Wednesday 3 May: Why hasn’t Britain pressed ahead with small modular nuclear reactors?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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445 thoughts on “Wednesday 3 May: Why hasn’t Britain pressed ahead with small modular nuclear reactors?”

  1. Good morning all!
    A lovely, bright clear morning but, with a tad under 1°C outside, a bit chilly.

    A small amount of ERNIE this month, £125 for me and £100 for the Dearly Tolerant.

    I wonder if Hereward The Woke live near me? I’ve the same choice of a Green or Tory council candidate!

    Hereward Woke
    6 MIN AGO
    I voted by post. Only two candidates. One Green, nice bloke but bonkers policies. One Conservative. Decisions, decisions.

  3. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    He’s Not So Well

    A man flops down on a subway seat next to a priest.

    The man’s tie is stained, his face is smeared with red lipstick, and a half empty bottle of gin is sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opens a newspaper and begins reading.

    After a few minutes the guy turns to the priest and asks, “Say, Father, what causes arthritis?”

    “Loose living; cheap, wicked woman; too much alcohol; and contempt for your fellow man,” answers the priest.

    “I’ll be damned,” the drunk mutters, returning to his paper.

    The priest, thinking about what he said, nudges the man and apologises. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to be so harsh. How long have you had arthritis?”

    “Oh, I don’t have it, Father. It says here that the Pope does.”

    1. Oh gawd! What the heck is she wearing on the other two thirds? 🙄

      1. In the process of transitioning by the look of it. Bit like the Gilbert and Sullivan half fairy.

  7. Good morning, chums. Slept badly last night with terrible stomach cramps – something I ate?

    1. Are you starting that bug that’s going round? Mine started with a bad night due to stomach cramps, progressed through nausea and a sore throat and tiredness.

      1. No,bb2. I went back to bed around 9.30 am and slept solidly for four hours. The wonders of Alka-Seltzer.

  8. We will stop the text scam misery. 3 may 2023.

    This government is going further than ever to fix that problem. On Wednesday, we will lay out in Parliament a major plan to fight fraud and ensure the public’s hard-earned money is not just easy pickings for scammers.

    Our action needs to be bold and firm, but prevention is as important as any cure. That’s why there must be an increased effort to block fraud at source.

    Oh! What’s this? There must be an election due! They cannot prevent your house being burgled or people jumping ashore from rubber boats but they are going to stop scammers sending you texts!. You have to see this for what it is: empty words devoid of meaning or intent.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/02/suella-braverman-we-will-stop-text-scam-misery/

    2. …in Parliament a major plan to fight fraud and ensure the public’s hard-earned money is not just easy pickings for scammers.

      Parliament? That’s ‘Scammer Central’: the HoC is devoid of self awareness.🤡🤡🤡🤡 World.

  9. 374119+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Letters: Why hasn’t Britain pressed ahead with small modular nuclear reactors?

    The operative word is “small” as the politico’s would suffer a serious case of SFS (scope for scams) ask yourself, one “small ”
    reactor would equate to how many money mills, and how many
    country miles of lying mirrors ?

    Lets face it, the political farce could NOT face the loss in scammoney ,and the damage it would do to the party before Country supporter / voters.

    Ask yourself also, where would we be without their input.

    1. 374119+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Modular nuclear reactors with a dash of shale

      what a winning mix to satisfy the common sense,beneficial palate Og.

  10. Why hasn’t Britain pressed ahead with small modular nuclear reactors?

    Because the whole point of the globalist agenda is to make us do things differently, that means consume very little and have nothing.
    The last thing they want is another industrial age with cheap energy

    1. Sunak et al. would rather give the technology away than let it benefit the people of the UK. More of the UK’s sleeping sheep will wake up when they’re cold and hungry. The French and the Dutch people are rousing.

  11. Good morning.
    Robert Kennedy Jr is really laying into the neocons and the parasites.
    He’s saying that the war in Ukraine is just a proxy war to bring Russia down, and he’s also telling the truth on climate change. He’s said that the Dutch farmers are victims of a land grab by the government that has nothing to do with the climate.
    This is going way beyond what would be necessary for a controlled opposition to Trump. I do hope he will be safe.

    There has been such a lot of propaganda against him in the past that some people have already made up their minds, and are “vaccinated” against anything he might say. My government-propaganda-regurgitating colleague for example, thinks that Kennedy is a terrible person, disowned by even his own family. When I mentioned Kennedy in passing, my colleague’s reaction was really strong – it surprised me – as though I’d mentioned hanging out with Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels at the weekend!

    1. A. Hitler was much misunderstood. You can blame Josef Goebbels for that.

      1. Careful Phizzee, there are people on the internet who will take that seriously!

  12. A tragic letter from Mrs. Freeman that illustrates how bad the NHS has become and how much of that decline is entirely due to the management of the system its self. A strong reminder that it is not the Government that runs the NHS, but the NHS that runs its self.

    Cancer care hindered by inept administration
    SIR – Professor Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer (Letters, April 28), states that NHS cancer teams are working incredibly hard.
    Experiencing this ourselves as my husband entered their care with an aggressive prostate cancer nine months ago, I would agree.
    However, they are working with poor tools and under tragic constraints. At the end of December, there were problems with the contractors’ supply of a particular tracer for prostate cancer.
    Patients were not told. A less satisfactory tracer was used. In my husband’s case, this meant that the detection of the cancer spread was compromised. Nine months down the line from referral, with the cancer now in his bones, he is still waiting for his chemotherapy regime to be finalised.
    We have witnessed the failure of the administrative teams to co-ordinate scans and appointments, thus requiring patients to travel to the hospital sometimes several times a week when these things could have been combined. The doctors and nurses are doing their best within a service disastrously run by management, constrained by badly structured contracts with suppliers, and coping with the inheritance of years of ignorant interference by politicians.

    J E Freeman
    Sidmouth, Devon

    1. Whenever I see these pictures, I think of that bastard saying smugly “Ve need to prepare for an angrier vorld.”

      1. With the new king and as with a fish the process of rotting starts at the head.

    1. Ministers fear pro-Russian hackers could disrupt Eurovision by hacking into the broadcasts and silencing the song contest next week.

      Good on yer Vlad!

  16. CO2 is a blessing, not a curse. 3 May 2023.

    THE current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 0.042 per cent or 420 ppm (parts per million). There is 100,000,000,000,000,000 tons of evidence – in the form of rock – that CO2 levels in the atmosphere were as high as 1 per cent (24 times the current figure) but the Earth didn’t overheat, and life thrived.

    There are no tipping points. No overheating points, no problems from CO2, and levels are so far below 1 per cent at this time that it is laughable that anyone should imagine that CO2 can be damaging to life on Earth.

    The global warming scam deserves nothing but derision. To claim that CO2 is a pollutant is unimaginably wrong, particularly when vegetation begins to die at not much less than 0.02 per cent, less than half of today’s already minuscule proportion.

    A nice succinct summary of the CO2 fallacy.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/co2-is-a-blessing-not-a-curse/

    1. The arrogance and stupidity of the ‘climate change sect, is beyond belief. They are proposing a number of measures to cool the Earth, including increasing its albedo i.e. reflecting more of the Sun’s radiation back into space. Get it wrong and there could be an uncontrollable runaway effect.
      It’s worrying that the people running with the climate change agenda are the very same people pushing the mRNA genetic jab. They are playing with something that they cannot possibly fully understand.

      1. And the least understanding and the most arrogant of all is the new King.

        https://www.google.com/search?q=King+Charles+on+climate+change+video&oq=King+Charles++on+climate+change+video&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l2.14909j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:9e2ed453,vid:CgmYOh-B-4M

        God help us.

        But Man, proud Man,
        Dressed in a little brief authority,
        Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
        His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
        Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
        As makes the angels weep.

    2. A basic tenet of nature: No CO₂ — no vegetation.

      No vegetation – no life.

  20. I asked my wife to describe me in five words. She said I’m mature, I’m moral, I’m pure, I’m polite and I’m perfect!

    Then she added that I also have no idea how to use apostrophes and spaces.

    1. The advice to look directly at the Sun, with or without sunglasses, is dangerous nonsense and should not be followed.

      1. 374119 + up ticks,

        Morning KtK,

        I do believe it was only meant rhetorically but you are correct of course.

        On par currently with I believe
        supporting / voting for the lab/lib/con coalition.

        1. I agree and I would never vote for these parties so, until something better comes along NOTA (Nota Of The Above) is the only option.

          1. 374119+ up ticks,

            Morning R,
            I do disagree for the simple reason many old tories currently voting for the ersatz tory party would quite happily settle for a quick rinse & dry clean the same old treacherous same old,same old.

            To vote NOTA is to mark time, to mark time, especially at this moment in time is to allow the DOVER invasion numbers
            to increase daily thereby our problems
            do the same.

            Simply put, burn lab/lib/con coalition membership card, mass join new party
            IMHO stay away from anything with a “nige ” tag.

