Wednesday 30 October: Experience shows that the NHS can’t be trusted to use funds efficiently

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

683 thoughts on “Wednesday 30 October: Experience shows that the NHS can’t be trusted to use funds efficiently”

  6. Putin is creating the conditions for Russian victory in Ukraine. 29 October 2024.

    Much will depend on the outcome of the United States presidential election on November 5. Whoever wins the race for the White House, they will inherit a war in Ukraine that requires their urgent attention to prevent a Russian victory that would signal the decline of the West and transform the geopolitical landscape for decades to come.

    The Decline of the West? Lol. It is already going down the tube with no help from Vladimir Putin.

    https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-is-creating-the-conditions-for-russian-victory-in-ukraine/

      1. Because it is Budget Day today. Plus in those three months, Starmer and Reeves have both been exposed as dishonest.

      2. Because they couldn't string it out for another three months?
        But HL's explanation is more cynical …. and therefore probably correct.

  8. Bonjour GG et tout le monde
    Today's Tale – Still More Lawyers (Bill is going to love me)
    The young lawyer had just opened for business. He had been sitting behind his desk for a week when at last he saw a man come into his outer office. Quickly he picked up the phone and pretended to be negotiating a big deal. He spoke loudly about large sums of money and possible Court proceedings. When he hung up, he looked at the visitor and asked, “Can I help you?”
    “Yes,” said the man, “I’ve come to connect your phone."

    Why don’t you ever see lawyers at the beach?
    The cats keep covering them up with sand.

    Two lawyers were walking along, negotiating a case.
    “Look,” said one to the other, “let’s be honest with each other.”
    “Okay, you first,” replied the other. That was the end of the discussion.

    1. Good morning, roughcommon. Enjoyed your funnies as usual. But someone on here will have to explain the second one about the beach to me. CORRECTION: Don't bother, I've just worked it out.

  9. 385525+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    It was not always like this it led the way and worked
    to a majority of peoples satisfaction.

    Then corruption as with many other issues took a hand.

    Currently it is dawning on more peoples that it is being used as a manipulative & money laundering tool, it will never have on the face of it enough funding all the time the Dover invasion is on the political treasonable agenda.

    Plus with the WEF / NWO /RESET agents in the driving seat that will prove to be a very long time.

    Wednesday 30 October: Experience shows that the NHS can’t be trusted to use funds efficiently

  10. Morning again everybody (in English, this time).
    Woke up at 05:54 and dived into the deep pool of Telegraph Letters and BTLs, expecting to have to wait until the Nottle Chronicles would be published after 06:45.
    Had a quick peek at 06:25 and saw a that troop of hair-trigger insomniacs, led by our indefatigable (wow – a six-syllable word!) Geoff, had already been at work since around 06:17.
    Oh well, we will all be excited to hear the dulcet tone of Ms Thieves at around 12:18 today, according to Auntie. Set your alarms now. I have.

  11. Morning again everybody (in English, this time).
    Woke up at 05:54 and dived into the deep pool of Telegraph Letters and BTLs, expecting to have to wait until the Nottle Chronicles would be published after 06:45.
    Had a quick peek at 06:25 and saw a that troop of hair-trigger insomniacs, led by our indefatigable (wow – a six-syllable word!) Geoff, had already been at work since around 06:17.
    Oh well, we will all be excited to hear the dulcet tone of Ms Thieves at around 12:18 today, according to Auntie. Set your alarms now. I have.

  13. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site.
    Wordle 1,229 5/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
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    ⬜🟨🟩🟨🟨
    🟨🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par four. I completely overlooked the first letter in the second line when making my third guess!
      Wordle 1,229 4/6

      🟨⬜🟩🟨🟨
      🟨🟩🟩🟩⬜
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    1. Cue for more disgruntled muslims to come to this country. Soon it will be an official justification to leave a safe country and come here because they were prevented from wearing their burqas…

    1. For telling lies about a harmless church going Christian boy with health ishoos implying he was an Islamic nutjob.

      1. Yes, indiscriminate stabbing/killing of children is such a typical Christian act. Not like…

      2. Patriotic Welshman, at that.
        Altogether now ….
        "Romans came across the Channel
        All dressed up tin and flannel;
        Half a pint of woad per man'll
        Send 'em back again ….."

  18. Morning all Y'all from Memory Clinic at Bærum horsepickle, where ironically the waiting list is shorter 'cos one bloke forgot to turn up…

          1. Tiring, thanks for asking. Memory tests interspersed with medical measurements. Quite stressful, actually, so utterly knackered now.

    3. Bærum has the highest income per capita in Norway and the highest proportion of university-educated individuals. Bærum, particularly its eastern neighbourhoods bordering West End Oslo, is one of Norway's priciest and most fashionable residential areas, leading Bærum residents to be frequently stereotyped as snobs in Norwegian popular culture. Wikipedia

      1. That’d be about right.
        Lots of intellectuals-based businesses and headquarters here, too. High value generation.

  19. Good morning. 11C here.

    Labour internal memo – 30 October:

    Comrades, the good news is that we have largely buried the disinformation around the Southport 'incident'. Please remember that only attacks committed by anybody apparently right-wing can be labelled as terrorist without the permission of the PM. Chief police officers are adhering to their instructions.
    Later today, Rachel from Accounts will be explaining how we aim to fill in the black hole left by the previous far-right 'government' by spending billions on the productive areas of our economy – mainly the public sector, unemployed and Green issues. Don't worry, the electorate are largely too dim to understand. Remember we will be saving 'our' NHS! The finest health service in the world according to our research (see Labour internal survey 2024).

    Onwards to victory!

    allah akhbar!

    1. We are being constantly lied to by government and other authorities, sometimes directly and sometimes by omission. We really don't know what to believe. Perhaps we shouldn't believe anything they promulgate through the media who also lie to us.

  20. G'day all,

    Light cloud overhead at Castle McPhee, wind North-East, 8℃ rising to 14℃ in sunny periods this afternoon.

    So, the protesters and rioters were right all along.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17a098c4bbb566c9076cb385077a57f9f1bfd9574c023473af71f0f7643b6aa0.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/29/southport-murder-accused-charged-terror-offence/

    Starmer, Cooper and The Merseyside Police have some explaining to do. People imprisoned for saying or tweeting hurty words must be released and their convictions over-turned. Swords should be fallen on.

    They won't be, of course.

    What else do we expect from commies.

    1. The Chief Constable of Merseyside has already explained. You call it a terrorist incident at your peril as owning terrorist manuals and making substances like ricin are not proof of intent. Unless you're a snotty white teenager in a flat somewhere tapping away on the internet – definitely a terrorist.

      1. Or a journalist refusing to hand the PIN to his phone, who is clearly a dangerous terrorist in need of locking up in Belmarch

      2. Or a journalist refusing to hand the PIN to his phone, who is clearly a dangerous terrorist in need of locking up in Belmarch

    2. I think the reason given by the authorities to suppress public comment on this case was that it may prejudice a trial and make it impossible to find a jury that would consider the evidence presented in court and ignore the hearsay and speculative tittle-tattle outside. At worst, a very dangerous man would get let off, because his lawyers would insist that a fair trial was impossible.

      1. may prejudice a trial..!
        And yet they have zero squirms about plastering the news on state media about faaaaar right thugs before their execution.

        prejudice a trial..my a rse.

      2. may prejudice a trial..!
        And yet they have zero squirms about plastering the news on state media about faaaaar right thugs before their execution.

        prejudice a trial..my a rse.

      3. And the rioters? Not only 'speculation' by the PM, the Government ministers, the police and media but a statement that people would be found guilty and subject to severe prison sentences.

        1. A statement so brazen it would make General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, VC, KCB, DSO blush.

        2. The evidence that a crime was committed is pretty conclusive, and any Inquest on the deaths of those girls would confirm this and place it in the public domain, where comment can be free.

          The issue is whether this fellow did it, or whether he is being scapegoated to cover for others who are far more of a threat. This is for a court to decide, and the evidence tested properly before opening a public debate on the guilt of this man.

          1. "before opening a public debate on the guilt of this man"

            Yes, just like a public debate about the intent of the rioters and whether they were being directed by other people.

          2. Now you've mentioned it, how much is an outbreak of public outrage an organised incitement by some foe in order to soften up our nation prior to an attack?

            Or could it be an expression of those who believe the country is being run badly, and nothing to do with outside forces, unless these are directing our incompetent rulers?

        3. All of what you list is a terrible indictment of this Labour government's attempt at both dividing the people and cowing the faction that disagrees with them.

          What Starmer also stated, and IMO is extremely worrying, was the threat of a "standing army of specialist officers". Specialist in what, one may ask? All the while making odd gestures with his hands.😎

          Starmer's Standing Army of Specialist Officers

      4. Unfortunately the way any ‘news’ is presented these days positively leads one to speculate. Instead of reporting events with impartiality it’s all slanted. More state manipulation.

      5. Information on the World Wide Web has been able to imperil the fairness of trials for the last twenty plus years; there should be a plan for a different type of jury, even AI would be a possibility.

      1. If The Firm couldn't be ar sed to dissolve parliament in September 2019 when it was most critically needed.. when the parliament was a "dead parliament".. I think we can forget that one.

        1. If I recall, the politicised Supreme Court claimed supremacy over the Crown and ordered Her Majesty to reverse the prorogation.

          Boris Johnson was incapable of forming a Government that could command the confidence of Parliament. Whether or not this was manifested in a no-confidence vote that was being withheld by the Opposition for months, it was palpably obvious that after 42 of his members crossed the floor that Johnson's Government was incapable of getting any legislation through Parliament and had to go, and the whole matter resolved by the electorate, as it was eventually in December of that year.

          The constitutional status of the Supreme Court remains to be discussed.

          1. The rule used to be that Parliament cannot bind itself. Therefore, the Supreme Court should in theory be able to be undone, in the same way that Blair set it up. However, I wouldn't trust the self-interested, treasonous cretins in Parliament actually to do such a thing.

          3. That is why I don't join the calls for a new Bill of Rights/Constitution.
            Just look at the low quality of those who would be drawing up such a document.

          4. The rule used to be that Parliament cannot bind itself. Therefore, the Supreme Court should in theory be able to be undone, in the same way that Blair set it up. However, I wouldn't trust the self-interested, treasonous cretins in Parliament actually to do such a thing.

      2. The King may consider the fact the anomaly that a party with such an overwhelming parliamentary majority did so on a 20% mandate, and that effectively votes for Reform and the Green Party have been handed to Starmer in terms of MPs.

        On the other hand, the parties opposing this showed themselves to be in disarray, hopelessly divided and discredited, and that Sir Ed Davey seems to have made a virtue of being a clown.

        The alternative might be to adopt the stance taken by his namesake predecessor and run things himself. However, he might value his head, and at 75, he might feel that the nitty-gritty of governing is better done by someone younger, abdicate and hand the whole problem over to his son, who himself would prefer to spend more time with his delightful family.

        King Charles knows that his strongest hand lies in the weekly audience, listening, counselling and warning. A prime minister may turn up at the palace a lump of clay and of no use to man or beast, but the King has spent a lifetime learning his craft, and may feel his skill lies in creating a pot out of it, even if it is a chamber pot.

        1. The King has not learnt his craft, unfortunately. He is more likely to create a lopsided, squashed piece of nonsense.

      1. Not so long back, Trump's mugshot was plastered across the MSM as soon as it was taken. I suspect the police have an up to date shot of the accused but will not release it. The whole case stinks.

        1. About the Trump mugshot. You have to laugh. Ended up on mugs and T shirts contributing to his campaign funds. Trust the Dems to shoot themselves in the foot.

          1. It would be just wonderful if the Donald were to return. Just thinkin’ of Lammy going over there…. ” Yes Masser, how can I be of service..”

          2. I know people have issues. Often fired up by biased media. I would enjoy Lammy being able to stand on facts rather than rabble rousing.

  21. G'day all,

    Light cloud overhead at Castle McPhee, wind North-East, 8℃ rising to 14℃ in sunny periods this afternoon.

    So, the protesters and rioters were right all along.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17a098c4bbb566c9076cb385077a57f9f1bfd9574c023473af71f0f7643b6aa0.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/29/southport-murder-accused-charged-terror-offence/

    Starmer, Cooper and The Merseyside Police have some explaining to do. People imprisoned for saying or tweeting hurty words must be released and their convictions over-turned. Swords should be fallen on.

    They won't be, of course.

    What else do we expect from commies.

  22. Letters to the Editor
    Experience shows that the NHS can’t be trusted to use funds efficiently

    29 October 2024 10:00pm GMT
    Letters to the Editor
    SIR – Where will the “billions” to reduce waiting lists in the NHS actually be spent (“NHS will need more tax rises, signals Reeves”, report, October 29)?

    First, the administrators will hold meetings, then appoint external management consultants to decide how to use the money.

    They in turn will appoint assistants, who will need assistants. At a late stage it will be discovered that a large proportion of the cash has been spent, without ever getting anywhere near a patient.

    Equally, given that the current staff and infrastructure can’t cope with demand, where will the necessary extra medical, nursing and paramedical personnel suddenly come from?

    Call me an old cynic, but after nearly 40 years as a surgeon, I’ve seen it all before.

    David Nunn FRCS
    West Malling, Kent

    1. The lack of edible material in the trough may be remedied by getting a bigger trough, but might not that also mean more and bigger snouts in the trough, and no more edible material left over for those whose snouts are impaired by weakness?

      I believe Vegans and Muslims revile the concept of bacon.

    2. Also too many doctors and surgeons are popping across to the private sector to top up their own income. Making the queue for much needed well practiced operations less likely for those who have paid into the system all of their working lives.
      Too many boat people who just walk in and get seen immediately.
      it would be 'racist' if they weren't.
      Last time I went to A&E we were there for 14 hours before being admitted.

