Wednesday 4 March: Gaps remain in the public information campaign against coronavirus

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/03/04/lettersgaps-remain-public-information-campaign-against-coronavirus/

681 thoughts on “Wednesday 4 March: Gaps remain in the public information campaign against coronavirus”

  1. Forget wind turbines. Here’s how we can meet Net Zero without derailing the economy
    OWEN PATERSON
    Follow Owen Paterson
    4 MARCH 2020 • 6:00AM

    What a next-generation fighter jet could look like
    Sponsored
    To meet the Conservatives’ net-zero emissions target, the UK will need around 40GW of new, low-carbon baseload generation by 2050. Technology undoubtedly holds the answer to achieving that. But it is no use setting our hopes on fashionable technologies simply for their superficial appeal.

    Sadly, however, the Government’s latest decision to revive onshore wind seems to fall into this trap. It is welcome that the plans will still give local people a strong say in new development decisions. Indeed, they should have the final say. But the problems of wind turbines go far beyond their being mere eyesores.

    Wind turbines are already close to their maximum theoretical efficiency – the Betz limit – and their effectiveness will always be determined by the wind available. Given that, for wind turbines to supply only the annual global growth in demand, nearly 350,000 would need to be built each year. This is 1.5 times as many as have been built since the early 2000s, and would require more land than the area of the British Isles every year.

    Allied to this, the mining of rare-earth metals in Mongolia for the magnets generates toxic and radioactive waste on a massive scale. It takes about 150 tonnes of coal to make a turbine. To build the 350,000 needed to meet growth, we would need 50 million tonnes of coal per year – about half the EU’s entire coal-mining output. The arithmetic is, therefore, against wind energy ever making a significant contribution to world energy supply. It is small wonder that the Renewable Energy Policy Network’s 2019 Global Status Report showed that wind and solar power together still provide just 2 per cent of global energy consumption or that former Chief Scientific Adviser to DECC Sir David MacKay declared the idea that renewable energy could power the UK an “appalling delusion” because there is simply not enough land.

    Clearly, we need to do better than onshore wind. Nuclear power is an obvious candidate, but there is a problem in achieving that capacity from large fission plants: there are neither enough suitable sites nor enough time to build them. Reaching the net-zero target would require opening a new Hinkley Point-sized station every four months until 2050. That could cost anything from £6 trillion if we could find enough civil engineers, even without the spiralling costs which similar projects have faced at the Olkiluoto nuclear project in Finland and at Flamanville in France. Both are struggling even to make the technology work.

    With modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), however, we see a proven technology which can provide power much more reliably than intermittent renewable sources. Rolls Royce estimates that each reactor – small enough to be transported by lorry – could provide the power equivalent of 150 onshore wind turbines. Lower construction costs through economies of series production, short construction time and the potential to use small reactors in Combined Heat and Power systems, make SMRs a technology with enormous potential to provide clean, sustainable and reliable energy.

    Combined heat and power (CHP) cuts emissions, cuts costs and creates jobs. While the best estimates of efficiency in conventional power stations is around 50%, CHP plants can deliver over 90% efficiencies and, despite high capital costs, present exciting opportunities.

    One example is to promote energy efficiency in the NHS. The NHS consumes over £500m in gas and electricity and is responsible for over 5% of the UK’s total CO2 emissions every year. In its own terms, the NHS says that this offers many opportunities for saving and efficiency. Trusts have already begun energy-saving CHP projects, allowing savings to be directly reinvested into further reductions in emissions and improved patient care.

    Implemented nationally, this revolutionary programme of localised electricity production would massively increase the resilience of the system, considerably improve energy efficiency overall, and ease pressure on the distribution system.

    In December 2017, the Government provided funding of up to £56 million over three years to support SMR research, which could facilitate an expansion in CHP. Outside the EU and its state aid rules, the Government must continue to make this a priority alongside plans for the first conceptual hydrogen fusion power plant by 2024. The Government announced a £200m investment into the project in October, designed to demonstrate commercial energy production by 2040. In a similar vein, the Advanced Propulsion Centre administers a £1bn Government investment fund for promising, low-emission powertrain technologies, including hydrogen fuel cells. In tandem, we should review our regulatory framework to ensure that the burdens and costs of regulation do not unduly hold back full commercial exploitation.

    The human race has come through adversity before, by harnessing the full potential of our creative, innovative power and fully exploiting the very latest technologies. The way to address the impact of greenhouse gas emissions now is to innovate our way out of the problem with cutting edge techniques.

    1. The only plague we need to be worried about that is spreading around the world and getting more extreme every day is the climate change insanity, that will wipe us all out eventually

      1. The spreading of the plague shows how globalism works .. and here in the UK it appears as if foreign holidays are the real culprit.. infecting those of us who believe that there is no place like home .
        Morning Bob.

      2. I don’t buy into the “climate emergency”, but nor do I like relying for our energy on places like Saudi Arabia and Russia.

        1. We are not that dependent on those areas for energy. For transport yes but energy no.

      4. The UK flooding is down to population growth and not climate change. . Poor waterway management and drainage management have also contributed to it. AS far as I know all the flooding took place in none flood risk areas

      5. ‘Morning, Bob, I would go further and say that the worse plague is the unrestrained growth in the world’s population.

    2. Where did ” Net Zero” come from ?

      Clue…

      “We… leveraged, policy, legislation… through strong relationships with politicians…for three decades”.

    3. Articles like this probably explain why Paterson isn’t in Cabinet/Government.

      I found the following BTL here. Which ever way it’s looked at Johnson’s target of a green utopia by 2050 is unattainable on many grounds e.g. cost, technology, natural resources required etc. Politically it’s suicide but the current alternative, the Labour Party, if they ever get their act together, will be as bad. They cannot be any worse.

      Vincent Booth PERMALINK
      March 3, 2020 3:51 pm
      Green New Deal

      The Green New Deal offered and pledges by the Government are misleading and will not be achievable for the following reasons:

      Cost, Timescale and Resources.

      To achieve the GND energy bills will increase significantly. To convert the UK to an all- electric or part hydrogen economy will raise the cost of electricity for heating, by 3 or 4 times the cost of gas today. A household today that pays £500 per year for gas, in 2030/2050 will pay £1500 or more when using electricity or hydrogen. One in ten households today is fuel poor. The drive to be carbon neutral will be paid for by the poorest people.

      The building of more wind and solar is not a sound policy. In 2018 wind and solar provided the UK with 70 terawatt-hours of energy. 7.9% of the total 880 TWh of the UK energy supplied by gas. Wind and solar are very variable and have to be backed up by gas-fuelled generation.
      Note that Germany has next to the highest electricity price in the EU, at 25.59p per kWhr, compared to 14p per kWh in the UK. This is due to a policy of developing a large renewable sector (wind and solar).

      In order to replace the energy supplied by gas today for industry, domestic heating and electricity generation, (880 TWhr in 2018), and also in the future to supply electric cars.

      The UK will need to build and commission the following:
      10 off Hinkley Point C power stations, 8 off tidal barrier schemes,11,000 10 MW wind turbines,
      70 of 880 MW gas turbines to provide back-up when the wind fails to blow.
      Upgrade most of the distribution network, homes and buildings to total electricity use.
      Provide at least 200,000 public charging stations for electric cars.
      All this at an approx cost £600 billion and a 70 to 100 year planning & build time.

      Resources
      A letter on June 5th, 2019 to the Committee on Climate Change, by the Natural History Head of Earth Sciences, Prof Richard Herrington and fellow expert members of SOS Minerals

      The letter explains that to meet UK electric car targets for 2050 we would need to produce just under two times the current total annual world cobalt production, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production.

      Ofgem envisages the number of electric vehicles will surge from 230,000 today to 10 million by 2030 and 39 million by 2050. Who can supply these in the timescale, and what replaces the current fuel annual duty (approx, £30 billion per year) on petrol and diesel?

      The UK’s current high standard of living is based on the use of fossil fuels.
      Coal and coke are required to produce steel for buildings, machines and cars, gas is used for heating and many industrial processes, gas is used to manufacture fertilizer and hence our food. Gas, coal or oil heating is used to make cement, the manufacture of pharmaceuticals depends on fossil fuels.
      Oil provides transport and delivers most of the goods we use on a daily basis.
      Oil provides many of the plastics we use.

      The UK should not cripple these industries with high fuel prices and carbon taxes.

      These industries provide our wealth and the taxes that pay for the staff and buildings of hospitals, schools, fire and police, all the public services we enjoy.

      Note that the Committee on Climate Change forecast that in 2050, we will still use 70% of the gas we use now and convert this to hydrogen to use for heating.

      As gas provides our main source of energy and our standard of living, the government should revisit the proposed ban on fracking. The UK should control our natural gas industry and not export the release of CO2 by importing gas from abroad.

      The drive to a low carbon economy is not a 10 or 30-year project, it will develop naturally and take a hundred or so years as technology develops to meet the challenge of climate change.

      1. As Boris is well aware, no Parliament can bind its successors. This monumental exercise in virtue signalling will be a mess for a future government to clean up.

      2. The state doesn’t care. It doesn’t pay it’s own bills so the cost is irrelevant. They’re not bothered if costs triple. As long as they get the headline today, it’s fine by them.

      3. As Boris is well aware, no Parliament can bind its successors. This monumental exercise in virtue signalling will be a mess for a future government to clean up.

        1. Looking at the current usual suspects there isn’t a ‘government in-waiting’ that is politically inclined to change this horror story, except to try and speed up its completion. Leaving the EU brought forward Farage & Co, now we need someone to challenge the orthodoxy of the Green Blob.

    4. This is why mr Paterson isn’t in government. He’s honest, intelligent, competent and informed.

      Dear life. Why must we tolerate the fools who do purport to govern us?

    5. Where did ” Net Zero” come from ?

      Clue…

      “We… leveraged, policy, legislation… through strong relationships with politicians…for three decades”.

  2. That’s the link to yesterday’s letters. I don’t think they’ve posted today’s yet.

  3. Good Morning Folks,

    Cold start, bit of frost on the lawn, or should I say on the moss,

  6. Slow local transport linked to struggling schools

    Could be true but may not be . There is always the possibility of adding up 1 & 1 and making it 3, Many of the area they are quoting are in areas that have been in decline for decades so that may be more the problem

    There is a striking overlap between places in England with slow public transport and places with struggling secondary schools, say researchers.

    Instead of only looking at education data, researchers compared schools using journey times from the Department for Transport.

    They found clusters of bad transport and underachieving schools in places such as Norfolk and north-east England.

    Even in richer areas, poor transport seemed linked to lower school results.

    In reports on academic underachievement the same coldspots repeatedly recur – such as the “left behind” towns in the north west and north east, declining seaside towns in the south, or along the Norfolk coast.

        1. I can.

          Her policy is the opposite of his, and we know who has admitted to “leveraging” officials.

    2. Newsnight has now learned that in 2017, Ms Patel was allegedly accused by officials in her private office at DfID of humiliating civil servants in front of others, of putting heavy pressure in emails and of creating a general sense that “everyone is hopeless”.

      Surely that is normal management if you want to get something done. I guess Civil servants are not used to working to deadlines that have to be met

      3. No it isn’t. To motivate a team you lift them, you don’t kick them.

        That creates an atmosphere where your team do the bare minimum to avoid pain rather than want to do well for success.

        However. That works for me mainly because my day is spent turning up late, reading a comic in the corner, walking the dog then going home early while occassionally making everyone else coffee. For this grand role I am called ‘the boss’. However, crucially, I chose my staff.

        Patel hasn’t. She’s faced with a department that does things it’s own way for it’s own goals and doesn’t really like outsiders. Thus she has to kick over the nest to make people come to heel and behave. Her staff are not ‘hers’ and, as we’re seeing from Rutnam, they are feather bedded, incompetent, lazy and grossly overmanned.

  8. Coronavirus

    I think that at present this is being turned into a scare story. . To put it into perspective 14,000 died of seasonal flu. To date in the UK we have had about 56 cases of corona virus and no deaths. Clearly it is still spreading at present but at quite a low rate

    The risk would be mainly to those in poor health particularly with those that have respiratory problems, those undergoing chemotherapy and those that have had transplants and very young babies

      1. It takes a period of time for the immune system of newborns to develop. That’s why one should never feed honey to a newborn baby.

