Wednesday 30 June: Pupils have been sent a clear signal that their learning is not a priority

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/06/29/letters-pupils-have-sent-clear-signal-learning-not-priority/

679 thoughts on “Wednesday 30 June: Pupils have been sent a clear signal that their learning is not a priority”

  2. Dominic Raab’s mobile number freely available online for last decade. 30 June 2021.

    The private mobile number of Dominic Raab, the UK foreign secretary, has been online for at least 11 years, raising questions for the security services weeks after the prime minister’s number was also revealed to be accessible to anyone.

    Raab’s number was discovered by a Guardian reader using a Google search. It appears to have been online since before he became an MP in 2010, and remained after he became foreign secretary and first secretary of state – de facto deputy prime minister – in 2019.

    The shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, called for an investigation. She said: “This is a staggering lapse in security from a foreign secretary who, only last month, was lecturing Nato allies about the cybersecurity threat posed by authoritarian regimes.

    Morning everyone. It tells you a great deal about the actual threat as opposed to the Nandy version when no one has called these numbers and blown so much as a raspberry!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/29/dominic-raab-mobile-number-freely-available-online

    1. I don’t see what the problem is. They are supposed to be accessible.

      Good morning, Minty.

  3. Phoney Titles
    @ John Birkett yesterday, responding to the 100-plus signatories DT letter.
    I think it also applies to many other titles, such as professor. Medical doctors in the main don’t have a doctorate, and for them it is a courtesy title.’

    Forty years ago I was in an outpatient unit, having the inside of my lip stitched by a Maxillofacial Surgeon. While the local anaesthetic was taking he looked at the work sheet, saw the title ‘Dr’ and asked if I was a medic.

    “No” I smiled, “Phoney Doctor – PhD. I am an Experimental Pathologist and Toxicologist. You know, making the world safer for rats and mice to live in”. Not so easy to say with a steadily deadening lip.

    He replied: “Actually, most of us medics haven’t completed an MD, so strictly WE are the Phoney Doctors.” I never forgot that and continue to use the title, which took me nearly 7 years of part-time research into the transition from cirrhosis to liver cancer.

  4. Man charged with murder of Sergeant Matt Ratana. 30 June 2021.

    A man has been charged with the murder of Sergeant Matt Ratana.

    The Metropolitan Police officer was shot inside Croydon Custody Centre in south London on Friday, September 25, 2020.
    Louis de Zoysa, 23, of Banstead, Surrey was today charged with his murder, as well as possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition.

    This should be interesting. The man in question was not only in custody but hands cuffed behind his back at the time.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/louis-de-zoysa-charged-murder-sergeant-matt-ratana-croydon-b943281.html

      1. Morning Phizz. One can imagine him contorting sufficiently to shoot Ratana but how did he shoot himself in the neck? I do not put it beyond the bounds of possibility that we will hear a completely different version in court!

        1. I was wondering why it has taken so long to come to court.

          Perhaps evidence needed time to be lost.

          1. Yes one remembers that newspaper boy, way back when, who was murdered, they had to wait for all the witnesses to die off before the trial!

      2. Interesting contortion to pull the weapon out and point it anywhere other than down, swing around and shoot someone.
        Why wasn’t he searched at the moment of cuffing?
        WTF were they doing?

    2. 9 months to charge the chap. I would have thought a suspect with a smoking gun might have helped the investigation.

  5. 334935+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    I do not believe it has been a priority for decades dependency on brussels was the order of the day everything being brought down to the status of a day labourer in spain in many respects, apprenticeships,
    Grammar schools, etc,etc a shared pool of labour, queues at the factory gates, ALL still operating behind the political ersatz facade.

    Wednesday 30 June: Pupils have been sent a clear signal that their learning is not a priority

  8. Keep abreast of the Menu Price

    Every day, this guy walks past a hot-dog stand in the city, and every day he gives the lady in charge a dollar fifty, then walks away without taking a hot dog.

    This goes on for months, until one day he gives the lady a buck fifty and walks on as usual.

    This time, however, she runs after him. She stops him and says, “Pardon me, sir, but every day you give me a dollar fifty, then you don’t take a hot dog.”

    The guy replies, “I expect you’re going to ask me why I do that.”

    “No, sir,” answers the hot dog lady. “I just wanted to tell you the price has gone up to two dollars..“

  9. Good morning all, might be a sunny morning later , glorious sun at 5.30, cloudy now .

    I was 19 years old when England last beat Germany , 21years before that England beat Germany WW2..

    I wonder what bad news has been buried today re last nights win?

    1. You’ve been misled by some lazy reporting. There have been victories since 1966.

    1. Multiculturalism has sown division and hatred, says Brendan O’Neill

      As it was planned to do by people who hate their countrymen/women and wanted to use the divisions as a route to unbridled power.

      1. 334935+ + up ticks,
        Morning KtK,
        It has been so blatantly bloody obvious and fueled via the polling booth again & again.

      1. 334935+ up ticks,
        Morning W,
        Seems like in Batley – Spen one should wear an anti star seeing hard hat.

    1. The wrong kind of cheating?
      I doubt they even know how to run a straight ballot any more!

    2. How were they ‘inadvertently’ added? Ballot boxes are sealed. You go from not having any, to having some.

      They were wheeled in by Democrat staff. The Left couldn’t win, so they cheated. As always.

    3. “Inadvertently”? How dare they suggest that Democrat supporting blacks are incapable of planning a scam; that’s waycist.

  14. I received this, this morning in an e-mail from the Petitions Committee:

    You recently signed the petition “Hold a binding referendum on the future of the TV licence.”:
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/587212

    The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) have considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt that the response did not directly address the request of petition and have therefore written back to the Government to ask them to provide a revised response.

    When the Committee have received a revised response from the Government, this will be published on the website and you will receive an email. If you would not like to receive further updates about this petition, you can unsubscribe below.

    Thanks,
    The Petitions team
    UK Government and Parliament

    1. Morning, Tom. A non-sequiteur:

      I tried posting a reply to your bread pudding recipe, but Disqus would not permit me since that post is now “closed”. Here is my reply:

      Thanks for that, Tom. I’ll give it a go in the autumn (too hot right now)

      Just one question: Why soak the bread in water if you are using milk in the recipe? I might soak mine in milk (so as not to ‘water’ down the recipe too much); however, that might upset a few good ol’ boys if I did something untraditional! 😉👍🏻

      I’ll report back anon.

      1. I use water, George because it moistens the bread even after the majority is squeezed out. ‘Twould be a waste of good milk to use it for soaking the bread.

  15. Good morning, all. A grey, wet and windy morning. Not much point in getting up!

  16. Jill Biden takes swipe at Donald Trump as she graces US Vogue cover. 30 June 2021.

    Jill Biden took a swipe at former US president Donald Trump in an interview for US Vogue, saying his successor Joe Biden “came in and healed the nation” after a tumultuous four years.

    Mrs Biden, a former school teacher, said “people can breathe again” now her husband is in charge. “People wanted someone to come in and heal this nation,” she told Vogue. “He’s a much calmer president. He lowers the temperature.”

    Mrs Biden has no comment to make on her husband’s predilection for pre-pubescent girls. This is not unusual in itself as the partners of paedophiles and sex offenders are quite frequently found to have known about them after conviction. That the First Lady of the United States could get away without being asked about it gives some insight into the true state of things.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/29/jill-biden-takes-swipe-donald-trump-graces-us-vogue-cover/

    1. What do you expect? That Jill B comes out and says “Well, yeah, Joe is a senile old fart under the sway of dark forces, and loves molesting little girls”?
      Get real.
      This is just the continuation of politics, and is not worth the pixels it’s written in.

      1. Morning Oberst. It is the failure to ask, not to speak, that interests me!

    1. We all know,just like the removal of HCQ from sale in the UK when it has been available over the counter for decades
      The question is WHY??
      Simple if there is an available treatment the “emergency” use of untested vaccines could not stand!!
      Our politicians have committed mass-murder at god knows who’s behest and that’s a damn sight more scary than the virus ever was!!
      Cui Bono??
      Edit
      Prosecutions underway in Germany and now this…..
      https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5HBsfuVIAQAYJZ?format=jpg&name=900×900
      Maybe just maybe it’s all coming apart,if only we had an MSM that hadn’t sold out

      2. R-R, to any charge re suppression of readily available drugs leading to unlawful killing, the politicians in charge have their excuse: they were following the science. See:

        HCQ – No Benefit to Adults Hospitalised with CV-19

        Moving tens of thousands of sick elderly people into care homes and having many of them die, even when protected by a ring of steel , might cause more problems. One of many reasons for Hancock’s sudden (but not soon enough) removal from power? A terrible evil mindset is stalking the corridors of Westminster.

  18. Morning all

    SIR – What threat to society does a child with asymptomatic Covid pose when everyone deemed vulnerable has had two vaccines and most other people have had at least one?

    We were told that children’s education was a priority. The overzealous enforcement of 
self-isolation (report, June 29) 
suggests otherwise.

    Kevin Wright

    Harlow, Essex

    SIR – On Monday evening we learnt that a pupil in Year One had tested positive for Covid-19.

    The child is a member of a bubble of 35 pupils, all of whom are now required to self-isolate for 10 days. The disruption to children, their parents and teachers is significant, and out of proportion to the risk.

    Working lives are upset, often leading to financial hardship; children are suffering from not attending school (yet again); and teachers are burdened with enabling home learning while continuing to function as normal for the remaining 800-plus pupils. When will this nonsense be addressed?

    ADVERTISING

    Philip Page

    Chairman of Governors, George Spicer Primary School

    London N21

    SIR – Where are the data showing the numbers of children asked to isolate who then test positive for Covid?

    Jenny Townsend

    High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

    Placeholder image for youtube video: WCMDfrzLj38

    SIR – Your report highlighted the crisis in schools caused by a regime of testing and “bubbles”. There were comments from many people, but nothing from the Education Secretary.

    His views on the matter of mobile phones in schools, however, were reported later. As ever, Gavin Williamson has his finger on the pulse.

    Mark Scrimshaw

    Northwood, Middlesex

    SIR – I am trying to teach my children the importance of valuing education – cerebral and physical – over material reward. However, the willingness to shut schools this past year may have taught them that education is, in fact, seen as dispensable.

    When my son made it on to the school under-10 cricket team last week, I was told that “Covid rules” prohibited me from going to support him. Then he got home to see a stadium packed with thousands of football spectators. A combination of muddled direction from the Government, coupled with fear and risk-aversion in schools, may lead my son to believe that money is far more highly prized than education.

    Advertisement

    Oliver Doherty

    London EC4

    SIR – I was heartened by the number of organisations calling for greater support for children (Letters, June 29).

    It is time for the Government to make plans to rectify some of the damage caused to young people’s education and mental health. We owe it to them.

    Jack Marriott

    Churt, Surrey

    Placeholder image for youtube video: K61gmdCT6Xs

    Russia in UK waters

    SIR – Numerous reports following the Crimea incident exploit the idea of Russian military ships “regularly visiting British waters”. This narrative, promoted by the Ministry of Defence, suggests frequent violations of 
British sovereignty by Russia – but is a prime example of British state-sponsored disinformation.

    Of course, the Russian navy and air force conduct exercises in various regions, including the Baltic and the North Sea, but strictly in international waters and airspace. There has been no occasion whatsoever for a Russian ship or aircraft to be in violation of British territorial waters or air above it.

    This comes in stark contrast to the irresponsible behaviour of HMS Defender, which deliberately and provocatively crossed into territorial waters off Crimea. The very idea that this operation sought to assert certain British and Ukrainian claims regarding sovereignty over those waters renders meaningless the whole rhetoric of an “innocent” passage.

    Advertisement

    Russia will respond robustly to any further attempts to contest its borders.

    Andrei Kelin

    Russian Ambassador to the UK

    London W8

    SIR – The Russian navy enjoys unhampered access to British waters when transiting west through the Dover Strait traffic separation scheme, so why can’t the Royal Navy enjoy the same through the traffic separation scheme off the coast of Crimea?

    Mike Clegg

    Gosport, Hampshire

    Placeholder image for youtube video: 7kqSzFzrmms

    SIR – Captain Peter J Newton (Letters, June 28) suggests that the Royal Navy using the right of innocent passage is a threat to Merchant Navy ships.

    However, since the 1980s the Royal Navy has kept a permanent presence in the Gulf specifically to ensure the safety of merchant ships of all nations. In 2011 UK Maritime Trade Operations, Dubai, was established to support merchant shipping in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Gulf, and has ensured the safety of merchant shipping in the face of unfriendly states and piracy.

    Cdr James S L Cohen RNR (retd)

    Brimpton, Berkshire

    Rail replacement

    SIR – Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, has promised to change irritating train announcements. I hope this includes replacing “arriving into” with the correct “arriving at”.

    Advertisement

    Jonathan Mann

    Gunnislake, Cornwall

    PM’s judgment

    SIR – Tim Stanley (Comment, June 28) is right: the only question about Matt Hancock’s affair and his breaking of the rules that he forced on us should be which is the more immoral.

    Mr Hancock tried to dismiss it as a private matter while clinging on to his job, but it was Boris Johnson who considered “the matter closed”. It is unbelievably arrogant to dismiss such hypocrisy and demonstrates the contempt he must feel for the public.

    How have we allowed such people to dictate our lives?

    Tim Coles

    Carlton, Bedfordshire

    Placeholder image for youtube video: EzEQccJgVCk

    Taste of freedom

    SIR – It is obvious from the official NHS figures (report, June 29) that the chances of anyone who is double vaccinated catching and dying, or even being admitted to hospital, with Covid is tiny. The idea that we will catch it and asymptomatically pass it on to “kill our granny” is risible.

    So I took a Covid test and travelled to France via Eurotunnel, where my file of paperwork was politely ignored by the friendly and helpful immigration officer who gave me my first European passport stamp for many years.