        2. The Sunday Times claims that 831 were initially hired.

          I wonder how many now have assistants?

          1. Entire departments of utter waste. Such can only exist in state run nonsense because the state places more value on adhering to dogma than achieving anything useful.

      1. What I like about Mark Knopfler – apart from his brilliant guitar playing – is that he has become an unashamed old geezer.

        The best people in pop become pleasant old geezers. Old geezers are good – we need more of them.

        2. While in the Cotswolds for a few days we went to a huge evening farm event to celebrate Halloween etc pumpkins galore. I went off to see who was Playing and singing. He was very good on acoustic and had musical backing for other songs. I requested Take it Easy. When I met up later with my family. My sons said we heard your request dad. I hadn’t even mentioned that at the time. 😆

    1. Unfortunately it has been the case for many decades that our political classes have been under the impression that they already know everything. They take not a blind bit of notice of past mistakes or public opinion.
      Wreck everything they touch and blame everyone else for it. Which is happening again right now.

      1. Yes, they all seem to undergo a political lobotomy – or maybe they become politicians because they were born that way?

      2. It's because they're stupid. They believe in nothing, know nothing, have no experience of anything. All the modern politician knows is what he's told by a spad, which he was not long ago. They have the same career path: university, pointless degree, fake charity or quango, spad, unsafe seat, safe seat, junior minister, minister. A absolutely no point do they ever do anything or accomplish anything. They specifically bounce around, pointless and useless ensuring nothing gets done parroting soundbites written by someone else on what to say.

  26. I have read some drivel from Evans-Pritchard in my time but, boy, I reckon this tops the lot.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ec5ae2d719e15d4160125066961b16de921880c8274ecb7d1b40e90c4de1a84.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/29/big-money-complicit-unravelling-american-democracy/

    The US corporate world has either fallen silent or quietly “normalised” Donald Trump, as if the storming of Congress and the attempted coup d’état of Jan 6 had never happened.

    The warnings of America’s top military officers can hardly be clearer. “A fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country”, says General Mark Milley, ex-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

    A proto-dictator willing to throw off all constraints, is the verdict of General John Kelly, Trump’s White House chief of staff. It seems to fall on deaf ears.

    That the DT continues to print this berk is good enough reason to cancel subscriptions.

    2. Has Trump, having been shown up by Kamala' impressive pearly whites, been to the dentist? He would surely have been advised that Americans select their presidents according to the quality of their teeth. "A winning smile" trumps all.

    4. I saw the headlines and decided that my time would be better spent stuffing worm eaten chairs into the Noddy car.

  27. So, is the release of the Southport attacker information on the eve of the budget supposed to bury it because of the budget coverage or is it the other way round? Could Starmer also announce tomorrow the details of his personal relationships with a certain peer?

  28. Morning all 🙂😊
    Cloudy.
    I read earlier that labour have been and are still sending people to the US and interferring with their own electoral process. Wasn't there some one else carrying out similar raids
    in the 1930s ?
    How can be allowed to get away with this ?

    1. You've picked up the wrong rules book again. You need the Liberal Left's Guide to Election Support. It gives examples of best practice, including St Barack of Obama visiting the UK to not only tell us how to vote in a constitutional referendum but also the punishment if we vote incorrectly. Labour are just following best practice by claiming one of the available exemptions from ethical standards, Rule 1a – election interference in another sovereign nation's elections are permitted if you belong to a left wing party.

    2. Will HM Rt Honourable Foreign Secretary The Tottenham Turnip be calling Trump supporters “garbage”?

      1. What a divot, he prefers the Democrats, bearing in mind that he's probably never really understood what democracy is. It certainly never works in the UK.

  29. Good morning, all.

    Of course, I am using the usual polite greeting to all Nottlers in full recognition that the DAY may not end too GOOD for many.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f118b1f8f86946d22bce5fc3b5a67f17550d14279fa27e556623ea7f0d722f7a.png

    All the following are taken from Wayne Dunlap's X account.

    Considering yesterday's revelation re the Southport incident, I'm wondering what a similar graph for the UK would look like.
    https://x.com/wdunlap/status/1851417197190791409
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad840eeecfba42e7ea7102de571fcd159519fea8036491022e6eefead377747d.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eab7db5e0851ceb1ff653a13e2e7d485da1248f35fe5f3fc2e6eff1fb0e5531a.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/076872ac547a97424970eecb50e7717fd868d384a84fe95bbeb576dfb77644a1.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0b1875a42a88aa7a8fd1270c5093e12aec015f9fde4eeda1fed42ebf441c63ea.png

    Perhaps the Tories should think – there's a novel idea – before they wade in on immigration/terrorist/lying/obfuscation etc. issues, lest the electorate think them hypocrites. Until people like Jenrick can conclusively prove otherwise he and his acolytes must be considered as the other cheek of the same arse that is Starmer's wrecking ball government.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d34deac62ca79bd6e96ce356dde9d58afaf1654097d3bda9787a30a524262b24.png

    1. Lisbeth Salander put one of those items (shown in 'Public Art Today') to excellent use in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

  30. Good morning all,

    Dull mild day , 11c. Golfer golfing , no breeze .

    DTL comment

    Martin Selves
    43 min ago
    So …

    Rachel Reeves puts a picture of a communist on her wall in No.11, after taking down a Nigel Lawson portrait.

    Rachel Reeves makes this blunder very obvious.

    I don't think enough research was done into this woman before the GE. She has no qualifications in economics, but held a minor post in a Bank but not in an economist role. Yet she is now our Chancellor. And with some digging we might find she had sympathy's with the Far Left at Uni, indeed in the Communist scenario. I am sure someone is looking into this right now.

    It also says something else. She is hard faced and brazen. She does not care a jot what we think of her putting up this picture, none, or our feeling that she holds this man in high regard. To have a Communist looking down on her as she works in the centre of our Democracy is deeply worrying.

    Is it time to be afraid of this woman? We will know more this afternoon.

    As I am having really horrible thoughts , are we heading in the direction of Venezuela financially?

    1. The crass stupidity of some of the Labour voters is baffling – the Labour elite simply DON'T CARE about them, at all. I don't think the Labour big cheeses (stinking bishop, anyone?) deign to bother to "hate" them, as some claim. They are just supremely indifferent to them. Which makes the Labour front bench just look even worse – just because they have money now, and power, does not make them look like leaders or a ruling class.

      In fact, many of them just seem to be grubby little oiks, who have landed a jackpot, and are busy pulling up the ladder after them. Class shows (and I don't mean as in working, middle etc. but as in behaviour and morality which transcend the usual societal definitions), and they have none. Intellectual and unprincipled peasants, the lot of them.

    2. The crass stupidity of some of the Labour voters is baffling – the Labour elite simply DON'T CARE about them, at all. I don't think the Labour big cheeses (stinking bishop, anyone?) deign to bother to "hate" them, as some claim. They are just supremely indifferent to them. Which makes the Labour front bench just look even worse – just because they have money now, and power, does not make them look like leaders or a ruling class.

      In fact, many of them just seem to be grubby little oiks, who have landed a jackpot, and are busy pulling up the ladder after them. Class shows (and I don't mean as in working, middle etc. but as in behaviour and morality which transcend the usual societal definitions), and they have none. Intellectual and unprincipled peasants, the lot of them.

    3. Reeves is dumb. This is obvious. She has no idea what she's doing because she has never done anything of worth or use. She has never worked a day in her life. She slaps her life on expenses. She lives a cosseted, sheltered career in the state. She has never run a business, is economically illiterate and doesn't understand the basics – because she is driven by agenda, not economics.

      The entire state machine, the OBR, the Treasury (why are there two groups doing the same job) both see the solution to be tax hikes because that's their default. They're hardly going to say 'actually, you'd be better off shutting us down and saving money that way, are they?

      The OBR specifically excludes tax cuts from growth scenarios. It has said so. The Treasury is incompetent and sees everything through the same failed, big state, high tax lens because again, it is insulated from the carnage they cause.

  31. Telegraph View
    Necessary openness
    It is important that the authorities are transparent in the case of Axel Rudakubana

    Telegraph View 30 October 2024 5:58am GMT
    The decision to charge the suspected killer of three young girls in Southport in July with a terrorism offence raises questions about the transparency surrounding such cases. Axel Muganwa Rudakubana already faces three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder, and one of possessing a bladed article. The new charges allege possession of a study of an Al-Qaeda terror training manual and manufacture of the poison ricin.

    The Southport deaths led to days of riots whose participants were dealt with severely by the courts. It is unknown whether an earlier indication of a suspected terrorism link would have made the reaction better or worse, but people will inevitably feel they were not told the entire story.

    In a statement to MPs, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Merseyside police were leading a criminal investigation “supported by counter-terrorism officers”, suggesting suspicion at least. It is vital that everything is known about this case both to ensure lessons are learnt and to avoid trust being lost in what we are told.

    The daughters of the murdered MP Sir David Amess are also concerned to discover exactly what was known about his killer Ali Harbi Ali, now serving a life sentence. He had been radicalised by watching Isis videos online but his trial did not reveal the full story of his referral to the counter-terrorism Prevent programme while at school.

    A report on Ali’s involvement with Prevent can only be made public if an inquest is held yet the senior Essex coroner and the police say this is unnecessary because there had been a trial. But Sir David’s family are right to seek a full inquest to establish all the facts. Information should not be withheld without very good reason.

    1. The Merseyside Police don't want any speculation:

      "I recognise these new charges may lead to speculation. The matter for which AR has been charged under the Terrorism Act does not require motive to be established. For a matter to be declared a terrorist incident, motivation would need to be established. I would strongly advise anyone against speculating as to the motivation in this case."

      Chief Constable Serena Kennedy, Merseyside Police.

      1. What absolute balderdash .. the police are scared .. We have so many trouble making incomers with evil in their hearts .. why did that wog target little children ?

          1. Could? Would take great delight in doing so. Then they'd go for you to ensure you couldn't speak out. After all, truth must be suppressed, violent cults endorsed and protected!

    1. Good morning Bill,

      I guess you have lots of distractions to brighten up your day , garden stuff etc.

      The little Dorset mole has been very quiet recently, no mole hills, Moh has bought 4 sonic sound things that vibrate where he has placed them in the mole run ..

      Our garden life is inactive sadly.

  34. Comedy gold over the pond.. (It's that "Deplorable" moment again)..

    Starts off with Rep. comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage," in reference to the US territory's well known problem with overflowing landfills.
    President Biden responds by calling 80 million Americans human garbage. Kamala Harris sticks with calling them fascist & racist against Puerto Ricans.
    Then President Trump couldn't miss the easy open goal tap in saying "Remember Hillary, she said deplorable… Garbage I think is worse."

    And the punchline.. Puerto Rico's Shadow U.S. Senator Zoraida Buxó just endorsed Trump on stage at the Allentown rally. Her entire speech was GOLDEN.

    1. Yet why are their landfills overflowing? Ours would be as well if we didn't ship half our waste to Africa and India but that's because recycling and re-use is expensive and energy intensive thanks to the Left.

    1. The Left don't want to protect him. Silencing Mr Lynch was more important to the Left. After all, can't have the truth coming out in a totalitarian state, can we?

    2. Pointless suing the government. It has no money only what it gets from taxpayers. We already pay too much.

  36. 395525+up ticks,

    Tis an ill wind,

    The rodents are working to benefit their kingdom that we humans so in many cases sadly abuse,

    We also in England have a different strain of giant rat
    recognisable by its pin strip covering, main habitat being the Houses of Parliament.

    Unlike their kin this british breed are of no benefit to man nor beast.

    Dt,
    Giant rats trained to sniff out smuggled ivory and rhino horn
    Cheap, easy to train and with a long lifespan – these rodents could replace sniffer dogs

  37. Reeves replaces portrait of Nigel Lawson with Communist Party co-founder
    Photograph of Chancellor on eve of her first Budget reveals that new image has been hung on wall overlooking No 11 desk
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/29/rachel-reeves-replaces-portrait-nigel-lawson-communist-uk/

    We shall have nothing and we shall be happy??

    The object of communism, whose spirit has been taken up by the WEF and the current Labour Government, is that the state owns and controls everything.

    It is no longer coming in through the back door – the front door is wide open and they are not even trying to hide the fact.

    1. Why didn't they use a portrait of Homer Simpson. With only four fingers on one hand, rather than five, it would revolutionise accounting.

    3. Strange woman. Never married, never had a male partner that I know of. Did some good but obsessed with communism. Died of an 'accidental' medical overdose at age 55.

      1. A heavy smoker who never claimed any family allowance and who eventually overdosed on barbiturates before she could claim her pension, thus setting an example for the underclass of today.

      2. A heavy smoker who never claimed any family allowance and who eventually overdosed on barbiturates before she could claim her pension, thus setting an example for the underclass of today.

    1. I don't want reports from there, I want to see the criminal vermin being herded into coaches, put on a ferry and forced off again in Africa.

  39. Morning Richard,

    Communism by the back door of no 10 and now in no 11.

    The Romanian revolution started in the city of Timișoara and soon spread throughout the country, ultimately culminating in the drumhead trial and execution of longtime Romanian Communist Party (PCR) General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena, and the end of 42 years of Communist rule in Romania.

  40. Today Free Speech has an article ' The Prisoner '- no, not the TV series starring Patrick McGoohan, but the longer running real life series staring Tommy Robinson, chief of Britain's growing number of political prisoners. And while it is about the persecution of what FSB considers to be a very brave crusader for free speech, it is more about the corruption of the judiciary and the MSM and their weaponisation by the globalist Establishment in its attempt to eradicate British national identity and curtail free speech and personal liberty. There is a strong case to be made that Robinson is a victim of a serious miscarriage of justice – and that should worry everybody, whether or not they support Tommy Robinson.