          1. Why? The population is impossibly dense and we come in to contact with endless numbers of people (most of whom are morons) in shops, the high street (one bloke poured smoke all over me so I coughed over him. He didn’t seem to understand why he was wrong).

      2. At present but very young babies tend to have lower levels of immunity so could have a higher risk

    3. Something I’ve just posted on Going Postal:-

      Post last October’s heart attack has me seeing the GP every couple of months to check my medications.
      This morning’s appointment opened with the doctor referring to the Wuhan Flu panic as Project Fear and him being fairly relaxed about it.
      Apparently the warnings have put people off coming into the surgery unless they really have something wrong with them.

  9. Well done, Geoff.
    How did you find the DT letters?
    I thought they’d fallen to the fantavirus halfway up the A12.

      2. I had to use Geoff’s link.
        The DT have changed the format and my usual ploys haven’t worked.

          1. 🙂 One those ‘corporate’ thingies.
            Are we referring to the paper or its writers?

      3. I had to use Geoff’s link.
        The DT have changed the format and my usual ploys haven’t worked.

  10. Nigel Wilson of Legal and General has just finished an interview on BBC Radio 4.
    I haven’t heard a more upbeat message during our current circumstances for many days.
    The interviewer couldn’t get any messages of doom from him.
    The reason is because apart from COVID-19 people are not living as long as expected (58 in poor areas and 85 in affluent) and this frees the anticipated burden of pension provisions.

    As a result Legal and General, as a major pension provider, are thus projected to be in the big money.
    Things can only get better as far as Nigel is concerned {cancel doom mode!).

  11. Parliament: MPs to get an extra £20m for staffing costs

    Perhaps it is down to MP’s needing to get more family members on the books ?

    MPs are to be given a £20m increase in their staffing budgets to help deal with “challenging” casework, including constituents with mental health issues.

    The UK’s 650 MPs will each receive more than £25,000 extra towards their staffing costs, with cash specifically for training, welfare and security.

    It follows a review which suggested MPs’ staff were underpaid compared with equivalent workers in other sectors.

    Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said his own staff were “struggling to cope”.

    The £19.7m increase – equivalent to a 13% year-on-year rise in staffing budgets – was approved by a committee headed by the Speaker on Tuesday.

    2. “MPs are to be given a £20m increase in their staffing budgets to help deal with “challenging” casework, including constituents with mental health issues.”
      How about re-opening the county asylums? The money made from building over their beautiful grounds could be subject to an impost. We could call it Section 106.

    3. It’s all – and only – about power. Having failed democratically, they created an institution for their own wealth and power and it is called the EU.

    1. I wish they’d make their minds up.
      One moment the old buffers are living too long and using up valuable resources.
      The next, there are whinges that life expectancy has stalled (The Government must do something ….)
      It is extra delicious that the English are hanging in there. Maybe deep fried haggis isn’t such a good dietary choice.

      1. Followed by a deep fried mars bar. That only seems to have caught on in Scotland though. It id not seem to go South of the border

        1. I first visited Scotland in 1964.
          I can clearly remember trawling North Berwick High Street to find fresh fruit.
          Apples were sold separately, not by the pound.

          1. I remember the very early seventies , when we lived near Ayr , lots of nice potatoes , turnips and leeks , but not many greens or fruit.

    3. Yes she need her pay cut by about 50%. I fact much of the pay at the BBC needs to be cut by at least 50%

  16. AHA!!!!
    Done it.
    Go to DT front page and keep scrolling down below the editorial. That version of the letters page is for the 4th. March.

  17. Modern definition of a Comedian

    A person who manage to put in as many four letter words as possible in their so called act

      1. But only for Comedians. If a politician or anyone else tried it the BBC would be baying for blood

          3. I’m embarrassed to admit that I share the same nursing qualification as her.
            But at least I know I’m mad.

  18. Morning all

    SIR – We recently returned from Adeje in Tenerife. Although we were not staying in the infected hotel, we were only about a mile from the area.

    Some passengers were expecting to be tested when we arrived at Luton, While this may have proved understandably problematic, but it wouldn’t have been beyond the wit of man to provide leaflets with reminders and advice to guide us through the following days.

    Although we haven’t entirely self‑isolated, we have cancelled all “close contact” engagements until next week. I hope that we are doing the right thing.

    Jenny Cornes

    London N20

    SIR – Those who suggest that all elderly or retired people should protect themselves from coronavirus by self-isolating (report, March 3) fail to understand that the elderly oil the wheels of many parts of society.

    They are often the ones who collect children, or care for them after school, so that parents can work. Stately homes, art galleries and many National Trust properties rely on their help as guides. Churches, clubs such as Scouts and Girl Guides, toddler groups and friendship groups for lonely people all depend on volunteers, who are often older or retired individuals with skills from a lifetime of work and ample free time. The same is true of many other charities.

    Society is so interdependent that simply cutting out one group has a huge knock-on effect.

    Jonathan Longstaff

    Buxted, East Sussex

  19. SIR – I am 77 and have put myself in isolation. I think it is the only responsible thing to do. If the virus spreads like wildfire, then NHS resources should concentrate on the younger generations.

    I can order everything I need on the internet, read books, watch films, talk to friends on the phone and catch up with all the jobs in the house that which should have been done a long time ago. Am I depressed? Not at all. When we have better weather, I can spend time in my garden.

    Moira Carpenter

    Botley, Hampshire

    1. Daft. Only the elderly with respiratory aliments etc or who are very frail are at any real increased risk

        1. I feel like going to Italy for a day and coming back to have an excuse to cocoon for two weeks.

          1. If you find yourself in an inconveniently long queue, just cough.
            If you have a handy Chinese friend, take them along for authenticity.

          3. I’d rather queue and sneer at the contents of the other customers’ trolleys.

          4. I bet you look to see how other diners are holding their cutlery in restaurants. I do. 😉

      2. There are many people of ALL ages , children included, who suffer from respiratory ailments .

        The dank soaking miserable winter weather has left many people coughing their hearts out .. and that includes my senior dog!

    2. I know Sotonites are idiots but that’s just daft.

      Stuff resources going on the young. They should go on the useful.

  20. SIR – My experience of assisted dying could not be more different to the claims in Dr Michael Fitzpatrick’s column (Health & Features, March 2).

    I accompanied my husband, Geoffrey, to Dignitas a year ago last month, risking prosecution to honour his final wish to die swiftly and peacefully on his own terms, rather than at the mercy of cruel, relentless motor neurone disease. Dr Fitzpatrick warns that assisted dying deals with suffering by “eliminating the sufferer”, but he fails to recognise that people like my husband would have been “eliminated” anyway by a progressive terminal illness without a cure. Geoffrey’s only choice was how he was going to be eliminated, and he took great comfort in knowing he would not be forced to endure a protracted, traumatic death.

    Dr Fitzpatrick and others intent on resisting a change in the law would do well to listen to people like me who actually have first-hand experience of assisted dying.

    Ann Whaley

    Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

    1. Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip, ….

  21. Morning again

    SIR – Sir Philip Rutnam (report, March 3) was the chief executive of a large organisation and a Knight of the Realm who was paid nearly £200,000 a year. If he could not take criticism, he had been over-promoted. It was part of Priti Patel’s job as Home Secretary to be assertive in her dealings with him. If she wished to sack or move him, he should have gone at once. The idea of constructive dismissal at that level is nonsensical.

    Anthony Pick

    Newbury, Berkshire

    SIR – From 1995 to 1997 I chaired two government committees set up by Michael Howard, then home secretary: one to promote and develop the volunteer sector, the other to implement the agreed strategy.

    Some of the civil servants with whom I dealt seemed openly hostile to the home secretary and did all they could to frustrate his aims. The head of the unit with which we were working changed frequently. As we finally moved from the strategy development stage to implementation, we were suddenly relocated to an empty office with no access to crucial information and contacts. Thus we effectively had to start again, losing time and momentum in the process.

    Responsibility for volunteering was eventually transferred to the then Department of National Heritage. Its civil servants were far more constructive and helpful.

    Nicholas Ward

    Banbury, Oxfordshire

  22. SIR – Even in this enlightened age, if a man went into a Ladies loo (Letters, March 2) he would probably be arrested – but if a woman went into a Gents, no complaint would be made.

    Peter Amey

    Norwich

    SIR – The practice of ladies using the Gents is fairly common in everything from rugby internationals to opera. The most important thing is not to miss the start of the second half.

    Jenny Jones

    Shaftesbury, Dorset

    1. The man in a dress at our place used to demand he be allowed to use the ladies. As you can imagine, the real women complained and asked he not be allowed to.

      Their complaint was simple – he left wee all over the seat and bowl. Utterly disgusting.

        1. Junior said to the war queen ‘this is a man’s house and here we leave the seat up!’

          Even the dog hid under the bed.

    2. The first point is probably true. I expect it is because women dont pose a threat to males’ safety in the same way as some males do to women’s safety

  23. ITV issues statement after Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan offensively mimics Chinese language

  24. https://conservativewoman.co.uk/todays-cold-topic-why-isnt-the-bbc-telling-us-about-us-ice-storms/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=e0f442d770-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-e0f442d770-559682581

    “Today’s cold topic: Why isn’t the BBC telling us about US ice storms?

    March 4, 2020

    MOST news from America usually gets prime billing on the BBC, especially about the travails of Donald Trump.

    But over the past few days, it hasn’t been forthcoming about one big story from the US … the blizzards that have swept across parts of New York state, with icy blasts spectacularly turning houses into igloos.

    You can read some of the latest developments in the snowy saga here. Two days ago, it was reported here. And three days ago, here.

    But the story seems to have been frozen out by the BBC. Why? Could it be that dramatic accounts of bitter winter weather don’t fit the corporation’s climate change agenda, where man-made global warming is the must-believe mantra?

    Discuss!”

    2. Surprisng really, as the BBC deliberately stopped using ‘global warming’ when it became obvious that this was a pile of tripe. Thus it switched to ‘climate change’ as a catch all.

      But… snow in winter doesn’t suit the narrative.

  25. EU MUST follow UK’s lead on farming subsidies, say Euro agriculture experts

    THE EU should take note of Boris Johnson’s planned farming revolution and act accordingly, German economists have said, in a stunning indictment of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

    With Britain now no longer a member of the bloc, Mr Johnson is gearing for a sweeping reform of the sector which will aim to direct £3billion a year towards environmentally friendly projects aimed at helping farmers tackle climate change, reducing the amount paid out in subsidies. Speaking last month, Dieter Helm, an economist at the University of Oxford, described the plans as an “agricultural revolution” – and German colleagues agree. Stephan von Cramon from the University of Gottingen told Germany’s Frankfurter Zeitung newspaper: “The reform points in a direction that many agricultural economists would like to see EU

    Mr Cramon suggested Brussels should take a leaf out of Mr Johnson’s book by phasing out direct payments paid out in accordance with the CAP to provide assistance to farmers.

    He added: “A rough formula says that about 80 percent of payments go to 20 percent of farms

    1. The East Anglian wheat barons.
      Farmers have been subsidised since at least WWII, so all the hysteria about ‘leaving Europe’ was a load of codswallop.
      The payments are an insurance policy.

      1. The payments are to pay for private health insurance. private schools for the kids, top of the range German car for wife, huge 4×4 for farmer, and if there is any left over, a new combine every two years. Oh, and a month in the Bahamas every January.
        There is an EU website that lists the farms and payments made. No wonder farmers are crying. They will have to work harder for less, just like real people. Of course, the Government can now protect them by imposing appropriate tariffs on imports.
        The underlying truth is this we have been paying too little for our food and that needs to be adjusted. At the same time a real increase in wage levels is required. A low wage/low price economy is not good for anyone, is it?

  27. Good Morning, all. It’s me again. Have you all been nice whilst I’ve been away? I can’t stay long because I’ve still got lots to do. I’ll look in later. zxcv3

      1. No need. In these parts of Wiltshire the locals perform a ritual around the arse-end of a sheep and it gives one lifelong protection against tizervirus.

        1. When our sons were sprogs, the boys in their age group who were most frequently ill came from a spotlessly clean home. There was always at least one with something snuffly and whingy.
          Our boys were used to the company of animals, birds and reptiles and were robustly healthy.