      2. If someone does then they’re a climate change fanatic who doesn’t seem to understand what the sun is or does.

  25. Good day all,

    Lovely sunny morning here at the McPhee Manor in the wilds of North-West Hampshire, 7℃ rising to 15 or 16℃ with an Easterly wind. A lovely day in prospect and some work to be done in the garden. No fishing for me today.

    The Gatesograph letters are on about MNRs and the energy beneath our feet and I have to agree with them. We could easily be energy independent within 10 years and that is the root of economic success. Why is the government not getting on with it. Occam’s razor, as always, provides the answer. They don’t want us to be energy independent because it doesn’t fit with some supra-national agenda concocted by the UN/WEF/World Bank/IMF/Club of Rome/Trilateral Commission

    1. We have the facilities to be energy independent already, gas and North Sea oil, HMG just won’t use them. Deliberate policy.

        1. Yes. What can we do about it? I’m too old to go demonstrating and young people seem totally unaware.

          1. Very little. That’s the fundamental problem. Government shouldn’t be able to function without our say so. Spend nothing without our approval. Instead, it does whatever it wants regardless.

          2. The next big thing HMG will do without consulting the public is sign up to the IHR later this month giving away any authority over our health. And what is agreed will be legally binding.

            HMG should have no authority to sign any such WHO/IHR document without consulting the public. (Although that may not give the result I would like, I.E., NO.

  26. SIR – Again we are being urged to eat venison to help control the numbers of wild deer (report, May 1). I would love to eat more venison, especially as I take cholesterol-lowering medication and am required to follow a low-fat diet. However, the price is prohibitive, so it can only be an occasional treat.

    Ann Hooton
    Saltash, Cornwall

    Time to get yourself a new GP, Hooters.
    Your “cholesterol-lowering medication” is statins, and they will kill you.
    Your low-fat diet is unnatural and it will kill you.
    It is the higher proportion of carbs and sugar (in lieu of the fats) that you are consuming that is raising your cholesterol levels … and they will kill you.

    1. Quite a few people, I don’t know numbers, are genetically prone to having high cholesterol, Oi be one of them. With 8 stents fitted I’m obliged to take statins to keep my levels down.

  27. ‘Morning, Peeps. A lovely sunny day in prospect. Has Spring finally sprung?

    A delightfully bonkers letter:

    SIR – Cornwall has had a 20 per cent increase in houses built with en-suite lavatories over the past 50 years, yet the infrastructure has remained the same in that no increase has occurred in the supply from South West Water (Letters, May 2).

    This is on top of the fact that the population more than doubles in the high tourist season, when hot tubs and swimming pools are replenished.

    South West Water should not be fined, as no doubt the cost will be passed on to the consumer. Rather, Ofwat should ban it from imposing any price rises on the local population for three years. Customers with hot tubs and swimming pools could have the price adjusted to match their usage.

    Should someone slip on a dirty surface because of the hosepipe ban (my patio can become hazardous), then South West Water should be held responsible.

    David Barlow
    Cury, Cornwall

    Surely even a bog in every room wouldn’t increase water usage? Unless the occupants have some kind of weird fetish they only go when they need to? Indeed, the modern type use a lot less water than those of previous decades…

    1. It’s not so much the increased usage that matters, in peak season it’s the waste disposal that’s the problem.

      1. Eddy, just act like Southern Water and pour untreated sewage straight into the sea.

        Don’t worry, the Government will not fine you, but only give you a verbal admonition.

        1. Yes Janet its terrible isn’t it, that was the point I was making. We’ve been to most places in and around lovely Cornwall, but I’ve never noticed a sewage treatment works. Such places are not easy to hide. It makes you wonder doesn’t it ?

          1. Southern Water has been admonished for allowing the sea, and beaches, to be frequently polluted.

            The Government hasn’t fined them, but has told them that they must improve by 2050.

            …….bet that has got them terrified !!

          2. I’ve looked at Google Earth and I couldn’t see one obvious water treatment/sewage processing plant anywhere in Cornwall.

          4. One 😊 Close to the harbour it’s always filled with small boats.

    3. It’s the sewerage system in Cornwall that is coming under huge pressure, literally, because of the new housing (cheap and nasty for the most part) going up. The new build sewerage pipes join the old pipes, often a combined surface water/sewage pipe, and then to the sewage works. Heavy rainfall can bring on system overload. We’ve seen the consequences.

      1. …and so has Southern Water, fined £90m in ’21 and £28m last year, along with refunds to customers this year and next. After the heavy rain a couple of weeks ago another long, brown slick appeared along this stretch of coastline. One sniff told us all we needed to know…

    4. That’s like listening to a monologue from my older son. You struggle to follow the logic sometimes.

    5. Good morning, Hugh.

      Very true. “I might have eight bogs but I’ve still only got one arse” is a good maxim.

  28. SIR – I am a teaching assistant at a large high school, and am writing this during my break. Since over half of our 1,700 students are at home during the strikes, there are very few lessons to support and most of us are being paid to do very little.

    Given that we are only a couple of weeks away from GCSE and A-level exams, I find it desperately sad that many of our students will be without their regular teachers. These final lessons can be crucial in terms of exam preparation.

    On top of the disruption suffered over the last couple of years, the timing of these strikes is appalling. Teachers have a duty of care to their students, as doctors and nurses do to their patients.

    Debbie MacDonald
    Ipswich, Suffolk

    Well said, Ms MacDonald, but probably best you avoid the staffroom for the time being! (And they are pupils, not students…)

    1. Problem is as ever the trade union bosses, all on large salaries, are not working for their members but against the government and the rest of the UK population.
      Simply because as usual, they are allowed to get away with it.

    2. Head teachers a few years ago used to award themselves pay rises , by leaning on the school governors .

      Another thing was that when interviewing female teachers , one was NEVER allowed to ask them what their family plans were .

      A teacher would be selected , employed and 12 months later , guess what, she would announce she was pregnant , so she would then be on leave for months , full salary , in the meantime a stand in teacher would also receive salary, result the school finances would suffer , and then probably put into special measures ..

      Why are state schools so huge .. blinking forced feed factories , no wonder many children fail and fade .

      Smaller schools produce better results .

      1. The customer of a school is not the student. It is the state. Government controls the money and thus is the customer. All reports, all data is for big government first and the child is an afterthought.

      2. My primary school was the little village Cof E school (closed long ago now) with 60 pupils and three teachers. In my year, the 11+ results sent two girls (including me) to the girls’ grammar school, another girl and two boys to the central technical school and one boy to the sec mod (but he and his brother and sister had struggled but got lots of extra tuition).
        Those three teachers – especially Mrs Foster (infants) and Mrs Ralph (seniors) set me up with a good education for life. The middle class was very small (so was the room) and there were several changes of teachers in that room.

        1. The teachers also became good friends and for years afterwards (until they retired) invited me and other old pupils back for the Christmas party and Mrs Foster’s retirement do. I think the last time I met Mrs Ralph was after my A levels.

  30. Morning all 🙂😉
    What a lovely start, sunshine.
    First I’ve heard of small modular nuclear reactors. They sound sensible. But we don’t have any one at all in charge, who has any obvious commonsense.
    So we can never expect anything will ever happen to make our lives and the future any better.
    And they want us to vote for them. But the question is as ever, precisely what are we actually voting for ?

    1. The state is determined to force down the generation of electricity. This reduces supply and forces the price up, reducing demand. The state then proclaims it has met it’s net zero targets. It is forcing the nation backward in an abusive, insulting and fundamentally stupid enforcement of these economically retarding ideologically driven, sadistic policies.

      1. Apart from stating the obvious, that the state is absolutely stupid.
        We have become martyrs to this idiotic notion that our small group of island people will lead the world to glory in its attempt to stop ‘climate change’. It won’t.

        1. This country no longer has an empire, we are no longer a major power yet, as you say, our “leaders” still maintain a quasi-imperial belief that we have to “lead” the world. So when we lead, do we ever look back to see who is following? Answers on a very small postcard.

      2. Also refusing permission for new reservoirs.
        Only two conclusions; either they want electricity and water to be a lot more scarce and expensive, or they expect the population to be much reduced.

    2. I will be voting for the hope of change, that of course excludes the LibLabCons.
      My optimism is regularly shattered after each and every election and tomorrow we will again see the sheep vote for more of the same.
      In my mind I somehow likened it to sheep walking blindly towards the abattoir cheering on the slaughtermen.

      1. I consider voting in the same vein as those who queue up for covid jabs.
        What ever happens after voting is sickening in more ways than ever expected.

      2. I think there will be a very low turnout and/or lots of spoiled ballot papers.

      1. One thing that stood out………

        It’s hard to build anything these days
        The virtues of advanced nuclear reactors are all great in theory. In practice, building anything big is really, really hard.

        Except of course huge housing estates on the green belt and agricultural land in England.

        1. Rolls Royce have the prototype of the SMRs ready to go – but the government aren’t interested in anything that might work better than windmills.