    Advertisement

    I am now sitting in a riverside café, drinking a cold beer, surrounded by people enjoying the summer and living life normally. I will pay the £300 travel fine for unnecessary commercial tests when I return to the totalitarian, joyless UK. What is the logic of this Government’s thrall to the modellers?

    Gary Spalton

    Saint-Jean-de-Losne, Côte-d’Or, France

    SIR – As a resident of Melbourne for the past 22 years, I know that Australia is not at all close to normality in relation to Covid (report, June 21).

    Movement between states is still extremely limited and restrictions here are severe as we emerge slowly from a fourth lockdown with mandatory mask-wearing.

    We are imprisoned in our own country, unable to travel anywhere but New Zealand, and not even there if you live in Melbourne.

    We need pressure from the UK to open a travel corridor and encourage our politicians to get Australia out of its self-congratulatory shell.

    Andrew Tooth

    Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    End capital gains tax

    SIR – I agree with much of what Roger Bootle says about abolishing stamp duty (Business, June 28). However, I think it should go further and include the total abolition of capital gains tax on sales of buy-to-let properties.

    Advertisement

    This would result in a market shift, with a flood of properties for sale and an inevitable fall in prices, which would enable more aspiring owner-occupiers to realise their ambition.

    John Griffiths

    Hythe, Kent

    Balanced dieting

    SIR – Sam Rice (Features, June 28) offers three easy ways in which to lose weight. I agree that you do not need a restrictive diet and should reduce portion size, but not with the rest.

    As a (retired) physician, I was always puzzled by dietitians insisting that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Why? Where is the evidence?

    When I need to lose weight (often) I skip breakfast, have low-fat soup and bread (no butter) for lunch, then a decent meal in the evening. It works – until I lapse and put it on again. And don’t give up alcohol: when dieting, you need a little wine to keep you sane.

    Hugh Simpson

    Bradfield, Berkshire

    Wimbledon without the self-congratulation

    Game, set, match: mixed doubles in a 1925 poster by the designer LB Black

    Game, set, match: mixed doubles in a 1925 poster by the designer LB Black CREDIT: bridgeman images

    SIR – I am old enough to remember when players at Wimbledon didn’t find it necessary to raise a self-congratulatory fist of triumph every time they won a point.

    Advertisement

    Those were the days.

    Frances Atkinson

    Newcastle upon Tyne

    SIR – I watched Andy Murray triumph at Centre Court on Monday. The roof was closed. The place was packed with spectators, with no social distancing and no masks. Hooray. So why not do this in all theatres now?

    Tony McLaren

    Brockenhurst, Hampshire

    SIR – On Monday I was told that I could not go to my 10-year-old granddaughter’s school sports day, even though it is held outdoors. I then tuned in to the opening day of Wimbledon to see no sign of social distancing.

    As I am 78 years of age, I just hope I am still here next year to enjoy her final sports day at primary school.

    Christine Young

    Beverley, East Yorkshire

    SIR – It is such a pleasure to be able to watch Wimbledon again.

    However, there is one outcome 
of Covid-19 for which I am grateful 
– and it is that the ball girls 
and boys are spared having sweat-soaked towels hurled at them by the players.

    Stephen Wallis

    Billericay, Essex

    SIR – I had hoped that Wimbledon might have changed the line judges’ attire to celebrate the return of the championships.

    Advertisement

    I am all for smart outfits, but shirts tucked into cream trousers are very unflattering for those judges with a fuller figure.

    Anne F Bloor

    Leicester

    SIR – Since all of the balls at Wimbledon come from the same supplier and pass stringent tests, what is wrong with that third ball that is discarded by players before they serve?

    Robert Ward

    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    Defeated by the bank’s anti-fraud algorithms

    SIR – I share Peter Robinson’s concerns (“Obstructive banks”, Letters, June 27).

    I make regular payments to a major investment platform by direct debit without any trouble. However, additional payments by debit card made most months are almost always blocked by my bank, despite the long history I have of these transactions.

    It frequently takes more than an hour by phone to get the payment cleared and I cannot always do this at the time I attempted the payment.

    Lloyds will not accept that its fraud prevention algorithms are excessively sensitive and that it needs more staff to deal with the resulting phone calls. I have complained to the Financial Ombudsman; I hope Mr Robinson and others also do so.

    Advertisement

    J L King

    East Grinstead, West Sussex

    1. “…a market shift, with a flood of properties for sale and an inevitable fall in prices, which would enable more aspiring owner-occupiers to realise their ambition.”
      And a general market fall will also disadvantage many who bought when the price was high, because they needed somewhere to live. Much negative equity. No fun for anybody.

      1. Stop being practical, Paul, the self-interested writer obviously has his eyes on several properties he could buy-to-let

    2. I would have thought,Hugh Simpson, that breakfast is important because a) it stimulates the body’s metabolism after a night’s rest and b) you have an entire day’s exercise to burn off the calories.

    1. They are making more fuss about this non event they they have about the Somali attack in Germany for some reason.

      1. An attack on one of their own.
        Everybody else can go hang.
        Maybe politicians should suffer more physical abuse, so they actually start to realise that they need to listen to people, not order them about like the petty fascists they are.

      2. An attack on one of their own.
        Everybody else can go hang.
        Maybe politicians should suffer more physical abuse, so they actually start to realise that they need to listen to people, not order them about like the petty fascists they are.

        2. The sad thing is, we’ve become so accustomed to these attacks that they no longer register.

    2. I wonder how many illegal immigrants have ended up in hospital with Covid complications.

  20. The headline reads : Pupils have been sent a clear signal that their learning is not a priority – This is the new top priority in classrooms across Western world & this is why I fear for the future of Western civilization, weakened by 50 plus years of Communist subversion in schools & universities, children are being brainwashed with Alinsky teachings & all the while the Muslim hordes pour in by the day to feed off the carcass of what was a peaceful & successful society based on Judaeo-Christian teachings !
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c90aff25b3ee3335e4a930ed3442ac3dffce8c1da9c8bfdd408dc5acd025f98d.jpg

    2. …and the cartoonist needs to search for, and find, where he hid the apostrophes.

  21. Learning in schools hasn’t been a priority for decades, not since they did away with the grammar schools and lowered standards for all

    2. Morning Bob

      Hmm, so what do you think of this then?

      Benjamin Zephaniah calls for more diversity in GCSE texts
      Close
      New research shows less than one percent of authors that feature in GCSE English Literature in England are from an ethnic minority background.

      The publisher Penguin and race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust analysed data from GCSE exam boards relating to more than half a million students in England.

      The BBC spoke to poet Benjamin Zephaniah about the research

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/education-57656231

      1. Kids these days hardly know any English anyway so a bit of Caribbean won’t do any harm 🙃

      2. Ah yes. Time to study MBilliam Zhakenobkerrie or Jogvree Xorcer.
        And we mustn’t forget that well known feminist Shona writer, Xane Oshcten.

    3. I bet they are still performing better than white working class boys according to the stats

  25. For those who cannot get behind the DT paywall – Allison Pearson at her best:

    Dear Sajid, good luck with the new job – you’re going to need it
    After Matt Hancock’s departure there’s a new Health Secretary in office and, by my reckoning, he’s got quite the to-do list

    Dear Mr Javid,

    Congratulations on your new job and welcome back! There are those who know a bit about the current state of the health service who would extend their commiserations to you. It’s certainly a daunting gig. As one overwhelmed hospital consultant said to me recently: “If the NHS were a patient it would have a DNR notice.” There is a national health emergency and it no longer has anything to do with Covid-19. But let’s start with the good news, Secretary of State. You are not Matt Hancock.

    Not being Messianic Matt, or looking in any way as if you are getting a bit of a kick out of having 66 million people cowering at your every command while “bubbling” with the aide you seemingly hired to provide on-tap nookie, sorry, impartial advice, is a great start. Seriously, did you hear the way your predecessor said sorry in his resignation video?

    Me neither. Maybe that’s because he didn’t say sorry. In a 90-second speech to camera, Mr Hancock uttered not one word of regret and appears to have had an empathy bypass. Lack of empathy is also a huge problem for the scientists and mathematical modellers on whose work the Government based its coronavirus rules.

    Placeholder image for youtube video: 6QQWER16J78
    Millions have suffered under their heartless, arbitrary diktats. The parents of 27-year-old Ollie Bibby who died in hospital of leukaemia on May 5 – a day before Mr Hancock was filmed snogging Gina Coladangelo – said they were hardly allowed to see their frightened son in the seven weeks before he died. “We were told they could only bend the rules in exceptional circumstances, but we couldn’t work out how much more exceptional it could be,” says Ollie’s mother Penny. Think about that devastated family, Mr Javid, and thousands like them who are still enduring those same barbaric rules.

    I did like the resolute note you struck in the Commons on Monday: “We see no reason to go beyond July 19… Make no mistake, the restrictions on our freedom must come to an end.” Steady on, Mr Javid, you sound like a Conservative! A pleasant change. Over the past 15 months, there has been a deeply troubling shift in the presumption of how a democratic country is run. You should have to justify keeping restrictions, not justify lifting them.

    That tendency against liberty needs to change. During lockdown, I have corresponded with scores of GPs, nurses, paramedics, health visitors, A&E receptionists, NHS data researchers, radiologists, midwives, campaigners for care-home residents, retired NHS Trust managers, cancer specialists, knee surgeons, senior hospital consultants and, most important of all, patients.

    If I may be so bold, I’d like to share with you the distilled wisdom of their experiences. Here are my suggestions for your to-do list:

    1. Tell GPs they must see patients in person
    Millions of people have struggled to see a GP since surgeries pulled up the drawbridge in March 2020. Some have died in the attempt. The Telegraph campaigned for in-person consultation and NHS England appeared to do a U-turn, conceding that patients “should” be allowed to see their doctor.

    I now understand from one Clinical Commissioning Group that the plan is to never return to proper face-to-face consultation. Most appointments will be done over the phone. NHS management may tell you this is “more efficient”, Secretary of State, but “digital first” is another way of saying “human beings last”. It would be distressing, particularly to the eldery who need it most, if primary care lost the “care” part. This is a huge potential vote loser for the Tories. With such a horrendous waiting list, GPs need to be fully open immediately, seeing the vast majority of patients face-to-face, not wasting time going through telephone triage first. Currently, patients can be waiting two-to-three weeks for obligatory phone consults then waiting again to see a doctor in person. It’s a total farce but people are crying and dying, not laughing. Abolish the social distancing rules so GP surgeries no longer have an excuse to lock patients out.

    2. Stop testing
    Matt Hancock purchased 384 million lateral flow tests at a cost of £1.3billion. The attempt to use them all is causing mayhem for parents and children. In the United States, the Food and Drug Adminstration has raised significant concerns about lateral flow tests, saying they should be “thrown in the bin” because they are so unreliable. Yet, outrageously, as this paper has just revealed, up to 375,000 British children every day are being forced to self-isolate because of them. Schoolwork and a second precious summer of youth is blighted; the mental-health crisis exacerbated. Parents are enraged. How can there be crowds at Wimbledon and Wembley when they are banned from seeing 20 nine-year-olds take part in an egg and spoon race? With so many adults vaccinated there is no justification for further constraints on the lives of children, who aren’t even affected by the virus. How about we go back to noticing if a child seems unwell and keeping them home until they seem better, not putting their whole year group into purdah? It worked perfectly well for several centuries, you know.

    3. ‘Our NHS’
    Please, please, stop calling it that. The National Health Service is not some well-loved Northern relative (“our Elsie”). It’s a bureaucratic behemoth which costs the British people £212billion a year and compares badly with health systems in similar countries. Some of its staff and treatments are simply extraordinary, others utterly dreadful. Our cancer survival rates have improved, but we’re lower than we should be with studies showing you are still more likely to stay alive in Australia, Belgium or Slovenia. That is shameful. Frontline staff have put their lives on the line during the pandemic. But NHS managers, overpaid, underqualified, stubbornly resistant to change are allowed to get away with it. Because it’s “our NHS”. You need to stiffen your sinews, Sajid, and make the case for urgent reform. No other nation has turned its healthcare system into a religion before which a grateful populace is expected to kneel. Even when the waiting list for a knee replacement is four years? Yes, incredibly, excruciatingly, even then.

    4. Waiting lists
    The NHS could have offered focused protection during the pandemic, using the private hospitals, requisitioned for hundreds of millions of pounds, for non-Covid patients. Or the much-fanfared Nightingales, which closed after treating less than 400 patients. Elective surgery could and should have continued (as it did in other countries). Instead, we have a waiting list of more than five million people, while the real number may be double that. An orthopaedic surgeon told me how frustrated he was. He didn’t do a single hip replacement in 12 months and still got full pay of over £100,000. In every previous epidemic, fever hospitals were used to isolate the contagious. Surgeons tell me the NHS should now create its own “clean” dedicated surgical centres for elective work. That way, patients with Covid can be treated in general NHS hospitals while the huge backlog is tackled safely elsewhere. Work on those should begin this very day.

    5. Sack Sage
    We are fascinating lab rats for those scientists; they have a vested interest in keeping the experiment going as long as possible. Like you, Rishi Sunak said July 19 will mean no more lockdowns, but then Peter Horby, chairman of Nervtag, told Andrew Marr that the Government “should not rush into easing Covid restrictions in July”. Rush? It’s only been 15 months! It was pure speculation by Sage that led to the cancellation of Freedom Day on June 21. Subsequent figures have shown that we are not seeing any sign of hospitalisations for Covid “rocketing” or “surging” as we were warned two weeks ago. On the contrary, NHS England currently has just 1,445 Covid patients (one per cent of all beds). The rolling seven-day average of deaths after a positive test with Covid is 17. Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford, says the vaccines are holding up really well against variants. Asked about the large number of “cases”, he said, “This is trivial, actually. Most who test positive are under 30 and they don’t get very sick.” Sir John is clearly far too sane to qualify as a government adviser. Maybe have a word with him?