  28. “Who will look after the elderly, the group most at risk? What will happen to care homes if many of their staff are off sick? Do we have the traditions of neighbourliness to step into the breach? Can the young, so unused to privation, and so accustomed to relative luxury, adapt to harsh conditions?”
    Don’t be silly. People must just die; there’s all that DBS malarky plus compulsory H&S ‘training’; the days of spontaneous voluntary help have gone the way of the dodo.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8071659/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Coronavirus-greatest-test-weve-generation.html

    1. The bureaucratisation of Society; Police, Social Security etc. actually destroys the empathic links between human beings!

        1. Has Disqus actually learned to live with English English?
          TB got away with the shortened version of Richard.

    2. I don’t see any evidence of that.

      However, the simple answer is no, you can’t come here. However given the appalling stories you hear about from those characters and the evidence we have of child abuse and rape you have ot ask why the state so eagerly wants them here.

  30. My mood sinks:

    ‘IS BORIS about to wimp out on the BBC licence fee?’ I asked at TCW on 11 February. In the mere three weeks since, the answer has hardened from ‘Hmmm, maybe’ to ‘Almost certainly’.

    At that time, the original proposal to decriminalise non-payment of the fee and possibly scrap the licence altogether was already downgraded to merely modifying the licence model (but not before 2027), and only a ‘consultation’ on decriminalisation. But it’s reasonable to wonder why the Government needs its own ‘consultation’ at all. The work is already done.

    Only four months ago, the Institute of Economic Affairs published its policy paper New Vision: Liberating the BBC from the licence fee. Its main recommendations for transforming the corporation into a subscriber-owned mutual are summarised here.

    Johnson promotes himself as a great fan of ‘oven-ready’ solutions. He could heat up and serve this one immediately, limited only by the time it would take to pass legislation terminating the current BBC Charter and allowing it a reasonable, but not excessive, period to transition to its new funding model.

    Popular dissatisfaction with the BBC and support for drastic reform of its funding haven’t subsided. On 23 February a ComRes poll found 50 per cent saying the BBC is poor value for money, and support for abolishing the licence fee at 61 per cent. Around 200,000 people cancelled their TV licence in the year to November 2019.

    Superficially then, it’s hard to see why, given such public support, Johnson seems intent on burying the issue. In football terms, he has the ball at his feet, an open goal gaping in front of him, and the crowd roaring him on. Has he –

    1. panicked at first contact with the enemy?; or

    2. gone native after institutional capture by a BBC-Whitehall pincer movement?; or

    3. never had any genuine intention of even decriminalising non-payment, never mind abolition, anyway?

    Or is something more profound, even darker and more cynical, at work?

    In The Fake News Factory: Tales from BBC-Land (which David Keighley reviewed here yesterday), about the corporation’s bias and its abuse of the power it derives from its uniquely privileged position and jealously-guarded protected funding, author David Sedgwick suggests a possible answer.

    It’s that Johnson’s pre- and post-election sabre-rattling about the BBC has much more to do with personal annoyance at its intrusion into his private life, most notably during the last campaign, than it has to do with any principles-driven political conviction that its current coercive funding model must be scrapped because it is illiberal and authoritarian.

    Brexit apart, suggests Sedgwick, as a metropolitan-‘progressive’ conservative, Johnson politically-speaking is largely in sync with the Left-‘liberal’, corporatist, state-interventionist, Green, socio-culturally woke, institutional groupthink of the BBC, on which, given its dominant market position, the political class has to rely heavily to get its message across. And that, with this worldview also predominant in the current Conservative Party, little can be expected of it in terms of taking on the BBC behemoth.

    Recent developments certainly seem to bear this out.

    In Johnson’s recent Cabinet and Government reshuffle, the post of Culture and Media Secretary, carrying responsibility for the BBC, went as predicted to ‘rising star’ Oliver Dowden, Remainer, Cameroon, ex-SpAd and party insider. With at least one careerist eye no doubt fixed on promotion, the prospect of his rocking the BBC boat looks remote.

    Appointed as a Minister of State alongside him at the DCMS was none other than former Culture and Media Secretary John Whittingdale, whose hedging, non-committal remarks about the BBC licence fee to Talk Radio‘s Mike Graham were described in my 11 February TCW article. Whittingdale was also Johnson’s now-fiancée Carrie Symonds’s boss when she was a DCMS SpAd. Cosy, isn’t it?

    To complete the hat-trick, elected as chairman of the Commons Select Committee to scrutinise the DCMS was Tory MP Julian Knight, whose first contribution to the licence fee debate was to suggest stiffer fines to replace imprisonment for non-payment. Given that convicted ‘licence-fee dodgers’ are disproportionately young, low-income females, who – unsurprisingly with the licence fee being a regressive tax – cite financial hardship as their reason, bigger fines would merely increase the number of young, poor women dragged into court. Which would of course blight their employment prospects. Abolishing the regressive tax instead, or at least decriminalising non-payment of it, had evidently not occurred to him.

    Meanwhile, the BBC has started mobilising its forces. Its main staff union, BECTU, has launched a pro-BBC, anti-reform petition

    ——————————————————————————
    Bectu
    @bectu
    Bectu is urging its members and the wider public to sign a petition to stop the government continuously attacking the BBC.

    ↘️ ⬇️ ↙️ https://bectu.org.uk/news/bectu-urges-members-and-the-public-to-sign-bbc-petition …

    Bectu urges members and the public to sign BBC petition
    Bectu is urging its members and the wider public to sign a petition to stop the government continuously…

    bectu.org.uk
    12
    13:00 – 23 Feb 2020

    ———————————————————————————

    Note how merely considering decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee is presented as ‘continuously attacking the BBC‘. If this isn’t with the BBC’s full support, if not even co-operation, I’d be astonished. There’s also a petition by the Left-wing campaign group 38 Degrees.

    Again, I doubt if the BBC finds it unwelcome.

    Its reliably on-message MPs among dripping-wet ‘one-nation’ Tories are distraught. The BBC is so much a broadcaster that people love, gushed one Huw Merriman – a political nonentity who has somehow become chair of the Commons All-Party Parliamentary Group on the BBC – overlooking consistent opinion polling reporting the exact opposite, and whose own article ended with a poll in which fully 90 per cent wanted the licence fee scrapped.

    Destroying the BBC would be ‘cultural vandalism’, hyperbolised loyal May confidant Damian Green, ignoring the fact that hardly anyone demands its ‘destruction’, merely the reform of its funding model to make it non-coercive.

    Even ministers are backtracking furiously, running scared. There are no ‘pre-ordained’ decisions, babbled Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. The next BBC boss will need to be a reformer, squawked former DCMS Secretary Nicky Morgan, curiously forgetting that it’s the Government promising to require reform.

    I suspect the strong probability is that, regardless of public opinion, a significant part of the Tory Parliamentary Party is already compromised. And that’s before MPs start coming under pressure from astroturfed letter-writing campaigns to their local papers and phone-ins to their BBC local radio stations.

    In the meantime, the BBC remains able to treat its captive funders with undisguised contempt. The courts have refused an appeal against the decision not to grant a judicial review of its impartiality vis-à-vis the requirements of its Charter. It backed its reporter who described the crowds celebrating in Parliament Square on Brexit Night as ‘too white’.

    Its Newsnight ‘expert on the deleterious effects of austerity’ was a far-Left activist. If its audiences hate its obsessively woke distortion of historical classics in the name of ‘diversity’, they can lump it.

    All these developments hardly suggest Johnson’s robust-sounding earlier pledges on the BBC’s iniquitous licence fee will be carried through swiftly and eagerly. Or at all. As early as 5 February, News-watch’s David Keighley warned at TCW that the licence fee ‘overhaul’ would be a damp squib. Only last Saturday, the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s Sam Packer, also at TCW, showed how the sock-puppet ‘consultation’ on decriminalisation will be manipulated to guarantee the result desired by the BBC and its supporters within the Whitehall Blob.

    So, to answer that question posed three weeks ago: Yes, almost now a racing certainty. Johnson will indeed wimp out.

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/johnsons-lost-appetite-for-a-battle-with-the-bbc/

    1. 316840+ up ticks,
      Morning LD,
      🎵 You think I don’t even mean
      a single word I say,
      It’s only words & words are all I have …
      To keep the truth at bay.
      First the rhetoric / pledge followed by
      more rhetoric, leading to the usual course being taken, good bet would be to bet your licence fee on him
      reneging .

      1. I don’t seem to have any upticks at all.

        I am deeply suspicious that anyone on this forum who still has any upticks must be a subversive Leftard who seeks the end of all civilised debate.

        1. ‘Morning, Richard, mine dwindled from 67,000+ down to 9,700 and by your (NoTTLer) efforts is now slowly rising again. I understand your miffedness, when you see upvotes in the region of 271,876.

          Maybe there’s a trollbot transferring votes from one to another?

        2. I confess!!!
          I still have upticks! I can’t help it. The upvotes are currently outnumbering the downvotes. What can I do? I did lose a lot of votes, 18,000 probably, but they’ve taken pity of me, and I’m in reprieve. Please forgive me.

        3. 316840+ up ticks,
          R,
          Did you have any to start with R ?
          When the manipulation of up ✔s started did you not note down
          the tally suspecting tampering ?
          Did you submit to manipulation willingly ?
          Are you deeply suspicious of ogga1 ?
          Only this submissive thread along with PCism & Appeasement is
          gaining strength within society daily.

    1. Oh Mr Bellamy. The government isn’t spending a vast amount of tax money on the green con. It’s just taking a vast amount of private wealth out of the economy to waste on it’s own demented agenda.

      1. David Bellamy Died: 11 Dec 2019 · County Durham, England.
        The four major things that threaten our planet are, extreemly wealthy people maniulating thought processes, mass migration to already well populated areas, further over population by birth and the vile disgusting ongoing process of corporate greed.

    2. He looks like one of those kindly old men who occur in fairy tales – the old wood cutter type character in the forest who helps the protagonist escape the machinations of the wicked whatever.

    3. He was a lovely guy, I loved his TV programmes, he was so enthusiastic. He saved parts of Tasmanian from being flooded and saved the thousand plus year old Huon pine trees that grow on river banks. The local authorities wanted to build a hydro dam and flood the area where trees still grow. He persuaded the local government to insulate peoples homes thus saving electricity.

    4. Climate change is nothing more than an excuse or cover for a greater ambition, i.e. destroy Western capitalism and introduce world socialism, transfer the wealth of the West to everyone else.
      Except for the billionaires, of course. They get to keep their money to bribe politicians to do what they want, or to buy their way into elections.

  32. Is anyone else being chucked to the bottom of the page on posting a comment?

    Disqus had fixed this, but it appears short lived.

    1. I hesitate to reply because it has been happening to me for several days now. It’s like a game of snakes and ladders – at least there is the red arrow to get back to the top quickly, but no efficient way of finding your way back to where you were somewhere in the middle.

    2. I have just tried it. I cannot use the para bar as it takes me out of my comment.

    3. I mentioned it here a few days ago – it’s the Chinese hacker, Jum Ping.
      There are loads of problems. It’s called ” modern technology”.

  33. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s security costs: Who will be paying? And who will be providing it? 3 March 2020.

    The question remains now: who is going to help protect Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and their son Archie? And who is going to help pay for it, as the couple works “to become financially independent”?

    Bomberg said, “From the off I think that it is important to look at what is and what is not possible or feasible in relation to commercial Close Protection for The Duke and Duchess. I cannot see how a commercial firm could provide them with armed Close Protection, there are far too many legal barriers.”

    This article I assume was written before George Clooney offered to pick up the tab for these pair of scroungers. Unusually it is filled with hard information and some of the estimates are eye popping! A must read!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/royalssociety/prince-harry-meghan-markle-security-costs-who-will-be-paying-a4376191.html

    1. Their great friends and supporters should be rushing to pay the bill for them.

      George and Amal Clooney should lead the way by committing themselves to paying for the Sussex’s security for a full least five years – or at least for as long as the marriage lasts. In this way George and Amal can show that they are real friends not just shallow slebs trying to jump onto a royal bandwagon hijacked by an insignificant actress they had probably never even heard of before she met Harry.

