later jailbird) O J Simpson as Police Squad Officer Nordberg.

    In the film, on which Abrahams was credited as screenwriter and executive producer, the squad is charged with protecting Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to Los Angeles, with predictably calamitous results, and as with Airplane! it was Nielsen’s straight-man performance as Drebin that made it.

    “When I see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the park in full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards,” he tells the mayor. “That was a Shakespeare-in-the Park production of Julius Caesar,” she replies. “You killed five actors. Good ones.”
    Charlie Sheen in Hot Shots!
    Charlie Sheen in Hot Shots! Credit: Everett/Alamy

    The Naked Gun was Abrahams’s last collaboration with the Zucker brothers, so he was not involved with the film’s sequels. By the time they parted company, amicably, he had already branched out on his own, directing Big Business, a 1988 comedy starring Bette Midler.

    He went on to direct the Winona Ryder comedy Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael before creating another spoof franchise with the Top Gun parody Hot Shots! (1991), and the Rambo parody Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), both starring Charlie Sheen. He directed the Godfather parody Mafia! (1998) and was a co-writer on Scary Movie 4 (2006).

    Abrahams and his wife, Nancy (née Cocuzzo) had a daughter and two sons, one of whom, Charlie, had severe epilepsy. He and his wife founded The Charlie Foundation to Help Cure Pediatric Epilepsy with his wife, and in 1997 he directed Meryl Streep in the television movie, First Do No Harm, loosely based on their experience.

    Jim Abrahams, born May 10 1944, died November 26 2024

  136. News which is both sad and not sad; Jim Abrahams left a legacy which makes us all laugh.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/11/27/jim-abrahams-director-writer-airplane-naked-gun-obituary/

    Jim Abrahams, who has died aged 80, was one of three badly behaved American schoolboys who went on to reinvent screen comedy with quick-fire spoofs such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun.

    With his friends, brothers David and Jerry Zucker, Abrahams began his career on stage in Los Angeles in the 1970s performing a sketch-revue show, Kentucky Fried Theatre, in which they delivered spoofs of TV ads and film parodies. In the process (though they did not know it at the time) they inspired the NBC producer Lorne Michaels, who visited the show in 1974, with the idea for Saturday Night Live, the longest-running comedy in television history.

    In an interview last year Abrahams recalled that to get material for their sketches they would leave a video recorder on all night, “because that’s when the stupidest commercials and TV shows and whatnot were on”.

    It was through this process that they stumbled upon a 1957 melodrama called Zero Hour!, based on an Arthur Hailey potboiler about, as Abrahams put it, “a guy with PTSD who takes off in a plane and has to overcome his demons to land the plane in the woods”.
    tmg.video.placeholder.alt JWNBROLN8Oc

    Though they did not know one end of a camera from the other, the three friends formed a filmmaking team, known for short as ZAZ, bought the rights to Zero Hour! and came up with a plan to remake the film as a parody using straight actors to do the script deadpan as if the film had been redubbed.

    However, as no one seemed interested in lending them the money to make it, their first film was The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), a feature-length compilation of their stage spoofs for which Abrahams wrote the script and for which they hired a then unknown director, John Landis, who would go on to make such blockbusters as The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London and the Thriller music video.

    Then came Airplane! (1980). Lifting the plot and dialogue wholesale from Zero Hour!, the ZAZ trio applied their ingenuity to turning it into comedy gold, with lashings of slapstick, puns, innuendo, visual gags, non-sequiturs and non-stop silliness.

    Leslie Nielsen, a 1950s romantic lead best known from The Poseidon Adventure and Forbidden Planet, was cast as Dr Rumack, who delivers the much quoted line: “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley” after being told “Surely you can’t be serious!” Nielsen relished the challenge, recalling that when he read the script “I told my agent: ‘Don’t tell them, but I’d pay them to do this part.’ ” Getting other straight actors on board took some persuasion, however.
    Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! He said that when he read the script he said to his agent 'Don't tell them, but I'd pay them to do this part'
    Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! He said that when he read the script he said to his agent ‘Don’t tell them, but I’d pay them to do this part’ Credit: Landmark Media/Alamy

    When Peter Graves (of Mission: Impossible) looked at the script for his character Captain Oveur, whose defining line (said to a young boy visiting the plane’s cockpit) is “Billy, have you ever seen a grown man naked?”, he nearly threw it in the bin.

    Robert Stack (of Written on the Wind and The Untouchables), who played pilot-on-the-ground Rex Kramer, got the point immediately. When Lloyd Bridges, the man in the tower, was asking about his character’s motivation Stack said: “Lloyd, there’s a spear gonna fly into the right wall and a watermelon’s gonna burst on stage left. Believe me, no one’s looking at us!”

    The outlay on Airplane! was a mere $3.5 million, but it became an instant classic. Audiences had never seen anything so funny. Before Airplane!, jokes in comedies tended to come along intermittently, often with heavily trailed punchlines, but one critic likened watching Airplane! to “being strafed with a joke-howitzer”.