    6. Publish the Covid recovery figures
    Matt Hancock promised he would last summer; the slippery eel never did. We are among the only countries in the world not to trust its people with positive information from which they can calculate their own risk. Please stop infantilising us.

    Well, I reckon that’s quite enough to be getting on with, Secretary of State. Thanks for reading this far, if you have. We simply cannot have a health service which requires the liberties of 66 million people to be periodically confiscated so it can continue to operate. Your job is to build capacity into that system and make sure that a ruinous and devastating lockdown will never happen again. “Irreversible”, that was the word you used. We’ll hold you to it.

    Wishing you the best of British, you’re going to need it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/06/29/dear-sajid-good-luck-new-job-going-need/

    1. Changing things would require the managerial staff to think differently. As it is, they’re laser focussed on their salaries.

      They don’t want to do anything differently. They don’t care about the delays, the inefficiency, the expense.

      1. I expect all the managerial staff have private healthcare as part of their remuneration package.

        If the NHS is so wonderfully run why isn’t the care it provides good enough for them?

      2. …the delays, the inefficiency, the expense, the heartbreaks, the (sometimes avoidable) deaths…

        A Management Class in many fields has been proven to be a very costly mistake. So why isn’t that lesson learned?

    2. Morning Nan.I think in five or ten years it will be discovered that this is the most God Awful foul up since WWI. It will probably be found that there would have been less fatalities from all causes if we had done nothing at all!

      1. Morning Minty

        In five or ten years time the majority of those responsible will not longer be in power or seeking re-election and so they will escape any consequences.

      2. The more elderly will remember “Hong Kong ‘flu” in 68/69

        The Government stated that if you were ill you must stay home, and everyone else just get on with life.

        The fatality rates were much the same as Covid, but the power crazed and petty fascists didn’t get a look in.

    3. Thanks for posting. She’s one of the few proper journalists we have left.

        1. They go on about smokers costing the NHS huge amounts of money but conveniently ignore rotten teeth which can lead to heart conditions.

          1. Smokers had over £squillions in revenue and frequently die before retirement age.
            I can’t understand why governments have it in for smokers.
            Clean living bints like me often go on for ever. My non-smoking aunts (very unusual for their time) lived into their nineties; one made it to 101.

    5. Even telephone consultations are being cancelled and re-arranged for months later.

  26. Good Moaning.
    Philip Johnston in the DT.
    Put your hands together and thank the Lord for our parents and grandparents. The masked sheep would have laid down in the road to give the Germans easier access.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/29/much-longer-will-people-obey-pointless-unjust-lockdown-laws/

    “How much longer will people obey pointless and unjust lockdown laws?

    It’s unconscionable that I’m considered a law-breaker for not wearing a mask on station platforms

    29 June 2021 • 9:30pm

    If one characteristic defines the British, it is our law-abiding nature. True, it is not unique to us but it is a noticeably more pronounced trait than in many other countries, especially in Europe. It derives from a long-standing sense that governments are, by and large, to be trusted to do the right thing.

    That is not a view shared by many continental citizens which is why protests there often end in violence. It is no coincidence that law and order in many European countries is enforced by state-run gendarmeries. Here, policing is carried out by consent and the constable is a civilian not a member of the armed forces.

    Some commentators and jurists have voiced their astonishment that the British have been so compliant in their acceptance of the most stringent controls imaginable on their private lives. At the outset of the pandemic, behavioural scientists were sceptical that the British, wedded to a deep-rooted concept of individual liberty, would go along with any of it for long.

    Dominic Cummings, the scourge of No 10, told MPs that the assumptions of experts were false. “One of the critical things that was completely wrong in the whole official thinking in Sage and in the Department of Health in February, March (2020), was the British public will not accept a lockdown,” he said. “Secondly, the British public will not accept what was thought of as a kind of east Asian-style track-and-trace type system and the infringement of liberty around that. Those two assumptions were completely central to the official plan and were both, obviously, completely wrong.”

    I suspect Cummings is himself wrong about the latter – people here might accept snooping on a temporary basis but not as a way of life. But about the former he is absolutely correct. Once the laws are passed by parliament, few are going to disobey them because they accept the government must have a good reason for introducing them.

    But if a law is to be obeyed then the way it is promulgated is of paramount importance. A democratic state cannot arrogate to itself powers it does not possess and then insist everyone does as they are told, and yet that has happened here. Apart from Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, hardly anyone has questioned the legitimacy of these laws – the questionable use of the Public Health Act to circumscribe the activities of perfectly healthy people, for instance.

    Prof Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London, disclosed that behavioural scientists initially thought that they “couldn’t get away” with what China did in locking down Wuhan. “And then Italy did it. And we realised we could,” he added. There is something telling in that “couldn’t get away with it”, an acknowledgement that it was slightly nefarious.

    Nonetheless, our commitment to the law is bred-in-the-bone. Mass compliance with Covid rules was not an expression of national altruism or love of “our NHS”, even if a sense of helping others made them easier to accept. It was a manifestation of an overwhelming predisposition to obey the law.

    But for how much longer? When does it become acceptable to break the law – as many are already doing by ignoring social distancing and mask-wearing regulations? The moral case for breaking an unjust law has been debated ever since Socrates spurned the chance to avoid his execution on the grounds that he had been legitimately sentenced by the Athenian court. He argued that even if his conviction was unjust, that did not give him licence to do something wrong himself.

    But obedience to unjust measures eventually corrodes the rule of law. Public health measures are not of themselves unjust, since they are there to protect others; but if they continue beyond the point where they no longer have any medical justification, why should they be followed? If we get to July 19 and masks continue to be mandated on public transport and elsewhere despite all other rules being removed, why should we wear them any longer?

    I confess I have stopped doing so on station platforms and occasionally on the train not because I take it upon myself to decide levels of health risk but because it is apparent they are no longer needed. The messaging telling us to keep wearing them has changed subtly from acclaiming their benefits in stopping viral transmission to their role in “reassuring others”. That is not what the law was intended to do.

    After the Second World War, the government retained identity cards for six years until a chap called Harry Willcock refused to show his to a police officer when requested. He broke the law but was given an absolute discharge.

    The case went all the way to the Court of Appeal, where Lord Chief Justice Goddard upheld the conviction but added: “To use Acts of Parliament passed for particular purposes in wartime when the war is a thing of the past … tends to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs.”

    Indeed so. For the war substitute coronavirus. When an emergency has passed, it is unconscionable to retain restrictions on individual liberty on the grounds that they are convenient for the state or to appease those of a timorous disposition.

    It might suit the Government to maintain high levels of anxiety in case they need to reimpose controls in the autumn, notwithstanding Sajid Javid’s promising debut as Health Secretary on Monday when he placed the importance of restoring freedoms ahead of the scientific clamour for perpetual constraints. Whether he can hold that line come the autumn when cases go up and coincide with a likely flu epidemic is another matter.

    Are the lockdown laws to be repealed on July 19 or held in abeyance for future use? If the latter then this country’s deep-seated inclination to obey the rules, already undermined by the antics of Dominic Cummings and Matt Hancock, will be tested beyond breaking point.

    We tend not to take to the streets in Britain, but discreet civil disobedience has been apparent for some time, as people refused to accept crackpot prohibitions such as a ban on sitting on a park bench. Law-abiding or not, there must come a point when we won’t put up with it anymore.”

    1. Good article.

      I would still be prepared to wear a (proper) mask in hospital or the GP surgery but that isn’t about covid or protecting others.

      If i go in with a bad leg i don’t want to come out with a cold. And we all know how filthy hospitals are. Almost as bad as cruise ships so my gloves stay on too.

      All reasonable statements. Does anyone think i’m telling the truth?

      *just seeing what my chances are for the Batley & Spen by-election :@)

      1. Most of us are scared stiff of Golliwogs, and are fed up with their presence on everyTV prog, radio, and when they are in large groups, make us feel uncomfortable . Anyway she is a fine advert for healthy eating , look at the size of her !

          1. Look , I know you mean well, but I am suffering from a form of PTSD, having being exposed to riots and nasty things when I was a child in Africa , hiding under the bed etc and hearing chanting mobs .

            So for me the UK was meant to be safe , white and cosy and home .. and I chose NOT to join my parents and siblings over 55 years ago when they eventually settled in South Africa , after the traumas of West Africa and Sudan and Egypt ..

            Now guess what, the adult family in SA are now feeling the effects of violence , theft and unrest and a security night mare in their various idyllic homes in SA.

            I would prefer the UK to understand that in another decade this island of ours willl have created the same problems that Rhodesia and any other ex protectorate in Africa has suffered from through so called tribal diversity .

            This government seems to believe that assimilation works, wrong, wrong wrong . We are being dictated to by all the ungrateful BAME millions .. and no one is doing a damn thing about sticking up for our own .

          2. I grew up in Herne Hill in South London in the 1950’s & 1960’s when the invasion & takeover of SE London by the violent low IQ WOGS was underway & my family became part of the “Great White Flight ” out of London to the surrounding counties. Although I personally would as a young man immigrate to Israel, all of my relatives ( and we were multi-generational SE Londoners ) left London & mostly settled in Essex & as the Muslims began coming in to East London & to Illford ( which was then Essex ) they began moving further & further away and there has not been a relative of mine born in London for 2 generations .
            Assimilation cannot work, not just because of skin colour but because of the genetic low IQ ( and the violence that goes with it ) of the migrants & no amount of free education will alter their IQ & low mentality, they are & remain savages!

          3. Good morning, Maggiebelle

            As I have mentioned on this forum before two of my aunts were murdered in Africa – one in Kenya, the other in Rhodesia.

            If white rule was that oppressive in Africa then why are so many black Africans determined to come and live in Britain now that the whites are no longer in power in Africa?

            Have you ever heard this question being asked in the MSM? And if not, why not?

          4. Morning Richard

            Yes I do remember you talking about your dear aunts , what a terrible way to die.

            The white British believe that a black man will soon adopt the mores of a white.. and of course what we are seeinng on adverts , drama, the arts , news presenters , so called social historians , yes of course , because that is advantageous to them .

            We KNOW by just reading https://www.iol.co.za/news what goes on .. https://www.mylondon.news/news/local-news/londoners-rank-top-10-places-20419692 then the rats crawl out and spread their evil as they travel around doing their dirty stuff.

          5. We expected that, by ‘educating’ a few of the chiefs’ sons in Blighty, they would make a leap from the Neolithic Age to the Twentieth Century.
            Our rulers forgot that it took about 10,000 years for western man to reach some form of civilisation.

          6. Well you know what , I thought I was a bigotted whitey, but now we are accepting nearly 2,000 illegals a month who come ashore in little boats , how many are flying in to Britain as well?

            We are done for .

        2. Morning, Maggie. I take it, by that, that you weren’t an avid collector of badges from jars of Robertson’s Golden Shred or Bramble Seedless? 🤣https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f5aea9a9bb9c5eb5c6f53322a24b5d0426ab1ec554baea47fbf8a8accc00acb.jpg

          2. I liked Rose’s lime marmalade until I’d sampled the far superior Wilkin & Sons Ltd (of Tiptree) version. After that Rose’s tasted quite ‘chemical’.

          4. Happy Wednesday, Pud.

            There are hundreds of horse-chestnut trees near here with some of the biggest conkers I’ve ever seen. Problem is that Swedish youngsters are too thick to realise what fun can be had from playing with them.

          5. We used to bake them to harden them & we would put some in an old sock to make a cosh when we had fights with kids from other schools .

          6. I sold my Sun records Elvis LP for sixpence to a boy I fancied. To make matters worse, I never got the money.

        3. Skin colour isn’t the issue. The lack of morality and being as thick as mince is.

          1. I’ve never understood that expression. My memories of mince are a gruel like mixture with odd shreds of meat (beef?) swimming in it.

          2. It appears to be of Scottish origin.

            Possibly because it has been minced there is no connectivity or higher brain functions. Just a guess.

    2. When I lived in Nigeria, it was common that boys had ceremonial scars cut into their faces . like, 3 cuts across each cheek, that were then infected to give really noticeable scars. The warrior look I guess.

      1. Ugandan boys have them on their foreheads. Lots of boys have their front teeth knocked out. Girls are scarred elsewhere.

        1. “Lots of boys have their front teeth knocked out.”

          That was de rigueur at my school! 🤣

        2. Very civilised ceremonies. A transition, after which a boy is man enough to cause havoc – or invent a technological wonder, whichever applies to that particular tribe at the time.

    4. I quite like Andi Oliver. What she has to realise is though bullying can be controlled it cannot be eradicated. If it wasn’t about her skin colour it would have been her teeth or weight.

      Not everyone is bullied at school but a sizable majority experience it at some time or other.

      The thing is, is to deal with it.

      I’m sure the ladies on here will agree with me that schoolgirls are the worst bullies and some of those will have dark skin.

  28. Right! Wallet, keys mobile, face nappy, building society book.
    Thats me off to Matlock with the DT who’s actually got the morning off from crich Tramway museum!

      1. Illegal in yer UK, knives. Or anything else sharp – including tongue, and wit.
        Morning, Hat. Keeping cool, I hope.

      2. Am I alone in finding the scissors on Swiss Army knives virtually useless and almost impossible to use?

        1. GM Rastus. Yes you are alone. I find the small scissors on 58mm SAKs excellent for cutting my nails & the larger ones on the 91mm upward knives to be good for most cutting tasks . I also like the serrated edge self sharpening scissors on the 85mm Delmont range of SAK’s that they kept when they took over rivals Wenger

          1. Just as they sell fake Swiss watches I think they must also sell fake Swiss Army Knives. The Rolex I bought in a market in Turkey has not lived up to its brand name and quickly found its way into the WPB.

            .

          2. They make good axes & machetes in Nigeria as they get a lot of practice cutting off limbs & heads, but well sharpened scissors require the skill of skilled Swiss craftsman. They spend years testing their scissors cutting out the holes in Swiss cheese & hardening the steel blades in bowls of molten hot chocolate fondue.