    Please do read it and comment below the line, as we really do want to know what you think.

    Also, we are always looking for more writers, so if you want to write one, or know somebody who would, please let us know.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

  41. Smut versus Humour

    Let's lighten things up a bit before Thieves stands up after lunch.

    Four days ago I commented on Nottl that many of my sometimes smutty jokes were being up-ticked by more women than men. Then yesterday I was accused by Rastus of joining him in being a purveyor of smut.

    I have just looked up smut in my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2 volumes, each 2.6kg/6.3lb). It says: ‘Indecent or obscene language, 1698', but then, as an example: The gentlemen talked smut, the ladies laughed (Goldsmith). So Goldsmith (1728-1774) had seemingly spotted it too.

    Is this alleged female proclivity for smut true? Discuss.

    EDIT – within 60 seconds, Belle and Sue Mac have upticked. Told you so!

      1. Rastus, do you also have his most recent Song Book? This one: 'Too many Songs by Tom Lehrer. with not enough drawings by Ronald Searle'

        EDIT: Tried uploading the cover image on my Windows PC; had to move over to my MacBook, but still can't upload the image.

        Keep getting a Network Error. Tried shrinking the image, but it still won't upload.

        Please try later…. Watch this space. Smut is the last song in the book.

        1. Rastus, I'm trying again now the Network Error has cleared. Here is Tom Lehrer's 1999 Song Book cover:

          Nope – Network Error again, I give up. Blooming computers!

        3. Ahh; is that the one which contains the "Masochism Tango"? I may have to ask one of you to scan that over to me; it would be great fun to bust that one out spontaneously in Buenos Aires! 😈

      1. GSOH? General Sense of Helplessness?

        Edit to add: Morning Phizee & All – Off to Archery practice shortly

        4. Ah yes; the sort of helplessness that means you're damned right to go and practise defending yourself against us… 😉🤣🤣
          Morning!

      2. GSOH? General Sense of Helplessness?

        Edit to add: Morning Phizee & All – Off to Archery practice shortly

    5. I personally am not a great fan of the kind of jokes that have traditionally been told exclusively among men. Take It From Here style innuendo is perfectly acceptable….

    6. On a slightly different subject, whenever the waiter/waitress asks us about allergies, we reply "Sorry … wrong generation".
      Imagine Miss Hayden letting me get away with rejecting school swede because I claimed I had an "allergy" or an "intolerance".

      1. We have whole communities of people with intolerance. Mostly intolerance to us and our culture.

    1. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could see the modus operandi of the Southport murderer and make an reasonable guess as to his motives and inspiration. Obviously, the police have to find the evidence for a prosecution but it cannot be that difficult when you are holding the accused and have access to his home.

      1. Apparently motive is not needed. I don't know if that's relating to his charging for the murders or if it means a lesser offence.

        He was a muslim and his book told us he could kill innocent people and as usual they went for the weakest.

        1. Motive of acting for a cause is required if the crime is assigned as terrorism. I dont think we need Hercule Poirot to work out the inspiration for a crime by an immigrant that involves knives and random people.

        2. For murder, it is not motive as such but intent. That vermin's intentions seem pretty clear.

          Whether it is terrorism or not doesn't IMO matter that much. If you get several murders by similar people holding similar beliefs, in similar ways, while it is arguably not completely beyond doubt, I would argue that it is beyond reasonable doubt that those beliefs had a material influence on the action of the perpetrator.

      2. Little girls dancing to music and happy. Their female teachers doing the same.
        Enjoying the music of a successful female singer and businesswoman.
        Absolutely haram.
        It was obvious right from the start what was behind the attack.

        2. What annoys me is the way the MSM and assorted other useful idiots toed the Government line. As you say, it was as obvious as the nose on our faces what was going on to the rest of us.

    2. The incident was in response to the question 'are we leaving two tier policing'. Clearly, no. As the muslim was being protected (yet again) by the state – on top of three other muslim thugs – the councillor, the two at the airport I imagine rowley was fed up having to parrot the Left wing line.

      Which is interesting, as he's part of the establishment, installed specifically to support that view.

    3. What the heck did he think he was on, doing his job? The nerve of him. Starmer's a complete boy, police will leak against him.

          1. Funny moment when we went to Burton on the water.
            Following our lads their families looking for a place to leave our cars. I entered a large area behind or two parking sons. 🅿️

          2. Oh Golly! Good job you're in France. Over here you'd be getting a knock on your front door.

    4. From our man on the spot, ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally report you DIDN’T see in the MSM
      Norman Fenton – October 30, 2024 https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/from-our-man-on-the-spot-unite-the-kingdom-rally-report-you-didnt-see-in-the-msm/

      A BTL Comment for IMS2

      The new Belmarsh prison warden has said that TR cannot stay in solitary for his own safety because it's too expensive to keep him there.
      If he's put in gen pop he'll be killed by the Muslims in there.

      "Jenny Louis has given Tommy the 'choice' of either being placed on the wing (which is a death sentence) or he can be moved onto 'the block' with child s e x offenders, which Tommy will NEVER agree to. This is supposedly for 'monetary reasons'.

      The governor has essentially passed a death sentence on Tommy. However she has a 'duty of care' to ensure his safety and wellbeing.

      Tommy is currently residing in a segregated part of Belmarsh prison where he is safe, away from other prisoners, as he was previously. Let's be clear, Tommy is in Belmarsh prison for a CIVIL offence, NOT a criminal offence.

      My prediction:

      If TR is murdered it will not be announced as a murder. A doctor will be suborned into saying that he died of an illness such as a fast-spreading cancer. There will, of course, be no need to have a post mortem.


      1. Or suicide, no doubt. Either way, the Left are intent on doing away with him. He's become too annoying to the Hard Left.

        1. The suicide explanation does not work very well.

          For example: does anyone seriously believe that Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself at the very time the cameras covering his cell were not working?

          2. It doesn't matter whether anyone believes it or not. What matters is what the Deep State wants.

      2. Ahh yes, the Epstein exit from jail, feet first and no one to blame. It's as predictable as TR being banged up for telling the truth.

      3. I like Fenton very much for his vaccine stance. The feed I followed of the march did a short interview with him, good to see, a good man.

      4. I would think that a very unwise move on the part of the warden. I would suspect it would shorten her life quite considerably or make life, for her unlivable.

        1. An unwanted distraction removed, she will be off to the House of Lords as her reward for her efforts.

        2. Why? It's Tommy's life that risks being considerably shortened or made unlivable, are the slammers likely todo anything to her? And the "far right" aren't really into slaughter.

      5. I wonder what those "monetary reasons" are. Nothing to do with brown envelopes of course. Maybe a case of do or dei?

    7. Jenny Louis is the governor of HMP Belmarsh, the UK's first Black female prison governor.
      In her role, Louis is responsible for the administration, security, and care of prisoners at the prison. She has praised the Unlocked Graduates scheme, which she says has brought a fresh perspective to the prison service. One of the graduates, Officer Herman, is developing a wellbeing plan for staff and inmates that includes regular mental and physical health checks. Louis has also noted that self-harm in the first 48 hours has fallen by 37% since the introduction of distraction packs and birthday cards.
      In January 2023, Louis was the subject of allegations of bullying by staff. The allegations were made by a member of staff who was reinstated after successfully appealing a dismissal for alleged security breaches. Louis's allies have claimed that the allegations were only made after disciplinary action was taken.
      HM Prison Belmarsh is a category A prison that houses some of the UK's most dangerous and high profile criminals. It is often used to contain prisoners in cases where national security is threatened.

    1. I'd like to see those responsible for the murder jailed: all those refugees welcome poster holders, all those in the Home office who fought against removing gimmigrants, all those who ignored the dangers of muslim. Plod who didn't investigate, secret service who didn't stop him, every single damned MP who did nothing while millions of muslim savages poured in, Blair, Neather, Mandelson.

      Fill het jails to bursting. Five or six to a cell. Don't care. Feed them three times a week and let them be forgottten.

      1. Gentle reminder: It's a long long long long march to regain power. You are two terms behind USA.
        The Right isn't organised, it's fractured.. at current standing Labour would easily win another term.
        Kemi Badenoch hates Farage. Tice hates Tommy. As for Laurence Fox.. "I don't recognise a single name. I cannot not share a stage with people I don't know and trust well and therefore I will not be attending.."

      2. All those in the HO who fought against removing immigrants. Have you seen photos of the HO? Few indigenous faces among them, so it's not surprising if they want more of their kind.

      3. Why are we allowing the number of migrants into our country? I'm told 'Brits aren't having children in sufficient numbers to allow for future pensions to be paid'. Not certain I entirely believe this, it would suggest that migrants all pay tax and national insurance..hmm..guessing the ones working in family businesses and black market ops must all be legitimate if that's the case….

      4. What's with the feeding schtick? Unless it's surplus pork products – preferably past their sell-by date.

  45. I've still got a bit under ½ a tank of diesel in the van, but I'm off to Belper to tank up before the tax goes up.
    TTFN

    1. Just done the same thing.
      I expected queues at the filling station, but there were none.
      I just swept in and put in £30.01 (grrrrrrrrrr).

  46. Here's a post I made under today's article in Free Speech on the injustices suffered by Tommy Robinson, now rumoured to be about to transferred to an open ward, very much placing him in danger of attack by Islamist inmates. If you share our concern, please adapt the letter below and email it to the prison governor, address Jenny.louis@justice.gov.uk:

    Thanks to Frederica for the following info, which includes a letter sent to the governor of Belmarsh prison, amended by me as a suggestion we all copy and send:

    Dear Governor,

    I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of the United Kingdom regarding recent rumours circulating that Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) may soon be moved from solitary confinement to an open block due to financial considerations. Given the high-profile nature of his case and the security risks he faces, such a decision could potentially jeopardize his safety.

    Many of us, as citizens deeply invested in the values of justice and public safety, would like to support efforts to ensure his continued security, which you must be aware will be jeopardised if he is moved to an open block as rumoured.

    You are reminded of the words of the Judge who remanded Mr Yaxley-Lennon to prison, which speak for themselves:

    "3.14 I take account of the impact that prison conditions will have on the defendant. It is well known that the high prison population in adult male prisons has impacted on prison conditions. On 24 February 2023 the Deputy Prime Minister wrote to the Lord Chief Justice and said that more prisoners were being held in crowded conditions, as well as being further away from home. There is no evidence that the recent releases of prisoners as a result of a change to early release provisions has substantially changed the position. The Government has
    not communicated to the courts that prison conditions have returned to a normal state.

    3.15 Further, there may be a particularly onerous impact on the defendant. He is well known. So are his views. They provoke considerable hostility. The prison governor has a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to keep the defendant safe. The discharge of that obligation may impact on the conditions in which the defendant is kept, reducing his ability to associate with others. In this respect, incarceration may be more onerous for him than for others. I also take into account evidence that was read to me by Ms Wass as to the effect that previous incarceration had on the defendant’s mental health. This is a further factor to consider when determining the impact of prison conditions.

    We trust therefore, that your and your colleagues will do everything possible to ensure Mr Yaxley-Lennon's safety.

    Thank you for your time and attention to this matter."

    We trust therefore, that your and your colloeagues will do everything possible to ensure Mr Yaxley-Lennon's safety.

    Thank you for your time and attention to this matter."

    Please read the article as the persecution of Tommy Robinson is a serious matter that will ultimately affect all of us. It doesn't matter if you like him or loathe him.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  47. I see that the US aviator who was acquitted of abduction has been arrested on a charge of keeping indecent images of a child.

    A strange case all round.

    1. Reported he found her crying, just inside the store doorway, because she was separated from her family. Doesn't seem to have alerted anyone in the store, contacted any employee let alone the manager, instead he took her to his flat nearby to offer her a drink (perhaps the store didn't have a cafe or a drinks machine). If this is true, he's a wrong 'un. If it isn't, he could have been set up, for whatever reason. Will lookout for court case incl decision.

      1. What surprised me was that they didn’t charge hi with these offences at the same time as the other (abduction) one…

        1. Doesn’t seem to have been charged with anything at all, stand to be corrected if he has. Which other abduction are you referring to, Bill?

        2. Would his case come before a jury? Keeping charges separate is a way of deceiving a jury, as they can only assess one charge at a time and context is concealed? There would be some defensible logic to it if background, character and motive were never considered in criminal trials but we know full well that these things are allowed wherever it benefits the perpetrator of a crime and withheld in political cases.

  48. Forgot to include a letter – twice! Stupid boy!
    Wordle 1,229 6/6

    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟩⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Just another blind guess got me there.

      Wordle 1,229 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Snap. Goodness, so many options.
      Wordle 1,229 6/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      Found this one really frustrating.

  49. I'm in something of a quandary – the excellent Allison Pearson describes Two Tier in her main article today as having "the magnetism of a stuffed owl". While I agree with the basic tone of that comment, I can't help feeling that it's a little unfair to stuffed owls. Still, better than slandering weasels!

  50. I'm in something of a quandary – the excellent Allison Pearson describes Two Tier in her main article today as having "the magnetism of a stuffed owl". While I agree with the basic tone of that comment, I can't help feeling that it's a little unfair to stuffed owls. Still, better than slandering weasels!

  51. Senior government figures knew 'weeks ago' that Southport triple murder suspect Axel Rudakubuna could face terror charges, it was claimed today.

    Downing Street has denied accusations of a 'cover up' over details of the allegations, denying that facts had been held back.

    As the row rages, the BBC has reported that the most senior figures in government first became aware of the possibility of new charges against Rudakubuna in the past few weeks.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14018721/southport-triple-murder-suspect-axel-rudakubana-court-terror-charges.html

    In order to charge a suspect under the Biological Weapons Act, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) must obtain consent from the attorney general or solicitor general.

    That is said to have been requested a few weeks ago. The government maintains that both the charging decision and timeline were a matter for the CPS.