          1. I believe Camoron’s father-in-law is involved in the wind mills Mr Quixote.

          2. RR already have expertise in this area – I’m sure their reactors are in our nuclear subs

  31. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
    A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice. – Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosopher and author (3 May 1469 – 21 Jun 1527)

    Machiavelli claimed that his experience and reading of history showed him that politics have always been played with deception, treachery, and crime.

    He was ahead of his time.

    1. The King is a humourless buffoon who takes his own opinions too seriously – he has no common sense and no judgement. This will lead to the end of the British monarchy.

      What a contrast between him and his sister! If only she were Queen!

      1. He is loved by the BBC who are continuing with anti-monarchy programmes leading up to the coronation. They know when they have an (unwitting) ally.

        1. In one of the shops I visited this afternoon after riding, the woman asked me what I was doing on Saturday. Watching the 2000 Guineas, of course!

    2. The rules have always been known to the Elites but The Prince by Machiavelli was probably the first geopolitical guide for the masses. It’s been superseded now of course, most notably by Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Everyone interested in the World and how it really works should read it since it explains why things are the way they are. The rules are extraordinarily simple and straightforward. They also free you from the lies and propaganda of the Elites.

  32. Tom Bowers, the royal biographer, was on GB News last night and he and Dan Wootton were discussing Princess Anne’s excellent recent interview on Canadian television with him.

    When Bowers was writing a book about Prince Charles some years ago he was at some equestrian event and he was trying to get some information about Prince Charles from his sister.

    “Why do you want to know anything about my brother?” she asked.

    “Because he’s interesting,” Bowers replied

    “No, he isn’t!” said Princess Anne.

    Just then Veronica Wadley, Bowers’s wife – who had been at Benenden with Anne, appeared but they had not seen each other since then.

    “Hello, Wadders. Long time no see.” said the Princess.

    1. She’s very down to earth. I hope we see her at the Gatcombe three day event this year.

      1. She’s always appeared to be too sensible to be involved in the ‘Royalty protocol’ part of the family.
        I have always had the impression that She’s joined in under protest.

        1. We didn’t see her at the event last year, and of course there were two blank years but in 2019, she and her husband stopped by for a chat about hedgehogs.
          Years ago when I worked for the local caterer, we did Christmas lunches etc for her staff at her house and she would always come into the kitchen for a chat. It’s very much a family home. I remember her white bull terrier ( the one that got her a fine) licking the plates we had cleared.

    2. Those are clever answers, deflecting any attempt to get information out of her. Asking questions is a good tactic when someone verbally attacks you, but you have to be on the ball to do it, instead of simply responding defensively.

      1. Are you the man who answers a question with a question?

        Who told you that?

      2. I thought she gave nothing away in her interview. Mind you, what she DIDN’T say spoke volumes.

    1. I had whooping cough and measles as a child in the 1950s. Nasty but I was in no danger of dying. We had clean water and sanitation, but also coal fires and the only other form of heating was the gas oven in the kitchen. My mother would leave the door open for some warmth.
      Possibly these diseases left me in better shape physically than today’s pampered children. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

        1. Maybe because I’m now in my 70s I look back on my 1950s childhood and realise how happy it was, in spite of losing my father when I was four. Grandma lived with us for a couple of years after that and died aged 76. I think I’m in better shape than she was.

        2. Me too. Frost on the bedroom windows and any glass of water beside the bed froze solid. Open fire downstairs the only heating. I only ever had whooping cough and if I hadn’t been sent to hospital to have my tonsils out, it’s unlikely I would even have had that (I caught it in hospital!).

    2. There is a theory that polio was caused by DDT and that those of us who weren’t exposed to crop spraying were unlikely to suffer from it anyway. The polio vaccine regime is very likely the cause of my psoriasis and other skin allergies. It’s being hereditary is the least plausible explanation since there is no history of it on either side of my family.

      1. There was a girl at school who had terrible psoriasis. She must have suffered dreadfully. I don’t know what became of her.

  35. Good morning all

    We had to be awake and sorted before 0800hrs .

    We are having the misted up cracked glass replaced in 4 Velux windows .. old wooden frames . circa 1985. 2 very large GGL4 and 2 smaller ones on the landing .

    Men arrived on the dot .. Removed the windows , left the frames in the drive way propped up against the wall.

    Moh and I had to clean the frames of dust , spiders and other mildewy stuff , then go upstairs to the bedroom over the garage and landing to tidy up the empty space frames and Moh PVA’d the wood prior to revarnishing .

    Thank goodness the weather is decent , but there is a really cold breeze .

    Coffee break now, and oh drat ,still cannot access my Twitter .

  36. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c2e7e647c8a1893194b8ee0d05a03bc46a752a096318ab32890f37ef4cccb4f4.jpg

    When The Guardian is drawn into the mire

    Did that day’s editor happily wave through something so artistically and morally bad, or did no senior editor even glance at it?

    CHARLES MOORE • Tuesday 2nd May 2023 • 6:00am

    The Guardian has all but admitted that its cartoon last Saturday, by Martin Rowson, was anti-Semitic. It took it down and apologised. Half-heartedly, Rowson, too, said sorry.

    Since the cartoon is not now visible, readers may find it useful to know what it drew and said. Entitled “The Copros Touch” – “copros” meaning excrement – Rowson’s picture showed Boris Johnson sitting on a huge heap of faeces (presumably his own) and holding a sack of dollars in each hand. The BBC’s microphone is seen drowning in the human dung-heap. Beside the pile, bins and bin bags marked “Families”, “Friends” and “The Reputation of Everything” lie strewn around. A pig is shown vomiting.

    Next to the pig stands Richard Sharp who, at the time of drawing, had just resigned as chairman of the BBC. Mr Sharp, who is Jewish, is holding a box on which can be read on one line the word “Gold” and, on the line below “Sac”. The remainder of each word is obscured by Mr Sharp’s apparently redacted CV. If the CV were removed, we are supposed to think, the words would read in full, “Goldman Sachs”, his former employer.

    Inside the box are a vampire squid, the beast mythically associated with the firm by its enemies, and Rishi Sunak (who once worked at Goldmans), with his nose grotesquely elongated. Boris Johnson is saying to Mr Sharp, “Cheer up, matey! I put you down for a peerage in my resignation honours!”

    Rowson’s picture does look anti-Semitic, but I would not say this is the main impression it creates. It is more part of the ugly background music. The cartoon is, in all respects, a crudely drawn, ill-thought-out and strikingly nasty piece of work. If I had to sum up the cartoon in a word, I would deploy the most common four letters people use to describe the brown matter which gives Rowson such a thrill.

    I have always been interested in cartoons. When I edited this paper, I talked most days to our then political cartoonist, Nicholas Garland. His daily drawing and the idea behind it were, of course, his own, and of consistently high quality; but we agreed it was valuable for editor and cartoonist to discuss the issues of the day because the main cartoon is a central part of a newspaper’s comment. The result certainly did not need to agree with the paper’s editorial line (indeed, Garland was often to the Left of it), but it did need to speak in the right tone to the readers, making points that were comprehensible, witty and, though satirical, humane.

    It used both to amuse and dismay us that some newspapers’ cartoons appeared to have no quality control. It seemed as if they were not edited at all – indeed, not even read by a senior editor – but just printed regardless in a way that would never be allowed in the Comment columns appearing below them. In Left-wing papers, any old rubbish seemed to be accepted so long as the drawing was scatological, and/or smeared with blood, and unthinkingly violent against the Tories. Rowson was a notable practitioner of this genre. We laughed as we tried to imagine editors who, having actually looked at such stuff, still thought it was worth running.

    So, should The Guardian cartoon have been taken down because it was anti-Semitic? Possibly, though I tend to be suspicious of the cult of cancellation. To me, the prior questions are more important. Did that day’s editor happily wave through something so artistically, morally and intellectually bad, or did no senior editor even glance at it? It must be one or the other. In either case, it suggests that, at The Guardian, the process known as editing may have been ditched by the onrush of ideology, an ideology which, among other things, is anti-Semitic.

    Political appointment

    The oddest response to Mr Sharp’s fall is the suggestion that, in future, the Government should have no role in appointing the BBC chairman. The venerable David Dimbleby thinks a prime minister should “never again be responsible” for the decision.

    The point of the BBC chairmanship is to give some means by which the government of the day can maintain a working, but arm’s-length relationship with the BBC. There has to be such a relationship, because the BBC’s Charter exists under statute, as does its unique right to force everyone to pay for it via the licence fee. So the elected Government is ultimately – but only ultimately – responsible. Therefore, the chairman should be appointed by the prime minister and the director-general should not be.

    It is a reasonable convention that, when exercising the right to choose, the prime minister will tend to appoint a chairman not too far from his or her own political views. Mrs Thatcher put in the mildly Tory Marmaduke Hussey. Tony Blair appointed the Labour-supporting Gavyn Davies. This custom does not solve all problems, but it does make it less likely that relations between the government and the Corporation will break down entirely.