        2. You must be, Rastus. I’ve had my Swiss Navy Knife (very rare 😉) for 34 years and the scissors on it are still the sharpest in the house (and I have a collection of very sharp scissors).

          Just keep hold of the body of the knife in your hand and simply use your thumb to operate the scissors. It’s as easy as that.

        1. Up to 3″ blades is permitted in the UK, the blade length on the 58mm Classic above is 1.25″ . On the 93mm Pioneer my usual Gentleman’s knife carry its 2.5″ & here in Israel there are no restrictions on blade length or type of knife ( fixed blade, folding & locking blade, spring loaded or flipper knives etc )

    2. She, who wants to shout people down, doesn’t like it when it’s applied to her political broadcast.

    3. Wonder how much editing would have been done to this interview if it hadn’t gone out live?

    5. He’s not well liked or popular, but he’s nicer than the combination of the BBC.

      2. She was wrong about the licence fee. It was redefined as a hypothecated tax by the ONS in 2006.

  30. A fine sunny morning to you all from the Tin Tent now at Troutbeck Head. Surrounded as we are by by glorious geology and biology my first waking thought this A.M. was to wonder how difficult it might be to knit in zero gravity. I’ve no idea where that came from.
    Apologies to Conway for not replying to your last post, we were about 2 miles SE of Shrewsbury and have been travelling and setting up camp since.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/144b24c79a7c4a47ef9f3d0d5e502aec083b602fa11af045eaf1cab9f1decc71.jpg

    3. I’ve a last run down to pick up stuff from the Mother in Law’s next week and plan having a couple of days away in the van.

    4. Don’t buy any newspapers or listen to the news on your Roberts.

      Hope you get some nice weather.

  31. Oxfam slammed over ‘whiteness’ survey, claims anti-white racism doesn’t exist
    34 mins ago Share
    Employees of Oxfam have expressed their outrage at a recent survey the charity distributed to its staff on racial justice in which it claimed that “racism is a power construct created by white nations for the benefit of white people”, making white employees feel victimised for the colour of their skin.

    The organisation was accused of creating a hostile working environment for its 88 per cent of white employees in the UK, telling them that the colour of their skin gives them a “unique privilege” and that they are a part of a “power construct” which has been based on “viewing white people as superior”.

    “We understand whiteness as the overaching preservation of power and domination for the benefit of white people and ultimately that which white supremacy served to protect”, the survey read, which proceeded to call on more work on “decolonisation”. It added that the charity “does not recognise reverse racism”.

    One female employee told The Times that the survey made her feel like she had to “apologise for being a white woman” adding: “I don’t want to be sub categorised as either a white supremacist of a full on racist”.

    Another staff member who works in an Oxfam charity shop told the newspaper that she felt “under attack for being white, English and voting Leave”.

    A third simply asked: “Why are they presuming their workers, who are working for a humanitarian charity, are racists and bigots?”

    Social media users expressed their anger at the charity’s woke decline on Wednesday with one donor to the organisation saying: “Oxfam slagging off white people. I am white and I have given to Oxfam all my adult life, until today that is. Absolutely sickened by this racism!”

    Another accused the charity of pushing “more outright racism dressed up as progressiveness. Shocking! Anyone normal, i.e not bought into this idiocy needs to boycott this travesty of an organisation.”

    Conservative MP Pauline Latham, who sits on the Commons’ international development committee accused the charity of embracing “critical race theory” are defining “whiteness and blackness in stark, oppositional terms that are unintuitive to most people”.

    In response, the charity told The Times: “Oxfam is working hard to become an anti-racist organisation and this survey is an important part of ensuring that we live up to our values.”

    https://foxhole.news/2021/06/30/oxfam-slammed-over-whiteness-survey-claims-anti-white-racism-doesnt-exist/

    2. A good 12 years ago when Gordon Brown was PM, two Oxfam UK workers were expelled quietly from Israel after they were caught using their international aid workers credentials ( which has semi-diplomatic status ) to pass through our checkpoints without having their vehicle checked, they were transporting tools used by Palestinian terrorists working for Oxfam’s local office to sabotage a water pipes to small hilltop Israeli villages adjacent to Jerusalem . The Oxfam people would transport the large hammers, saws, pry bars , spades, picks & bolt cutters from location to location knowing that their vehicle would be waived through the checkpoint without being searched & they would meet the local Oxfam staff members who were all PLO members near an Israeli village & begin digging up & cutting the waterpipes. This went on over the course of a good 3 months until our security services managed to get the information from an informer & arrested the 2 Oxfam UK staff at a checkpoint with the still muddy tools in the boot of their official Oxfam vehicle ( used to distribute food & used clothing parcels donated by the UK public ) . After their arrest the UK Foreign Office requested their release & expulsion rather than having them stand trial for Terrorism, regrettably we complied not wanting to have a diplomatic row with the UK.

      1. There was also a scandal involving people working for Oxfam raping vulnerable girls in places like Haiti.

        1. Yes I read about it, Oxfam ceased being a Charity a good few decades ago & became a militant Marxist front group using donations to support terror groups overseas

    3. The only good thing about Oxfam is that I’m not contributing to their self-flagellation!

  32. Matt Hancock take note – momentum can be difficult to reverse once it starts rolling (and that job Boris, on-the-quiet, promised you in a couple of years …. well, he won’t be able to deliver):

    Matt Hancock: ‘Furious’ councillor demands former Health Secretary’s resignation as MP
    Tory councillor calls for former Health Secretary to be removed from his West Suffolk seat following affair revelations

    By
    Lucy Fisher,
    DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR
    29 June 2021 • 10:11pm

    Matt Hancock faces a constituency backlash as a Tory councillor has called on him to step down as an MP and urged the local party to deselect him as their candidate.

    The former Health Secretary, who resigned from the Cabinet on June 26 after admitting he breached social distancing rules by kissing a female aide in his office, faces pressure in his West Suffolk seat.

    Cllr Ian Houlder, a Conservative on West Suffolk Council, revealed he has written to the local association chairman demanding that Mr Hancock face deselection by the party ahead of the next election.

    He has also written to the MP directly to “express my ire” over his “hypocrisy”.

    Cllr Houlder told The Telegraph: “I am furious. I do not include his [Mr Hancock’s] personal affair, which in anybody’s mind is quite sordid, but he has been standing up there for a year pontificating to everybody in the country… That’s what I found really contemptible.”

    Cllr Houlder described how he had personally been forced to stand outside the church during a family member’s funeral due to Covid restrictions, adding: “Think of people who haven’t been able to bury their mothers or fathers. There he [Mr Hancock] is, just groping away, hands everywhere, tongues everywhere, out of his bubble.”

    Signalling that the “double standards, the hypocrisy” of Mr Hancock’s conduct had also been difficult to stomach for those whose businesses had been hit by lockdown, the councillor said he “should go before the next election”.

    He added: “I think there should probably be a by-election. I don’t think he should cling on, hoping that people’s memories fade.”

    A second Tory councillor in West Suffolk, who asked to remain anonymous, took a different view, however.

    “I think there’s a sense of sadness for the family and disappointment, but there’s not outrage. There is support for Matt as a constituency MP and that seems to be holding up,” the councillor said. It is understood he has the backing of MPs in the county as well.

    A third local Tory source suggested the verdict was out among the local party: “There are Conservatives who were close to his wife, who is very much at the centre of his constituency.

    “The speed of events have been quite bewildering for people. Matt wouldn’t answer questions about his private life at the AGM last week. But people are still processing this.”

    The source added: “Matt should be given time and space to allow him to manage what are personal issues. He also deserves a bit of a break after a gruelling year with the pandemic.”

    Mr Hancock apologised last week for breaching social distancing guidance and apologised to his “family and loved ones for putting them through this”.

    He is said to have separated from his wife, Martha Hoyer Millar, and is now considered to be a couple in a “properly serious” relationship with his former aide Gina Coladangelo, with whom he was caught in a clinch on CCTV in May, according to friends.

    The local interventions came as Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested that Mr Hancock should have declared his relationship with Ms Coladangelo to the Cabinet Office.

    Speaking on his Conservative Home Moggcast, the Leader of the House of Commons pointed to parliamentary rules on MPs appointing family members to roles, adding that “there are likely to be rules around disclosure of personal relationships in other areas too”.

    Under government rules, non-executive directors of Whitehall departments must declare on appointment any potential conflicts of interest, such as shares, directorships and any relevant relationships.

    However, friends of Mr Hancock have claimed that the affair did not begin until after Ms Coladangelo was appointed.

    It is unclear whether the rules required Mr Hancock and Ms Coladangelo to alert the relevant authorities when their tryst began, although senior civil service sources suggested they should have updated their declarations.

    While he refused to discuss Mr Hancock’s case specifically, Mr Rees-Mogg went on to state: “If we are asking general questions, if a man were to appoint his wife to be a non-executive director, you would hope that the Cabinet Office knew that the lady was married to the man.”

    In a clear swipe at Mr Hancock, a senior Government source also compared his behaviour unfavourably to Simon Clarke, a former local government minister, who stepped down last year after entering a relationship with a Westminster colleague.

    “That was his [Mr Clarke’s] understanding of the rules,” they added. “I think if you compare the behaviour of Simon with Matt, Simon behaved impeccably.”

    Meanwhile, Lord Kerslake, a former head of the civil service, said that Mr Hancock’s affair had shown that the rules around non-executive directors appointed in Whitehall must change.

    “The problem really with the current model is about, really, the appointment process, how it is overseen and indeed clarity about what that role is supposed to be and I’m afraid changes are going to be needed in light of this sorry saga,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

    Meanwhile Lord Bethell, a close ally of Mr Hancock and a junior health minister, came under renewed pressure on Tuesday over his use of a personal email account rather than official communication channels to conduct government businesses.

    Downing Street acknowledged Lord Bethell was using a private email address, but suggested that was allowed within the rules, while the peer insisted he had done nothing wrong.

    Lord Bethell insisted he sought to uphold the ministerial code “in everything I do” after being questioned in the House of Lords by Lord Lister, Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff.

    “I am absolutely rigorous to ensure that Government business is conducted through the correct formal channels,” he told peers.

    “The guidelines are clear – it is not wrong for ministers to have personal email addresses and I have corresponded with a very large number of members in this chamber from both my parliamentary address and from my personal address and that is right and I will continue to do so.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/29/matt-hancock-furious-councillor-demands-former-health-secretarys/

    1. So he should resign, he’s a disgrace to the profession…………………….oh hang on a mo !!!

      1. A shocking way to treat the dying young man and his family.

        A former colleague of mine lost her 22year old daughter to leukaemia in February, but they were with her as she died at home. The funeral service was limited to family but her friends lined the street as the hearse went by, so they were sort of able to say goodbye. It’s a terrible illness that takes such young people – far worse than covid.

  33. So – (© telly totty) – tens of thousands of unmasked people can go to a wendyball match – and hundreds of thousands afterwards “celebrate” in the streets – but if ONE schoolchild is thought to have been close to another child who MIGHT have been tested positive – a whole year group is sent home for 10 days.

    I wonder if these fantastic “scientists” who instruct ministers to impose such mad rules actually HAVE children – and can see the massive harm they are doing to them?

    1. Maybe doing the harm is the point? Covid gave the government the opportunity to exert total control over the population by means of psychological warfare. The government took the opportunity and proceeded with enthusiasm, supported by an equally on-message State broadcaster and unquestioning MSM.

      1. The only difference is that Russia was honest enough to call it’s only newspaper ‘Pravda’ and allow no competition.
        The nomenklatura knew they lied, the Russian population knew they lied.
        Here, a pretence of different newspapers and an honest government is maintained.
        The disgraceful hysteria-mongering by the media is something I will never forget nor forgive.

        1. Pravda or Izvestia. There is no Truth in the News and no News in the Truth.

    2. Not to mention the idiotic adoration of the goal scorer by creating a pile of writhing bodies and all round back slapping.

        3. As a person he belongs on the prow of a ship. He’s not even much of a footballer.

      2. When Stanley Matthews scored a goal, he would pick the ball out of the back of the net, shake hands with the centre forward, then take the ball back to the centre circle ready for the restart.

        After the match he would catch the ‘bus home. Stanley Matthews had more footballing skill in his toenail cuttings than the entire current England squad collectively possess.

    3. I suspect many don’t; they are probably incapable of interacting with their fellow humans long enough to breed.

      2. Because for every bunch like this, there’s someone trying really hard to make a living making goat’s cheese.

        Someone teaching themselves to read and write from battered children’s books, who reads to and with their own child because they want a better life for *them*.

  35. Good morning, my friends

    Roger Federer given huge scare before Adrian Mannarino retires with injury in final set
    DT Match report

    I find it very irritating that journalists always have to exaggerate and deliberately distort the truth – I cannot see that Federer was on the verge of losing. The final set had not started when his opponent retired and Federer was 5-2 ahead in the fourth set..

    If Federer had been in the Ladies’ event he would have already lost the ‘best of 3 sets’ match but Federer is biologically a man (as far as I know!) and is not yet eligible to enter the Ladies’ event so he has to play the best of 5 sets.

      1. Morning all.
        I have it recorded Plum, I picked up a Hemmingway book from an Oxfam Shop WGC in October 2019, 2.49. Fiesta First published in 1927. I bought it out of interest more than any other reason, with 218 smallish pages I found it quite an easy flowing read, but with very strange people as the main characters. Lots of wining and dining. But Hey ho………….
        I might watch part of that this afternoon after my muddy dog walk.

          1. I’ve been watching the rain clouds roll in from the north & north east, i’m hoping I can go out in about an hour.
            I see you might have some decent sunny weather at last.

          2. I can’t complain about the weather….sunny and warm in Kernow apart from a heavy shower earlier this week. Too hot to garden today….Wimbledon a welcome relief….Nick Kyrgios Aus. wins the match .He’s exciting to watch…..hope to see a lot more of him.