    Rudakubuna, 18, is due in court today charged with producing the poison ricin and possessing a military study of an al-Qaeda training manual.

    He is already charged with the murders of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King, six at a Taylor Swift dance class on July 29 as well as ten attempted murders and possession of a knife.

    The killings sparked large scale riots, fuelled by misinformation on social media, in towns and cities across the UK.

    Yesterday, senior Tories demanded Keir Starmer reveals what he knew and when.

    Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said he was 'seriously concerned that facts may have been withheld from the public', while rival Kemi Badenoch added that there are 'serious questions to be asked' of authorities.

    Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism laws, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning that the government must not fall into the 'trap' of staying silent on such cases.

    'The Government has to be aware, and will be aware, that if there is an information gap, particularly in the mainstream media, then there are other voices, particularly in social media, who will try and fill it,' he said.

    'I would always say to the Government – and do say to the Government, as I say to the police – if there is information that you can give, put it in the public domain, and be really careful that you don't fall into the trap of saying 'we can only say zilch, because there are criminal proceedings'.

    'Quite often, there's a fair amount of information that can be put into the public domain, and I think I detect that the police are trying to do that.'

    No10 has said any suggestion of withholding information is 'not correct', adding that the focus should remain with the victims of the attack.

    Police repeatedly insisted at the time that the holiday camp bloodbath in Hart Street, Southport was not being treated as terror-related.

    The authorities insisted yesterday that the events had still not been declared a terrorist incident because no motive had been established.

    Downing Street denied the Government had been involved in the timing of the charging announcement.

    A spokeswoman said: 'No, charging decisions and when those are made are for the CPS.'

    Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warned against speculating about the case, adding: 'The most important thing is to get justice for Bebe, Alice and Elsie and their heartbroken families, and all those affected by the attack, and nobody should put that at risk.'

    The latest charges came after searches of Rudakubana's home in Banks, Lancashire, Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said at a press conference on Tuesday.

    The alleged terror offence relates to a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual. He has also been charged with the 'production of a biological toxin, namely ricin, contrary to Section 1 of the Biological Weapons Act 1974'.

    Searches were carried out in the days after the attack, although it was not confirmed when the ricin was found.

    According to the charges, authorised by the CPS yesterday, the toxin was allegedly produced on or before July 29, and Rudakubana was charged with possessing the document between August 29 2021 and July 30 2024.

    Rudakubana is alleged to have entered the school holiday dance class at a small business park in Southport shortly before midday on July 29.

    The day after the attack, thousands of people turned out for a peaceful vigil in the town but later a separate protest erupted into violence outside a mosque in the town.

    In the following week, protests took place in dozens of towns and cities across the country and descended into violence and rioting, with asylum centre hotels in particular targeted.

    More than 1,000 arrests have since been made and hundreds of people have been charged and jailed.

    A provisional trial date for Rudakubana has been set for January next year.

    2. The government's strategy for preventing illegal migration via ferries seems to be to put all the onus on the ferry operators and the drivers, and to punish them out of all proportion for making a mistake.
      During covid, the ferry companies were trying to implement rules that they themselves didn't understand, under the threat of being fined 20 000 pounds if someone got into Britain with paperwork that the authorities deemed to be inadequate.
      Border force has personnel in Calais, they could easily check caravans and trailers, they just want to give a signal that people should check their own vehicles. and this poor couple have been extremely unlucky.

    3. How is it that the U.K. can fine this couple when the bloody immigrant was discovered in Calais? It’s utterly disgusting to fine them. How does the U.K. have the power and authority to do this?

  53. Yo and morning all, from Costa del Skeg (whilst it lasts)

    Campaigners opposed to plans for a nuclear waste disposal site on the Lincolnshire coast say it could be "disastrous" for the seaside economy.

    The former Theddlethorpe gas terminal on the Lincolnshire coast is one of three sites being considered for an underground facility.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4d3y33y3go

    How Lincolnshire became a ‘dumping ground’ under Miliband’s net zero boom

    Much-loved landscapes across eastern England have been targeted for a new era of industrialisation

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/26/net-zero-revolution-countryside-alford-ed-milliband-reform/

  54. "The huge increase in the badger population is the unintended consequence of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which meant that farmers and landowners were no longer allowed to manage the numbers of badgers in the countryside. "

    Our Government seems to be following in the tracks of the Badgers……

    We, the general population, are the hedgehogs

  55. In case you missed it last night.

    We deserve to know the full truth about the Southport massacre

    The authorities need to be honest with the public – and with the families of the three innocent victims

    Allison Pearson • 29 October 2024 • 9:24pm GMT

    From the minute they said he was "Cardiff-born" I was outraged. How dare they. No Welshman in history had ever been accused of running amok with a carved knife in a group of little girls at a Taylor-Swift-themed dance class, which is what was reported to have happened on that sunny July day blighted in a few minutes by unspeakable darkness. The massacre of three innocents at a holiday club in Southport did not feel like your typical British crime. It felt alien and extreme and full of horrifying, blood-curdling hatred. Many of us sensed that we weren't being given the full picture, didn't we?

    But the authorities may have had reasons for wanting us not to know. On July 29, Merseyside Police said the motivation for the attack in which three small children were killed and six other girls and two adults were injured was "unclear", but added that it was "not believed to be terror-related". How could they speak with such certainty so soon?

    It was revealed on Tuesday that the teenager accused of murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, six-year-old Bebe King and Alice Da Silva Aguiar, aged nine, has now been charged with an offence under the Terrorism Act. Axel Rudakubana is charged with carrying out a knife attack and also of producing ricin, a biological toxin, and keeping a military study of a training manual related to Al-Qaeda, the Islamist terrorist group.

    As this is a live case, there are many things which, unfortunately, I am not allowed to write. It is deeply frustrating. What I can say is that there is good reason to suspect the official delay in disclosing relevant information stoked an already febrile atmosphere in which public speculation and anger about this heinous crime grew, eventually leading to widespread rioting. Police must surely have discovered what appeared to be ricin at Rudakubana's home quite rapidly, and presumably informed the Home Secretary. Why was that important information not made public, Yvette Cooper?

    You might also point out that Southport rioters or those who merely posted so-called "disinformation" on social media – "far-Right thugs", as the Prime Minister immediately dubbed them – were interviewed, arrested and even tried and jailed with remarkable speed in order to deter further protests. Compare and contrast with the treatment of Rudakubana, whose trial is scheduled for January 2025. Why such a delay? It is surely in the public interest to get to the bottom of this shattering atrocity as quickly as possible. Are they hoping people will forget?

    We don't know for certain what the motives of the alleged attacker were; they will be determined at the trial. What we do know, from bitter experience, is that any crime which may or may not turn out to have an Islamist or jihadist component is treated with extreme defensiveness and secrecy by the police, government, security services and Left-wing commentators.

    The pattern goes something like this:

    a. Suppress information on the identity and ethnicity of the suspect (most likely revealed by the media).

    b. Criticise perfectly understandable public speculation and anger about the alleged attacker.

    c. Deny the attack is related to terrorism. Also deny the alleged attacker was ever on the radar of the security services.

    d. Once alleged attacker's identity is revealed, release sweet, angelic childhood photo. Also emphasise good character of alleged attacker – he wanted to be an architect, helped old ladies cross the road, neighbours said what a lovely chap, etc – and don't mention any previous criminal record or negative comments.

    e. Police issue stern warning about online "misinformation". Narrative shifts as fast as possible to disgusting "hate speech" on social media and away from truly disgusting killings.

    f. Prominent Left-wing commentators fret about "disinformation" and "Islamophobia" and don't mention names of victims who are quickly forgotten.

    g. Politicians avoid awkward conversations about failures of multiculturalism, mass immigration and lack of integration and suggest the solution may be more online censorship. (After the murder of Sir David Amess, MPs in the Commons actually said the lesson of his killing by a young, knife-wielding jihadist was that politicians needed to be nicer to each other. Yes, really.)

    h. Public encouraged to participate in touching displays of peaceful commemoration and reconciliation. (Don't Look Back in Anger is what crowds sang after the mass murder of young people and their parents by a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.)
    [The work of the Controlled Spontaneity Unit. Yes, it really exists.]

    i. Cancel all of the above if attacker turns out to be far-Right and white. Phew! Huge relief all round.

    j. News cycle moves on past horrific crime and postpones any further discussion of the causes until a trial and/or public inquiry makes such embarrassing disclosures hard to avoid.

    In the case of the Southport massacre, I notice that, three months later, we still have not heard from relatives of Elsie, Bebe or Alice; their grief is private, of course, but is it possible that they have been instructed not to talk in case people get stirred up and upset again? Might not the British people be entitled to their distress given the provocation?

    Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick issued a hard-hitting video on Tuesday saying that, while the legal process needs to be respected, he was seriously concerned that the facts may have been withheld from the public. "The Government and authorities told us for months that they were not treating this as a terrorist incident," Jenrick said. "This atrocity was of immense public concern. The public had the right to know the truth right away. Any suggestion of a cover-up will permanently damage trust in whether we are being told the truth about crime in our country."

    He called on Keir Starmer to urgently reveal to the country what he knew about the Southport attack and when. "Across the board, the hard reality of mass migration is being covered up. The public can see with their own eyes that they are being gaslit by the liberal elite."

    Damning stuff, and millions will agree with Robert Jenrick. I know I do. Since when did publicly-funded bodies get to stifle crucial information that the taxpayer paid for just because the authorities don't want to face the unpalatable truth? That is not justice, and nor is it democracy.

    Elsie, Bebe and Alice, those sweet girls, deserve better than this charade. So do any children or adults who might risk harm in the future from attacks which are definitely not terrorist-related. I got that right, didn't I?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/29/the-southport-child-victims-deserve-better

  56. In case you missed it last night.

    We deserve to know the full truth about the Southport massacre

    The authorities need to be honest with the public – and with the families of the three innocent victims

    Allison Pearson • 29 October 2024 • 9:24pm GMT

    From the minute they said he was "Cardiff-born" I was outraged. How dare they. No Welshman in history had ever been accused of running amok with a carved knife in a group of little girls at a Taylor-Swift-themed dance class, which is what was reported to have happened on that sunny July day blighted in a few minutes by unspeakable darkness. The massacre of three innocents at a holiday club in Southport did not feel like your typical British crime. It felt alien and extreme and full of horrifying, blood-curdling hatred. Many of us sensed that we weren't being given the full picture, didn't we?

    But the authorities may have had reasons for wanting us not to know. On July 29, Merseyside Police said the motivation for the attack in which three small children were killed and six other girls and two adults were injured was "unclear", but added that it was "not believed to be terror-related". How could they speak with such certainty so soon?

    It was revealed on Tuesday that the teenager accused of murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, six-year-old Bebe King and Alice Da Silva Aguiar, aged nine, has now been charged with an offence under the Terrorism Act. Axel Rudakubana is charged with carrying out a knife attack and also of producing ricin, a biological toxin, and keeping a military study of a training manual related to Al-Qaeda, the Islamist terrorist group.

    As this is a live case, there are many things which, unfortunately, I am not allowed to write. It is deeply frustrating. What I can say is that there is good reason to suspect the official delay in disclosing relevant information stoked an already febrile atmosphere in which public speculation and anger about this heinous crime grew, eventually leading to widespread rioting. Police must surely have discovered what appeared to be ricin at Rudakubana's home quite rapidly, and presumably informed the Home Secretary. Why was that important information not made public, Yvette Cooper?

    You might also point out that Southport rioters or those who merely posted so-called "disinformation" on social media – "far-Right thugs", as the Prime Minister immediately dubbed them – were interviewed, arrested and even tried and jailed with remarkable speed in order to deter further protests. Compare and contrast with the treatment of Rudakubana, whose trial is scheduled for January 2025. Why such a delay? It is surely in the public interest to get to the bottom of this shattering atrocity as quickly as possible. Are they hoping people will forget?

    We don't know for certain what the motives of the alleged attacker were; they will be determined at the trial. What we do know, from bitter experience, is that any crime which may or may not turn out to have an Islamist or jihadist component is treated with extreme defensiveness and secrecy by the police, government, security services and Left-wing commentators.

    The pattern goes something like this:

    a. Suppress information on the identity and ethnicity of the suspect (most likely revealed by the media).

    b. Criticise perfectly understandable public speculation and anger about the alleged attacker.

    c. Deny the attack is related to terrorism. Also deny the alleged attacker was ever on the radar of the security services.

    d. Once alleged attacker's identity is revealed, release sweet, angelic childhood photo. Also emphasise good character of alleged attacker – he wanted to be an architect, helped old ladies cross the road, neighbours said what a lovely chap, etc – and don't mention any previous criminal record or negative comments.

    e. Police issue stern warning about online "misinformation". Narrative shifts as fast as possible to disgusting "hate speech" on social media and away from truly disgusting killings.

    f. Prominent Left-wing commentators fret about "disinformation" and "Islamophobia" and don't mention names of victims who are quickly forgotten.

    g. Politicians avoid awkward conversations about failures of multiculturalism, mass immigration and lack of integration and suggest the solution may be more online censorship. (After the murder of Sir David Amess, MPs in the Commons actually said the lesson of his killing by a young, knife-wielding jihadist was that politicians needed to be nicer to each other. Yes, really.)

    h. Public encouraged to participate in touching displays of peaceful commemoration and reconciliation. (Don't Look Back in Anger is what crowds sang after the mass murder of young people and their parents by a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.)
    [The work of the Controlled Spontaneity Unit. Yes, it really exists.]

    i. Cancel all of the above if attacker turns out to be far-Right and white. Phew! Huge relief all round.

    j. News cycle moves on past horrific crime and postpones any further discussion of the causes until a trial and/or public inquiry makes such embarrassing disclosures hard to avoid.