    The current craze for constituting “independent” bodies and appointing “independent” persons to take decisions which are, in effect, political can sound attractive, because we are sick of our politicians. But it never answers the most important question, “Independent of whom?” What it means in practice is, independent of the voters. In the case of the BBC, such a system could only drive it even further apart from the millions forced to pay its wages.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/02/when-the-guardian-is-drawn-into-the-mire

    This is from a news piece on Saturday:

    Rowson later apologised for the depiction of the former BBC chairman.

    “Satirists, even though largely licenced to speak the unspeakable in liberal democracies, are no more immune to f****** things up than anyone else, which is what I did here,” he said. “I know Richard Sharp is Jewish; actually, while we’re collecting networks of cronyism, I was at school with him, though I doubt he remembers me. His Jewishness never crossed my mind as I drew him as it’s wholly irrelevant to the story or his actions, and it played no conscious role in how I twisted his features according to the standard cartooning playbook.”

    Meanwhile, Dave Rich, head of policy at Jewish charity the Community Security Trust, said that the latest Guardian cartoon “falls squarely into an anti-Semitic tradition of depicting Jews with outsized, grotesque features, often in conjunction with money and power”.

    In a Twitter thread, he drew parallels with anti-Semitic propaganda throughout the Nazi and Soviet Union eras, as well as “modern-day Jew-haters”.

    “Anti-Semites have often imagined Jews as ugly and physically repulsive, focusing specifically on these features,” he said, adding that squids are a common anti-Semitic motif used as part of a conspiracy theory that Jews have their tentacles wrapped around society.

    “You might argue that outsized facial features and tentacles are common to other topics too, so it’s just a cartoon thing,” Mr Rich said. “Except where something has a long and familiar anti-Semitic history, it takes on a different meaning when you apply it to Jews.”

    Stephen Pollard, editor-at-large of The Jewish Chronicle, said: “It takes a lot to shock me. And I am well aware of The Guardian’s and especially Rowson’s form. But I still find it genuinely shocking that not a single person looked at this and said, no, we can’t run this. To me that’s the real issue.”

    A spokesman for Guardian News and Media said: “We understand the concerns that have been raised. This cartoon does not meet our editorial standards, and we have decided to remove it from our website. The Guardian apologises to Mr Sharp, to the Jewish community and to anyone offended.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/29/anti-semitism-row-guardian-cartoon

    BTL:

    Richard Whitehouse
    Oh, and just to put the icing on the cake, here is what Rowson said to the left-wing magazine Red Pepper in 2011:

    ‘The Israel lobby is particularly masterful in using this to silence criticism of their brutally oppressive colonialism… You can’t win – it’s the ultimate trump card. No matter how many innocent people the Israeli state kills, any criticism is automatically proof of anti-semitism. No wonder idiots like Ahmadinejad want to deny the holocaust. They are jealous. They’d love to silence their critics like that.’

    But hey, I’m sure his apology is heartfelt and meaningful…

    Alan Brown
    They haven’t apologised. They are merely sorry “if anyone has been offended”. In other words, the problem lies with the viewer, not the producer.

    Mark Starr
    Absolutely right , it is a cheap trick but a classic one when you apologise but not for your own error / mistake. Manufacturers are good at it e.g. a consumer complaint is received the reply is “We are sorry to hear that you are disappointed with your recent purchase…. ” This is done to ensure that you do not accept responsibility and therefore open yourself up to being sued.

    S Thomas
    Anti-semitism is racism. It is utterly abhorrent and it is only acceptable in some quarters because Jews are perceived as (a) white; (b) rich; (c) successful. They don’t want your help. They don’t need your help. They will work hard and achieve it themselves. It seems it is not very far under the surface for today’s left wing – every now and then the mask slips. Clearly it is acceptable amongst some elements of the left wing to dabble in this form of racism and it just underscores my main problem with the politics of the left which is that it is rooted in envy and runs counter to effort, aspiration and success.

    Tree Power
    Marx and Engels were Jews. So was Trotsky. In fact, most of the intellectual underpinning of socialism was originated by Jews. Go to France and you’ll barely find a Jew who isn’t a left-wing intellectual. Most of Wall Street donates to the Democrats.

    I think it’s a religious expiation thing, a guilt that even Catholics don’t match. It really makes me wonder why the British Left is so virulently anti-semitic.

    Thea James
    Marx, Engels and Trotsky all disavowed their Jewish heritage. Stalin killed hundreds of thousands. The USSR was anti-semitic.

    There is a long tradition of the left portraying capitalism as Jewish conspiracy. Police must investigate the Guardian.
    _______________________________________

    Fraser Nelson writes in defence of Rowson: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/in-defence-of-martin-rowson/

    1. Bob Moran got the sack from the DT for something much less offensive than that.

      1. I like Bob Moran’s cartoons – and he is a far better artist than Mark Rowson.

    2. Why is there a wooden? cup in the image? The visceral hatred the Left have of Boris is hilarious considering how the so quickly hide the failures of their own.

      I’m not sure this is anti-Semitic, it’s just full of bile and hate.

      1. The figure of Richard Sharp is the anti-semitic bit – but it’s even more savagely anti Boris.

        1. I think that’s just bile at ‘one of their own’ betraying them. The BBC is infested with Lefties. Suddenly a Tory donor – one giving a hated PM monies as a private individual – turns on them?

          The screaming likely went on for days.

    3. Congratulations on keeping the daub. I thought the Grauniad had vaporised it.

  37. The reason you shouldn’t feed your dog pheasant
    High-end pheasant-based foods sold by specialist retailers or some supermarkets should be avoided for the sake of your pet’s health
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/03/reason-you-shouldnt-feed-your-dog-pheasant/

    We have wild pheasants in our garden at this time of year – the males are very beautiful but their song is rather raucous. Over the summer they become rather less shy of humans.

    But one beautiful bird should have been rather more shy of a neighbour’s boxer-cross dog. He escaped from his home and spent the night out and ended up in our garden. When we saw him he had nearly finished eating a very colourful cock-pheasant and he deserves indigestion for robbing us of a good-looking friend.

  38. Fuel depot near key Crimea bridge bursts into flames. 3 may 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ce13a9fec0d6564ac1bf5efb7eede266d43fd895988e7edf1be283443a1c3fe.png

    A fuel depot was on fire near a key bridge linking Russia’s mainland with Crimea days after Moscow blamed Ukraine for an attack that set fire to an oil depot in Sevastopol, a Russian official has said.

    Wow! It’s practically next door. Sevastopol is of course on the other side of the Crimean Peninsula!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-putin-massive-explosion-b2331363.html

    1. I’d love to hear what Erdogan really thinks of this tug of war being Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Union…sorry, Ukraine…for possession of what he probably still sees as the Crimean Khanate. He won’t act, as the former Ottoman lands in the Middle East are more important to Turkish interests. That region was, after all, once dominated by Ottoman and Persian rule and European meddling in the 20th century is responsible for the current mess.

  39. Fuel depot near key Crimea bridge bursts into flames. 3 may 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ce13a9fec0d6564ac1bf5efb7eede266d43fd895988e7edf1be283443a1c3fe.png

    A fuel depot was on fire near a key bridge linking Russia’s mainland with Crimea days after Moscow blamed Ukraine for an attack that set fire to an oil depot in Sevastopol, a Russian official has said.

    Wow! It’s practically next door. Sevastopol is of course on the other side of the Crimean Peninsula!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-putin-massive-explosion-b2331363.html

  40. I am off – not NoTTLing much today, what with tank men all over the place. Have to go to the GP – e-mailed 4.30 yesterday afternoon – seeing nurse at 12.00. Couldn’t ask for more, really.

  41. Athletics official: Black sprinters better because they ‘escape burglaries’
    Julian Starkey has been banned from governing bodies’ boards for three years after making the comment at an event in November last year
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2023/05/02/athletics-julian-starkey-black-sprinters-escape-burglaries/

    I tease most of my friends and most of my friends tease me. Indeed it is a sign of companionship that one can do so without causing or taking offence.

    If it becomes illegal or leads to you being sacked or cancelled if you even crack a mild joke about a black person I think it will encourage most people to have as little as possible to do with black people and to say as little as possible to or about them.

    Indeed anti-racism has become the greatest of spurs to promote racism.

    1. This country has been shown to be the least racist of all – but there seems to be an obsession with making it so. Black sprinters from the highlands of Kenya and Ethiopia are better runners due to the altitude they were born to. That’s not racist, it’s just the way they are.

      1. I expect many hundreds of years ago a lot of indigenous British people were much more active as well.
        Most of us use to at least, walk to school or the local shops.

        1. I mentioned my primary school earlier on in response to T-B. I used to walk there every day along the A38, which even in the 1950s was quite a busy road. The school was over a mile away from home. I also walked to my senior school, though it was somewhat nearer to home.