          3. Good Plum i’m glad you are enjoying the weather now and the tennis. Andy Murry gets around quite well for a metal hippy. I had one of those 13 years ago and I have the most terrible trouble just putting my socks on. But don’t tell him what’s in store.

          5. I did watch the first episode this afternoon, at first I thought I could see why the BBC had put this program on, as it talked quite a lot about transgender dressing of the children in the family. But it brightened up and as you say was excellent. I might get a couple of his books from our library. My good lady is a volunteer Librarian.
            I started watching the Palin version but he seemed to have more than slightly veered from the main topic. It was more about him than Hemmingway.

    1. Scottish midges! The most fearsome creatures on the planet! Morning Grizz.

      2. Morning, Araminta. Very true. Apparently they are just as bad in northern Sweden, but I don’t go up there to find out.

        1. The largest mosquitos I have ever seen were in a Russian forest somewhere up toward the Baltic. We gave up after a few minutes’ walk.
          How on earth people live there is beyond me.

          1. There are some pretty evil huge black biting things in the forest near Lakenheath! One bit my hand and it swelled up like a balloon!

          3. I got the last bit of blocklaying on the current section of wall done this afternoon after my foray into Matlock and managed to swat with extreme prejudice a number of clegs while I was working, Very satisfying too.

      3. There was build a house series on TV(Grand designs or similar). One of the houses was built in the NW of Scotland, possibly Argyll or further North. The builders wore mosquito nets over their heads and faces, with other bodily access points also covered. I doubt that the owners will spend much time in deck chairs…

        1. I’ve seen huge hairy Jocks running for cover when the midges are about – builders wearing Tescos plastic bags with eye holes cut in them. Thankfully when on recoveries I have access to a very good anti-midge balm and a mesh head covering

      4. Their Leader wants to be a fearsome creature but is a Scottish midge(t) joke. Time she was swatted.

    3. Welcome to the bane of Canadian living (apart from the politicians that is).
      Mosquitos have had their fill, we are now onto black flies and soon there will be horse flies, deer flies and other species that would shame any blood loving vampire.

      2. Lots of buggeration at Firstborn’s farm with cleggs just now. Judging by the pain in their bite, they are sabre-tootthed cleggs, right painful they are.

    1. He’s right though, it is the rebirth of superstitious fear of the unknown and guilt for being human, that Christianity put to flight two thousand years ago.

      1. err.. no. The Church ensured it was the one spreading the terror. Now the state has usurped the power of terrorising and controlling the population.

        Climate change, as a basic entity of physics, is a fact. Put 50 people in a room and it’ll get hot. Have those people play musical chairs and it’ll get even hotter. These are facts of chemistry.

        Are we producing too much waste – dear life YES. We all know this. There’s too many of us, some simply not intelligent enough to be worthy of the gift of life (litterers, smokers). Now, is the gormless, poisoning stupidity of the carbon capture and storage, of carbon credits, of net zero going to make the blindest bit of difference? Of course not. It actively makes things worse.

        Do we need a massive expansion in energy production, industrial research, next generation power investment? Yes. Without question. Shove all the windmills, burn it, literally in thorium, fusion and hydrogen research.

        It’ll take decades, but it’s a space race. Once we build a hydrogen reactor or, the holy grail, a fusion reactor every single problem man has goes away almost overnight. With energy sources that are abundant we take a step forward as a species that will take us to the stars and beyond. These moronic politicians, Lefties and fanatics will drive us back to the stone age – rinse, repeat.

        1. If you think that, then you simply do not understand Christianity.
          Jesus sacrificed himself once and for all, for the sins of humans. This means that you do not have to worry that the sun won’t rise because humans are inherently bad. Jesus squared all that with God, and now you only have to worry about what is under your control, i.e. your own actions and decisions.
          This inherent guilt about being human is the superstition that is creeping back under the skirts of the green movement.
          Because you grew up with the Church being dominant, perhaps you don’t realise the power of that central tenet of its faith, that you don’t have to feel guilty for being human.

      2. 334935+ up ticks,
        Afternoon BB2 ,
        He is right All right, as I posted tother day We really are facing a serious cave shortage.

    1. Nigel Farage was on GB News last night warning that boats available to carry 70 illegals will be available soon for the Channel crossings.

      1. 334935+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Cs,
        Treacherous master manipulator, not to be trusted IMO, probably has shares in DUKWs.

      2. Yes, but Farage has absolutely no influence at all in the deplorable, corrupt and inefficient government with which Britain has been lumbered

        He lost all credibility when he gave the green light to Johnson’s capitulation over the border in the Irish Sea, no deal for financial services and no proper control over British fishing waters. He needs to be questioned closely by GB News on this. Does anybody still seriously believe that the trade deal was any good when the EU is even wanting to use the Protocol to stop lawnmowers being sent from Britain to N Ireland?

        And he also needs to be questioned closely as to why he did not oppose Remainer MPs and withdrew Brexit Party candidates in the last election not even demanding a quid pro quo thus enabling there to still be a strong pro-EU contingent in the Conservative Party.

        I have always rather liked Nigel Farage – he is ceratinly an excpetionally good talker. But when it comes to the crunch he retreats and gives in.

        1. Sausage ceasefire imminent – but EU rules could stop export of lawnmowers to Northern Ireland
          British machinery industry faces new barriers to trade unless UK changes rules to match tougher EU regime, says report
          James Crisp: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/29/sausage-ceasefire-imminent-eu-rules-could-stop-export-lawnmowers/

          If Boris Johnson was not in thrall to his testicles and his Princess Nut Nuts he would have abandoned his capitulation deal by now and the N Ireland Protocol would no longer exist.

  39. In five or ten years time the majority of those responsible for making Covid even more disastrous than it needed to be will no longer be in power or seeking re-election so they will escape any consequences.

    Boris Johnson knows that there is a certain trendy buzz about global warming and other environmental scares and that many people have swallowed the green message hook, line and stinker. He also knows that when people can no longer afford to have cars and can no longer afford to heat their homes that he will be far away and escape the retribution his pathetic uxorious submission to his most recent wife has brought him but by then his new wife will probably have walked out.

    Hancock is a nasty, power-hungry, un-empathic and sadistic man and he had to go. But we must not be deceived into thinking that any replacement of Hancock is going to be good. In the row with Cummings which led to Shavenit Jhjovid resigning as chancellor the Boris Bonkee Nut Nuts was very much on Jhjovid’s side and now she has got him back again.

    1. Johnson is an out and out charlatan. His ‘green agenda’ is another scam as are his claims for thousands of green jobs to replace traditional work. He is so confident of his ‘greenery’ that he is terrified of putting a cost on his and his new wife’s wish list as the facts would see him laughed out of office.
      Add in the ‘green’ intention to curb the consumption of beef and dairy, due to bovine flatulence, along with other meats and replace those traditional products with soya and possibly minced grasshoppers/locusts/mealworms, then being laughed out of office would be the least of his concerns.

      Johnson, by his behaviour during the CV-19 period and his zealous pursuit of ‘green’ issues, has become the greatest health risk to the people of this Country. The Tory party and its supporters need to take stock of where this foolish man is leading them – imho over a disastrous electoral cliff – and boot him out before he does any more damage.

        1. Then string them all up.😎
          Seriously, there appears to be a lack of stand out personalities within all the political parties. Herd mentality has infected not only Parliament but many levels of the government machine.

          2. Of course. The only people that are allowed to stand for parliament are already puppets. Anyone independent is blown out by the puppet MSM. No content, no contest.

      2. Destroy the home grown meat % dairy industry by undermining them with cheap imports. Then ban the imports for some spurious health reasons.

        Job done.

        1. That’s how I read the Australian trade deal and the government notice a while back advocating farmers retire.

    2. Johnson is an out and out charlatan. His ‘green agenda’ is another scam as are his claims for thousands of green jobs to replace traditional work. He is so confident of his ‘greenery’ that he is terrified of putting a cost on his and his new wife’s wish list as the facts would see him laughed out of office.
      Add in the ‘green’ intention to curb the consumption of beef and dairy, due to bovine flatulence, along with other meats and replace those traditional products with soya and possibly minced grasshoppers/locusts/mealworms, then being laughed out of office would be the least of his concerns.

      Johnson, by his behaviour during the CV-19 period and his zealous pursuit of ‘green’ issues, has become the greatest health risk to the people of this Country. The Tory party and its supporters need to take stock of where this foolish man is leading them – imho over a disastrous electoral cliff – and boot him out before he does any more damage.

      1. I am feeling better today, thank you. It was the Cytisine which i have stopped taking.

        Leg has withered by about 40% below the knee and walking is painful but okay at rest.

        I took a photo of my legs and sent them to my Doctor.

        I don’t wish to make you anxious, Belle. Many people have worse problems. At least i still have my film star looks. :@)

  41. “NO self-isolation for double-jabbed, NO Covid passports and NO school bubbles: Joy as No 10 reveals three huge barriers to normality WILL be ditched this summer after Chris Whitty urged Cabinet to ‘open up as much as possible’ before winter”

    Interesting. Witless has changed his tune, He was Dr Gloom and the head of Project Fear – “millions dead by the end of next week – bodies piled in the street” etc etc

      1. Odd how government scientists present the absolutely worst environment possible, then say that nonsense phrase ‘the science is settled.’

    2. He’s probably hoping that there will be an absolute disaster when we open up and he can say:

      “I told you so, and next time you assault me I’ll give even more duff advice.”

    4. Reiner Fuellmich in court in Germany 3 July with his crimes against humanity case. Also Mark Sexton ex-policeman who walked into police station last week to report Johnson, Hancock, Vallance, Whitty, Raab, Gove and Zadhawi for misconduct in public office https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/this-retired-police-constable-standing-up-to-the-government-vaccine-fanatics-is-a-hero/. So Whitty is distancing himself, perhaps. Or perhaps they simply want an excuse for locking us all down again in September, blaming us for spreading it about during July and August.

      Edit: typo

    2. Galloway dressed her down and made her look quite ridiculous but she didn’t appear to take on board any of his well crafted rebuffs and just kept ploughing her furrow. No self-awareness at all, worryingly robotic.

  44. A nice balmy 49.6C in parts of BC yesterday and they are threatening warmer weather today.

    The ecoloons are in full flow telling us that the end of the world is nigh!

    1. I reckon the woke and ecoloons may be more vulnerable to (death from) overh(e)ating than the average ….

    2. That’s more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. My grand daughters in Portland Oregon are suffering very high temperatures at the moment as well.

      1. That’s immediately what I thought – only her white van is missing.

        By the way, Jonny, that’s TOO far.

      1. Perhaps some football practice once they get him back to the station …. to find out if he any mental health problems.

  47. I have just received an e-mail “Introducing Windows 11”.
    I ignored it as I have trouble enough with Windows 10.

    1. Hmmm, still operating on Windows 7 Professional and I won’t change until I find a better operating system – no, I don’t want Macintosh either.

      Looks like it might be Linux.

    1. Thugs gun a man down with no warning? Is that a brush the victim has? It does not look like a rifle? In the clip the “police” thugs did not identify themselves. There may be much more and this is surely not the full story. What we can see reflects very badly on the “police”. Are they “police or “transport police”. They were drawing their deadly taser weapons before challenging the man. Then, once he was unconscious on the floor, he was shot again.
      Totally appalling.

      1. The clip doesn’t show the lead-up to the incident, so we can’t tell if the suspect was warned about the taser. I only saw one taser being discharged.

          1. No, I think the sound is the metal bar being pushed away by the second policeman.

        2. It’s a bloke with a metal bar. Hardly a problem, is it? Looks as if he’s just picked it up.

          Goodness, what would people think of me when I’ve been to B&Q to pick up some aluminium pipes?

          1. Watch out for armoured personnel carriers and low-flying helicopters with dangling ropes.

          3. Was he acting in a threatening manner? Did he even know they were police?
            There is an awful lot of trust involved here, that this behaviour won’t be abused.

          4. Different people have different perspectives. It certainly looked threatening to me. If the incident had occurred in the USA, the suspect would quite likely have been shot dead. At least the taser means that in the vast majority of cases when it is used, the suspect survives to tell his side of the story.

          6. We don’t have all the information, but the kind of power those police officers are wielding could easily be abused.

      2. 334935+ up ticks,
        Afternoon HP,
        Currently ALL police are walking targets the majority NOT deservedly so, plus the fact there is a governance manufactured atmosphere of
        fear & tension to be fought against on a daily basis.
        The bloke could have been taking a threatening stance holding a stick of licorice / rapier.
        Afraid that, via the polling booth a society has been created that does NOT allow for in depth questioning not if a young copper wants to become an old copper.
        Common sense & NOT OTT action is what needs to be used.

      3. That’s the current Keystone Kops (AKA Stasi) who are supposed to uphold law and order in this benighted country of ours.

  50. Keir Starmer’s Labour has an India problem. 30 June 2021.

    Batley presents a kind of parable of where the Balkanised politics of multiculturalism can take us. Any ideology that seeks to segment voters into identity blocs will inevitably descend into a nasty game of grievance-mongering.

    Let us hope Batley and Spen is a low water-mark, rather than an omen of things to come.

    Actually it is what is to come. A multicultural state is one that is in a latent state of Civil War since its various Power Blocs and their needs can never be reconciled, and it not infrequently becomes the thing itself.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/30/keir-starmers-labour-has-india-problem/

    1. B&S is the sort of place where squabbling children are fighting and an adult – a white, male adult – needs to step in and say ‘shut it, both of you. Go to your rooms and think about what you’re saying.’

      Because, frankly, until that white, male British adult does that, the brats will start squabbling, then fighting, then warring. It is only by obliterating their equally stupid posturing with the dominant British culture that things will ever improve.

      Given that a teacher is in hiding from Muslims precisely because the state refused to support him and his right and proper teaching – teaching reinforced by the very people complaining about it being taught (I wonder if they see the hypocrisy in their actions?) – that white, adult male won’t step in – more he’s being kicked to death by the very brats he should be policing.