    In the case of the Southport massacre, I notice that, three months later, we still have not heard from relatives of Elsie, Bebe or Alice; their grief is private, of course, but is it possible that they have been instructed not to talk in case people get stirred up and upset again? Might not the British people be entitled to their distress given the provocation?

    Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick issued a hard-hitting video on Tuesday saying that, while the legal process needs to be respected, he was seriously concerned that the facts may have been withheld from the public. "The Government and authorities told us for months that they were not treating this as a terrorist incident," Jenrick said. "This atrocity was of immense public concern. The public had the right to know the truth right away. Any suggestion of a cover-up will permanently damage trust in whether we are being told the truth about crime in our country."

    He called on Keir Starmer to urgently reveal to the country what he knew about the Southport attack and when. "Across the board, the hard reality of mass migration is being covered up. The public can see with their own eyes that they are being gaslit by the liberal elite."

    Damning stuff, and millions will agree with Robert Jenrick. I know I do. Since when did publicly-funded bodies get to stifle crucial information that the taxpayer paid for just because the authorities don't want to face the unpalatable truth? That is not justice, and nor is it democracy.

    Elsie, Bebe and Alice, those sweet girls, deserve better than this charade. So do any children or adults who might risk harm in the future from attacks which are definitely not terrorist-related. I got that right, didn't I?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/29/the-southport-child-victims-deserve-better

    1. Expect to be immediately overturned & set free.. Lol.
      You're dealing with a spiteful vengeful (probably gay) nasty piece of work.. somebody who turned a blind eye to your children being gang-graped.

    1. "She actually cares about making your lives better.."
      🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
      'Course she does dear.

      When it doubt or desperate.. revert to meaningless kind & fluffy slogans.
      Build a better Britain..

    2. "She actually cares about making your lives better.."
      🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
      'Course she does dear.

      When it doubt or desperate.. revert to meaningless kind & fluffy slogans.
      Build a better Britain..

    2. And from what most people will understand from this is, now it seems we are in a lot more trouble than we actually thought.

  61. The abandonment of our churches would be an unforgivably foolish error

    Robbing St Augustine to pay Rachel Reeves would do irreparable damage to our shared heritage, and rip away yet another vital safety net

    Rev Fergus Butler-Gallie • 28 October 2024 • 5:36pm GMT

    As I stood outside church on Sunday, allowing the unseasonably warm Autumn breeze to billow a little in my surplice, I made small talk with the congregation as they trooped out into the sunshine. “See you soon” I said to one departing couple. “Yes”, they replied, “we’ll be here on Wednesday. Praying!”

    I tried to work out whether they had miscalculated the date for All Saints Day or had a particular devotion to St Jerome, whose feast it is. Then it clicked – it was a reference to the upcoming budget. It was a joke, I suppose, but behind, I suspect was a deeper truth: a lot of people are genuinely very worried indeed about the effects of what is promised to be a distinctly gloomy fiscal prescription for the nation.

    Amongst those who may well find themselves on their knees after Wednesday are churches themselves. It is rumoured that the Chancellor is intending to end the waiver which places of worship currently enjoy when it comes to VAT on structural repairs. As with other plans in the budget, the proposal appears not only to be very specifically vindictive and penny pinching – one suspects it will raise a mere fraction of a week’s NHS spending – but also, in the long term, actively harmful to the public purse.

    Closing what grey-faced Treasury apparatchiks doubtless see as a loophole might seem an easy win. However, there are a number of reasons why they would end up repenting of such a measure. The fact is that many churches are already barely making ends meet. Sometimes it is only the prospect of reclaiming VAT that makes the maintenance of a church building possible.

    Many of our most ancient and most architecturally interesting buildings are one major repair bill away from closure. Certainly, whilst the central C of E hoards its assets, its parishes remain entirely responsible for any repairs to what can be thousands of years’ worth of our common history.

    The loss of these buildings would be an incomparable blow to our shared heritage and, were parishes to close then, inevitably, care of them would then fall to either massively overburdened councils or organisations dependent on – you guessed it – government grants, resulting in long term loss to the Exchequer.

    Perhaps more invidious though, is the damage it would do to society at large. It was – very conservatively – estimated in 2020 that the work done by churches in their communities is worth £12.4 billion to the UK. From food banks to school uniform schemes, from dementia initiatives to help with soaring fuel bills: as the state has retreated, churches have stepped in across the country. All these have to happen out of a physical somewhere. You can’t give someone a hot meal via an app.

    Even in my part of the Cotswolds, we support 30 families through such projects. When I worked in Liverpool it was over ten times that. The ministry of someone like the phenomenal Reverend Alex Frost in Burnley impacts thousands. Removing the buildings where these things happen, in particular at a time when other state provision is being cut, can only lead to more costs – in both human and financial terms – in the future as the vulnerable are pushed over the edge.

    As the Prime Minister and Chancellor never tire of telling us, times are hard, friends are few and things will get worse before they get better. To cut holes in the safety net for those in need is not only cruel but foolish. What possible hope can there be for improvement or aspiration if, for the sake of what amounts to loose change down the back of the sofa in budgetary terms, the government is prepared to risk the destruction of our shared heritage and the removal of safeguards for the neediest?

    The Church is not the back of the sofa. For all of the failures of the Archbishops and the capture of its higher echelons by a managerial caste, the Church of England in particular, remains rooted in communities like no other institution. Good, ordinary people in parishes across the length of the country, represent a front line in public service long after schools, pubs, libraries, post offices and citizens advice bureaux have vanished.

    Forcing more tax on not only heritage, but on living faith and service, would make that impossible. And once it is gone, it will be very hard to bring back. In such a context, to rob St Augustine to pay Rachel Reeves, to contort a phrase, would be a very grave error indeed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/28/the-abandonment-of-our-churches-would-be-foolish

    2. As the Prime Minister and Chancellor never tire of telling us, times are hard…
      Is that so? Why are they hard? There's little evidence of that this side of the North Sea, and will decimating parishes and their volunteer networks make things better, or just give government a bit more money to pi$$ up the wall?

    3. I think £80m has been allocated for grants to provide security for places of worship. The slammers will be delighted, but that cash has to be found from somewhere.

      1. Grants available for lookout towers, from which to wail regularly and drive away the infidel hoards and attacks by bacon sandwiches.

        1. Or my version: Are you questioning the ecclesiastical affiliations of the apostolic Vicar of Rome?

  63. Good afternoon.
    Jolly morning sorting out the last of the cra… family heirlooms in our friends' barn.
    MB actually agreed to chuck out a trunk and a couple of chairs. Maybe the cloud of woodworm dust when we moved them finally changed his mind.
    To recover from the shock, I need a gin – preferably several gins. However, as I'm about to take the Boss for a walk, I don't want to disgrace myself by doing a face plant half way across the playing field. So it's coffee and a bun.

  64. Blasted rowdy sods just drink and laugh while other people struggle.

    I hate this wretched government. I hate them to my very core. Blithering, waffling, useless, stupid fools, all of them. They're watching the budget downstairs. Made dinner for 7. Carrots have gone mouldy.

    1. Wow; I don't think I've ever had carrots go mouldy! How exciting. Mine just end up flaccid and wrinkled (and in soup).

      2. I buy a kilo for 69p. Peel and cut into batons and blanch. Then freeze in portion size. No flies on me !

  65. Lady Gaga releases very dark video for new single which sees her chained up, vomiting black blood and fighting disturbed versions of herself D Fail

    Who wants to see pictures of her private life? I don't!

    2. The Devil feels emboldened. No need for subtlety. Common decency is a thing of the past.

  66. Peals of laughter at 'going after those who promote tax avoidance schemes'. I think someone's going to have a heart attack.

        2. Blair’s will all be in offshore funds and held by companies, no doubt. But it is Starmer who has made this big fuss about being transparent (I don’t think Blair ever promised any such thing) and who will look much more of a hypocrite on that front.

  67. The gross injustice of slavery reparations. Spiked. 30 October 2024.

    In Britain, the issue of reparations only fosters division and resentment. If our leaders want to prevent the call for reparations from gathering yet more momentum, they need to come up with a clear and reasoned response – one that acknowledges the complexities of history without conceding to misguided demands for financial atonement. Instead of allowing past injustices to dictate future policy, the focus should be on building a future that upholds true equality, freedom and shared prosperity.

    The problem with this is that large sections of the inhabitants of Westminster believe in Reparations. Along with Diversity and Equality and the rest of the Woke narrative they will happily vote for them and feel good about it.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/30/the-gross-injustice-of-slavery-reparations/

    1. "King of England?"

      What happened to the rest of the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, Bircher?

  70. I would like to remind all Nottlers, their families and friends, general aquaintances, work mates etc, that if they do not watch the budget 'live', that like Tommy's March at the weekend, it will never, never ever be mentioned again by the MSM.

    1. What do I need to know? What is the she-devil going to steal from me? (Btw, I'm not a public sector worker.)

        2. I regularly used to pass a public sector council worker at our local town's car park.
          He worked at his convenience.

          4. Who wants to eat when in such fine company?

            Just hooked another Nottler. I should charge the hotel commission.

          6. You have to be in the moment. I was waiting for a correction but ….

            I recently perfected Ramen. Pork or a peeking duck.

          8. Don’t let your Bombay duck near the pond. It will go off and you will have to say goodbye.

          9. Chance would be fine if I could find one. I used to love them before the EU put a fatwa on them (as they did with a kidney on a pork chop)!

    2. Apropos of dogs, I'm currently reading Dam Buster the biography of Barnes Wallis. When it comes to the dams raid, the name of Gibson's dog is conspicuously absent, even when it came to the code sent for breaking the Mohne dam, although "Dinghy" for the other dam was in plain view. I have written it in the margin.

  72. BBC News at One

    A report from Lancet Countdown https://lancetcountdown.org/ establishes that a lot of regions on our planet are experiencing significantl increases in levels of drought.

    This however is contrasted by the news that a year's worth of rain has fallen on Valencia in Spain https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ckmgmdxg254t

    I don't think global warming has really changed our planet's climate – we are still getting all the right rain but not necessarily in the right places! 🎹

    Chancellor still on her feet?

    2. Might be something to do with the additional 5,000,000,000 people living on the planet in the last century, many living near water. In the past, flooding might have washed away a few villages but no one apart from the locals would have known about it.

    3. What was the name of that underwater volcano in the South Pacific that erupted and blew a cubic mile or two of water into the stratosphere?

      1. Hunga Tonga. The cubic mile of water seems an exaggeration, but I had read that the eruption had increased the water vapour content of the atmosphere by 10%, which is now coming back down again as water droplets (aka 'rain').

      2. I cut and pasted your question into Google search and this was tge result:

        “AI Overview

        The underwater volcano in the South Pacific that erupted in January 2022 and sent a large amount of water into the stratosphere was Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai: “

  74. Van duly tanked up and did a run to Matlock to pay a small amount into the Nationwide and do a bit of shopping.
    Because of the road block coming from Cromford I came up Salter's Lane, a route I've not used for a while.
    Surprisingly I didn't have to reverse for anyone!!!

  75. I read that no cabinet ministers have any commercial experience. Is this so, can anyone confirm or correct?

  76. Kids in my generation were told that if we put in the work we could be anything we wanted to be, so some of us put in serious effort and became things like doctors, lawyers, management, professors, and consultants. We started our own businesses, created entire new industries, and we innovated.

    When kids now are told they can be anything they want to be, it seems that many of them chose useless arrogant retard.

    1. It was bad enough when kids wanted to be a 'pop star', but now they want to be 'influencers' and such nonsense.
      On the other hand, with the current deluge of high tax communists in government, what is the point of having proper aspirations or ambitions of bettering oneself when one will be fiscally nobbled for the effort.

      1. Was only saying today that the message is, if you want to be rewarded, don't bother to work, get married, pay your taxes or be honest.

      2. My post was a joke/non/joke.

        Fame isn’t what they think it is but it is their generation. We can only stand by and …well.

  79. My wife tells me that she does not want an uxorious husband but she does want one who does what he's told!

  80. Aftenoon All
    My letter to my MP
    Dear Sir
    Why is Tommy Robinson convicted of contempt of court being held in Belmarsh max security prison normally reserved for the most egregious murderers,terrorists and rapists??
    Further speculation that he may be moved from a safe part of the prison to the general population has a nasty whiff of state sponsered murder
    Should this come to pass I fear the reaction would make the Southport riots look like a children's tea party
    I suggest you and the other PTB think carefully very carefully of the likely consequences
    Yours
    Rik
    Meanwhile Katie has a good summary of where we are…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INrvGmFV0xU

    1. Katie goes on and on.
      As the demonstrators correctly predicted, the son of African asylumists allegedly possessed material relating to the preparation of acts of Islamic violence.
      Police would have informed 10 Downing Street or MI5 almost immediately, so Sir Starmer either knew or deliberately covered his ears and sang a silly song.

    2. 2005 in Sydney the Cronulla riots happened. If you read about this now you will think it was racism and islamaphobia by the local people. But one of our sons had only been home from Australia a few weeks and one of his friends told him the causes were because young 'Arab', Lebanese men had been sexully harassing and sexully assaulting young white girls on the local beaches.
      The life guards tried to step in but where over whelmed. Then the local lads got involved. And of course it was all their fault.

    3. Some have been saying for years.. If they are willing to facilitate the industrial scale gang-graping of your children for decades, then beware, anything goes.
      The same people are now saying.. All it will take is two container ship loads of machetes docked in Dublin and the sleeping army in the hotels to receive the call.. and it's game over for Ireland.

    1. Katie explains below what is and obviously has been happening in our own country for a very long time.
      The 'THEY' need to be named and brought to justice. They are deliberately wrecking our country.