      1. The marriage will last until MeGain has sprogged a second time to cement the arrangement.
        An heir and a spare, so’s to speak.

        1. There’s probably already a heirline fracture in their relationship!

          The Duchess does not look even remotely maternal. There is absolutely no warmth whatsoever in her body language towards poor Archie who will probably spend as much time in therapy as his father has done.

          1. She does cart him around like a sack of potatoes. When there are cameras about.

      2. They should feel shame at sponging off others, even if they are ‘friends’.

        They should be paying their own way, since that’s what they’ve opted to do and if that means tailoring their lifestyes to suit their ability to pay for a required level of security for that lifestyke, then so be it.

    2. There’s still plenty of time for him to receive the nomination and then to fall seriously ill before the election and then “Who you gonna Call?’ Why Hillary of course!

      1. If Clinton can persuade him to take her as his running mate, he’ll survive at least until after the election.

      1. I think it’s a bit more than that. It’s not merely the odd misspoken word, it’s his whole rambling word salads. It’s his lies, where he’s claiming various accomplishments that he was never involved in. Maybe they’re not lies, in which case he’s even more confused than we thought.

      1. And to recall how the BBC used to mock Reagan (the wise one) for lack of brain power, particularly when he said “Mr Gorbachev, tear down that Wall”.

    1. Volunteering has become a night mare .. even if you are a school governor you have to renew your CRB every few years..

      The government are suggesting that older people volunteer to help out with routine duties like feeding sick people in hospital and just helping the staff.. CRB checks again, doesn’t matter if you were checked out years ago .

      Doing anything altruistic these days is fraught with difficulty thanks to the legacy of perverted chancers who have tainted the kindness of humans
      in the voluntary sector.

  36. Greener petrol at UK pumps to target emissions

    A more eco-friendly petrol could be introduced to garages in the UK from next year.

    The government is consulting on making E10 – which contains less carbon and more ethanol than fuels currently on sale – the new standard petrol grade.

    The move could cut CO2 emissions from transport by 750,000 tonnes per year, the Department for Transport said.

    However, the lower carbon fuel would not be compatible with some older vehicles.

    Current petrol grades in the UK – known as E5 – contain up to 5% bioethanol.

    E10 would see this percentage increased up to 10% – a proportion that would bring the UK in line with countries such as Belgium, Finland, France and Germany.

    2. She’s a dangerous menace.

      Throw her to the Muslim rapists. Let’s see her informed choice then. The nine year olds I’ve met can’t make an informed choice about what to have for tea.

      What the Fluck is an informed choice anyway? Did the Pakistani Muslims say we’re all going to have sex with you repeatedly, get you drunk and high and then do it again?

      Dear life. Utterly putrid. No, Missus, it was rape. Brutal, disgusting, violent rape. If you think this is ‘informed choice’ and that lets you sleep at night when you defend these monsters, you need a moral compass. What if it was your daughter? Bet it isn’t informed then. Was your consent granted? As a child can’t make that decision.

      1. I think you are attacking the wrong individual.

        I believe this woman was one of those who did their damnedest to expose what was happening.
        In the interview she has been answering questions about what happened and was talking about other people’s responses to it.

        Assuming you can stomach it, look at the whole, posted by Rik above, right from the beginning rather than this tiny snippet.

      3. She was the one trying to highlight it all. She’s just relaying the opinion of the police and authorities. It wasn’t her opinion.

        1. The clip certainly was ambiguous. It was cut short before we could tell for sure what she thought. I thought, like you, that she was just relaying what others had said.

  38. Australian Associated Press wire reports own closure as bosses blame rise of ‘free online content’

    The Australian Associated Press newswire has reported its own closure.

    Management at the agency said the wire, which has run for 85 years, is “no longer viable in the face of increasing free online content”.

    Some 180 editorial jobs will be lost as a result, with hundreds more to fall at its subsidiaries, the agency reported today.

    The AAP newswire, which sits at the heart of the company and is equivalent to PA in the UK, will transmit its last stories on 26 June.

  40. Coronavirus: Face mask ads banned for ‘misleading’ claims

    The NHS advice on face mask is pretty confusing

    Adverts by two companies which made false claims about using face masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus have been banned.

    The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled the claims by Easy Shopping 4 Home Ltd and Novads OU were in breach of its code.

    The adverts were “misleading, irresponsible and likely to cause fear without justifiable reason”, it said.

    Officials have urged more hand-washing to delay the spread of the virus.

    2. Advice on pensioners and other older people is equally confusing:

      (a) If you are older stay at home and avoid other people, especially those with Corona Virus symptoms.

      (b) If you are an older retired person who used to work as a doctor or a nurse, rush over to help look after those with Corona Virus symptoms.

        1. So you’re saying Annie, (© Cathy Newman), that there is an outbreak of Corona Virus amongst young choristers?

          :-))

  41. In the Grauniad: Priti Patel has been accused of NOT bullying a twentyseventh Civil Servant. This is considered a severe dereliction
    of duty and protesters have demanded that she shout at that person and insult the person immediately.
    Some of the Civil Servants who have accused her have made it plain that that they were velly velly fwightened of her and often had to run home in tears to their mummies.

    2. Put together one piece at a time, Like Johnny Cash’s ex-factory car, I suppose. Must have taken a while, but it will be really cosy, with a roof against sun and rain. Lucky falcon chicks.

          1. She’s right mate, I’ve driven them when we lived there in the 70s.
            My wife worked for Chrysler in Adelaide. No cars are made in Oz any more.
            Not even good old Holden-together ☺

  43. Just asking a silly question so bear with me.. If most of these virus victims have picked up the plague in Italy whilst having a skiiing holiday… won’t the snow be contaminated?

    3. I’m off there on Sunday for a week to see for myself. If you don’t hear from me again, assume the worst!

  44. ” Italy announces new measures

    Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is set to announce

    more measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Italy is the worst-hit

    European country with some 2,260 cases and 79 deaths so far, including more than 20 in

    the past 24 hours.

    Health officials believe there has been a slowdown in the

    number of new cases but are considering extending the quarantine red zone near

    the industrial city of Bergamo, north-east of Milan.

    The new measures being considered will apply for the whole

    country for 30 days. No handshakes, no hugs or kisses ”

    Italy has it really bad.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–L3uqoQUV4

    1. With hindsight, maybe if Mimi hadn’t kissed people or shaken their hands she might have lived to a ripe old age.
      (Bit tough on Puccini trying to write an opera.)

  45. Time to lighten up now and either be shocked or laugh , just read the article!

    BIRDS AND THE BEES Children’s book explaining how babies are made goes viral for its bizarre explanation of sexual positions.

    THE birds and the bees chat is no easy feat.

    But one mum was left explaining more than she’d hoped when her young son discovered a children’s book that explained how babies are made in the most bizarre way – and it was so graphic even she was left shocked.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/11088962/children-book-sex-positions/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=sunmaintwitter&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1583315148

    1. I may be an old frump, but I never thought these pathetic attempts at sex education were remotely good or remotely funny.
      Most of them were promoted by the purveyers of pornography.

      1. Hi Tony

        You are spot on there .. I believe that ALL sex education for children is a form of grooming ..

        Example is set by precept.

        Being old fashioned is right and proper .. the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees are all youngsters need to know .

        1. Sex education at too young an age definitely is.
          If they ask about it, tell them in an appropriate way, nothing too graphic, and preferably by their parents.
          It needs to be introduced around the age of ten more formally, before puberty starts to kick in, and the rest probably in early teens, along with all the relationship stuff.

          1. Telling them it’s best in a stable relationship (as long as the horse isn’t there) wouldn’t be a bad addition as well 🙂

      2. By the time we ‘did’ human reproduction for ‘O’ levels, we knew the mechanics from chit chat and observing our pets.

        1. I was brought up in a small village in the country – there wasn’t a lot we didn’t know about reproduction from watching the animals 🙂 It did make me laugh, though, as in biology we did the reproductive system of the rabbit at the end of term, were told to read the next chapter (human reproduction) during the holidays and when we started the new term we were on to the following chapter with nary a mention of human coupling 🙂

  48. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    In yet another instance of mask-dropping, The Times has an editorial on the whole thing which shows nicely why they are so determined to get rid of Ms Patel:

    “The reality is that

    as an arch Brexiteer and a key figure in the Leave campaign, Ms Patel is

    one of the prime minister’s strongest allies in his government’s

    central objective — delivering Brexit. Her promotion to a major office

    of state sent a strong signal about Mr Johnson’s commitment to gender

    and racial diversity before an election in which Labour was attempting

    to question the prime minister’s approach to both. Crucially Ms Patel

    also enjoys strong support among Conservative MPs. This was clearly

    demonstrated by the large numbers of backbenchers who defended her in

    parliament on Monday. Besides, no Tory wants to yield such a

    high-profile scalp to the civil service, particularly in a department

    that many consider to be a hotbed of obstructionism and incompetence.” (link, paywalled)

    Yes, dear RemainCentral – we knew this all along,

    and your gracious concession, that it’s ultimately up to the PM to keep

    her in her job or not, is truly astounding. As for Tory backbenchers

    supporting her – blimey, whatever next!

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-wednesday-4th-march-2020/

    1. The UK has told the EU that the Royal Navy will have the task of protecting UK fishing waters. [The Independent]

      1. Yep, Clyde (and Good morning – just) both rowing boats are on standby with the rowlocks greased.

      2. 316840+up ticks,
        Afternoon C,
        Not demeaning the Royal Navy
        they can only work with the tools they have but….
        That’s us sunk then,

    1. They don’t want change. They just want to bring their own attitudes to a western country and expect to be accepted without making an effort to integrate.

      1. They imagine they can take the wealth whilst destroying the culture that created it.

    2. Maybe uncomfortable for the “leaders” of Europe. But not for us plebs. More power to her elbow. Totally agree with everything she said.

      1. The point she made clearly is that nobody asked the indigenous population if they wanted to be invaded.

        (Please would somebody post that marvellous video soliloquy by the cockney fish merchant who feels his community has been swamped and changed completely without anyone bothering to ask if that was what cockneys actually wanted.)

    2. I wonder how much this weather is as a direct result of the Australian bush fires and micro-particles circling the globe?

      1. I think it’s more to do with the shift southward of the circum-polar vortex possibly due to the current developing Solar minimum.(?) This would result in more rain bearing low pressure systems travelling across the UK and Northern Europe.

          1. They do – however, something at the back of my mind seems to recall that it takes several months for particles to travel from one hemisphere to another. From my reading of precipitation records for my locality, In October we had over 200%, average rainfall for the month, November 250% and December 295% – so particles from the Australian bush fires probably weren’t involved then. However, there were quite a few bush fires in California…
            Final point if China continues to shut down industrial production then looking at Satellite photos of atmospheric pollution over China perhaps there may be a change in the rainfall across the Northern Hemisphere in the coming months?

          2. The question was posed out of curiosity; either way I think the main driver, apart from freak events, is and always has been the sun.

      2. “ANNUAL WEATHER SUMMARY
        NOVEMBER 2019 TO OCTOBER 2020
        Winter will be warmer and rainier than normal, with below-normal snowfall. The coldest periods will be in mid- to late November, early to mid-December, and early and late February. The best chance for snow will be in late February in the north. April and May will be warmer than normal, with rainfall below normal in the north and above normal in the south.”
        https://www.almanac.com/weather/longrange/VA/Norfolk

        This was the prediction for Norfolk, Virginia, but could just as easily described Norfolk, England. Our winter definitely has been warmer and wetter than normal. I don’t think the Old Farmers Almanac necessarily factored in the Australian bushfires, and also not sure how rapidly the atmosphere of the two hemispheres mix.

  53. Amazon’s Ring logs every doorbell press and app action

    keeps records of every motion detected by its Ring doorbells, as well as the exact time they are logged down to the millisecond.

    It also disclosed that every interaction with Ring’s app is also stored, including the model of phone or tablet and mobile network used.

    One expert said it gave Amazon the potential for even broader insight into its customers’ lives.

    “What’s most interesting is not just the data itself, but all the patterns and insights that can be learned from it,” commented independent privacy expert Frederike Kaltheuner.