  51. The Tories’ cowardice over Batley Grammar is shameful. Spiked 30 June 2021.

    The Tory candidate in Batley and Spen has ducked the biggest issue of the by-election.

    As voters prepare to cast their ballots in the Batley and Spen by-election, the Labour Party and George Galloway’s Workers Party are dominating the national headlines. One man, though, is conspicuous by his absence: Ryan Stephenson, the Conservative Party candidate.

    Stephenson looks likely to win. Galloway is eating away at Labour’s vote share, while the absence of independent candidate Paul Halloran (who stood in 2019 and took 6,000 votes) will also aid the Tories. According to a recent poll, Batley and Spen is about to become the latest brick to fall from the Red Wall.

    I wouldn’t be at all surprised if George Galloway won this election because it’s quite obvious the rest are all gutless dog droppings!!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/30/the-tories-cowardice-over-batley-grammar-is-shameful/

    1. Who will vote for George Galloway? Muslims will, but will white erstwhile Labour supporters want to vote the same way as people who are only interested in supporting an apologist for Islam?

      1. Afternoon A. Why would white tories vote for a candidate who is too spineless to even appear let alone support the teacher who was suspended?

        1. He was completely evasive when interviewed by the GB News chap when asked if he thought the treatment of the Batley schoolteacher was a disgrace. The GB News chap’s final quip was very apposite: “I’ll take that as a maybe, then.”

    2. 334935+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      Anne Marie Waters has, if pro patriotic
      intentions were bollocks hers, are the size of elephants and NOT strap ons.

  52. Apparently the law in the UK is going to be changed to allow State aid to businesses. This was forbidden to us by the EU who approved it in Finland, France, Germany, Italy…
    Why has it taken five years? Even so, the UK will be expected to keep a level playing field so as not to gain any commercial advantage over the EU.
    The key to commercial success is, of course, creating an advantage, whether it is price, quality, availability or a better story. So we are still going to hamper ourselves in order to protect EU businesses it seems.

    Last week I bought some new flan tins from Silverwood Bakeware in Birmingham. They manufacture them. Some of the items were out of stock. Yesterday I sent them an email asking why the items were out of stock as they make them after all, so just make more?
    Twenty minutes later I received a phone call from a very nice man at Silverwood. He explained that they bought their raw material – aluminium sheets – from processors in Europe, These businesses mostly supplied the aircraft industry which has virtually shut down over the last 18 months. Processors have correspondingly cut back.

    There is no sign that the government has any real interest in supporting UK industry and commerce. They are not about to subsidise an aluminium processing and rolling factory. Or anything else.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57656812

    1. The idea that the UK Government can pick winners is risible. They are hopeless! Everything they touch turns to sh!t!

    2. A good proportion of the members of any Conservative government should have had considerable experience of running their own businesses. Boris Johnson and his clowns haven’t a clue – but neither did May and her idiots or Cameron and his..

    3. This government has absolutely no interest in creating any sort of business here, let alone aluminium rolling. Cripes, how would it meet it’s idiotic climate change targets if it dind’t shut down the economy?

      If metal smelting goes overseas – and it won’t be the last – then other manufacturing will as well. Eventually we’ll be utterly dependent on other nations. We are not energy self sufficient. We are not mlitarily self sufficient. Without manufacturing we are vulnerable. If we have no energy, no fuel, no product base then we risk being replaced entirely.

      What will the state tax to death then?

      1. I suspect that most of the government parliament are totally ignorant when it comes to business. (Other than bunging NHS supply contracts to friends and family.)
        They are so ignorant of such matters that they don’t even have the slightest inkling that businesses exist.

  53. No longer the tough men of the pioneer nation, it seems. Or perhaps it’s part of a cunning plan to deter the Barmy Army from following England’s cricketers around the continent for this winter’s Ashes. If so, why would Oz want to stop them? After all, another humiliation awaits our hapless troupe. Take the fans’ money, enjoy their suffering.

    The world must learn from Australia that zero Covid is a disastrous dead end

    70% of the population is back under lockdown and less than 5% are vaccinated – Australia’s smug party is over

    ANNABEL FENWICK ELLIOTT (Senior Content Editor)

    Petty as it may be, I can’t deny a sense of schadenfreude in seeing Australia’s maniacal pandemic strategy wobble from 10,000 miles across the ocean; with a slew of fresh clampdowns enacted just as the rest of the Western world is getting back to normal.

    Since the earliest of these dark days, that nation’s zero Covid approach has been widely hailed, certainly by lockdown fanatics, as the very pinnacle of success in winning the (spoiler alert: unwinnable) fight against this virus. But there are no medals to be won in this race until it’s over. The true test won’t be until Fort Knox Australia releases the shackles from its inhabitants and reopens to the rest of the world – still a far, far-off prospect.

    It’s almost as if the Australian Government wants to revel in its isolation forever. While lockdowns have been proven across the globe merely to, at the very best, delay the inevitable, the overlords Down Under have been in no rush to execute the only plan that will actually work (jabs, jabs, jabs) to protect their citizens when they do reopen their borders. Only a feeble five per cent have been inoculated thus far.

    But why bother? In a sentiment that defies logic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already admitted he has no intention of resuming international travel even once the whole population is vaccinated. Nor will he permit Australians who are now double-jabbed to leave their own country.

    What a terrifying affront to people’s freedom of movement, after injecting them (in some cases mandatorily, as is the case for certain workers in the country) with a so-called safeguard against the virus only to deny them their ticket out of dodge. Exactly where is the escape hatch, under this totalitarian regime?

    When Virgin Australia boss Jayne Hrdlicka had the audacity to suggest last month that “we can’t keep Covid out forever”, stating, in light of the vaccine efficacy, “some people may die but it will be way smaller than the flu,” Morrison dismissed the comments as “insensitive”.

    I’ll tell you what’s insensitive, Morrison. The fact that half of your citizens are either first or second-generation nationals, meaning almost all of them have been separated from their close relatives abroad for nearly 15 months. And that tens of thousands of Australians are stranded overseas still to this day, registered as wanting to ‘return urgently’, many of whom have taken their case as far as the UN Human Rights Committee.

    I might have grudgingly conceded that it was worth it – being cut off from seeing my own South Australia-based father and siblings for what will be several years – if the pursuit had worked. But it hasn’t. The Delta variant made it through the tight net anyway, escaping from hotel quarantine facilities in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Darwin, and forcing two-thirds of the population back into lockdown this week.

    What’s worse, while in the UK nearly 90 per cent of adults have amassed Covid-19 antibodies, the vast majority of Australians have no natural immunity to this ever-mutating pathogen – some version of which was always going to break past the walls – or indeed to any other of the garden variety foreign bugs they’ve been denied a healthy exposure to for more than a year and a half.

    Mark my words, the long-awaited twist in Australia’s gloat-fest is nearly upon us.

    “The sheer reality is we can’t stay locked up for the next five years,” said leading Australian epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely this month (although I wouldn’t put that timeline past Morrison at this rate). Discussing recent modelling, Blakely conceded that even with 90 per cent of the country vaccinated, “it will be bumpy when we open the borders”.

    He added, echoing the prophecies of many a health expert before him: “We will have to let Covid wash through the community, so we must have a discussion about what the health system is able to manage to allow that.” Really? That discussion, only now, as Americans and Europeans cast off their face masks with glee?

    James Powditch, who runs an art business in Sydney and probably speaks for many, told CNN this week: “We can’t leave the country, people can’t come in, and we end up periodically in lockdowns, which cost a friggin’ fortune. People have been accepting that this is a diabolically difficult situation, but once we start watching the rest of the world open up, we’re going to turn to anger.”

    Too right. Strap in, Australia. Your hard-won Covid battle has only just begun.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/world-must-learn-australia-zero-covid-disastrous-dead-end

      1. Prince Phillip , one one of his visits to Oz, was asked at immigration whether he had any criminal convictions. His reply was “I didn’t know that was still a requirement”

        1. Prince Philip was warned that the question would be asked. He was as sharp as anything though.

          Her Majesty is also reported to have a good sense of humour. No wonder they were such a good match. If you can make each other laugh you’re half way there.

          1. One of the very best things about Caroline is that, unlike most people, she enjoys my jokes and repartee. This might go some way to explaining why I did not find anyone prepared to marry me until I was 41.

    1. Nut nut- “what are you watching, hunney bun”.
      Hunney Bun – ” Brief Encounter, BBC remake they said”.
      Nut Nut,” It can’t be, they are both white and straight, by the looks of it”.

    2. I think she is a starlet and is adopting the name of Nickleby because she likes to go knickerless and in this photo she and her agent are inviting a film producer to some dick ins!

      2. I imagine the seam has torn rather than it being a deliberate attempt to show off a bottom.

        As – thinking about it – the dress is design to hug her figure as she’s obviously body proud. It doesn’t in that state, so the ‘slightly too tight’ garment has ripped, leaving her exposed.

    6. Heh, been there – not in the wearing a dress – but acted as the cover for when the wife’s went at a bank do.

      It was the one time she couldn’t slap my hand away…

      1. The dress would work if it went over her shoulders rather than the biceps. i wonder if it was on purpose.

          2. That’s good – and have you now gone back to smoking or has it worked? It probably clashed with your other medication.

          3. No smoking here.

            I think it was too strong but for all the time i am not smoking i don’t think i will need it.

          4. E-cigs have helped me, Philip, since 21st March 2017 when I smoked by last tobacco cigarette but I still get the nicotine hit my brain keeps badgering me for but only accompanied by water vapour.

            …and I have COPD from 60+ years of tobacco smoking but I feel much better.

    8. It’s class, pure class, I would be proud to accompany either of my daughters wearing that dress, and such a vibrant red.
      Her companion looks like a tart and dresses like a tart. Nuff said.

      1. The ponytail doesn’t help much either.

        It certainly wasn’t a gentleman who took that picture.

  56. I suppose that wendyball player with the gun tattoo on his leg is about to shoot himself in the foot.

    I’ll pull me socks up.

  57. Double standards rule the roost!

    Covid rules for G7 and football are very different from those the rest of the population have to put up with. But we must not forget that a racist can only be white.

    Tory councillor who shared Facebook meme saying ‘white slaves were sold for centuries’ is facing misconduct probe
    Pauline Culley broke Darlington Borough Council’s code of conduct last year
    The councillor since 2014 shared a meme that read ‘white slaves were sold’
    Opposition councillors said meme suggested black suffering was insignificant
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9741019/Tory-councillor-facing-misconduct-hearing-sharing-Facebook-meme.html#newcomment

    BTL

    Anti-racism is itself racist if people of one race can say something about race that a person of another race cannot say. So if it is true that both white people had black slaves and black people had white slaves why cannot people say so?

    1. We know that African and Asian embassies have slaves , can you remember one poorAfrican woman in London who was in a terrible state , might have been in total servitude to a West African Embassy .

      I wouldn’t be surprised if half the showbiz celeb types have staff… I mean the Royal Family employs people for a very paltry wage!

      And I cannot even find a window cleaner here in the sticks!

    2. I suppose one should not be surprised that telling the truth is “misconduct” nowadays.
      Hope the FSU takes this one up if the Council is stupid enough to try and punish her.

    1. Compare and contrast the BBC woman interviewing Galloway and the technique this young lady used. I now have some idea of the issues thanks to GB News.

  59. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless.”

    Henry Miller.

    1. “Never argue with stupid people. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.”
      WS Churchill.

  60. Afternoon all, took a trip down the coast to give Mrs VVOF a pub lunch and a walk along the sea front. The sun was out and it was a very warm pleasant day down there. I am surprised how busy it was, considering the kids are supposed to be at school and witless & co have scared the population with tales of death and woe for over a year now. Perhaps the rest of the country has caught up with us on Nttl and can see the virus for what it is.

      1. I see Priti Awful has said she will continue to mask up even when we are told it is unnecessary.

  61. I watched the Putin “direct Line” call-in programme earlier and,of course,the British destroyer incident came up.
    It seems that an American spyplane took off from Greece earlier and was monitoring the proceedings but the Russians were monitoring the spyplane!
    It was a set-up to test Russian reactions.

    2. Merkitler, “Yes, and I’ve arranged that if your boys win they will all be quarantined in Rome, then we’ll see how your second team gets on.”

    5. 334935+ up ticks,
      Afternoon P,
      What can I say Bren, we lost two battles in the past and came out winners.

    6. Liz – It was a good game last night, the best team won.
      Angela – Yes we cannot even use the excuse that all our best players were away fighting on the Eastern front.

  65. 334935+ up ticks,
    Her actions on behalf of the tory (ino) governance party
    is seriously putting the boot in in regards to the Country
    that is under a siege of sh!te from the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / foreign paedophile importing
    coalition.
    A coverall DCM should have been issued at least three
    decades ago for their treachery rendered, but the “party”
    regardless of its treasonable faults MUST retain number 10.

    https://twitter.com/DavidPoulden/status/1410190584090927109

    DCM = Don’t come Monday.

  66. Boris Johnson and his most recent wife are still playing ‘hunt the sausage!

    Sausage wars: UK and EU agree to delay post-Brexit meat import ban
    ‘This is a positive first step but we still need to agree a permanent solution – Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/30/sausage-wars-uk-eu-agree-hold-post-brexit-ban-meats-entering/

    BTL Comment:

    No deal, as Mrs May once said, is better than a bad deal.

    It was a shame that Mrs May did not believe it and tried to deceive us with her repulsive lies but now Boris Johnson has lumbered us with a disastrous deal which is even worse than a bad deal.

    1. TBF, his hands were tied by a Remain-dominated Parliament, which ruled out a no-deal Brexit. Of course, there’s nothing to stop him scrapping the WA and NIP now, on the grounds that the EU are playing silly beggars and violating the ‘good faith’ clause of the WA.