          1. My walk to junior school, always with many friends, was fairly quiet then, but obviously busier now. My parents didn’t have a Range Rover for the drop off. I cycled to senior school and later to my work 20 plus miles a day there and back for over 5 years. No wonder my joints are suffering now.

          2. I walked on my own after the first year or two at primary school. My neighbour, with whom I was orginally entrusted to walk, was three years older than me and she soon got tired of being a chaperone. As an only child I never minded my own company. The other children in our little cul de sac were all quite a lot older than me, but were good friends, especially Hilary and Anne, who were teenagers when I was quite small.

          4. Not quite – though Princess Anne lives less than five miles from here. Anne and Hilary were about eight years older than me and my mum trusted them to look after me as she worked full time. They were lovely girls and great friends.

        2. I mentioned my primary school earlier on in response to T-B. I used to walk there every day along the A38, which even in the 1950s was quite a busy road. The school was over a mile away from home. I also walked to my senior school, though it was somewhat nearer to home.

        3. I walked to my schools; primary school first (about 2 miles south) then later to grammar school (a 2 mile bus trip north followed by a 2 mile walk uphill until I was given a pushbike).

      2. Beg to differ. Distance runners from East Africa, sprinters from West Africa.

      3. The Chinese have highlighted their racism on social media after BMW were accused of only giving out free uce cream to foreigners at the Shanghai motor show.

        Here’s the report on how it went viral and got BMW into trouble:

        https://youtu.be/WtCbeIjupac

    2. The most prolific form of racism can be seen on British TV there are so many black people in advertising and on TV shows, now you might be mistaken for thinking this is Africa. It totally misrepresents the ratio and amount of black people there are present in the UK.

    1. At least it’s no longer being hidden and protected by the state.

      There is something wrong with pakistani muslims. They can’t all be paedophiles. They’ve got to know that the mechanistic rape of children is wrong. If they think it isn’t, then they should be deported – in pieces.

      1. The idea that all people are essentially equal is not a universal one. Most Europeans don’t understand that.

        1. I find Europeans generally (and do-gooders in particular) are singularly eurocentric in their view of the world, particularly of those parts which fall outside Europe.

    2. And still it goes on, they have all been reading the same book again.

      1. Yes – their ‘holy’ book, dictated by ‘god’ to their ‘prophet’.

    3. Tahir Rashid, 52, of Hudsons Walk, Rochdale, has been charged with 13 offences, including rape and penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl.

      Mohammad Salim, 44, of Bradley Smithy Close, Rochdale, has been charged with eight offences, including rape and penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl.

      Suklene Shah, 44, of Crawford Street, Rochdale, has been charged with two counts of penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl.

      Mohammed Shazad, 42, of Beswicke Royds Street, Rochdale, has been charged with 16 offences, including rape, trafficking persons within the UK for sexual exploitation and penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl.

      Nisar Hussain, 39, of Newfield Close, Rochdale, has been charged with three offences, including making indecent images of a child and trafficking persons within the UK for sexual exploitation.

      Naheem Akram, 46, of Manley Road, Rochdale, has been charged with 10 offences, including rape and penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl.

      Mohammed Zahid, 62, of Station Road, Crumpsall, has been charged with 32 offences, including rape, trafficking persons within the UK for sexual exploitation and penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl, gross indecency with an underage girl, procuring an underage girl to have unlawful sexual intercourse with unknown males.

      Roheez Khan, 37, of Athole Street, Rochdale, has been charged with three offences, including rape and penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl.

      Arfan Khan, 39, of Grouse Street, Rochdale, has been charged with four offences, including rape and penetrative sexual activity with an underage girl.

      Mustaq Ahmed, 65, of Corona Avenue, Oldham, has been charged with six offences, including rape and gross indecency with an underage girl.

      Kasir Bashir, 48, of Napier Street East, Oldham, has been charged with six offences, including rape and gross indecency with an underage girl.

      1. The only surprising thing is that they are not all named ‘Mohammed’.

        1. How many Christian rape gangs are there which go out in search of underage Muslim girls?

        1. True story (I may have recanted it before). I was interviewing a thick young toe-rag for an alleged crime. The interview started thus:

          Me: “What’s your name?”
          Toe-rag: “Smiff!”
          Me: “Smiff? Is that with two Fs or free?”
          Toe-rag: “Free, I fink!”

  44. China has developed an app that tells you if you are within 500m of someone with a low credit score.
    https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1653519786167476224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1653519786167476224%7Ctwgr%5E7320942406487d8b530cba5e385e753e581be9cf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2F1367xwh%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse
    The lefties love to scream blue murder about comparisons between their activities and the nazis, but that really is a new low in human activity – keeping people alone and scared of being punished for giving simple human comfort.

    1. How can that work with the size and compaction of their population ?

      1. It would be going off all the time! Is the app compulsory or are they allowed to shun it? I never did download the NHS track & trace one.

        1. Perhaps it’s just for particularly zealous model citizens.

          I never understood why ANYONE downloaded the NHS track and trace app!

          1. No – though I suspect many were happy to be ‘pinged’ for some time off work.

    2. What is “digital leprosy”?

      Is that when all the peripherals drop off your computer?

  45. 374119+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    After learning of the eu intentions are the indigenous “remainers” going to remain “remainers”.

    Plus after the United Kingdom follow suit will it trigger a civil war of survival, or has anealing & appeasing softened the native Brit to such an extent that for many they are the only options.

      1. 374119+ up ticks,

        Afternoon N,
        Then they will have plenty to think about when down on their prayer mats as well as contemplating allah.

  46. Labour blame Tories for Starmer scrapping tuition fees pledge
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/03/rishi-sunak-news-latest-labour-party-sue-gray-investigation/

    Same old avatar; same old rastus rant. (Same old can often be right!)

    BTL Richard Tracey

    Don’t scrap the tuition fees but do scrap interest on student loans and allow tax relief on repayments. Also encourage employers to contribute to the paying off of their employees’ student loans and give them tax relief to do so.

    It is barbaric that many people who go to university will be crippled by debt for virtually all their working lives. Yes, expect them to pay for their education but give them every encouragement to pay off their student loans as soon as they can.

    4. I don’t visit Aldi often, but when I do there is usually more than one till in operation.

  48. Ban smoking and tax fruit juice, says George Osborne. 3 May 2023.

    Smoking should be banned and the sugar tax extended to include fruit juice and milkshakes, George Osborne has said.

    I remember watching many years ago, a documentary on the BBC about Alexander Korda’s unfinished epic I Claudius. This included scenes from the movie and one memorable one, as you can see from this post, of Emlyn Williams as a rather camp Caligula giving advice about raising taxes .

    Are the married people taxed? No. Well then tax them. Tax the single. Tax those that have children and those that have none. Tax those that have doors and windows and those that haven’t any.

    Ahh! How we laughed!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/03/ban-smoking-tax-fruit-juice-george-osborne-sugar-tobacco-obesity-cancer

  49. Nurse at GP saw me – apologised that I had had to wait for 15 mins. Advised antibiotics – all done and dusted in 15 minutes. One really cannot complain.

      1. I didn’t complain. I just showed my GP a nocturnal computerised recording of my blood oxygen level after taking his latest prescription for reducing my blood pressure – then I got struck off his patient list. I lost patience after that and sent the printout to the MHRA. Neither the MHRA nor I received any feedback from my ex-GP but at least I got a red wrist band through my medical notes following my later admission as an emergency to my local hospital’s cardiac ward. That was a far better outcome than if I had complained.

        As far as nurses prescribing – yes some of them can prescribe after attending an appropriate course. They are then known as Nurse Prescribers. However, there are limits as to the types of drugs that they can prescribe depending upon their nursing speciality.

        1. The GP sounds a bit touchy.

          When i was in A & E a young lady nurse kept me topped up with pipettes of morphine. Whatta gal !

          2. It did seem like i was there every other week. I had had a fall and almost ripped my privates off. Pain was intense.

            I’m very careful around addictive drugs because i don’t want to have to rely on them. So pain management with Tenns machine is my answer.

      3. Yes. A limited range. 90% of the time – probably more – you do not need to see a GP.

    2. Not if you have service like that; if you have to wait 5 or 6 weeks for an appointment, on the other hand …

  50. Delight at Broadcasting House as journalist and republican, Ash Sarkar, brands royal family a ‘cartel of some very weird people’ in BBC Newsnight debate.

    Ash Sarkar, senior editor at far left Novara Media, tore into the Royal Family in her latest controversial broadside against the Firm – just days before King Charles’s coronation on Saturday.

    The journalist, who previously called for Britain’s national anthem to be replaced with a ‘grime banger’, said young people interested in the ‘values of fairness and representation’ were increasingly becoming turned off by the royals.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Ash_Sarkar_2021.png/220px-Ash_Sarkar_2021.png
    Ashna Sarkar (born 1992) is a British journalist and libertarian communist political activist. She is a senior editor at Novara Media.