    2. Not a Smith or Brown amongst them.
      Still, at least their wives and sisters were given a break.

      2. As long as their wives and sisters don't think the 7 year olds were sluts who got what they deserved…

    3. Before I uncovered the 'see more' part, I just knew the filthy depraved would be savages of the evil death cult. How on earth can any human do that to anyone, let alone mere 6 & 7 year olds.

  82. Now getting the dinner ready.
    The DT is expected home at about 16:30 and needs to have her meal ready as she does a cleaning job in a local bookshop cafe on Wednesday evenings.
    How does sausage, bubble & squeak and cauliflower cheese sound?

    2. Wow ,as long as they are proper sausages Bob .

      Some sausages are full of stuff that tastes of nothing .

      Bubble and squeak and cauliflower cheese , delicious .

      1. I intended to buy some more water-buffalo burgers, but they had none in stock, so I made do with pork sausages from a pig-farm local to the place.
        It's just off the A52 on the way back from step-son's.

        1. Try Tesco Cumberland sausage 8 pack (around £2), I have a load in my freezer, they're tasty

      2. My own sausages are better than anything you can buy in a supermarket. 90% minced pork shoulder and belly; 10% total of: rusk, water, salt, black pepper and sage.

          1. Thanks, Mum. I have to make my own bacon, sausages, sausage rolls and pork pies since they are not available over here. I don’t find it a chore to do so and the results are well worth the effort.

          2. It's sometimes a pain when something takes hours to make and cook, then is devoured in minutes. Do you make enough to freeze?

    5. I would leave out the sausage… The bubble and squeak and the cauli cheese.

      I know you are very active but one at a time for me.

      1. I would leave out the bubble and squeak and cauliflower cheese. Just a triple hit of sausages for me.

    8. I don’t like cauliflower cheese but I do like cauliflower and I do like cheese, just not together.

  84. I posted this under the Budget coverage in the DT:

    The budget is not the key news item. The propaganda, lies and deception about the Southport massacre are more important. Do not be complicit, DT, in this blatant attempt to bury it!

    Deleted in 90 seconds!

    2. You are right.
      The Southport event, the cover up and the deliberate criminalisation of comment are indications of a route that we never thought Britain would ever take.
      1,000 years of gradual evolution to a settled society has made the British too trusting.
      That is far more important than the Budget.

      2. My Portuguese neighbour said to me this afternoon that we are no longer living in a free country – it's like the Soviet Union!

    3. Just posted this on the Letters Page:-

      just now
      By using the budget as the key news item, the DT is being complicit in a blatant attempt to bury the propaganda, lies and deception about the Southport massacre which, to my mind, is the more important story.

      Please, DT, do not be complicit in this attempt to gaslight your readers.

      3. Double plus good! You managed to include propaganda and gaslighting with lies and deception!

      1. Go to the top of the class.

        "How weird is your sister?" might be good chat up line for those going to a Halloween party.

  86. If you thought that budget was terrible, just wait until the experts have gone through the small print
    All we got was a Dennis Healey budget without the eyebrows

  87. I thought the most ludicrous sentence uttered by the dinner lady was that reducing alcohol duty would mean "A penny off a pint".

    Now, in 1945 that might have been attractive. In 2024 when a pint costs several pounds one penny either way means diddly squat.

      1. Quiz question – without looking at Richard's birthday list – what percentage of Nottlrs were alive in 1945?

          5. I'm awarding you the prize Eddy as the only person who answered the question correctly!

          4. Shame on you, Sir Jasper. Look on the bright side, we still have this site to look forward to each morning.

        3. But not all Nottlers are on the list.

          It is not obligatory to be on it but if you would like to join it it will alert everybody so they can add their best wishes and I can send you best wishes from Caroline and me..

          I shall put up the list again before the end of the year so people can tell me of any errors or omissions and new birthday girls and boys can check that their names and dobs have been recorded accurately.

          1. I am already on the list (don’t tell ’em Pike!) – you amended it last week to update my change of username

          4. Does your down vote suggest that I have the date wrong – if so please let me know and I shall change it.

          5. No, the down vote confirms I have fat fingers. Hadn't noticed – sorry. Was meant to be an up vote!

          6. Are you on the other list (contacts etc?) I can't keep up with all the name changes!

            In other words, if you don't mind telling, who were you?

          7. I was/am? Previously Richard III and before that Tier5Inmate and before that Prejudiced (on the DT).
            Moving target, harder to hit.

          8. You are a Very Silly Sausage, Made in Britain. I am also known as "Confused of Colchester". Don't make matters worse for me. Lol.

          11. I'd just like to say how nice it is to get birthday wishes on here, it really does make a difference and thank you Rastus and Caroline for your due diligence throughout the year. It is much appreciated from one whose birthday is on a date that is the unofficial graveyard of the year, the day when everyone starts a diet, the hangover-from-festivities…… unless it occurs at the weekend when hey! the festivities last a little longer…!
            1947.

          14. Good evening, Rastus. Can you post a warning at the end of the night that on the following morning you intend to post a list? Otherwise I might miss it. Thank you.

        4. 1955 for me. Less than a year until I have to renew my driving licence, and say farewell to my paper version.

          1. I'm 1955 too. I don't have a driving licence but it does mean that the three yearly routine breast screening this morning will henceforth cease to be routine.

          2. I had my final ‘automatic’ invite this year, but they gave me a leaflet with details of how to self-invite in the future.

        10. I was stomping up and down Weymouth promenade.
          The other memory is being dressed up as a sultan(a?) – no idea why, maybe the only costume my mother could find – to celebrate VJ night)

    4. It's not even £3 per barrel, the price of which for an ordinary strength bitter is around £500.

  88. Ah! Just about to do a mug of tea.
    The dinner has reached a point where it can look after its self for the next hour!

  89. As always, you missed the point. That A Allan chap appeared to call it "a DANK evening meal"……

    Go and have a lie down….

  90. Actually, that rings a bell.
    The scene could have been inserted by an actor/manager who wanted to look posh and educated.
    I've only ever read it, but it seems to add nothing to the play.

    1. Our English teacher told us that, just in case it popped up on the ‘O’ level paper in 1973!

  91. A mounted Par Four!

    Wordle 1,229 4/6
    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Bogey five for me!

      Wordle 1,229 5/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Starter word comes good! Big bad Eagle Two…….get in!

      Wordle 1,229 2/6

      ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  92. I had other things better to do than waste time listening to the dinner lady. Glad I missed it – as this extract from The Spectator this afternoon shows:

    "Reeves appears to be short of self-confidence. And she’s clearly been rehearsing her ‘unexpected-item-in-bagging-area’ delivery for weeks. She bashes out every word in a steady-eddy, slow-motion rata-tat-tat voice. No warmth or human feeling lightens her metronomic recital. She sounds like a council worker in a yellow hat trying to explain the fire-drill to a group of bored migrants who can’t speak English. "

    1. Yep, spot on. Her droning tedium was dreadful. She wasted a good half hour bitching about the Tories. Almost as if it was an entirely ideological agenda driven fiasco.

          1. Which of course only affects the private sector. Meanwhile, the snivel serpents' defined benefit schemes carry on regardless.

          3. Well I shall spend mine down and become reliant on the state. Though a future government could reverse it.

          5. Of course. Not sure if I remember correctly, but didn't ThiefReeves plan to only increase employers' NI contribution for private sector staff?

    2. That is a fair description. She and Starmer obviously had elocution lessons with the same teacher – they should ask for their money back. Silly me, of course they won't have paid for it – it would either have been on expenses or the gift of some (naturally arms length, no favour wanted) benefactor.

  93. Try as I may, I am struggling to remember the specific pledge in the Labour Party election manifesto that read, "Vote for us and we'll ensure that we quickly bring about a totalitarian dictatorship — allied to the WEF/UN hegemony — in order for us to quickly trash every aspect of your lives."

    1. Is there a single manifesto promise/claim that hasn't turned out to be a lie, and they have done the exact opposite?

    3. Be fair, Grizzly, at least they reduced the price of beer by 1p a pint. If all of we freezing pensioners without our winter heating allowance go to the pub to keep warm we can regain the allowance if we buy around 25,000 pints of beer. Mind you, having to serve 25,000 pints to each and every pensioner in the district would mean that the publicans would need to take on at least one hundred more staff to serve us all so that will put their costs up and to recoup that they would have to put up the price of a pint. I think I'll stay at home and drink wine instead. Lol.

  94. Ukraine’s frontline is ‘crumbling’ against Russian advances, says general. 30 October 2024.

    Ukraine’s frontline is “crumbling” against Russian advances, one of Kyiv’s general has admitted.

    Col-Gen Dmytro Marchenko said a dwindling supply of ammunition was one the main reasons for Ukraine’s weakening frontline and described Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan” as misguided.

    “I won’t be revealing a military secret if I say that our front has crumbled,” he told a former Ukrainian MP in an interview posted on YouTube.

    I wouldn’t suppose so since it’s been on Nottle for at least three weeks.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/30/ukraine-crumbling-russia-zelensky-victory-plan-kyiv/

    2. Hoyle, who was intimidated by the Islamist protest outside parliament into breaking parliamentary protocol. It's not surprising – the man is frit.

  98. busy day, cleaning and cooking. Mum and dad about to arrive. We are going away for a few days. Quickly catching up on the goss. Expect a lot of “readundery” from me!

  99. We currently take money from elsewhere when we need to top up our pensions, so that if we pop our clogs before age 75 (more likely for me than MH, and my 'pot' is very small), these pots could be passed tax-free to our sons. I say tax-free, but that may only apply to the one in this country. No idea if son in Canada would have to pay tax there on receipt.

    2. Take your pick..

      Just left Starmers..
      24 inches..
      Looks like me after footie, to be fair. Same outfit..
      Too many Diddy parties..

      stop sniggering Under-Manager.

    4. Lower back pain and stiffness after being stuck in traffic? He was agile back in the early 1970s.

    2. He had a hissy fit in the chamber about Reeves' pre-budget announcement of fiscal rule changes. He sounded not authoritative but ridiculous.

    3. After Bercow we thought anyone would be better.

      At first Hoyle was applauded as a good choice but he is beginning to look more and more fragile and inadequate.

  102. 395525+ up ticks,

    Just musing,
    A zillion new planning officers are going to hit the ground running, in the race to sell of old Blighty piecemeal, or to be more precise by the farming acre.

    There has never, ever, ever, been a more successful coup in the history of the world aided and abetted by the victims.

    It has been achieved so smooth that many still deny it's happened

  105. The budget is set to make the poor poorer with trickle down taxation
    The only winners are the Chinese, as usual

  106. Remember, folks, that often the really nasty stuff in a Budget is buried deep in the small print of the "Blue Book" and is not discovered by the experts until days or weeks after the event.

    Just saying – to brighten your evening.

      1. That's why I decided to tax the motorhome for a year rather than declaring SORN and taxing it for six months next spring.

  107. And another thing – when I started being paid in 1960, the standard rate of income tax was 8/3d = 42p.

  108. Chancellor announces "hammer blow" reforms to agricultural property relief

    After much speculation and lobbying from the farming industry, chancellor Rachel Reeves has confirmed changes to inheritance tax reliefs.

    Delivering the Labour Government's first Autumn Budget today (30th October), the chancellor extended the inheritance tax threshold freeze for another two years, until 2030.

    However, following much speculation, she confirmed reforms to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR) from April 2026.

    From this date, the first £1m of combined business and agricultural assets will continue to attract no inheritance tax. But, for assets over £1m, inheritance tax will apply with 50% relief.

    The change comes despite significant lobbying from the farming industry and a statement from the now Defra secretary of state Steve Reed last year, that Labour had "no intention of changing APR".

    David Eudall, AHDB economics & analysis director, explained:

    "The impact of the changes to inheritance tax means that from April 2026, a farm worth £2 million will have a £100,000 tax requirement to pay on the £1 million above the threshold. For every additional £1 million the farm is worth, a further £100,000 will be required to be paid in inheritance tax."

    Andrew Entwistle, partner and head of valuations at GFW said the changes will have a bigger impact on British farming than Brexit, and "show a deeply limited understanding of the realities of family farming".

    "The suggestion that most family farms won't be affected because they aren't worth over £1 million is, frankly, unrealistic. Farmers are often asset-rich but cash-poor; with an average farm valued around £3 million, we're now looking at inheritance tax bills of approximately £400,000."

    Nearly all family farm succession plans will now need to be re-evaluated to protect the longevity of the farm and maintain financial stability for future generations, he added. "Business asset disposal relief will also see changes, which is likely to impact many farming and rural businesses."

    Meanwhile, Ben Sharples, partner, agriculture at law firm Michelmores described the announcement as a "hammer blow to the ambition of maintaining viable farms".

    He added: "The relief of a £1 million exemption aimed at preserving family farms is not going to go very far when considering land values of £10,000 per acre never mind the value of farmhouses and buildings. An effective tax rate of 20% on everything above £1 million is much more severe than many were expecting."

    However, the chancellor also confirmed that she will extend the existing scope of APR to include land subject to environmental schemes from 6th April 2025. This change was proposed by the previous government.

    Mr Sharples added: "The extent of the relief is broad, encompassing the mainstream agricultural support (ELMS) but also land managed under an environmental agreement with or on behalf of the UK government, devolved administrations, public bodies, local authorities or approved responsible bodies. The new rules will apply with APR of 100% for the first £1 million and 50% thereafter."

    Country Land and Business Association (CLA) president Victoria Vyvyan described the news on inheritance tax as "nothing short of a betrayal".

    "Labour has made repeated assurances over the last 12 months that it would not tamper with inheritance tax reliefs," she said. "This puts dynamite beneath the livelihoods of British farming, and flies in the face of growth and investment."

    CLA estimates that capping APR at £1m could harm 70,000 UK farms, damaging family businesses and destabilising food security.