      2. Which is why I keep banging on about the fact that Farage capitulated and withdrew his Brexit Party candidates and did not contest the seats held by Remainer Conservative MPs. Between them Johnson and Farage have allowed the House of Commons to have far too many remainers in it.

        Farage did not even demand any quid pro quo – was he stupid, weak or completely naif?

  67. Two hypocrites “slugging” it out at PMQs over grotesque lockdown rules and their impact on families and loved ones. One, the tousled haired liar and serial philanderer IS the Prime Minister and the other one, the wannabe Prime Minister, has supported those grotesque rules throughout and in addition has demonstrated that he is prepared to kowtow to an extreme cult that has idolised an American serial criminal. Are we, or are we not, literally up shit creek without a paddle?

    https://twitter.com/SuzanneEvans1/status/1410239947651551233

    1. Yep, Boris says chop off their limbs and Starmer says that’s terrible, it’s disgusting that you haven’t chopped off their heads!

    2. Pure, bluddy, Boris waffle – if ever there was a case of testiculation, Boris epitomises it.

      1. As for his waffle about EVERYbody over 40 being vaccinated – I cry bullshit – I’m 77 and refuse to be killed by untried and untested vaccines which may, or may not, give immunity.

    1. Thank goodness (for the planet) this is correct:

      “Are you aware that humanity is just a blip? Not even a blip. Just a fraction of a fraction of what the universe has been and will become? Talk about perspective. I figure I can’t feel so entirely stupid about saying what I said because, first of all, it’s true. And second of all, there will be no remnant of me or my stupidity. No fossil or geographical shift that can document, really, even the most important historical human beings, let alone my paltry admissions.”

      Meg Mullins.

      1. ‘I figure’…is acceptable now? Least you could have done was plagiarise the content and put it in plain English !

        :@)

          1. I have the pleasure of meeting someone you know next Thursday. I am sure this person will behave with the utmost discretion.

            I will just have to behave myself as well………until the third large Gin. :@)

      2. I’ll happily leave my autobiography as, maybe, the tiniest of the tiny blips – but it’s there, as my relationship to both my ancestors and my descendants – major or minor blips – who knows but it’s not worth denigrating myself for the want of another’s paranoia.

    2. And the food and drink that was in the discarded packaging would all have been organic/vegan/healthy…..

    3. That’s ‘pride’ in where you live, eh? My father would say, “You don’t shit in your own nest.”

      1. A lot of them would have travelled in, but again you don’t shit in someone else’s nest/neighbourhood either.

        1. One of my neighbours said she’d caught a foreigner crapping in a deserted lane the other day. She was walking her dogs and gave him a bag to clean it up! You don’t mess with my neighbour!

    1. About time too! Also time this practice was stopped in other countries around the Med.

      1. Trapping and selling live birds particularly songbirds and others that look pretty is quite normal around the Med.

        Though the birds are no longer free, they, provided they are not lunch, don’t have that bad a life.

        The Maltese (that don’t eat them) are proud to show them off to friends, family and visitors. Allowing them to fly around the house as they wish.

        I know this post will get me in trouble with Grizz. I hope he hasn’t seen the video of the starling plague in Africa where they set explosives at the base of the roosting trees and then…

        1. You are never in trouble with me, Philip. I am kind to southerners these days! 😉

          1. A bit like in that disaster film where an E.L.E was going to affect the Americans and… They ! needed to cross the Rio Grande.

            Just make sure you bring your own mushy peas recipe!…Oh and don’t forget to wipe your feet. :@)

        2. I hate to see birds in cages. They should be free. I don’t want to see that video.

    2. They are only saying it is banned knowing full well it won’t make any difference. Just flashing their green credentials.

      I know how angry this makes you.

      As far as Policing is concerned it has always been different on the continent. We seem to be heading in the same direction.

    2. I always preferred the writings of his brother Christopher. They sounded more caring compared to Peter.

      Peter has grown up and so have I.

      As an aside………

      Can anyone imagine a plain speaking Prime Minister beyond 2021?

        1. Shame he will have an unexpected accident and a new more amenable person who wasn’t elected but will be in charge. Ukraine. Italy etc.

          What i find interesting is our parliamentarians need lots of security. Including the people who advise them. Even for a visit to a Pub or just to the shops. (one of those Labour Harridans).

          Victor Orban can stand in a main square with thousands of people and not fear he will be attacked for his politics because….

          I was also walked around BudaPest at night and there is no fear. An ordinary person cannot do that in London, Paris or New York.

          2. I once had cats called Buttercup and Daisy. I can’t even look at the pics now.

  71. 334935+ up ticks,
    What should be remembered say at Batley – Spen tomorrow is that everyone coming in via DOVER is a potential future voter who certainly has NO love for their host,

    breitbart,
    More Illegal Boat Migrants Landed in Britain in June Than Whole of 2019

  72. Well, the end of a shite day looms. Rain and cold since getting out of bed at 5.30 (am!) Much the same tomorrow. Friday may be sunny.

    I hoe you have a jolly evening.

    A demain. I shall be going to Fakenham Market with a lady who is not my wife…!!

    1. I suspect that there is a significant proportion of the populace who could be persuaded that they need to deep clean their computers because they are susceptible to the Covid virus.

      2. The same people who think that their data is stored in the sky, because, cloud computing.

    2. A neighbour of mine arrived at the dump this morning with some rubbish (old bedding from the attic) and had actually got on site and his Boot was open, in the proper Bay, but because he hadn’t booked a slot… they told him to leave.

      The damned fool came back and then booked a slot for the following day.

        1. They are under license/outsourced to/from the local council. If they don’t comply they will be fined. If caught out or a complaint made.

          They were just following orders

          Meanwhile. Others are making hay and sleeping in other peoples beds. Having in the case of the fat cunt Boris £30,000 of food deliveries by the back door at Down Street. has his grace and favour redecorated at others expense and gets to shag a new improved wife. Then in two years fuck off to pastures new where he be paid millions for speeches he doesn’t make.

          No wonder his own Father fucked off to France and his Sister hates him.

    1. Yet again President Trump was right. Trump’s problem is ad-libbing but it wouldn’t surprise me if his posts and video’s had been doctored as the Democrats have suggested about Biden’s.

      1. As far as the US MSM was/is concerned anything Trump says is wrong.

        He could state that America dropped atomic bombs on Japan and they would have refuted it.

    2. sosraboc’s hierarchy of political needs, with apologies to Maslow

      Election/appointment
      Calling in of election debts/corruption
      Payoffs/increased debts
      Putrefaction/exposure
      Insincere apology/Conclusion

      Inquiry
      Bribery
      Cover-up
      Erasure
      Whitewash/conclusion

    3. sosraboc’s hierarchy of political needs, with apologies to Maslow

      Election/appointment
      Calling in of election debts/corruption
      Payoffs/increased debts
      Putrefaction/exposure
      Insincere apology/Conclusion

      Inquiry
      Bribery
      Cover-up
      Erasure
      Whitewash/conclusion

    4. What’s the background to that video, do you know? Is it a press conference?

      1. A very good question, but if you wanted to post anything like that which was contrary you would be cancelled/deplatformed and banned.

        Smaller sites and platforms are emerging and taking up the ‘slack’ as it were but ! Guess what?…We are about to get the new online harms Bill.

        I read some rubbish today about a new Russian supersubmarines that can carry mini subs that can cut undersea cables that carry Internet traffic.

        It won’t be the Russians or even the Chinese that cut us off it will be the Americans in collusion with our own government of the day. I only say this because all Internet and cloud traffic is provided by them to us or with their double cuts in the cables that enter Britain and redirects through them first.

        No surprise that the whistleblowers have not had due process but emergency shutup laws were put in place. Sounds familiar.

      2. A Senate hearing I believe.

        I watched it on Rumble and Dan Bongino featured the ‘Five Points’ in his most recent podcast on Rumble.

  75. This is a succinct summation of the ongoing vaccination coercion. Whitty has more to fear than a couple of Asian thugs accosting him in St James Park. The same goes for his co-conspirators and their political enablers.

    This includes Johnson and Schwab’s ‘Young Global Leaders’ such as Matt Hancock and Jacinda Aherne(?) the Blair prodigy, running New Zealand, to name but two of the more brazen villains.

    https://trialsitenews.com/the-present-covid-19-vaccines-violate-all-10-tenets-of-the-nuremberg-medical-ethics-code-as-a-guide-for-permitted-medical-experiments/

    1. The vid was very blurred.. They looked Greekish rather than Packish to me.

      Good evening Corim.

      1. Hi Phizz, hope you are feeling better.

        I agree the video was a bit wobbly and there are a lot of Greeks and Turks in London too.

        When I lived in London the Greeks occupied Kentish Town where the best Greek restaurants were to be found. The Turks and Arabs in general occupied the western side of Edgware Road.

        The Poles were to be found in South Kensington, Clapham Common and Acton mostly.

        On my last visit to London several years ago the demographic had changed completely and most of the East End was now given over to Muslims.

        1. Hi Corim, I had many visits arranged and cancelled but on my last one was To the VSC and the only place in walking distance to get a drink was at a Shsiha Bar. At least if i wanted to experience Lebanese culture all i would have to do is go to London.

          1. Yup. Great Lebanese restaurants on Edgware Road. I worked in Seymour Street opposite the Victory Services Club in the nineties.

            One of my last London projects was detailing the bars at Chourangi in the Cumberland Hotel demise on Old Quebec Street. I believe its opening was delayed for a year by the Covid Hoax. It was to be the base for the celebrity Indian chef Jolly.

            Chourangi Subtitled ‘A Taste of Kolkata’ or ‘A Taste of Bengal’.

          2. This was what was booked nearly two years ago with a Nottler. Other arrangements made including two other private clubs. Plus https://www.thezettertownhouse.com/marylebone/bar

            and Lunch in Rules. It’s not like i have an aide to make the arrangements like Hancock. Blasted train tickets and all the rest !

            And now……….The same person is visiting me next Thursday and my Greenfaced bungalow will have to do for now. :@)

            Though you would be polite and not necessarily the majesty of my home…’coughs’. You would be welcomed.

            I have owned a four bed detached Lutyens on Gillott Road and a Flat in a Thomas Owen at Portland Court, Southsea.

            The windows in the first house were an utter nightmare. The Pub next door was hell. Still, it all looked very nice. On nights when the disco was blaring i could at least look upon St Judes opposite

    2. Johnson, the Cabinet et al. crossed their personal Rubicons a long time ago. They have gone so far that there can be no turning back, no mitigation and no pleas that, ” We were following the science,” to redeem their evil behaviour.

      I have wondered about the situation re MPs when their actions and compliance with the totalitarians are exposed. MPs are expected to be a questioning buffer against the excesses of the executive but, except for a few notable exceptions, they have been a supine unquestioning rabble who have merely rubber stamped whatever the government proposed. They have betrayed their constituents and the Country. Excuses? They will have none.

      1. Perhaps they will get away with it by slapping a 100 years’ D Notice on it all, as with Dunblane, paedophilia and the rest. I am sure they have plans for the possible exposure of their crimes. We need to turn 17th century, eject them from office and try them for their crimes, instantly.

        1. Maybe eject them from windows. I like the idea. if you don’t like the message or the messenger defenestration is your best option.

          2. Certainly that should be thrown out of a window.

            Someone pointed out that the reason development was so quick was because at heart, it’s still Windows NT. Nothing has changed apart from a truly infernal UI.

          3. We used Windows XP at work…….. never used any of them at home. My sons set us up with Linux and we’ve never gone back.

          4. We are seeing. In real time. Normally content and mostly law abiding people becoming quite peeved. When they/us get to pressure cooker level which is happening now it will make the French Revolution look like an old maids picnic.

            ***For any Alphabet persons reading this and think 95% of the words i have written should be cancelled…you won’t be invited.

            *****any old maids with picnic baskets are exempt.

            ******any old maids that are good with automatic weapons get free beer.

      2. 334935+ up ticks,
        Evening KtK,
        It has slowly been revealed since the major era gaining strength over the years, given succour by the electorate locked into the tactical voting pattern of late between three parties of the same construct that being, treacherous political sh!te.
        No notice taken of the odious consequence to the Country.

        Now we ALL suffer and others will continue to suffer into the future.

        Politico bridges have been well burnt, true colours have been unfurled.

  76. Evening, all. I think we’ve all been sent a clear signal that we are NOT the government’s priority! Had a good riding lesson today; leg yielding out from a 10m to a 15m circle and getting him to engage his hind quarters and be more uphill. The quality of his transitions was much improved.

    1. As always. We carry on.

      You could write scripts for the BBC…possibly best not to mention horses though if you wish the script approved. Sheep maybe………..

      Sorry…. :@(

    2. You know, Conners, although that’s written in English, I didn’t understand a word!

      2. 🙂 Basically (I don’t know if you want the translation or not, but you’re getting it anyway), it means that on a 10m circle (the arena is 20m wide, so half the width), I pushed him out while he was still turning to another 5m width (two thirds of the arena width) so that he had to step under with his hind leg to engage the “engine”, so to speak (impulsion comes from the rear). Being more uphill is more or less what it implies; he lightens his forehand (front legs) and takes more weight on his back end so he “sits” a bit. Transitions are when you move from one pace (upwards from trot to canter or downwards from trot to walk). He was more engaged (using his back end instead of slobbing along, relaxing his back and not poking his nose out beyond the vertical) when he changed his pace.

        1. He’s on the shine. Cider ran out. I think we should crowd fund him a boozee package. 90% should bring him back to us… :@(

    1. Look how much pushing and shoving there is among the boys in the top one. You hardly ever see that these days, they’re all taught to be “non-violent.”

      1. Un peu peut-être. But don’t say that in too loud a voice in the suburbs.

        They will think you are a foreigner.

    1. That happened some years ago to a friend of mine – her cat disappeared, a body was found and buried……….and then he came home.