    Follow the BBC – Guardians of British democracy.

    1. A man and a tiger walk into a Bar.
      The man asks the bar man…Do you serve wogs in here?
      The bar man says…of course. We are not racist.
      The man says…In that case a beer for me and a wog for the tiger.

    2. Why do you watch people like this, switch them off. Remove the oxygen

    3. She’s the one who calls herself a ‘literal communist’ yet takes lots of cash for her media appearances.

      As for being a libertarian – nonsense. A libertarian wants to be free from government interference. She wants a huge state to enforce her own agenda.

    4. Another one who wants to destroy our way of life. Educated and having derived the benefits of life in Britain, she now bites the hand that has fed her. A Vile individual.

  51. The heat pump rollout is an entirely predictable fiasco. 3 May 2023.

    Is the government going to reach its nirvana of converting 600,000 homes a year to run on heat pumps by the second half of this decade? The latest installation figures published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero show just how hopelessly far the government is from reaching its target – in spite of offering homeowners bungs of up to £6,000 a time. As with so many green initiatives, electric car grants included, the reality is that once the generous subsidies have been scooped up by wealthy early-adopters there is unlikely to be any money in the pot for the rest of us.

    Latest figures for the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme show that between last May, when the scheme as introduced, and the end of March 15,768 vouchers were applied for by homeowners converting their property to run on heat pumps. That is just 2.5 per cent of annual target which the government hopes to reach by 2026. If heat pumps are failing to capture public imagination now, with the government chipping in thousands of pounds towards the cost, what hope is there when the cash runs out?

    There is an upside to this. The country will almost certainly have collapsed before we get to this stage!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/03/the-heat-pump-rollout-is-an-entirely-predictable-fiasco/

    1. If you install a heat pump for the home you will regret it. Costs more for less heat.

    2. It’s another scam from the ‘climate’ stable. 600,000 homes at around £15,000 (conservative estimate) per home…

      (6×10⁵ x 1.5×10⁴) = 9×10⁹ = £9Billion per year from many people that do have the cash and therefore would have to borrow the money. Nice earner for the loan companies and for the companies registered to do the work. The shareholders, (who they?) would do nicely too. The public would be the losers.
      Trust the current government, and the one waiting in the wings, at your peril.

    2. Surely a better way would be to get the bloke some clothes and take him to a room where transport could be arranged and he be taken home safely?

  53. I am signing off for today. A bit under the weather with an infected cyst – hence the visit to the Nurse and the ABs being prescribed. I take the first in 20 minutes.

    Later, we are going to see the film of the Vermeer expo – infinitely better experience, according to all the dozen people we know who actually went to the exhibition. The queues were interminable and the rooms so full that it was almost impossible to get near yer actual paintings.

    So I’ll love you and leave you and join you

    A demain.

    2. Oh dear Bill , sorry to hear you are feeling rough.

      When the antibiotics kick in your back will feel better .

      Tis the season for lumps and bumps . My doctor was dismissive of the lump on my collar bone .. grin and bear it and take the alternative painkiller ..

      Doctors find older women and their aches and pains boring , whereas if I were younger , they would dance around me . I know that from past experience .

      Doctors listen to men and treat them well, so I am glad you are being listened to and looked after .

      Enjoy your film .

      2. Haven’t actually seen a GP for years. When I need one, I choose the one who does what I say.
        By and large, I prefer seeing practice nurses; sensible women who have seen it all and are not taken in by the latest medical flim-flam.

        1. Hmmm! Poppiesdad, a couple of years ago, was asked by a practice nurse, probably late fifties, if he had had the vax. “No,” he replied, “can you tell me what’s in it?”
          “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I’m only too grateful to be able to have had it.”
          “Oh. Can you tell me how it works?” To this there was a tightening of the lips and no reply. We are both still vax-free.

          2. Wouldn’t surprise me. This is lib dem country (s. Cambs) now ‘because of Brexit’. This area used to be strongly conservative (farming country) but it was also strongly remain (all those eu farming subsidies….). The conservatives had 27,000 majority, reduced to 3,000-ish at the last election because the lib dems promised another referendum if they got in. The city of Cambridge itself has always toggled between lib dem and labour councils.

          3. I saw through all the bullshit when it first started up. Especially the bit where all the companies that were tasked to rapidly bring out large quantities of an untested serum, were given a worldwide immunity from legal action being taken against them for cases that caused the direct death of those people jabbed with their poison!

          4. I have always thought that accepting a vaccine was an act of complete trust and that it could offer a pathway for rogue govts to introduce something sinister (as indeed they have form on this on further and later reading). Knowing Johnson’s background and Stanley Johnson’s interest in eugenics and his publications and Boris Johnson’s love of big projects regardless of the outcome, and his ramping up the fear from the word go, I smelled a very large rat in the mix. The fact that it was ‘experimental’, that ‘there will be a vaccine by Christmas’ (Johnson) – whenever has it been possible to say in advance? – and the fact that Bill Gates was involved (his reputation with vaccines in Africa and India) and his family background in eugenics, made it all add up to a big, fat NO. And the provision of the immunity from legal action. The pharmaceuticals and government take all the profit and the public takes all the risk. There were many, many pointers out there as to what was going on but the public’s mind had been deliberately captured, honed and manipulated, by extreme fear. And govt ensured that people remembered that at all times. There was no let-up. The people were desperate to believe in a vaccine as the saviour.

          5. Isn’t it curious (to say the least) how prolific over-breeders, like the Johnsons, have an interest in eugenics?

          6. It is as if they are trying subconsciously to atone for their own profligacy. Such arrogance wrapped up with it all as well.

    3. Hope you were prescribed 500mg 4 times a day flucloxacillin. My infection cleared up in 3 days.

      Get well soon Uncle Bill.

      2. Penicillin and variations thereof cause a rash that starts around the neck and shoulders and works its way down, finally disappearing off the toes six months later. My GP at the time it happened predicted the course it would take and he was absolutely right. It doesn’t spread over the body, it moves down the body and I’ve compared notes with other victims – the timescale is always the same.

          1. Yes, though it’s classed as intolerance, as an allergic reaction would be anaphylactic shock. I can take non-penicillin related antibiotics but I know someone who has the rash reaction to all antibiotics.

  54. The heat pump rollout is an entirely predictable fiasco
    The government wants us to rip out cheap and effective heating for expensive new hardware. It’s no wonder uptake is slow
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/03/the-heat-pump-rollout-is-an-entirely-predictable-fiasco/

    BTL: Percival Wrattstrangler

    More and more people are rumbling the fact that global warming is a great con and that carbon dioxide is far more benign and necessary to life than the green zealots and politicians would have us believe.

    As Mr Schwab said : “You will have nothing and you will be happy.” He certainly is planning – with the help of many governments – to bring about our having nothing but neither he nor his entourage of fellow conspirators – including our new King – give a damn as to whether we are happy or not.

      1. His father was fifth in line of command to the Führer. No doubt he learned attitudes and manners of behaving from his father. He is also a Rothschild.

      2. Why do all these disgusting POS have so much influence on all of our lives.

    3. Lefties are morons. It is obvious that climate change is nothing but a tax scam. That’s why nothing will change. Big state wants this as it is yet another step toward enforced socialism.

      1. “Lefties are morons”? You don’t say.

        I have an acquaintance, a 75-year old retired teacher. He is an Englishman who lives in Sweden with his retired wife . Both are on substantial works and state (UK) pensions. They own a large house in England, which they rent out via an agency, and from which they extract a large income. They live the capitalist lifestyle to the full and enjoy all the fruits that brings them.

        However they are both staunch Guardian-reading socialists who take every available moment to blame capitalism for all the world’s ills.
        They chose to live in Sweden, despite not speaking the language, because they say it is a “socialist paradise”. They are evidently unaware that Sweden has a thriving market economy and gave up on its futile dalliance with socialism 20 years ago.

          1. They don’t know anything, Conners. All their information comes by way of The Guardian and The New York Times (they are huge fans of ‘Bernie’ Sanders).

          3. There are many British people who have settled in France who make no effort to learn to speak French.

            I think that all nations have a right to insist that all those who settle learn how to speak the national language competently. In order help achieve this translation services should not be freely available.

      2. “Lefties are morons”? You don’t say.

        I have an acquaintance, a 75-year old retired teacher. He is an Englishman who lives in Sweden with his retired wife . Both are on substantial works and state (UK) pensions. They own a large house in England, which they rent out via an agency, and from which they extract a large income. They live the capitalist lifestyle to the full and enjoy all the fruits that brings them.

        However they are both staunch Guardian-reading socialists who take every available moment to blame capitalism for all the world’s ills.
        They chose to live in Sweden, despite not speaking the language, because they say it is a “socialist paradise”. They are evidently unaware that Sweden has a thriving market economy and gave up on its futile dalliance with socialism 20 years ago.