    “Knowing when someone rings your door, how often, and for how long, can indicate when someone is at home.

    1. If I remember correctly it wasn’t on air during Wonder Boy Blair’s years in office. I wonder why?

    2. Will it have the same bite?
      Somehow, in this snowflake age, I somewhat doubt it.
      Though, no doubt, Bozza and Priti will be given a thorough going over.

    1. From little acorns great oaks do grow.
      Good man. He will go a long way.
      Belgium is lucky to have a man like that.
      Allahu Akbar !!

    2. 316840+up ticks,
      Afternoon A,
      There are a great many here who after being beaten on the 24/6/2016, out of pure spite, would condone following the islamic ideology.
      The lab. party is maturing nicely as the host most likely to be peverted.
      Once our “guests” have a brigehead formed within the current lab/lib/con
      coalition get your kids prayer mats & qurans for eid.

  56. I would have posted this as a reply to earlier posts about sex ed books for children, etc, but thought it worth posing it here instead, so no one misses it.
    It’s a ten minute video by EX ARMY PAZ 49, ex military and 11 years as a prison guard. He talks about the arrest of Tommy at the weekend, but more specifically about the protection of paedophiles that seems to be going on.
    Take note of the photograph that he shows at 1:30 in, of Harriet Harman.
    She denied knowing that the PIE had affiliated with her organisation. Patrick Hewitt apologised, but Harman never did. The photograph tells us why.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-mx8OnikQzE

  57. PM announces sick pay proposals for coronavirus victims

    Corbyn is still on his austerity hobby horse claiming there were cuts to the NHS.. The NHS budget was never cut nd went up in line with inflation . Since then as well a considerable amount of extra funding has gone to the NHS

    Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn begins by congratulating Boris Johnson on the news that he and his partner are expecting a baby.

    Turning to the coronavirus, he says Labour “broadly” supports the government strategy.

    However he says “a decade of Tory austerity means our NHS is already struggling to cope”.

    What additional funding will the health service get? he asks

    Boris Johnson replies that the government has put “record funding into the NHS” and will give the service everything it needs to cope with the crisis.

    And he announces that the health secretary will “bring forward measures to allow the payment of statutory sick pay from the very first day you are sick instead of four days under the current rules”.

    1. However Corbyn does not say “a decade of Labour and Tory Governments opening our Borders to useless parasites to whom we we supply free NHS services means our NHS is already struggling to cope”

      1. Corbyn is very keen that we should provide free access to the NHS for anyone that turns up in the UK

  58. Corbyn asks about police pressures

    Do keep up Corbyn that was covered the other day. If the police become overreached calls will be prioritized and if need be the military can be called in to backup the police

    Jeremy Corbyn ask whether police forces will become “so overstretched” that reponse times to 999 calls be increased and some murder investigations will be delayed.

    Boris Johnson says in reply that the country is “not at that stage yet”.

    He adds there are “longstanding arrangements” in place to help the police cope at times of high demand.

    1. Hopefully the Military will lock up Corbyn and teach him how to keep his bloody trap shut.

      1. It was made clear that if the police got overstretched minor offence might not be responded to. It is highly unlikely that murder investigations would be dropped long before it got to that stage the army would be bought in to back up the police

    2. I had occasion to call 999 once. A young lady with a Birmingham accent told me to go to the nearest police station.

        1. Good job he did not identify the burglar as black as they would have been straight round to arrest him

        2. If you are able to tackle the miscreant, grab a piece of his/her DNA.
          The Police advice does not specify the size of the sample, so it could be a scalp, or even a piece of liver.

      2. For management reasons, they have closed the front desk. The only way in is to do homophobic monkey chanting within earshot of a snowflake, with flies open, gentleman sausage hanging out and a big notice stating “I am not a woman”.

  59. SIR – Avoiding kissing and handshakes is wise. But why employ the “Wuhan shake” (report, March 3)?

    Servicemen of every generation are familiar with exchanging compliments – greeting, and acknowledging that greeting – by saluting. This requires no skin contact, but preserves cordiality and confirms respect.

    Major John Urquhart (retd)
    Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

    Yes, but you have to be wearing a hat when you salute. If you want to get ahead, get a hat.

        1. Yes, just like that, but not so casual. The whole hand has to be flat with all the fingers straight. I’m sure that there may be some old newsreels showing how to do it.

          1. Hand flat, palm facing the person you were saluting, then long way up, short way down.

      2. 316840+ up ticks,
        Afternoon P,
        The sad truth is to many within these Isles today would think so.

    2. 316840+ Up ticks,
      Afternoon A,
      Good common sense shown by the major, and who from the summisive,pcism,appeasement,
      brigade could complain.
      Also the odious political fraternity would see it as a form of touching the forelock when addressing them.

    3. ” Infectious mononucleosis (mono)(the Kissing disease) is a condition usually caused by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)”
      A fortuititous name.

      1. On reading your comment my thought pattern travels from Epstein to H Weinstein, then to B Madoff, and finally, via Wikipedia, to Eliezer Wiesel.

        Re the virus, Sir Michael Epstein is still alive, aged 98. Yvonne Barr passed away 4 years ago, and the third researcher was the late Bert Achong, a Trinidadian of Chinese descent.

  60. Touching messages appear at graves of novichok poison victims ‘from loved one in hiding’. Daily Mirror. 4 March 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c40064d7cf5cf0dc4835dbcdf8247928cef611d5b25f47eede6f5229c04c7f66.jpg

    The former spy, who survived the novichok poison assassination attempt in 2018, has arranged for tributes to be left at the grave of wife Liudmila and son Alexander in Salisbury.

    Morning everyone. Paradoxically in a world that is going down the toilet there is almost nothing to report so I’ve picked up on this piece of whimsy. Reading through it I’m left with the impression that the whole thing is a Daily Mirror spoof. The photographer is on the staff and has actually travelled there on spec (how likely is that?) to take the picture. I assume he bought the wreath and pot plant on his way though one has to wonder would a decent tribute have exceeded the expenses allowance? After all she was much loved by Sergei! There is also the “message” which is not shown and it’s rather bizarre wording for a lost loved one. No one else has written it up but I suppose the Mail will copy it shortly and put it online!

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sergei-skripal-leaves-touching-graveside-21626631

      1. Very good point.
        It’s like those hand written notices – in English – held up in refugee camps or ISIS controlled areas.

      2. Talking of which; I hope Google translate is krekt.

        “в любовной памяти”

    3. Greetings Minty, this is all getting too confusing for me. Sergei and Yulia Skripal were (allegedly) poisoned with Novichok, in 2018. But Ludmila’s tombstone says she died in 2012. Apparently the she too was targeted by Russian agents, as was Ludmila’s and Sergei’s son, Alexander?

      The wife and son of stricken Russian double agent Sergei Skripal were murdered, a senior Conservative MP has alleged.

      Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said all the evidence pointed to the nerve-agent attack on the former spy having been ordered by the Kremlin.

      And he added: “It looks likely that his wife was murdered a year or so ago. His son was also murdered in 2017.”

      8 March 2018 — Russian spy: Poisoned Sergei Skripal’s wife and son were murdered, alleges Conservative MP
      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/russian-spy-poison-sergei-skripal-wife-murder-son-mp-tom-tugendhat-nerve-agent-kremlin-a8246381.html

      1. They were overegging the pudding! Tugendhat is a Security Services Shill!

    4. If my family put something that naff on my grave, I’d come back and haunt them.
      But then we are talking about the country of oppressive wallpaper.

      1. It did occur to me Anne after I posted the comment that he probably pinched them from other graves and still put in a chit for them! Lol!

  61. We left fearing for our lives’: doctors set upon by mob in Lesbos

    Whilst know one condones violence these doctors were only gong to inflame the situation. I would suggest they cross over the border into Turkey

    Clearly many of the NGO’s are in my view facilitating illegal migration

    2. It’s a mindlessness. An unthinking ‘we are good, therefore we are doing good’.

  62. I see Boris outfoxed the media with his Corona Virus Press briefing. He had a medical officer and scientific officer there to answer the medias silly questions

    1. I can forgive typos and such but not missing possessive apostrophes.

      They make me twitch.

  63. Launched 5 days ago

    “A new pro-Freedom movement, called ‘Hearts of Oak’ has been launched today in London.

    The movement, launched by a group of prominent free speech activists

    including Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin (A.K.A. Sargon of Akkad), has

    announced that it will speak out on major issues which the mainstream

    media and politicians have tried to keep quiet.

    Along with Robinson & Benjamin, a number of former UKIP

    figures were in attendance – including Alan Craig (former UKIP

    spokesman) and Peter McIlvenna (former UKIP campaign coordinator), who

    together organised today’s event and will be running Hearts of Oak.”

    https://kippercentral.com/2020/02/28/breaking-new-freedom-movement-hearts-of-oak-launched-in-london-by-tommy-robinson-carl-benjamin/

    Now colour me cynical,since then Tommy has been fitted up again and Carl Benamin has been completely de-monatised on You Tube,purely a coincidence of course…………………..

    Watch this and be very afraid (you’re in for a shock)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X15AdpnFlG4

    1. 316840+ up ticks,
      Afternoon RR,
      As I pointed out yesterday that the establishment tailors had been very busy getting a new suit e ready for Tommy at Belmarsh.

        1. True, but it’s a fact that going to war keeps troops at a high level of experience, skills and competence – all qualities that we may be in desperate need of one day.

  65. Boris Johnson vs. Britain’s Deep State. Tom McTague – The Atlantic – 04 March 2020.

    It was almost a law of business, Buffett wrote, that institutions will resist change, waste time, produce evidence to support the whims of whoever is in charge, and mindlessly imitate the behavior of rival companies. The lesson he took from his insight was to organize his company in ways that minimized the dangers of systemic failure and to invest in other companies that also seemed to understand this risk.

    Buffett’s law has entered the annals of business theory, and been held up by an array of leaders—among them Dominic Cummings, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s most influential adviser..

    This is an insightful and informed analysis of the philosophical background to the Priti Patel v Civil Service dispute! Worth a read!

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/boris-johnson-britain-dominic-cummings/607363/?utm_source=msn

  66. Alison Pearson in the Telegraph:

    “What a peculiarly unimpressive figure this senior civil servant cut as he
    laid into the woman it clearly pained him to call boss. “I have
    encouraged her to change her behaviours,” he said. The use of the plural
    there, with its exquisite, archdeaconly condescension, was hugely
    revealing, and not in a way Sir Philip intended. As the broadcaster and
    psychotherapist Philip Hodson pointed out after watching the statement
    three times: “Rutnam regards himself as Patel’s superior, not servant.
    He has high self-regard.”..
    One Deep State egomaniac down,several thousand to go……………..

    1. He was apparently educated at Dulwich College. Priti’s parents were (successful) newsagents. Go figure.

      2. Can’t see the point of comparing him with her parents. What am I missing?

        1. Probably the implication that he’s been given a very privileged upbringing as they could afford the fees.

        2. sorry for delay, too many disqus replies end up in spam folder. I was trying to compare and contrast Priti’s background with that of Sir Rutnam; problem is, I know nothing of Rutnam’s origins, apart from his Dulwich education.

    2. It’s not for him to get her to change anything; his job is to implement what the elected Minister decrees.

  67. Reading this article in the Sun today I saw a reference to an app called DoctorLink which is purported to be an advanced symptom checker accredited by the NHS that has furthermore been updated to deal with the COVID-19 emergency.

    To me this kind of tool seemed to be an excellent way of taking the strain off NHS resources particularly as mobile phones have precision location and timing data stored in them thus allowing rapid movement diagnostics when positive symptom matches call for isolation and contact tracking.

    I looked up DoctorLink on Android Play Store and found that it has one of the lowest ratings of any app that I have ever seen.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11094350/coronavirus-italy-ban-kissing-27-die-one-day/?utm_medium=browser_notifications&utm_source=pushly

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2cf253ee0064d1285e06f9e4be1016bfe039dec14a162316541bcf628c8ec3a3.jpg

  71. Was this the guy who really revolutionised an important part of my life?:

    Larry Tesler, who has died in California aged 74, was among the chief architects of the way we now use computers.