    "In its attempts to raise more revenue the government will cause great damage, jeopardising the future of rural businesses up and down the country. Many farmers, operating on slim margins, will now face having to sell land to pay inheritance taxes.

    "At a time of profound change in the industry, adjusting to new agricultural policies, the government is offering no vision for a positive economic future for us in the rural community," she concluded.

    A recent poll by the Country Land and Business Association found over 90% of farmers who responded said scrapping reliefs would damage the UK's food security. Meanwhile 86% said it was 'likely' that some or all of their land would have to be sold upon their death, if inheritance tax reliefs are scrapped.

    Rumours have been swirling in recent weeks that APR and BPR could come under fire in the Budget – prompting industry groups to clamour for stability. Farming groups have previously warned that scrapping inheritance tax relief would tear family farms apart.

    APR in particular is an essential relief for farmers who rent land as part of their business model. 64% of farmland is occupied by farmers who rent some or all of their land. The four farming unions, NFU, NFU Scotland, NFU Cymru and Ulster Farmers' Union recently penned a letter to the chancellor urging her to consider the sizeable impact of changing APR and BPR.

    NFU president Tom Bradshaw said at the time that changing APR and BPR would be a "devastating blow" to British farming as we know it, adding that the effects would be felt for generations to come. "It's hard to see anything which would destroy the new government's relationship with farmers more completely, or do more damage to family farm businesses, be they the owners of farms or the tenants who farm them for the landlord."

    Meanwhile, NFU Cymru president Aled Jones said: "Returns from farming are often extremely modest, with the return on capital employed for farming, after taking into account a wage for the farmer, averaging less than 1%. This means that the vast majority of farm owners would be unable to meet any IHT charge, even utilising the entire return on capital made during the whole period of ownership.

    "My great worry is that such changes would force the break-up of farms, something which would be devastating for Wales' family farm structure and the wider rural community."

    https://www.farmersguide.co.uk/business/politics/chancellor-announces-hammer-blow-reforms-to-agricultural-property-relief

    The inevitable consequence will be that many small farms will fall into the hands of big, ruthless agricultural combines with dubious environmental records, property speculators, industrialists (read solar farms and wind turbines) and foreigners who will block the footpaths.

    All this for £400 million while £12 billion is about to be thrown into the dustbin that is Africa.

      1. Acre upon acre of solar panels, bug farms and little boxes for humanoid economic units to inhabit in grey misery.

    2. The idea was right – perhaps to discourage the land speculators and corporate industrials in favour of the small family farm, but the figure of 1 million was set far too low. A viable family farm these days has around 250 acres, plus the cost of buildings, stock and machinery and the allowance should be around 3 1/2 million at least.

      In addition, more effort needs to be made to encourage the young people into farming, rather than saddle them with a huge debt just when they are feeling their way.

    4. Unfortunately David Eudall, AHDB economics & analysis director, is not very good at arithmetic. 20% of a million was 200K when I was at school and even Reeves can’t change that.

    1. Nope. They are all rich, landed gentry with massive houses, huge estates and hordes of elves to do the work.

      1. Funnily enough Obs, I've always had more respect for the scrappings off of farmers boots than any single person in British politics.
        IMHO farming is one of the hardest ways of life on earth.

        2. Worked as a farmhand when I was 18 and 19, as a summer job.
          Freaking hard, relentless work, and I had enormous respect for the Foreman who was getting on a bit, yet worked like ten people and was enormously strong and wiry, could work all day without a break, and was over 60. Toughest old bastard I ever met.

  111. So not content with destroying the working classes chances of gaining access to higher education and top jobs by destroying the grammar schools, Labour now finish the job by ensuring that those than can scrape up the money to go private are now priced out of it

  113. After today’s (30 October) Budget, chancellor Rachel Reeves’ message to farmers is “don’t die unexpectedly or it’ll cost you”.

    If Defra secretary Steve Reed and farming minister Daniel Zeichner were in any doubt about which questions they will be answering over the next two years, they aren’t now.

    With the withdrawal of agricultural property relief in its current guise, some farmers will undoubtedly find it more difficult to inherit a business and land without paying a significant tax bill.

    Farmers now understand a lot more about how Labour regards them – as a cash cow to be milked rather than a sector to support.

    But farmers of all sizes will instinctively feel that in choosing to extract additional wealth from agriculture, they now understand a lot more about how Labour regards them – as a cash cow to be milked rather than a sector to support.

    This is particularly galling when farms are already going through an enormous policy transition.

    Much of the arguments over the weeks ahead will centre on how big an attack this is on family farming.

    https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/opinion/editors-view-chancellor-hikes-punishment-for-sudden-death?utm_source=hometopstories

    1. Is she just trying to steal more land from them to build more free housing for illegal invaders ? Because labour have noticed more immigrants vote labour ?

    1. The future Con government will reverse the changes, just like their intention to get rid of IHT. Oh hang on…

  115. Tommy…

    Just re watching the Star Trek film the Undiscovered Country. Good title in more ways than one.

    Someone sent to jail for crimes they didn't commit.

    Contempt of court is a catch all.

    1. I guess contempt is expressing disagreement with the government. Better keep my head down and state that I am delighted that the Labour government have allowed themselves to help themselves to my hard saved-for pension after my demise. It used to be known as grave robbing.

          1. From where i am am i can do it in a day but it is tiring.

            I will be staying at the VSC and possiibly going on for cocktails at Zetter in Seymour St.

        2. When are you going, although I try and avoid the caliphate despite my son having a home there.

          1. TBA. As you are aware herding cats is easier than Nottlers.
            Before June at least. If folks voice an interest i will make it happen.

        3. When are you going, although I try and avoid the caliphate despite my son having a home there.

  116. Regrets, they are not part of the sistah hood… regards the UN. PS please send more money to rebuild the Gaza Metro…

  117. That's me for today. Finished digging out the hole for the manure into which roses will b planted next year. Now for the manure…..

    Have a spiffing evening discovering how much worse off you are – but don't forget the sop of a 1p off a pint of beer….

    Market tomorrow.

    A demain.

  118. Timeline of a Labour Government –

    First they start with taxing the rich,
    Then they go on mad spending sprees and pay rises for the public sector,
    Then they borrow £ billions,
    Then inflation hits and the public sector pay doesn't looks so good.
    Then the public sector goes on strike and we have a winter of discontent.
    Then they call in the IMF
    Then they are out of office for another generation to relearn their lesson 14 years later

    1. Bob3: I think I shall have to leave this site until around 10 pm, because it's becoming all doom and gloom. Don't take this personally, I think lots of NoTTLers are down in the dumps today., myself included.

      1. #metoo, Elsie. Could use a lift, and I'm not writing about elevators, either. Mentally, very low today, tired, and we've run out of alcohol, so no solace there. Nobody calling back, either. Bed in a mo.
        Take it easy, old fruit.

      2. As I and many other's have said many times before, our political classes and civil service eff up every single thing they come into contact with, it is a continuous process. It's all they know.

    1. PoppiesMum posted this story about an hour ago, Sue Ed. At least there is some good news today.

    2. But why is he there at all ?
      He only talks, as do all of our so called political classes.

  120. Evening, all. Still suffering intermittent Internet problems, so if I disappear early I trust you will understand. I've had a ruck of things go wrong just lately; the washing machine door stuck in the locked position (I've since managed to free it), then the handle came off my chest of drawers and in trying to get the drawer open, the other one parted company as well! That's another problem I eventually managed to sort.

    I gather we've all been whapped by the budget, although I haven't seen the nitty gritty due to my lack of Internet.

    1. If we haven't been whapped, we all eventually will be. In a word: farming. Total sabotage of the British people.

        1. Just saw the FW article linked below. Can't bring myself to go to the Mail again, and it wasn't there when I glanced through earlier.
          Am too tired, but just finished working.

        2. If a farmer dies unexpectedly (and farm deaths are common) they'll be hit for a probable £400k tax bill.

          1. According to the telegraph article below, it’s 100K for each million after the first, so a 3 million pound farm would be 200K?
            IHT is a con and should NEVER be charged on family farms at all.

          2. It wasn't, until Labour came along. All part of the WEF-communist ideology of starving their populations.

        3. Reading between the lines, I think they want all land to fall into State ownership whilst actual farmers will pay to "farm" it according to blob edicts. The logical next step in their continuing war on country people and age-old tradition. But maybe I'm just a far right cynic.

          1. No, I think that is what it’s all about too. Productive farmland out of use in preparation for food shortages and bugs.

        4. Inheritance tax. Families will find it impossible to pay the i/t bill. Thus releases land that has passed between families for generations to be a) snapped up by Bill Gates (see the US) and his GMO stuff and b) releases prime ag farmland for Ed Milliband's solar 'farm' nuttery and all that that entails and c) releases land for house building. That the British landscape looks as it does at the moment is thanks mainly to farmers. Not for much longer. England, O England…..

    2. If we haven't been whapped, we all eventually will be. In a word: farming. Total sabotage of the British people.

  122. Ah, I did wonder. Not been on here very much today. Hospital for breast screening this morning then got back to the office and laptop problems. One of our IT guys knows how to “reset” the battery and thankfully that worked. (I’m not techie enough for a new laptop to be a welcome prospect.)

    1. I don't look forward to needing a new mobile phone for the same reasons.
      My previous one, which was 2nd hand from a friend's BiL, only got replaced in summer 2022 because it wasn't adequate for uploading the ArriveCan app and its link to NHS app (with jab proof) that we needed for getting into Canada. I'm hoping the current phone lasts for a good few years yet.

      1. Mine's a near bottom of the range Samsung that I bought in 2020 after the last one died. It's perfectly adequate for my needs.

    1. All the complaining about austerity from the Left over the years has given them the misguided belief that they need to get revenge on the private sector through taxation and blow it all on the public sector.
      They do not really care about the economy.
      How can hobbling the wealth producers and spending it on the wealth consumers bring anything but bankruptcy for the country when the money runs out.

  124. One summer when we about 15, a couple of friends and I signed up for pea picking. I seem to recall that we were paid the princely sum of 5p a sack. Boy, it was back-breaking.

  125. When I went to the breast screening clinic at Charing Cross Hospital this morning, there was a woman in the waiting room with severe mental disability.

    She waived her arms and legs about and grunted and giggled but couldn’t speak. She looked mixed race and her carer was a young black guy. I asked whether she should be put through the ordeal and got a very negative but unconvincing response.

    I raised the issue with the young woman who did my scans. She said “Yes, it’s very difficult – we’ll leave her until last and I’ll need help”. An understatement, I think. Someone would have to hold the woman down. Even if it’s been done to her before, she won’t understand what’s going on and the process isn’t just uncomfortable. It’s painful. What d’you think?

    1. If she has some symptoms, then it seems more justified, but surely some sort of sedation would help. And yes, it is flippin' painful. A necessary evil.

    2. Difficult for the technician, likely really traumatic for the patient. I hope they can do better than "hold her down" – that sounds like assault. Maybe a Coke laced with a tranquilizer so she's mostly out when examined?
      Not a situation I'd like to be in.
      I looked after my Granddad when he lost his marbles. I was about 15 or so. I still remember him staring at me with mad, demented eyes. That wasn't fun.

    3. There are several people in my town that need assistance. You see them being pushed in their chairs but it does seem like it is always by youngish black/…… men.

      I am not suggesting for a moment they are doing a bad job or even as some news reports have their been abusing them.

      What i do know is they are not supported well enough.

      I would also add…When i was on the Isle of Wight and was at a steam rally i was finally at my destination and could sit down in the sunshine with a G&T what brought me the most pleasure was seeing a young woman on the carousel and her face beaming. Clearly blind and with other problems.

      Her joy was obvious to me.

    4. If the poor woman had a severe mental disability , wouldn't the prospect of any examination be a shocking procedure .

      Further more wouldn't the prospect of a positive reading on her mammogram cause absolute chaos after diagnosis and necessary treatment required , shouldn't one just allow a slight raincheck on precautionary procedures for badly disabled , mentally and physically patients .. and trust a little bit that some type of care can be taken too far ?

    5. 'Evening, Sue…ideally, some sedation prior would be useful. However, her situation might not allow that – to me, seems slightly odd her carer is a young black guy..perhaps her son/relative? Mind boggles at her coping with breast screening procedure. Something about a young black guy being her carer not sitting quite right with me. Just my immediate thoughts, Kate.

      1. If he's kind to her the colour doesn't matter – but a female carer might be more appropriate.

    6. I think it would be torture for her. I was scheduled for one in 2020 and didn't go. I haven't had one since. I'm still here. I think the second time I had breast cancer treatment it was probably overkill – the machine picks up tiny dots that probably would not have come to much. Still I had surgery again and radiotherapy, and another 10 years' follow up.

  126. A few funnies to lighten the mood again.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6db247b8c9b020c33240b8a8e39263808b8546c316c9a464b116f957ac00540d.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/862aad130f1bbc095b075f942efd4ac966c272c54ed654fe57f3e3821575233f.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c67b3e1b00308b12ed2143e7589bae99172b4059d035266a98ca343794e7765.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d43f392f191e2e9af959ceb7d15987c304c8947508bae121ff9b0688e2d85b11.png

        1. Pretty low, Sue, thanks for asking. I seem to have forgotten a lot in the last few days, as if it hasn't happened, and that's pretty discouraging. A nice young Lady Doctor held my hands yesterday (for medical reasons), then beat me up with a rubber hammer… sounds kinky, but wasn't, sadly.
          More tests next week, heart scans, likely CT and so on. Maybe they'll find what I suspected, there is no brain!

          1. Oh Paul, I’m sorry to hear that. Are you aware of it at the time, or do you need to be advised?🙄. I ask because of our SiL who had the stroke and his lack of awareness of his shortcomings. He gets angry with the world and really he needs some psychological help (imo)!