  82. Boris cannot allow the Northern Ireland Protocol to survive a day longer

    The court’s ruling has made black and white the dire constitutional ramifications of the current Brexit deal

    OWEN POLLEY

    In an incendiary judgment, this morning a high court judge in Belfast confirmed that the government has removed critical aspects of the Acts of Union 1800; the legislation that effectively created the United Kingdom.

    Mr Justice Colton ruled that the Northern Ireland Protocol – which divides the UK up economically and politically by creating an Irish Sea border – is incompatible with this foundation stone of our constitution. However, he also found that the relevant parts of the Acts of Union were repealed by legislation that enacted the Protocol at Westminster.

    This means that the applicants of a judicial review, led by the Traditional Unionist Voice leader and QC, Jim Allister, former Labour minister Baroness Hoey and the former Brexit Party MEP, Ben Habib, have strictly speaking lost the first stage of their court challenge.

    Nonetheless, the judgment will unsettle the government deeply and its political ramifications could outstrip its legal significance. It represents a direct challenge to Boris Johnson’s claims that he is prioritising the Union and protecting it effectively.

    Article 6 of the Act of Union determined, “The subjects of Great Britain and Ireland shall be on the same footing in respect of trade and navigation, and in all treaties with foreign powers the subjects of Ireland shall have the same privileges as British subjects.” Two weeks ago, the prime minister told MPs explicitly that this provision had not been repealed by the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol.

    Even his keenest advocates would acknowledge that Mr Johnson’s relationship with the truth can be malleable. Still, by the time he offered Jeffrey Donaldson MP assurances at prime minister’s question time, the government’s lawyers had already argued that Article 6 was subject to the doctrine of implied repeal. Then, this morning, Mr Justice Colton stated that, “It cannot be said that the two jurisdictions (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) are on an equal footing with regard to trade.”

    The prime minister has not been caught out telling a minor fib or bending the truth creatively. His government’s legal arguments and their endorsement by the high court show either that he knew very well that he was changing Northern Ireland’s constitutional relationship with the rest of the UK significantly, or that he rushed through nation-defining legislation without understanding its full repercussions.

    Whichever of these analyses is correct, they both imply that Johnson and his colleagues treated the building blocks of the United Kingdom with a reckless carelessness that has, knowingly or not, damaged the Union they claim to cherish.

    The government’s attitude to the Protocol has always been contradictory. It accepted an agreement that created an Irish Sea border while, at the same time, denying that any frontier would exist. It said it was committed to implementing the deal, but simultaneously described its arrangements as unworkable. It claimed it would act decisively to protect the internal market, but onerous checks, paperwork and other barriers to trade have already become part of life in Northern Ireland.

    This case raised complex legal issues that will eventually be settled by the Supreme Court. The Act of Union is a constitutional statute, of the type that make up the fabric of our nation state and its political system. These laws are so important that they must usually be repealed “expressly” with “unambiguous words” that make parliament’s intentions clear.

    In this case, the judge argued that the legislation that created the Protocol must be treated differently. The Withdrawal Agreement Act enacted a treaty and therefore it was a constitutional statute itself. Justice Colton found that the later law must prevail in these circumstances, whether it used “unambiguous words” or not.

    The courts do not seem to have considered a case like this before where constitutional statutes clash. These abstract legal arguments will establish a new precedent with potential consequences for the whole United Kingdom.

    They also make a hollow joke of the EU’s claims, endorsed on occasions by this government, that the Protocol does not affect Northern Ireland’s constitutional position. On the contrary, it changes the foundational laws that bind the province to the rest of the United Kingdom. The consequences of Boris Johnson’s capitulation to Brussels are clearer than ever before.

    If he really values the Union, he can no longer allow this Protocol to stand.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/30/boris-cannot-allow-northern-ireland-protocol-survive-day-longer/

    This is another case for the Supreme Court and it could become very tangled indeed. The text that I have underlined refers to arguments of implied repeal and constitutional laws that were at the heart of the Metric Martyrs appeal against their convictions. To get the 2001 Blair government off the hook, the judge, Justice Laws [!], had to invent a previously unheard of hierarchy of statutes, whereby any constitutional Act of Parliament can only be impliedly repeal by an ordinary Act if the latter specifically refers to the former. Now we appear to have a clash constitutional Acts and the judge has said there was ‘capacity within the UK’s constitutional arrangements for the “implied repeal” of statute with the passing of latter laws.’

    Has Justice Colton not studied the Metric Martyrs case or does he think that implied repeal of constitutional Acts is acceptable if the repealing Act is also constitutional? The media reports imply that the EU Withdrawal Acts do not specify any part of the Act of Union of 1800 or other Acts pertaining to Northern Ireland.

    More here:
    Brexit’s NI Protocol is lawful but conflicts with Acts of Union, judge rules
    https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/national/19410769.brexits-ni-protocol-lawful-conflicts-acts-union-judge-rules/

  83. Just before i pop off today.
    I hope this isn’t true and i hope you can see this
    View as Webpage

    THIS IS DEBORAH TAVARES RETRANSMISSION

    EVERYWHERE
    https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001xOpnFbg89EiaQ5J2cyv2YDW_8x88UNibhEQrcdT-A6Pbh24xUZrgwh-LRxFra2-G4nwuB6pMGReyORSCd6_kElocaRGwYJusYpYmmbbj1HtwDG9FISGXDFYGxGx_i5bgxHMTK3bRkP8Iu3Fmcrmk9YGF-_4ccKkapgce4IC44muqy5yOLyv5tzK-mLnLLyyf0vwU_LyKAVCrcZLyR42Kstzl7auzp396StY4yhpEu2I=&c=LoMT8TQOQa0RoDrB4eA_Qzimz6LM3XOSkbH3vzJmrsFQF5f–IsoBQ==&ch=ySGIc2ALqqvQ6IwFCGKyI2aHxiNl5YKN70xnQur9F-W6DEHk4l3ouw==
    If anyone doubted the Illuminati/Committee of 300 would not play their (Indian and Nepal) variant card – read below

    EMERGENCY ALERT
    UK Permanent Lockdown
    The Plan Leaked – a Document
    https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001xOpnFbg89EiaQ5J2cyv2YDW_8x88UNibhEQrcdT-A6Pbh24xUZrgwh-LRxFra2-G4nwuB6pMGReyORSCd6_kElocaRGwYJusYpYmmbbj1HtwDG9FISGXDFYGxGx_i5bgxHMTK3bRkP8Iu3Fmcrmk9YGF-_4ccKkapgce4IC44muqy5yOLyv5tzK-mLnLLyyf0vwU_LyKAVCrcZLyR42Kstzl7auzp396StY4yhpEu2I=&c=LoMT8TQOQa0RoDrB4eA_Qzimz6LM3XOSkbH3vzJmrsFQF5f–IsoBQ==&ch=ySGIc2ALqqvQ6IwFCGKyI2aHxiNl5YKN70xnQur9F-W6DEHk4l3ouw==

    Keep in Mind the Dates of the Lockdowns as Stated herein, Could Change Should The Controllers Plans Require Adjustments
    Document errors are intentional to create uncertainty.
    This document has been vetted and CONFIRMED to be REAL

    DOWNLOAD HERE

    https://odysee.com/@StopTheCrime:d/UK-Permanent-Lockdown—-Document-Leaked:f

  84. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy. The points were in, the totalled sum, and he was number one!
    As mentioned previously, two days ago I came second in that day’s stage of an international online Tour de France game. My daily position fell back over the last two days but my overall position after today’s stage is number one. I’m the leader of the peloton. The wearer of the virtual yellow jersey. It won’t last of course. However, this is the highest that I have ever been in 20 years of playing. Oh, Joy unconfined!

    1. His Metal hip must have been better than mine i can hardly pull my socks on. 🤔

      1. I scrubbed the kitchen floor and cleaned patches of carpet , that really knocked me out , then I made a jelly, sorted washing out , took the dogs out , and when Moh came home from golf , I had fed him , he saw my Facebook plea for a local window cleaner, he hit the roof !

        There are alot of windows to clean here , I don’t know where Andy Murray gets his energy from .. I guess tennis is different from cleaning the house!

          2. Let them stay dirty then – don’t do them. Ours are quite grubby but neither of us worry too much.

          5. That’s probably some sort of hate crime against peeping Toms.
            Ours are really dirty since we sacked the window cleaner. Keep meaning to get around to doing it.

        3. Suggest no dinner next time. Too busy cleaning windows will be your reply to the first question from his lips!

          8. He did – and I got into trouble when I banned him as Belle has the same IP address!

          9. Do you have any friends at all ? Besides us virtuals that you are not allowed to meet?

            I liked the pics of yourself that you posted. You don’t look too bad for an old lady. I would be okay walking in to a restaurant with you….though i might expect you to pay if you hadn’t had your roots done before….:@)

          19. You would never get argy bargies here.

            Not tolerated. Ever. People, including family..who mostly are buried under the patio…get short shrift… erm..which reminds me..i have some digging to do.

          20. If i were Belle the last thing i would be doing is cleaning windows on the first floor up a ladder. You are also assuming an equitable relationship.

            Nottlers have experience of ‘wannafight’. and his …let us be kind…humour.

            The first thing we can do as friends of Belle is to help in her in her re-education as to be the perfect housewife her husband married.

            :@)

      3. I can, at a stretch put my socks on as long as they are loose fitting socks. One of the great joys of marriage is having Caroline to help when I struggle.

        1. Happy Birthday to you, i hope you don’t get too many socks as presents 😉

          1. His accent is different now, not as rich as it used to be .

            They both played very well , great to see big crowds like that again.

          3. Mostly as corim said. The majority of them will not come in contact with anyone that might say something that might upset them.

  86. Andy Murray has won just now – 23.33 – way after the roof was closed.

    An amazing feat after radical surgery and bizarre hip treatment …

    1. It certainly is. What would be more impressive is if his mother told what she knows about Dunblane.

    5. I don’t believe you, William. I reckon that Bill’s Terrible Two (Gus and Pickles) decided to have an away day at Whitestaunton and caused their usual mayhem.

      :-))

    6. Some dampness. The older buildings not washed away.

      Utterly fucking crap tarmac on unstable surface.

      Don’t believe me. Look below. Romans knew how to build roads. Now we have spray painted roads done by profiteers being paid by people using other people’s money.

      1. In my youth I witnessed large Green painted machines with ‘Trinidad Lake Asphalt’ emblazoned in white letters on their plant.

        Nowadays we have a thin liquid sprayed coating of bitumen with an applied granite granule surface which we motorists are obliged to roll in.

        1. Long after the cable companies had destroyed our pavements the council decided that things needed tidying up. As most residents had been yellow lined they had ripped out their front gardens to park a much needed car. Depending on which way your car was parked on your own property decided which end of the car got the pebbledash treatment.

      2. Many minor rural roads are of similar construction, with little more than two or three thin layers of tarmac or bitumen and chippings applied to them in the 100 years or so since they were stony and dusty tracks.

  89. Enough, enough, already – I’m done for the day so I wish my fellow NoTTLers a Goodnight and God bless. We shall re-convene on the morrow.

    1. Good night. I have just thrown my phone in the garden in case you feel the urge to ring me while i’m eating peeled grapes.

      1. I don’t use it for ringing people- not even you! Just Nottling in bed. OH is looking out of the window & waiting for the milkman so he can take the milk in as it’s a warm night 🌙.

        1. It’s okay..your number is blocked anyhoo. I would have blocked it sooner if I knew your husband was a Yoghurtist !

          1. A Yoghurtist? We hardly ever have Yoghurt. We have milk delivered by the milkman.

  91. It’s almost midnight (11.45 pm) and I am off to bed, so may I wish all NoTTLers a good night. But more importantly, as the clock strikes twelve it will be our dear Rastus’ 75th birthday. A very Happy Birthday to you, Richard.

    PS (To Caroline): Make sure he has a relaxing, enjoyable and memorable day.

    1. Not off to bed yet. I have other things to fox.

      I join you in in wishing Rastus a most happy Birthday. I will even honour him by not posting titties or buttocks that say Happy Birthday Rastus…. for at least 5 minutes.

      Night Elsie.

    2. Many thanks for your good wishes. Three quarters of a century is a long time!

      2. It is? And after all this time you haven’t even bothered to pick me up from Cowes as you sailed past no matter how hard I hurled that bottle of gin !

        Best wishes, Richard.

      4. Many Happy Returns, Richard (and a pinch and a punch…) Hope Caroline spoils you (again).

      5. Happy Birthday, Rastus! Hope you have a beŧter day than you could hope for yourself!

    1. It does feel a little contrived. The filming. The gawpers. Not many others going about their business taking any notice…..

      Concerned onlookers in shot of the camera…………..hmm

    2. ha ha
      they will now paint a rainbow flag on some training ground somewhere and get the horses used to it, so as to avoid any future embarrassing scenes.
      Street furniture should NOT be used for political advertising.

  94. Mng all, bk last night from Naivasha post watching the WRC Safari rally. Couple of pics of winner Ogier: departing from start in KICC Nbo https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa17744fc0fa86cf2d034f15c832e520f40343a4463d2cd2ed2c2d139126e1c6.jpg Suswa stage https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ec7a168a5163f8bf81e9173519ecd4e90929248514e2f9923e378ca3f6b0290.jpg Naivasha loop https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a15e4df00450848e670c4e51ae3ea077c241d6ba6dec7bcc1d61046788df6cf3.jpg and better traffic police than Kenya plod https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04c7c8cc9a185517b6e0232952ea94d1046cc4d4c140dbadd09b6be475ba16dc.jpg heading down town to sort onthly errands, back later

    2. The only pictures i have seen in years that didn’t contain starving children.

      1. mng, straight after the flag off by Uhuru, went up and stayed at Fisherman’s camp in Naivasha. Worthwhile as the usual clowns from Nairobi thought they’d do a day round trip covering the stages but didn’t factor in main public roads would be clogged with police, and of course the overnight curfew, so many were stranded on the roadside overnight.

Comments are closed.