    Those in the industry knew him as the creator of design features such as cut-and-paste. Yet his true impact was in helping turn computers from business machines aimed at skilled technicians into appliances easily operated by anyone. He was credited with coining the phrase “user-friendly”.

    In 1973, following work at Stanford’s artificial intelligence laboratory, Tesler took a job at the Palo Alto Research Center (Parc) of Xerox, the copier company.

    While waiting to start, he wrote a program for printing documents more accurately. This included commands to the computer that were apparent on the screen but not on the printed page. This was perhaps the first instance of formatting and of what is now known as mark-up language.

    Tesler worked on Gypsy, a program for creating text documents on Xerox’s pioneering but hefty word-processors. Although these were the first to use on-screen graphics for functions instead of typed commands, the obligation to switch between modes for different operations such as editing and inputting was off-putting, especially to novices.

    Tesler was so keen to get rid of this that he had a T-shirt and licence plate (and eventually a Twitter account) bearing the words “NO MODES”. His solution was to make all modes always available, so that text could be inserted by simply clicking with a mouse at the chosen point on the screen.

    Next, he took a secretary, Sylvia Adams, seated her in front of a screen and asked her what she would like to be able to do with a document. From this came such innovations as selecting text by dragging a cursor and cutting-and-pasting. Another term which Tesler created was “WYSIWYG”: what you see (on the screen) is what you get (on the page).

    He later worked on Xerox’s project for a portable computer, developing for it a system to search software that he called a browser. While taking the computer to show to executives, he and Mott became the first people to switch one on at an airport – San Francisco – and in-flight.

    But Xerox’s attention was focused on the threat from Asian manufacturers of cheap copiers and the idea foundered. Somebody else, however, was interested: Steve Jobs.

    In 1979, in return for Xerox having an option to buy shares in Apple, its staff were shown around Parc. Jobs was astonished not only that its engineers had created features such as WYSIWYG and cut-and-paste but also that Xerox had not appreciated their potential.

    The following year, Tesler made a speech at an industry conference revealing Xerox’s innovations. With no trade secrets to protect, he was subsequently able to join Apple, which he realised was about to revolutionise personal computing.

    He worked on the Apple Lisa, which incorporated much of Parc’s development of windows, icons and, at Tesler’s suggestion, a mouse with a single button. Although it was a relative failure, Lisa led to Apple’s first success, the Macintosh.

    In the 1990s, Tesler ran the firm’s bid to create a hand-held computer, Newton. Its poor sales were blamed on mistakes he had made, and he left Apple. Even so, Newton spurred two other key innovations – the ARM microprocessors which became the industry standard, and the technology behind wi-fi.

    The second of three children, Lawrence Gordon Tesler was born in New York on April 24 1945. His father was an anaesthetist. ….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2020/03/03/larry-tesler-computer-pioneer-invented-cut-paste-function/

    1. Xerox PARC was indeed the birthplace of much of what we take for granted in computers today. I always thought Xerox management had no clue and basically gave their inventions away – after all, it was not a better copier, was it?

      When HP and others did their various versions of UNIX back in the 1980’s time frame, the X window architecture that was generally adopted (except Sun, who had their own), was also based on PARC’s work.

      1. According to at least one history of Apple, the late Steve Jobs was gobsmacked by his group tour of PARC. The greatest irony is that Xerox could have made a fortune via a share option in Apple, but they didn’t even take it up.
        (as I am sure you know).

      1. WIMPS = Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. One theoretical explanation of Dark Matter. The gravity of the this matter is palpable.😎

  72. Yesterday’s news, I know, but laugh along at James. Don’t be angry with him. Simple ridicule is enough.

    Can Remainers really be so superior when they lose their minds over a patriotic breakfast?

    JOSH KAPLAN

    If you ever needed evidence that Brexit has broken the brains of Remainers, there is no greater proof than James O’Brien’s Twitter. Once the realm of fairly insipid centrist takes, it’s now a wasteland where the smallest trigger is reacted to with the deft touch of a nuclear bomb.

    Yesterday, I wrote a tweet for the Telegraph’s account about a fairly minor story in the EU negotiations – David Frost’s breakfast. As any good social media person knows, you cater to your audience, so I added a very tongue-in-cheek description, calling it a ‘delicious patriotic’ breakfast.

    https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1234544055389999107
    Most on the Brexit side of the debate responded either with mild amusement or complete ambivalence.

    https://twitter.com/remkorteweg/status/1234749480441982976
    Fast forward a few hours, and I see that not only has James O’Brien interrupted his evening to furiously google the origins of sausages, beans and bacon, but that seemingly everyone with #FBPE in their bios is having a collective meltdown.

    Without getting into the semantics too much, it’s pretty clear that most people associate a Full English Breakfast with at least some semblance of British identity.

    https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1234603452187205633
    But to James and the rest of the broken-brained Remainers, it’s another war that must be fought in the name of Europe. Never mind that the argument is over and the battle lost, James simply must point out that sausages are actually Sumerian and China was curing pork 10,000 years ago.

    His wit and his massive throbbing intelligence, you see, are the only things that will ever swing the argument back to Remain, so he simply must use his massive brain to highlight the stupidity and small-mindedness of anyone that doesn’t still want to sit on his island and pretend the war is still going on.

    Like so many that have lost the plot over the last few years, these commenters are unable to see something for what it truly is: a joke. Everything has to be an insult to their identity, a thumbtack in their ideological bubbles of smug self-satisfaction. You can’t make any sort of joke without someone thoroughly joyless pointing out that ‘actually it’s incredibly problematic to suggest death by chocolate is funny when it’s really making fun of both the incredibly toxic working practices of cacao farmers and those that live with diabetes.’

    No matter what you actually think about Brexit, or anything in politics really, you should still be able to take a joke. Most Remainers still insist that anyone that voted Brexit has a tiny, angry mind, swayed by meaningless trinkets like a blue passport. But how easily can they make that case when their Twitter army decides to lose its collective head about something as asinine as a breakfast joke?

    Josh Kaplan is social media editor at the Telegraph

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/03/can-remainers-really-superior-lose-minds-patriotic-breakfast/

  73. Idiotic overreaction to Covid-19 virus?

    SIR — Major sporting and music events face cancellation to stop spread (Report, March 4).
    Yet the London rush-hour will continue, unabated, twice a day every Monday to Friday.

    A Grizzly B

    I personally think that the planet has had a bellyful of one increasingly idiotic species — Homo sapiens sapiens — trashing the only environment in the known universe capable of sustaining life. This virus is its fight back. Hopefully it will reduce the numbers of an exponentially more cretinous species to a far more manageable population; something akin to mediæval times.

    Who knows? The balance of life on the planet may be once again restored and a viable biodiverse ecosystem will again result.

    One can only hope.

    1. It’s not about doing something – it’s all about appearing to be doing something.

    2. If folk are that desperate Cling film is a lot cheaper ( and has been known to be used as a Condom substitute…)

  76. I have to emphasise that i’m not a supporter of seemingly extreme groups but this needs to get out in the public media arena.

    What are they hiding?

    https://www.britainfirst.org/demand-release-grooming-gang-review?e=379aaeb47a233ddd137ce469bb04f02e&utm_source=britainfirst&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=grooming_gangs_1&n=2
    http://www.britainfirst.org
    The Government have refused to release the review into the grooming gang epidemic that has swept Britain over the past few decades, claiming that to do so ‘would not be in the public interest’.
    This is despite previous statements to the effect that the Government wouldn’t ‘let cultural or political sensitivities get in the way of understanding the problem and doing something about it’.

    All too often the claim is made ‘not in the public interest’ when what is meant is ‘not in the Muslim public interest’ and once again political correctness threatens to deny justice to the thousands of victims of these grooming gangs.
    We demand that the Government review into the grooming gang epidemic is released so that we may have an open and transparent picture of the true situation in order to do something effective about it, before another generation of our young and vulnerable children fall prey to these evil predators.

    Take part in our campaign and your message will be sent immediately and automatically to the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson:
    https://www.britainfirst.org/demand-release-grooming-gang-review
    Yours sincerely,
    Timothy Burton
    Campaigns Officer

    1. ‘Morning RE

      I couldn’t agree more this tweet

      https://twitter.com/UKUSpage/status/1234935358984466432

      Led me to the full video

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc4hvyDYnYg
      I had not seen this before,I have read both the Jay Report and Easy Meat
      If all these vile revelations are already in the public domain I shudder to think what horrors lurk in the new report
      It looms over our society like a gangrenous boil that must be lanced and cleansed by the air of public scrutiny and the disinfectant of action against the guilty…………….

      1. The whole process is a complete denial of the effects of the phisical and mental trauma suffered by all these poor children who are these people behind all this garbage. Stolen files ???
        It’s time this government ‘manned up’ and got on with putting this right. I suspect that the country as in the UK in general, has been threatened with mass rioting if the real evidence were to be aired and all connected prosecutions were made.
        And we have snowflakes who say they are suffering from mental health issues because their finger nails are chipped or a tattoo went wobbly.
        What an absolutely disgusting state of affairs. The main problem being unfettered immigration. And the labour government not only opening the doors in 1997 but their subsequent cover ups.
        Eleven Minutes in and i’ve heard enough……….

        1. How much of the furore over Priti Patel is due to her wanting the report her Civil Servants are sitting on to be made public?

    2. It is rumoured that Philip Ratbum refused to let Priti Patel see the dossiers.
      Hence the bust up.

      1. Really, he should be locked up until he mends his ways.
        But unfortunately our useless one sided media will only get stuck into the minister.

    3. I wonder how many young girls were murdered? (None of those with a duty of care, social services, care home personnel, or police took any account of the victims. Not where they were, where they went to, or whether they ever came back.)

      1. Someone deeply involved in this has been allowed to completely get out of hand.
        If the files and evidence has been removed, it leads to a conspiracy against justice.
        The only person who appears to be suffering is Tommy Robinson.
        It took 17 years for the perpetrators to be jailed. Only weeks when TR was locked up for trying to bring it to public attention.
        It’s a clear and obvious attempt to destroy our legal system and its previous culture.

    4. Why are not Muslims themselves outraged by this? Why is there not an organised group of Muslim women showing solidarity with rape victims of
      all races and creeds?

      The best way to eliminate ‘islamophobia’ is surely not by denying or concealing Muslim rape atrocities but for Muslims themselves to come forward and denounce the vile actions of these evil rapists.

      That Muslims do not do so is probably one of the causes why people are more and more likely to become ‘islamophobic’.

      2. You know why they don’t do as you suggest. We all know why. It’s just the PTB that pretend otherwise.

      4. Richard the word muslim never comes to the fore in any media reports on this subject.
        I’m quite sure that the ‘community of peace’ have threatened our series of useless gutless governments with all out and seriously destructive riots if they are not allowed to bury these disgusting incidents. Human life seems to be irrelevant to them, even their own. Everwhere they are on the planet there’s increasing and ongoing trouble.
        IMHO we have been invaded and the afore mentioned gutless governments have allowed it all to take place. And financed it using our own tax payers money.
        There is no way anyone can educate these people. And I have never heard one single word of appreciation or thanks or an apology for the troubles.
        I can’t think of such a comparable period of deliberate ongoing government deceit, in the history of mankind.

      5. Why would they? Non-muslims are lower than cattle and their women are only fit to be enslaved.

    1. They’ll need to order an extra batch of boxes so they can finish their ticking.

    2. Beelzebub

      {In theological sources, predominantly Christian, Beelzebub is sometimes another name for the devil, similar to Satan. He is known in demonology as one of the seven princes of Hell. The Dictionnaire Infernal describes Beelzebub as a being capable of flying, known as the “Lord of the Flyers”, or the “Lord of the Flies”.}

      2. In Paradise Lost, Beelzebub is Satan’s second in command and his title is Lord of the Flies.

    3. I think George Soros has only been “leveraging” British policy for “three decades”.

    6. The Ugandan bishops refused to attend Lambeth 2020 so Welby has been in Kampala practising cheque book diplomacy. Accept our sexual immorality and we’ll give you lots of lovely dosh. I don’t think there’s any verdict yet as to whether the offer was accepted.

      1. Hi Sue,

        They will do what they always do. Take the money while nodding and smiling. It won’t change anything.

  78. We went shopping this morning and the store was more busy than usual but no sign of panic buying. Purchased all on our long list.