    The film made $83 million on its release in 1980, eventually grossing $171 million worldwide and launching a comedy franchise, from Police Squad TV shows to the Naked Gun movies, and in the process turning Leslie Nielsen into the face of deadpan ZAZ-style comedy.
    tmg.video.placeholder.alt pdss1HvNifc

    The son of a lawyer, James Steven Abrahams was born on May 10 1944 to Jewish parents in Shorewood, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    He became friends with the Zucker brothers as a boy, sharing a love of the Technicolor movies of 1950s Hollywood and poring over copies of MAD magazine, which, with its elaborately detailed film parodies (“Saturday Night Feeble”, “Beverly Hills Cop-Out”), would be a key influence on their brand of comedy.

    After Airplane! came the shortlived ABC TV series Police Squad (1982),which expanded on Airplane!’s madcap formula but was modelled on TV cop shows such as the late 1950s police procedural M Squad, which starred Lee Marvin.

    In Police Squad Frank Nielsen was the bone-headed, ever-incompetent Lt Frank Drebin, and each week a guest star was killed off during the opening credits. Critics loved it and it was nominated for two Emmys, but audiences could not cope with the sheer number of rapid-fire gags and visual jokes. It was cancelled after just six episodes, the head of entertainment at ABC telling a press conference that the series “didn’t work because you had to watch it”.
    tmg.video.placeholder.alt ih78dz2XyLc

    ZAZ turned down another Airplane! (Airplane II: The Sequel was made by another team), but after collaborating on the war-film spoof Top Secret! (1984), starring Val Kilmer, and Ruthless People (1986), starring Danny DeVito and Bette Midler, they revived Lt Frank Drebin for The Naked Gun, which also starred Priscilla Presley (a Dallas regular) as Drebin’s love interest Jane, and the former American football player (later jailbird) O J Simpson as Police Squad Officer Nordberg.

    In the film, on which Abrahams was credited as screenwriter and executive producer, the squad is charged with protecting Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to Los Angeles, with predictably calamitous results, and as with Airplane! it was Nielsen’s straight-man performance as Drebin that made it.

    “When I see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the park in full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards,” he tells the mayor. “That was a Shakespeare-in-the Park production of Julius Caesar,” she replies. “You killed five actors. Good ones.”
    Charlie Sheen in Hot Shots!
    Charlie Sheen in Hot Shots! Credit: Everett/Alamy

    The Naked Gun was Abrahams’s last collaboration with the Zucker brothers, so he was not involved with the film’s sequels. By the time they parted company, amicably, he had already branched out on his own, directing Big Business, a 1988 comedy starring Bette Midler.

    He went on to direct the Winona Ryder comedy Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael before creating another spoof franchise with the Top Gun parody Hot Shots! (1991), and the Rambo parody Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), both starring Charlie Sheen. He directed the Godfather parody Mafia! (1998) and was a co-writer on Scary Movie 4 (2006).

    Abrahams and his wife, Nancy (née Cocuzzo) had a daughter and two sons, one of whom, Charlie, had severe epilepsy. He and his wife founded The Charlie Foundation to Help Cure Pediatric Epilepsy with his wife, and in 1997 he directed Meryl Streep in the television movie, First Do No Harm, loosely based on their experience.

    Jim Abrahams, born May 10 1944, died November 26 2024

  137. Well, it's almost 11 pm,, so I'm off to bed. Good Night, sleep well, and I hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

  138. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/27/mockery-wicked-witch-west-green-skin-discrimination-film/

    Parents have been warned that the film contains potentially upsetting depictions of “discrimination” because “a green-skinned woman is mocked, bullied and humiliated because of her skin colour”.

    Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, played by British actress and singer Cynthia Erivo experiences a trouble childhood in the musical as a result of being shunned for her green skin.

    The BBFC has further warned that, in the magical world of Wicked, “talking animals are persecuted”.

    The non-government body otherwise summarises the film: “An aspiring sorcerer finds acceptance at a magical school until higher authorities try to misuse her powers. This adaptation of the popular stage musical explores themes of friendship and prejudice.”

    Wicked caused a great deal of fan excitement ahead of its US release on Nov 22, with some critics comparing the buzz around the production to the anticipation of Barbie in 2023.

    However, promotional press events for the film also attracted online mockery in response to the perceived eccentricities of stars Grande and Erivo.

    In one interview, journalist Tracy E Gilchrist used peculiar syntax to inform Erivo that Defying Gravity, one of the songs from Wicked, had been emotionally received by fans.

    She said: “This week, people are taking the lyrics to Defying Gravity and really holding space with that and feeling power in that.”

    A visibly emotional Erivo responded that she “didn’t know” her music was having that effect, prompting Grande to delicately take hold of one of Erivo’s fingers, in an apparent show of support.

    The film is based on the hit stage musical, which is itself loosely based Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

    This offers a view of Oz from the perspective of the ultimately doomed antagonist killed at the end of the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, which carries a U rating.

    The film, out in UK cinemas now, was also based on a book, the 1900 children’s work by L Frank Baum.

    Join the conversation

    1. I'm so glad I stepped off this particular train years ago. Bye bye Hollywood satanists and BBC fools.

  139. Wull Sceap

    I think Bambi needed a trigger warning.
    It upset me.
    And then every time I watch Poirot, somebody gets murdered and there is never a warning.

Comments are closed.