    4. I’ve mentioned this previously, but I have worked on property where both ground force and an airforce heat pumps were installed. But the home owners (both couples) were annoyed when they ran out of hot water in the afternoon, early evening and had to use their electric emersion heaters. There are also problems with the water temperature as I understand unless the hot water reaches and maintains certain temperatures. It can harbour certain health problems.

      1. I think the water temperature should reach 60c to guard against Legionnaires’ disease. Not sure that ours does though.

          1. I’m pretty sure our water temperature is nowhere near 60c but so far we’ve escaped the disease.

          2. I noted that after a new installation of a hot water tank the installer left both immersion and boiler hot water thermostats on the tank set at 60 degC I had to reduce the settings on both stats to around 50 degC before the tap delivery temperature was acceptable and safe enough.

            There are rules about safety that are just self countermanding.

          3. I run a mixture of hot and cold when I run a bath. I have a bath thermometer to ensure the temperature is ok.

  55. Not a bad display of Amaryllis (or should that be Amarylli?) this year.
    Posted this a couple of weeks back:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c5b89707420d3dffa1b0099f7e393afce752dfab0ab2e20fe2a992efe43f455.jpg

    It’s now looking like this with the ovaries swelling up after I rubbed some pollen onto the stigmas of the blossoms:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4bd306ddae2bc9ef6d368c294091eb1897c37cacd4fdb75d91f5f91d5771e12.jpg

    BUT, the other pair of plants have blossomed rather nicely:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6983521eb5657de31c2d4e24be182e7d22bfab5ab8b717ea4a3a247b7f7bbbc6.jpg

    And I’ve still got a 4th still in bud up in the bathroom that I’m planning to swap with the cactus on the right.
    In addition, I’ve several plants grown from last years seeds up in the small shed, anyone interested in taking one or two of them on?

  56. Breaking News – The words to Jerusalem to be modernised for the woke generation,

    Bring me my chariot of fire

    Will now become, Bring me my carbon neutral chariot of solar power

    2. “Did those feet in the early Common Era walk in the UK’s as yet unpolluted, racist countryside?”
      Too depressing!

    3. I saw two EVs this morning, recognised by the green patch on the number plate (and the fact they were creeping along like snails – do EVs not have any acceleration?).

      1. Teslas do. Our neighbour took us to the station in his when we were going to Sheffield last month.

    2. That photograph tells the wrong story. If you look at the addresses mentioned nearly all of the residential areas are tidy housing estates.
      I’ll imagine that the people who still live in the same tidy roads will be highly embarrassed by the activities of some of their neighbours.
      Perhaps it’s one of the reasons it was kept out of media focus for so long.

    2. Essex (Boys in Blue) Gestapo, Campaign for Real Ale, Carlsberg and Heineken Stormtroopers metaphorically burn another British institution.

    4. Two things I’d like to mention.

      1. Having Heineken and Carlsberg not supplying their chemical-laden cat piss can only be described as a good thing.
      2. I was a member of CAMRA for years. I certainly wouldn’t be a member today, now that the woke brigade have taken over.

  59. Three-time Olympic medallist Tori Bowie dies aged 32. 3 My 2023.

    American sprinter and Olympic gold medallist Tori Bowie has died at the age of 32.

    The star athlete won 4x100m relay gold at Rio 2016 the Rio 2016 Olympics, plus 100m silver and 200m bronze.

    In 2017, she won the global title over 100m at the World Championships in London.

    Her agent Icon Management said: “We’re devastated to share the very sad news that Tori Bowie has passed away. We’ve lost a client, dear friend, daughter and sister. Tori was a champion…a beacon of light that shined so bright!”

    Yet another one bites the dust!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/olympic-tori-bowie-death-sprinter-b2331734.html

    1. That’s terrible news for one so young.
      But strangely no mention of even a possible cause.
      Unless I missed it.

    1. Wish we could have some global warming. It has been freezing and almost non stop rain since the golf course opened for the season last week.

      1. I have finally let the Rayburn go out, but now I’ve switched the oil heating on. Still not warm enough without some heating.

    2. It’s no big deal. I expect Spain has had a few colder than usual days as well. But that wouldn’t make the headlines.

  62. Par Four today.

    Wordle 683 4/6
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
    🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Lucky three today.

      Wordle 683 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟨🟨🟨⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Birdie here.

      Wordle 683 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  63. Well, new double glazing replacement glass now in old wooden Velux windows on landing and big bedroom above garage , they look look terrific .

    We can see out of the windows now . We got rather wind burnt cleaning the wood and frames this morning .. then Moh put woodfiller in and varnished .

    If any one knows about Velux sizes , are GGL4 and the other two GGL9 it is cheaper to have glass replaced than buy new units.

      1. A local double glazing company took the Velux windows out, removed the glass, left the frames in propped up against the wall in the driveway , Moh and I worked like dingbats to clean up the frames and the wood and kept the order that the guys had left them in , screws etc all for each window ..

        The guys returned at 4pm with the new double glazed units .. popped them into the frames with fresh hardware , then installed the windows back into the window frames upstairs .. cost under £600 for all 4.. really smart and well fitted , and nice guys.

        Thank goodness the weather has been brilliant all day. I just have to order 2 new black out blinds for the 2 large windows because the old fabric was tatty and worn .

        2. Amazing price! All that hard work must have paid off, and would also be very satisfying!

    2. Hi Maggie. I would imagine it’s always cheaper to reglaze any window, Velux included, than the complete item. As long as the old frame is serviceable.

    3. Where I did my apprenticeship in Harrow as a joiner, we made the first prototypes for Velux Windows. Interesting work at the time. But the company I worked for didn’t get the full time job. They were more bespoke and production line work would have been a bit boring. But I’ve fitted quite a few. A very good product.

  64. Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling

    (One of you mentioned this a few weeks ago) really interesting .

    This discovery of double dynamo action in the Sun brought us a timely warning about the upcoming grand solar minimum 1, when solar magnetic field and its magnetic activity will be reduced by 70%. This period has started in the Sun in 2020 and will last until 2053. During this modern grand minimum, one would expect to see a reduction of the average terrestrial temperature by up to 1.0°C, especially, during the periods of solar minima between the cycles 25–26 and 26–27, e.g. in the decade 2031–2043.

    The reduction of a terrestrial temperature during the next 30 years can have important implications for different parts of the planet on growing vegetation, agriculture, food supplies, and heating needs in both Northern and Southern hemispheres. This global cooling during the upcoming grand solar minimum 1 (2020–2053) can offset for three decades any signs of global warming and would require inter-government efforts to tackle problems with heat and food supplies for the whole population of the Earth.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7575229/#:~:text=This%20period%20has%20started%20in,in%20the%20decade%202031%E2%80%932043.

    1. Actually when global temperatures start to decline the PTB will still go on giving us bogus statistics showing that the truth is that the planet is still warming.

          6. Almost right, “knew” rather than “was”

            Then it proceeds, “Father new Lloyd George”

          7. Verse two, taught to me by my Father.
            Lloyd George was my father
            Father was Lloyd George…
            to do with his philandering habit, apparently.

          10. Interesting find, Belle.
            “John also played a major role in teaching architectural students at the universities of Zaria and Lagos, as well as lecturing widely.” – so it’s quite likely Father knew him. They would have been very close in age, too.

          12. My Father was Professor Head of Department in Chemistry at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, also deputy Vice-Chancellor. Before, he was in Ibadan, then Leeds, then Zaria, finally at University College Cardiff.

          13. Then of course , your father would have known Mr Godwin, there were very small social circles in those days . In particular, lodge meetings as well as far as my father was concerned.

          14. My step-father’s brother in law was Jim McFadyen who was one of the senior engineers on the Kariba Dam project.

    1. Wallop! Plank across the back. Kid splayed on the floor. “Oh, sorry dear, I thought you were choking”.

  66. ‘Night All

    Very belated medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/82fac91b68a865846658bd72047f9ff4013e1ace076ee0d4ca1d7fb4b35c43ae.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02a218005d80bc9ea1f5ed83df6235403f6ed7dbc29dd3f0382adcf7eccc4b20.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0b11ba69f99d3aa75046833537d282c7c4f3baf003b531295d31c502a7388dd3.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bbe34d43cb45cb11d0cb2e7908fd2fce61a8ce9919614841ed11c50a83fea536.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cec44c92ad33447358689ab8586f92559d6701e5a09d135792aac8f31fd8aa4b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a49b1aa1d8adeb7a49690b9f20a2441cb08c0d554821107a4d3eb3c53a6bf094.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d20d2142b374892c05c5e5930aaa77e93eae36b9fd3e123aa6ba8f3780197a65.jpg

    1. That last one is SO true! Oscar won’t believe it’s “all gone” unless I show empty hands.

      1. “All gone, all gone! Shoo, shoo!” is sometimes enough to get him out of the kitchen to snuggle up to MoH.