          2. Stroke was 9 years ago. Now being checked for other things, focus towards heart.
            We’ll see – exciting!

          3. Are they thinking your heart makes you fall over? Don’t feel you have to respond – I being nosey!

    2. To the elderly driver….Next time you're out and they shout pull over. Have your knitting needles handy and say "NO, SOCKS".

  128. It made me sort of larrf this evening on the news, they made a big deal out of discovering a person with Monkey pox. And informed the British public that the person had come here from Africa ! Where Ciaro, Cape Town, Madagascar, The Gambia ?
    Let's hope our increasingly stupid idiots learn from this and stop the invasion.

  129. From coffee house, the Spectator

    Hillary Clinton has a simple but bitter lesson to teach Donald Trump’s supporters in 2024: the best way to lose an election is to assume you’ve already won it a week before it happens.

    ​The MAGA movement ­– aiming to Make America Great Again, namely by Making Trump President Again – has never been more confident. Opinion polls have Trump faring much better against Kamala Harris than he ever did against Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020. Indeed, the polling averages actually place Trump ahead, which wasn’t the case at this point in either of his earlier elections.

    And since the polls underestimated his share of vote the last two times, maybe they’re underestimating him again – in which case Trump will not only win re-election, he’ll win handily.

    Harris has three things strongly in her favour

    There’s certainly a feeling of elation on the American right at the moment, and a corresponding dread on the left. The fact that the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today, three of the country’s biggest and most reliably liberal newspapers, have broken with tradition and declined to endorse any candidate this year is an ominous sign that their owners see Harris as a loser.

    Yet all that is rather misleading. Trump is still the underdog, however much the ‘vibes’ have shifted in his favour of late.

    For one thing, Trump’s lead in polls of the most critical battleground states is typically within the margin of error. The message these surveys are sending is that the race is a virtual tie, yet eager Trump fans on social media are treating a 0.6 per cent lead – his current margin in Pennsylvania, the biggest prize on the electoral map – as if it were 6 per cent. Trump won Pennsylvania by 0.72 percent in 2016 and lost it by 1.17 points in 2020. It could easily go either way this year.

    Harris has three things strongly in her favour. First, her campaign has much more money than Trump’s does: between January 2023 (when the Harris campaign was the Joe Biden campaign) and mid-October, Harris raised about $1 billion, compared to Trump’s $388 million. Independent political action committees, or PACs, supporting Trump have also been massively outspent by Harris-aligned PACs, with Trump’s side reporting $124.6 million spent between July and 25 October, compared to Harris’s $533.7 million. That money buys saturation-level television and radio advertising, as well as funding more campaign offices and staff. This gives her a more muscular, traditional get-out-the-vote effort.

    Second, the electoral map gives Harris a stronger starting point in the crucial swing states. Of the seven most closely contested states, five have Democratic governors, and Democrats performed well in all seven states in the 2022 midterm elections for the U.S. Senate and statewide offices. When Republicans cite Trump’s record of beating the polls in 2016 and 2020, Democrats counter with the highly accurate polling in the midterms, which correctly showed Trump’s party falling short of the sweeping victories that political analysts and pundits (including me) imagined. Democrats also claim that many of the polls that now show Trump leading are low-quality surveys compared to others that show Harris with an edge or tied.

    Most popular
    Kate Andrews
    Labour’s Budget will crush growth

    The polls are debatable, but Republican exuberance ahead of election day in 2022 was indeed much like the feeling on the right today. And however unclear the signals from polling might be, the record of the seven battlegrounds in the most recent contests is unambiguous. Democrats did well in all seven two years ago, and the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket won six of the seven in 2020. (Trump won North Carolina by 1.34 points. He lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.)

    Finally, despite the unwillingness of three large newspapers to endorse Harris, she enjoys all the advantages that come with being the preferred candidate of the media and the opinion-forming classes. She can rely on favourable news coverage for her campaign and relentless hostile coverage of Trump. When a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City makes an insulting joke about Puerto Rico, the media makes his remarks the centrepiece of the news cycle. (There are more than 5 million Puerto Ricans living in the mainland US, including some 472,000 in Pennsylvania.) Indeed, the liberal-leaning media have likened Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally to a Nazi rally held at the same venue in 1939.

    Though the media has woeful poll numbers of its own – only 27 per cent of American who describes themselves as political independents say they trust the media, according to the most recent Gallup opinion survey – the non-stop condemnations of Trump as a fascist, racist, Putin-loving, felonious lunatic take a certain toll. The remarkable thing will be what it says about the media’s credibility if Americans elect Trump again anyway. The jitters at the Washington Post and LA Times may be just the beginning of a great reckoning for those institutions and many more like them.

    Trump is indeed in a better position to win this time than he was in 2020 or appeared to be in 2016, when his defeat of Hillary Clinton shocked America’s elite the way Brexit jolted Britain’s a few months earlier. Harris was a complete washout when she tried to run for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination four years ago, and it was Biden, not Harris, that the party’s voters nominated this year.

    Democrats are divided by Israel-Hamas war, with the curious consequence that Trump is gaining Arab-American support even as he also has the backing of those Americans who stand most firmly behind Israel. (That category includes many American Jews but also millions of evangelical Christians.) Harris, for her part, is attempting to win over Republicans troubled by Trump’s attitudes toward Ukraine and Nato, as well as those still shocked by the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

    To make her case, Harris has been campaigning alongside former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, and boasting of support from Liz’s father, Dick Cheney, too – a man the American left once considered a fascist just as surely as they now hang that label on Trump. If Harris wins, neoconservatives will claim vindication. If she loses, it will be clearer than ever that Trump represents voters’ repudiation not only of the Democratic party of Harris, Biden and Clinton, but the Republican party of the Bushes and Cheneys as well.

    WRITTEN BY
    Daniel McCarthy
    Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.

  130. Oh well the back end of another day.
    Not much done, still coughing and taking paracetamol for my headaches.
    I think I'll call it a day.
    Good night all 😴

  132. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    There were few silver linings in today’s Budget announcement – but one measure the Labour lot are rather keen to harp on about is the cut to draught duty by 1.7 per cent. What exactly does this work out at? Er, a rather measly one penny off the cost of a pint. How very generous…

    While the announcement received one the most enthusiastic cheers in the chamber, it seems that industry experts are not quite as thrilled about the move. Rachel Reeves was rather fast to glaze over the fact that the Labour government will raise alcohol duty rates on products like spirits and wines in line with the retail price index from February next year. Despite the government framing the ‘penny off a pint’ move as a positive one – as, the Chancellor said, ‘nearly two-thirds of alcoholic drinks sold in pubs are served on draught’ – there remain fears that tax hikes on other types of alcohol will hurt suppliers. Hospitality venues will have to adapt to supply issues while also struggling with Reeves’s ‘working people’ Budget that has introduced minimum wage uplifts and raised employers’ national insurance contributions. On a rather concerning note, the OBR has predicted what business leaders warned of in the days leading up to the Budget: that if employing workers becomes more expensive, then businesses will be rather more reluctant to hire additional staff – or even lay off staff – as a result. Crikey.

    In more glum news, the hospitality industry expects the minimum wage increase alone – of at least 6.7 per cent – to cost the sector a staggering £1.9bn. So much for growth, eh? Taking to Twitter to fume about Labour’s measures, the CEO of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association Miles Beale raged:

    Change of government, but not style. Labour has given hospitality the one thing it did NOT ask for and claimed it as a ‘win’ – without recognising [the impact of] the increase in business rates, minimum wage and employer NICs. Add to that the RPI increase in all alcohol duties, which will affect their suppliers and bring in LESS revenue to the Exchequer.

    In the end all drinks will be MORE expensive – wherever you buy from.

    Ouch. Going on, Beale blasted the government’s alcohol duty hike as ‘a real kick to the teeth’ and ‘counterproductive’, adding:

    The decisions made at this Budget are a bitter blow for all. They will stifle the growth of British business and add another nail in the coffin for hospitality – and result in less choice and price rises for consumers.

    Whisky consultant Blair Bowman was just as scathing, telling Mr S that the alcohol duty increase as a ‘missed opportunity to support Scotch whisky’, while the managing director of Diageo GB has taken to LinkedIn to scorn the Chancellor’s move, writing:

    I’m deeply disappointed by today’s Budget decisions on alcohol duty. On the campaign trail, Keir Starmer pledged to ‘back the Scotch whisky industry to the hilt’. Instead the government has broken this promise and slammed even more duty on spirits. This betrayal will leave a bitter taste for drinkers and pubs.

    Oo er. The move is not quite the dream for pub-goers – or owners – that Reeves appeared to suggest it was today, eh? Talk about smoke and mirrors…

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

    1. There is the germ of a good idea in the draught beer duty cut. Reducing the differential between on- and off-sales will help licensed premises and curb home drinking. However, this cut is so tiny as to make little difference. Tenpence each way would have been a better bet.

      1. Pubs are not going to take a penny off the price and the difference between pub prices and the s'market is so great, there will be no change in drinking habits. With the increase of min wage, a pint is going to have to go up again without doubt.

        1. As I said, it's the germ of an idea and one that has been suggested by many in the pub trade.

    2. Wine and spirits alcohol duty to rise in line with retail price index from February 2026, eh? Looks like I need to stock up on both wine and spirits on my next trip to the shops.

    1. Me too, BoB. So good night, all NoTTLer chums. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow morning.

  135. All I know of the budget is what I've read here. I've neither heard nor read a single word of her statement. I'm thankful for such small mercies. Should I discern any more, it will blight my otherwise happy countenance. A news-free existence is to be highly recommended.

    2. We all knew that something like this would come out, a man doesn't try to massacre children like that without some conviction behind it.
      It wasn't a random attack either

    4. “It transpires that the parents of the Southport murderer, are 'wanted' in Rwanda (topical eh?) in connections with the 'genocide' (which can't be disputed) that happened there many years ago. Many of the perpetrators are still at large.

      All of this is in the public domain if you dig around enough for it.

      Needless to say, the murderer was indoctrinated into the killing mindset.

      Worse than that. Somehow they ended up here in the UK. 'Assisted and protected' by the UK Government.

      Is it any wonder that Starmer was so desperate to hide this information, he readily sacrificed and jailed 'so called' far right thugs on the altar of keeping it secret from Joe Public?

      Still (if you ever did) trust this Government? Or any previously?

      They are 'fairly' 🙄elected by the public at large with our best interests at heart…Anyone believe that?”

    1. I think his attitude towards Stephen Yaxley Lennon, whose real name is Tommy Robinson, is all wrtong.

      However I cannot deny that he is by far the best talker in the House of Commons.

    4. Oh good grief. Oh excellent put down Nigel! Grow up! Brilliant! Oh, go for it Nigel! Sir, you are good and show the others up beautifully.

  139. Who was the actor who played Rishi Sunak in the HoC today? He looked ever so like him and was a much better performer.

  142. Saw nor heard a single word of it. Maybe the cares of office no longer weigh heavily on him.

  146. Will BBC Verify call Labour out for their lies? Don't hold your breath

    The licence fee funded fact checkers seem much more interested in witch-hunting in Nigeria than in Rachel Reeves's Budget

    Isabel Oakeshott • 30 October 2024 • 4:25pm GMT

    In a blizzard of claim and counterclaim, thank goodness for brilliantly qualified, lavishly funded truth seekers. As voters try to make sense of a momentous Budget, where better to turn than BBC Verify, which employs some 60 specialist journalists to separate fact from fiction?

    No privately funded UK media organisation can compete with these extraordinary resources, directed all day, every day, at establishing the facts about an impressive range of questions and controversies.

    Want to know whether Hurricane Milton was "engineered"? BBC Verify is your go-to. It has examined the "basic ingredients of a hurricane" and spoken to a dizzying array of meteorologists and other experts to disprove a social media conspiracy about deliberate cloud seeding.

    How about a nature reserve in the Philippines, which the BBC tells us has been "lauded by top climate activists and film stars," but was hit by a "concerted disinformation attack?" A team of forensic journalists at BBC Verify spent ages poring over Facebook accounts to figure out who was behind claims of illegal logging and land grabbing on the site. There's even something about witch-hunters in Nigeria.

    But on today's historic Budget? At the time of writing, absolutely nada post-Budget.

    It is hard to imagine more fertile territory for forensic examination than Rachel Reeves's historic statement. After all, her plans have sweeping implications for every business and every household – in other words, everyone who pays for the BBC.

    Her £40 billion tax heist was announced with all sorts of murky justifications – providing BBC Verify's experts with plenty to get stuck into. That infamous "£22bn black hole in the public finances" would be an obvious place to start.

    Until now, the Treasury was unable to say precisely how she had reached that figure, prompting accusations that the figure was plucked from thin air. Finally, the Chancellor has published what she called a "line by line breakdown." With its ample resources, BBC Verify should be crawling all of it. Yet the nation awaits.

    No matter – at least there's something on Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate Tim Walz's military record!

    If getting to the bottom of the alleged £22 billion black hole is too big an ask, perhaps they could look into something more general, like whether the Chancellor can justifiably claim to have kept Labour's election promises, "no ifs or buts"? That should be easy. Run the red rule over the manifesto, and cross-check with the Budget's announcements. A handful of reporters whizzing through the document and Reeves's speech should do the trick. Yet so far BBC Verify has nothing to say.

    Looking at the operation, what is striking is how heavily dominated it is by overseas controversies. Doubtless some BBC licence payers will be fascinated by an analysis of satellite images of newly laid tarmac on a key road to Gaza. Those with a very keen interest in the US election may also be interested in whether Kamala Harris's "price gouging plan" will "really help US consumers."

    However, the Corporation appears to have forgotten one very important fact: its work is funded by British taxpayers.

    Many would much rather hear what its finest investigative brains have to say about the impact of today's announcements on British consumers.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/30/will-bbc-verify-call-labour-out-for-their-lies

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