    1. The soap (hand soap) shelves of all descriptions were virtually bare in Waitrose, Cambridge today, as were the shelves of medications of anything containing paracetamol and anything for alleviating winter cold virus symptoms.
      I noted most people did seem to have a large pack of toilet rolls in their trolley!

      1. SOAP. We have about 18 months supply of soap and we always do, as the longer you keep your soap the more it drys out and the longer it lasts, well thats what granny said. Its propper bar soap non of this liquid rubbish.

  79. The Independent reporting that there are now 85 cases of Corona virus in the UK. Things are warming up.

    1. The global economy.. people waste too much money on useless holidays overseas.. Just a few photographs to say been there seen it done it.. and look at the repercussions!

      1. Afternoon T-B I only make trips to where my Son is in North America. He is in Texas now. Otherwise the trips are to my brother in Scotland. I would never contemplate a cruise. I used to enjoy Gite holidays in France but these are just a pleasant memory now. I have been to Holland, Kuwait, Texas and Alberta to visit my elder son when he worked in these places and enjoyed the experience. Now I prefer North Yorkshire, it has got all I want from life.

      2. I have been a frequent visitor to Malta for over a decade. I have many friends there now. Where ever i go i am always greeted warmly. I enjoy the restaurants and Bars and the company.

        This is my apartment in May. It will guarantee lifelong memories which keeps me warm and happy in our dreary Winters.

        https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/VacationRentalReview-g190327-d6477913-SEAFRONT_APT_IN_FORT_CAMBRIDGE_WITH_POOL-Sliema_Island_of_Malta.html

        If i took notice of every scare story i would never come out from under the stairs.

        Oh, and sod the carbon footprint too…

        1. I wasn’t having a pop at anyone really.. I have been seen and done , and do not care for the endless queues and yob behaviour anymore, travelling was slightly different a few years ago .

          I am just amazed that everyone clears off like lemmings .. sometimes by supporting crap regimes by spending money .. I am really puzzled why poor old Italy has become such a victim .. something very odd there.

          Mind you , London is awash with Chinese tourists and Sadiq Khan says that London is open to everyone..

          Our airports should be more vigilant .. and what about the Tunnel , we are an Island .. there should have been a sharper more savage response to the possibility of this virus spreading .. It now appears that panic measures have taken over!

          1. Hi Belle,

            I know you weren’t. It’s not in your nature.

            Some people who work very hard need a change of scenery once in a while to recharge the batteries.

          2. If people who have an IQ of minus ten go to the usual places in Spain or wherever for two weeks of sun booze and sin, and return just as ignorant as when they left, and some maybe a little bit pregnant, well, no harm in that, but they should pay not an airline tax but a culture tax, the proceeds to be given to our national museums and art galleries.

          4. I never had any of the stuff, so wouldn’t really have watched.
            I do remember when I was very young, businessmen in the family used to make jokes about taking cash out in their shoes. (These days it’s explosives of course).

          5. It was normal I think from WWII up until the point all restrictions were lifted – late’70’s maybe? And plenty of countries had limits on how much cash you could bring in – and low limits at that.

          6. Several European countries do that already. It is charged to the person renting out the property or Hotel.

            I always make a point of visiting galleries, museums, churches and especially cathedrals. I’ve managed to get my IQ into double figures.

    2. The American centre for disease control estimates that so far this season there have been at least 22 million flu illnesses, 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from flu. Flu vaccine effectiveness estimates will be available later this month, but vaccination is always the best way to prevent flu and its potentially serious complications.

  81. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/03/oxford-college-investigates-feminist-lecturer-barred-womens/

    Oxford college investigates after lecturer is ‘no platformed’ at women’s history summit
    Prof Selina Todd helped organise the event, only to find herself uninvited

    There should be some mechanism whereby any university which opposes free speech – or allows opposition to it to take place – is punished financially by having all government funding removed. Left wing ‘fascist’ students must learn that there are financial implications of their tyrannical determination to suppress other people’s points of view.

    But are there any politicians in our wretchedly self-serving political parties who give a Tinker’s Cuss about free speech.? No – they all fear and mistrust it and cowardlily refuse to do anything about it..

    1. Morning Richard
      You beat me to it commenting on this issue,of course I agree with your thoughts that free speech must be for all but I can’t help a frisson of schadenfreude as the strident feminists who were perfectly happy to deplatform mere men now suffer the same fate themselves at the hand of the Trans lobby.
      It’s a TERF war………….. who will win in the struggle to top the hierarchy of victimhood??

      1. I’m willing to bet that the majority of female contributors to this site are aghast at the treatment of men generally by the so-called “feminists”. It’s like so many things, it starts by supporting women to “get to the top” (but on merit not female only lists) but it’s gone far too far. The feminazis became involved and have spoiled things between men and women. It’s all very sad. It’s like kids at school arguing and victim hood – whose lot is the worst!

    2. There used to be all this nonsense at Essex University.
      As its reputation plummeted and graduates found themselves unemployable, the institution clawed its way back to some form of respectability.

    3. 316840+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      Not another victim of the odious UKIP NEc,
      Selina Todd has been
      Gerard Battened.

  82. I wonder whether the HOL will soon be on lockdown .. and will they still claim their attendance allowance of daily £305 plus travel expenses .. considering those poor self employed people who are on lockdown who will gain nothing!

  83. Shopping centre owner abandons emergency fund raising

    The owner of some of the UK’s biggest shopping centres has abandoned an emergency fund raising.

    Intu was looking to raise up to £1.5bn from shareholders to pay down a massive debt pile and secure its future.

    But the owner of Manchester’s Trafford Centre and Lakeside, in Essex, said “extreme market conditions” deterred investors from giving fresh cash.

    The news sent Intu shares tumbling 43% at the start of trading, but the price later recovered to stand about 20% off.

    The collapse and contraction of High Street retailers has left landlords such as Intu struggling to fill vacant space. At the same time Intu has run up debts of about £5bn.

    Intu boss Matthew Roberts said in a statement on Wednesday: “It is disappointing that the extreme market conditions have prevented us from moving forward with our planned equity raise.”

    However, Mr Roberts said “a number of alternative options” had been presented during the process and the company will explore these further. These options include selling off assets and what Intu called “alternative capital structures”, likely to be specific investments in the company and individual shopping centres.

    1. If they didn’t charge such ridiculously high rents they wouldn’t have any spaces.

    2. One would need to hear some pretty persuasive arguments to pay off someone else’s debts with an unsecured loan. Especially if, as in this case, the business was based on a failing business model as shopping centres are pretty much the equivalent of High Streets.

  84. Am I old fashioned?? Out of touch??

    Because this make me uneasy and just a little queasy

    https://twitter.com/emm_downunder/status/1234995297748582405

    How the world turns,I doubt this is what Pink Floyd had in mind…………..

    “We don’t need no education
    We don’t need no thought control
    No dark sarcasm in the classroom
    Teachers leave them kids alone
    Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!”

    2. Morning Rik. It is just a a part of the Cultural Marxist program to destroy all the moral and ethical underpinnings of the present Society!

        1. When you see the state take-over of childhood, I know why I’m wary of state involvement at the other end of life.
          It’s not as if we haven’t been here before, whether it’s Pavlik Morosov or Auschwitz.

    5. The irony being that PF were posing a lefties complaining about right wing education

    6. Which leaves out the obvious question to begin with:

      When did schools ever teach “heterosexuality” in the first place?
      What female children were ever forced to write a “love letter” to Prince Charles?
      What male children were ever forced to write a “love letter” to Princess Diana?

      1. Gave the opportunity for some wonderful guitar work from David Gilmour and people like Tim Renwick though. Which is what counts…

    8. Its called normalizing evil.
      Not that I’m saying homosexuality is evil, but foisting it upon six year olds is.
      This has the fingers of the Far left, its sexualisation of very young children, and normalisation of paedophilia all over it.

        1. The perverts and deviants are being encouraged into the classroom and most likely being paid for their input. Whatever happened to all the ‘Safeguarding’ propaganda that was being pushed a few years ago?

          3. Well, HP, it’s not against the sexualisation of our young or the predatory rapists and traffickers that abound in many of our towns and cities, is it? Of course, it sounds good in meetings – I attended one or two in my last job a decade or so ago – so the committee members could go on their way feeling comfortable that they’d discussed the issues.
            Old folk were included in ‘Safeguarding’ and I recall one meeting where tripping and falling were discussed at length. As I recall, discussion was over supplied but action, not so much.

      2. Actually, the Adversary has made great gains in the last 50 years. The envelope of evil has been pushed to boundaries not previously touched since the reign of Caligula.

    9. Am I old fashioned?? Out of touch??

      Hardly, normal, caring and protective of the young, more like.
      These ‘teachers’ are sick and they make me sick to my stomach by attempting to influence young minds in these issues. Hiding behind the veneer of ‘diversity’ to cover their objective of destroying childhood is cowardly. They haven’t got the strength of character to come straight out with their objectives and let the people decide because they are well aware that the result wouldn’t be pretty.

  85. Digital bank Starling to create 400 jobs in Cardiff

    The digital bank Starling is to create 400 new jobs in the centre of Cardiff.

    It said it was going to recruit all 400 posts in data science, fraud and customer service this year, with plans to employ more in future.

    Anne Boden, a steelworker’s daughter from Swansea, set up the new style bank in 2014 after having a successful career in high street banking.

    Starling has since grown to employ 800 people in London and Southampton, offering personal and business banking.

    The bank, which has 1.3 millions accounts, is taking office space at Brunel House in the centre of Cardiff.

  86. Lord Holmes of Richmond ‘grabbed woman’s buttocks’ during massage

    A Paralympic swimming champion grabbed a massage therapist’s buttocks during a treatment and asked if she “did extras”, a court has heard.

    Lord Holmes of Richmond, who is blind, told police he touched the woman on her face and shoulders, Southwark Crown Court was told.

    However, he denies sexually assaulting her as she massaged him at a five-star hotel in central London last March.

    He was elevated to the House of Lords by the Conservatives in 2013.

    Prosecutor Linda Strudwick told jurors the 48-year-old peer groped the woman near the end of his 90-minute treatment on 7 March 2019.

    Ms Strudwick said: “He asked: ‘Can I see how you look?'”

    1. I spot an obvious flaw in this woman’s story.

      Why would a blind man ask “Can I see how you look”?

      1. That was my first thought on reading the story, but I believe that “Blind” from the benefits and certain clinical perspectives covers a lot of cases where sufferers can see sufficiently to get the thrill.

    3. The one on the right looks like the piece of scum who got away with murder in the last 2 nights’ programmes on Colchester crime (Murder 24/7).
      He was a county lines bit of dross who travelled up to Colchester to sell stuff to the street sleepers. He also indulged in a bit of cuckooing in a nearby flat. The same, I suspect, as was inflicted on the two brothers who were murdered in a flat in a road near Allan Towers.
      When MB and I met, the area where the murder occurred was perfectly safe; no rough sleepers, druggies or alcoholics.
      Nowadays, we wouldn’t dream of going into the town centre in the evenings.

      1. I watched some of that Anne, did you see the detective’s springer spaniel who was used to track BLOODSTAINS .. that was an incredible bit of detective work .

        1. Historical note: the snooker club used to be the dance school where I met MB. I can remember the teachers grating candlewax onto the floor so we could glide.
          When we watched that programme, MB and I could have wept. The Colchester of our youth might not have been hip and happening, but it was safe and CLEAN!

    1. Dear Mother in heaven , what on earth have the parents done to that child .. it is abuse of the first order … she looks away with the fairies!

      2. I think that the entire Thunberg family are aliens who have been transplanted here from outer space.
        The coronavirus is part of the plot and Greta will send a telepathic e-mail back home when Earth is ready to be taken over.

      4. She apparently starved herself for two or three months when she was about 12. I can’t remember the specifics.
        She’s damaged herself, stunted her physical development, so her parents think it’s a good idea to allow her to pursue the “climate change” agenda because it makes her happy.

    3. She has just realised she is sitting in an ejector seat which is just about to be ejected

    4. von der Leyen: “Do people realise that I’m sitting next to a confidence trickster and fraud?”

      Greta Thunberg:”Do people realise that I’m sitting next to a confidence trickster and fraud?”