  67. Prevening, all. The govt has missed so many opportunities to make this country self sufficient (in energy, food, resources etc) that it smacks of deliberate wrecking than of mere incompetence. On a personal note, this afternoon’s training session was on transitions (upward and downward) and the Connemara did some nice ones, earning him Polos after the session.

      1. Only with respect to paces; walk to trot and back again, trot to halt and halt to trot and walk to canter and canter to walk.

    3. Goodonya Alec.
      I think it’s wonderful when people do that. From past experiences with my mother in her care home, music really brightened up the existence of her and her fellow occupants.
      Song words were suddenly remembered.

      1. Yes Eddy, I play mostly 60’s stuff which is what they grew up with and having dementia (mostly) they can remember that era, some even remember the words. Those that can get up and dance do and the staff are very good at getting them to dance. It’s good for me too seeing them enjoy themselves. Having lost my wife to Alzheimers I know how music is so important as it’s probably the last thing to go. And – I have 90 year old groupies who are after my body but can’t remember why! I do this in 3 care homes – I used to do it in 5 but 2 have shut (no connection)

  69. News from North Britain.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/snp-find-some-accountants-at-last/

    SNP find some accountants, at last

    3 May 2023, 5:20pm

    “Just in the nick of time, the SNP have at long last – after cold calling almost every auditing firm in the country – found some new accountants. The small Manchester-based firm, AMS Accountants Group, must be hungry for a challenge: the Westminster group’s accounts need auditing in just over three weeks, while the Holyrood party’s accounts have a deadline of 7 July. Tick tock!

    Commenting on this minor triumph, First Minister Humza Yousaf said:

    We take our statutory obligations extremely seriously, so it is welcome news that AMS Accountants Group will complete the accounts for both the party and the SNP Westminster group. I am very grateful for the work of our new party treasurer Stuart McDonald in securing the auditors’ services. I also wish to thank our previous auditors Johnston Carmichael for their professional work over many years.

    It might be fair to conclude that the Scottish National party have taken a downgrade in their desperation. The new auditing firm is significantly smaller than the party’s last accounting company: a mere 20-something staff compared with Johnston Carmichael’s 650-strong workforce. And, rather weirdly, the new auditors specialise in services catering to, er, dental professionals. Then again, tooth extraction might be less painful than going through the SNP’s books…

    Deliciously, within moments of AMS Accountants being revealed as the nationalists’ new accountants, journalists discovered that the company has filed an overdue confirmation statement almost a month late – and hastily too, filing one within an hour of the SNP’s announcement. Mind you Ebrahim Sidat, the director of AMS Accounting, clearly doesn’t discriminate on grounds of politics. In 2014, it was revealed that Sidat’s other company, Signature Tax Advisors, donated £2,500 to Labour MP Chuka Umunna on behalf of his party. And it’s not just Labour – Sidat’s business has in the past shown support for former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. Clearly Sidat likes a challenge.

    But the drama isn’t over for Stephen Flynn’s Westminster group yet: if the accountants don’t sign off their books by the 31 May deadline, the party risks losing over £1 million in Short Money. Can AMS Accountants rise to the task? They’re going to need to if Flynn wants to avoid letting his own staff go. All this follows a rather strange and public back-and-forth between the Westminster leader and his predecessor Ian Blackford on the matter, culminating in a rather cringe staged photo of the pair which convinced, er, absolutely no one that the two had put their past differences aside.

    Forget the blue and white of the Saltire: these days the nationalists seem more concerned about the black and red of their accountants’ books…”

    1. What they don’t say is this firm haven’t filed their own accounts and it looks like a back street outfit. How embarrassing for the English hating SNP to employ an English firm

    1. Watching. Good interview. Don’t agree with everything but there’s no question he’d do a much better job than the current shower in Washington.

  72. I don’t know if anyone has put this up yet but here it is: The Coronation Oath from
    https://www.churchofengland.org/coronation/liturgy

    The Oath

    Archbishop of Canterbury:

    Your Majesty, the Church established by law,
    whose settlement you will swear to maintain,
    is committed to the true profession of the Gospel,
    and, in so doing, will seek to foster an environment
    in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely.
    The Coronation Oath has stood for centuries and is enshrined in law.

    Are you willing to take the Oath?

    The King:

    I am willing.

    The King places his hand on the Bible,
    and the Archbishop administers the Oath.

    Archbishop of Canterbury:

    Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern
    the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
    your other Realms and the Territories
    to any of them belonging or pertaining,
    according to their respective laws and customs?

    The King:

    I solemnly promise so to do.

    Archbishop of Canterbury:

    Will you to your power cause Law and Justice,
    in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?

    The King:

    I will.

    Archbishop of Canterbury:

    Will you to the utmost of your power maintain
    the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?
    Will you to the utmost of your power maintain
    in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law?
    Will you maintain and preserve inviolably
    the settlement of the Church of England,
    and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof,
    as by law established in England?
    And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England,
    and to the Churches there committed to their charge,
    all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

    The King:

    All this I promise to do.
    The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep.
    So help me God.

    Archbishop of Canterbury:

    Your Majesty, are you willing to make, subscribe and
    declare to the statutory Accession Declaration Oath?

    The King:

    I am willing.

    The King:

    I Charles do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God
    profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant,
    and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments
    which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne,
    uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.

    ***

    That seems to answer the concerns: “according to laws and customs”, Defender of THE protestant Faith (while ensuring people of all faiths live freely). No mention of people’s inalienable rights but I think this is covered by “maintain the Laws of God” from which Natural Law and Common Law flow. The main thing is he CANNOT sit idly by and permit foreign powers to rule us (take note UN and WEF).

    The interesting bit is “secure the Protestant succession”. I thought an act had been passed to allow a Catholic Monarch. Am I wrong?

    Edit: I did get it wrong. The Succession to The Crown Act 2013 changed male primogeniture to absolute primogeniture, and repealed the Royal Marriages Act 1772. That means if a future King or Queen has a female first-born with a male younger brother the female child will be the future Monarch and a Monarch is no longer barred from having a Catholic spouse.

      1. He may but it would cut no ice with the people. An oath is an oath.

    2. “…according to their respective laws and customs?”

      I would have added “in their respective lands”.

      1. Even Charles is capable of holding back with that stuff until the crown is on his head.

      2. 374119+ up ticks,

        Evening M,

        Yet, wait until the feet are under the table.

    5. You say “take note UN and WEF”, but his mother’s example was to permit us to be ruled by the EU, was it not?

    3. I’m glad that Humza Yousaf picked these.

      He’s sure of getting a true and honest opinion on SNP finances.

          2. No, Eddy, he’s an Egyptian and therefore in de Nile. If he were in Seine he would be a Frenchman. Lol.

      1. Of course, yes, they run away from each other only to meet up here, where they continue their differences. I’m off to Tristan da Cunha, it’s my secret dream….

    4. Just vote Reform or any party other than Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green Party in the District Council elections tomorrow… er…Today.

      Send the fuckers a message. Our votes count.

      1. Two incumbent Independents living in the village where I live, plus a Tory from the other side of town, and a Lib Dem from the nearest end of town.

        Also parish council elections. Not heard of most of them, and none with party affiliation, but several declared part of the District’s ruling Independent Group.

        One half of the parish has not received any nominations.

  75. Just rejoining to say I am listening to Elgar’s Coronation Odes. Put our small flags out yesterday and am pleased to see that there are many others round here.
    I have read the oath the King will take and see nothing wrong with it.
    God save the King and Queen.

  76. I had a nightmare this afternoon. As its grown so rapidly, I tried to use my strimmer to reduce the height of some of the grass. I was so exhausted after half an hour I had to stop and leave it. Our good old number one son is going to cut it if it stays fine tomorrow. My ticker was thumping and i was out of breath. I felt so terrible, in normal NHS circumstances I would have phoned and ambulance. But there’s no point. I just took a paracetamol sat in an armchair and fell asleep. For an hour. It’s a tough life in the 21st century. 😒🤔

    1. Take care Eddy. I am beginning to doubt I will be alive this time next year. Good luck mate.

      1. Thanks Anne. 🙂
        Given I’ve already done A&E three times. They’ve sent me home after maximum of two nights.
        With no further action. Get on with it.
        I honestly feel so let down by the suposed ‘service’ that I have supported all my working life.

      2. KBO, Ann.
        Nil illegitimi carborundum, as it says on my tie-clip.

    2. Lordy, Eddy. Take i easy, man. No point in breaking yourself over some grass.

      1. Number one is coming to help out late afternoon. 😉 Number two is off on a long deserved holiday with his family.
        Number three has just started a new job in Baker Street. No chance.

  78. OK, I’m knackered and would already have gone to bed were it not for R3 playing an excellent recording of Beethoven’s violin concerto.
    So Good night all and sleep well.

  79. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk, until we meet again in the morning.

  80. Another busy and productive day, and I’m now off to bed. Good night, chums.

    1. Thank you, Geoff, you caught me on the hop this morning as I was reading the Telegraph.

Comments are closed.