      EDIT, de boy can’t read; changed for the correct name

      2. Was it in Synchronised spinning or synchronised swimming that Ms Largarde represented France.

        And her antics with Bernard Tapis should have landed her in prison.

  92. With the rise of all these horrific random rape attacks carried out by immigrants it’s quite easy to understand why the state was none too bothered about tackling those grooming gangs for decades, it quite clear that they don’t give a damn, they are following their program not matter what the carnage. Woman and girls are just collateral damage to them.

  93. Trans man who gave birth is fighting back after court legally declared him his child’s ‘mother’

    This shows what a total nonsense we now have. Clearly she is a woman or she would not have been able to give birth

    The legal system is now tying itself in knot’s as on the one hand she has a bit of paper saying she is a man

    1. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to complete th Birth Certificate in an appropriate way? Possibly, “Thing was born to Thing A and another Thing A”.
      Let the future take care of it.

      1. The reality i that a Transman is genetically a woman. The childs birth certificate should in my view record her as the mother and can add a rider to the birth certificate saying she identifies as a man anything else would be nonsensical if she were described as the father who would be the father

        Until the politician accept that a trans man is not a man and a trans woman is not a woman we might get some sense. What they are doing is identifying as the opposite sex. That though does not make them genetically the opposite sex

        1. 316840+ up ticks,
          Until the politico accepts what the majority of the people put in front of him / her
          nothing will change.

  94. From Guido:

    https://order-order.com/2020/03/04/uk-ranked-best-world-epidemic-response-mitigation/

    “The Global Health Security Index’s recent comprehensive ranking
    of countries – published just four months ago – shows the United
    Kingdom ahead of every country other than the United States in its state
    of preparedness to deal with biological threats. When
    it comes to rapid response to, and mitigation of, the spread of an
    epidemic, the UK led the world – twelve points ahead of the next nearest
    country…”

    3. Well, if we can resurrect patients with nerve agent poisoning, a puny flu virus is not going to get off the starting blocks on these shores. I’ll get me NBC suit….

  95. Fly Be is in trouble again

    They have enough cash to last to the end of the month. They are hoping APD will be cut but that would be inconsistent with cutting CO2 emissions and most FlyBe flights are in mainland UK where rail is an alternative option

      1. It’s all part of that damn’ Green agenda.

        As they say, “Chicken is for vegetarians”

    2. I feel that in cases like this, even though the food can be eaten, a refund is not nearly enough.

      1. It’s fairly hard to tell just how “green” these were.

        I suspect a lot of the buyers don’t realise there is the potential for brown meat as well as white meat, even in a chicken.

    1. down to gradual erosion of responsiblities due to EU directives and a desire within central government to cut corners.
      London once had a first class fire safety regime, dating back to the aftermath of the Great Fire.
      Long article I read a year ago partly blamed Mrs Thatcher’s govt, plus the EU.

    1. I noticed the Bbc News at 6 was only concerned with the Lesbos locals’ assaults on NGO workers.

      1. Yes, because the BBC darlings are friends of the NGO workers. They went to the same universities and socialise in the same wine bars.

      3. PST ……looking both ways rapidly……
        don’t let on to ‘er in doors this has already been posted at least once this week.

    3. I guess they are, because the numbers don’t seem to be large enough to be on a global scale

    4. …not to mention the flu deaths. As to mosquitos, blame the withdrawal of DDT for that one.

      2. Have you not read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson?

        If you are a fan of DDT then you are not a fan of nature.

        DDT: an appalling chapter in the unstoppable stupidity of humanity.

          2. The sort of moron who needs retribution a long way beyond what the “Powers That Be” might administer!

        2. Gosh. I thought I was the only one to have read that, and that was decades ago.

          1. Without pesticides millions upon millions would starve. And organophosphates are the most widely used pesticide today.

            Ditto with the RoundUp. I keep a supply of the concentrate in the garage at all times. It is one of the most effective products there is for getting rid of weeds. Plus it allows almost immediate reseeding or replanting.

            It’s a bit like the panic over Asbestos – the only people who have ever been diagnosed with Asbestosis are people who worked in the factories that made it years ago.

          3. Excellent link, thank you.
            In the early 1980s I recall an agricultural worker explaining to me his view that pesticides and herbicides would gradually seep into the soil and produce a potentially hazardous layer about 18 inches below the soil surface, just beyond the reach of the ploughshare. Presumably he had read this somewhere.

        4. Yes I have. The problem Carson addressed was very specific – overuse by US farmers. The end result of her activism was a worldwide ban leading to malaria and other diseases whose carriers DDT eliminated, once again becaming rampant leading to literally untold numbers of deaths.

          “DDT is the best-known of several chlorine-containing pesticides used in the 1940s and 1950s. With pyrethrum in short supply, DDT was used extensively during World War II by the Allies to control the insect vectors of typhus – nearly eliminating the disease in many parts of Europe. In the South Pacific, it was sprayed aerially for malaria and dengue fever control with spectacular effects. While DDT’s chemical and insecticidal properties were important factors in these victories, advances in application equipment coupled with competent organization and sufficient manpower were also crucial to the success of these programs.[30]

          In 1945, DDT was made available to farmers as an agricultural insecticide[5] and played a role in the final (for a time) elimination of malaria in Europe and North America.[9][31][32]

          In 1955, the World Health Organization commenced a program to eradicate malaria in countries with low to moderate transmission rates worldwide, relying largely on DDT for mosquito control and rapid diagnosis and treatment to reduce transmission.[33] The program eliminated the disease in “North America, Europe, the former Soviet Union”,[34] and in “Taiwan, much of the Caribbean, the Balkans, parts of northern Africa, the northern region of Australia, and a large swath of the South Pacific”[35] and dramatically reduced mortality in Sri Lanka and India.[36]”

          Life is never as simple as it might seem.

          Also read; https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-rachel-carson-cost-millions-of-people-their-lives

        5. The problem with DDT was not so much it’s toxicity, relatively low compared to other pesticides, but its gross overuse in the West.
          In areas where Malaria is endemic, it was invaluable in bringing the problem under control.

      3. The knock-on effect down and up the food chain was much worse than beneficial.

        Massive use of drop dead twice was a disaster.

        1. Agreed, the knock-on effect down and up the food chain was little understood in the day, However, farmers had a habit of over-dosing, as have gardeners with herbicides today, if 1 tablespoon per gallon of water, then 3 must be a better application. I volunteered on a hot-line for a while and trying to get people to read and follow instructions on any chemical was very difficult.

    5. Good evening, Caroline. Those facts put my 71st birthday somewhat in the shade. Ah well, there’s always next year.🙃

    6. Bonjour Mrs T,

      Whilst I appreciate your optimism, apart from snakes and suicide, the mortal perils on your list generally produce a gradual decline leading to death. IMHO, for elderly people, COVID 19 will knock them for six and they will then be isolated and will die of pneumonia, or from a myocardial infarction provoked by coughing fits.

    2. According to some commenters, the audience will be stuffed with both Right and Left plants…

  103. Evening, all. I can’t help thinking (suspicious little mind that I have) that any gaps in the public information on the CV will be deliberate.

    1. Usually a gap in a CV means the person has been banged up, or ‘self-isolated’ to use the modern terminology. 😉

    2. Evening Conners,the good news just keeps on coming……………

      World health officials say the mortality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4% globally, higher than previous estimates of about 2%.

      “Globally,

      about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General

      Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s

      headquarters in Geneva.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/03/who-says-coronavirus-death-rate-is-3point4percent-globally-higher-than-previously-thought.html

      1. Dubious accuracy of that report. It varies considerably by country as wee. As far as I know the death rate in the UK is zero out of about 52 notified cases

          1. 3.4% of 87 is 7 or 8 people; 2% is one or two. Too small a number to be meaningful. Wait until 80% of the UK population have caught it.

  105. Andrew Neil on good form – ripped the stuffing out of Starmer & Long-Bailey.

      1. ‘Morning, Stephen, if you’re quoting Winchester College’s motto it’s ‘Manners Makyth Man.’

          3. Slowly, Best Beloved has a JAK2, blood cancer that slows her down and I fear to push her too much but she agrees the plans to sort out the ‘Utility’ room in order to put the house in Suffolk on the market.

            She also, quite sensibly, wonders about health cover for we geriatrics in France (She is 73 with JAK2 and I am rising 76 with ischaemic heart disease and COPD).

            With Macrons hatred of the UK for Brexit, even residence may be a problem. Heigh-ho we shall overcome, one way or another.

          4. Hmm. Do I recall that BB has family at the target destination? Otherwise, I’d be saying “stay put”.
            I know nowt about the health cover issues – may be worth an e-mail to BT?
            Anyway, good luck whatever may come. J

          5. Good morning NTN,
            I know some good people who retired to SW France some years ago, and their health cover is excellent. They are resident, they sold their UK property, they have family members who are fully ‘integrated’ and, if they ever downsize, it will be to a local French town. I could ask them questions on your behalf.
            I haven’t got Bill Thomas’ knowledge of the French system, but I did once spot his lady wife’s email address.

          6. Thank you for that generous offer, Tim, I shall let BB know of your offer and see if there are answers required to put her mind at rest.

            Hertslass is the keeper of e-mail addresses. Does she have yours? If so, I shall send her an e-mail for forwarding to you as it is a better method of contact rather than take up space on NTTL.

          7. Thanks, I wondered who was in charge of email addresses, as I am a bit of a part timer. I am as above, at hotmail.

          8. Oh, good, that’s easy then, Tim. I have an imminent appointment but I shall put that in my contacts list and e-mail you later.

    2. 316840+ up ticks,
      Evening TB,
      The sort that continues to support / vote lab/lib/con regardless of consequences, none can deny that.
      We would never have got to where we are as a nation without the continuing input of these party’s, supporters & voters over the years.

      Very sad to say.

    2. The phrase BROUGHT INTO DOVER gives the game away (BORDER FERRY SERVICE). How soon before they are using the (INTER)NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.

      1. Where will these persons self isolate? They are classed as a threat, aren’t they, or as illegal immigrants, do they get a free pass?

        1. When you analyse it (often a compromising business) the standard policy of “release after one free nighht in a hostel/hotel” is completely irresponsible from a public health point of view …. especially now.

    5. And presumably they’ll now stay in Britain for good because the politicians do not have the testicular strength to deport them.

      1. Most people with any real power seem to want them here. Sure, low level officials are scared of the raycisms. But fear of vilification is just the excuse as one looks at the higher ranks..

    6. The Border Farce didn’t try to fend ’em off, turn ’em round to head back to France. Oh, no, we give sustenance to illegals don’t we?

      Hoi, Border Farce, take a few lessons from the Greeks, because the natives here are getting pretty restless.

      1. Don’t blame BF, Tom. They do their best, but are let down by the others.

        1. Border control in most formerly white countries is political theatre. The real mission is to import as many undesirables as possible while maintaining the appearance of control.

          Even successful operations can be useful. If BF is too harsh or successful then that placates one sector of the public, lulling them into a false sense of security, while the woker sections of the public whine and complain. Hey presto! Another relaxation of control is then justified.

    1. I think they have succumbed to Coronavirus. I suspect they will rise from the dead, unlike some of their creditors.

      1. It’s the tax wot done for ’em.

        BJ will be delighted – when any private enterprise collapses he gives a cheer.

    3. SKY News at 10.15 report seizure of Flybe aircraft on landing, Maggie; sounds like ‘Game Over’ …

    1. ‘Evening, Tony, don’t be surprised if, regardless of ethnicity, the perpetrators, when caught, will be labelled ‘Far-Right Extremists’.

    1. Too bluddy right – he is a man with high morals and honourable – despite how the MSM try to denigrate him, he says, what to them, is unspeakable.

    2. The only comments allowed on that article in the Daily mail are negative ones. Those that call out the Mail for missing out the reason for the altercation don’t get published.
      The DM is a rag that’s as bad as all the other MSM.

      1. 316870+up ticks,
        Morning Ims2,
        The only time I read a newspaper now is on visiting a supermarket I read it in situ & leave it in situ.

  113. I note that on today’s BBC 6 pm News on Radio 4, the hitherto “refugees” massed at the Greek Border have today transmogrified into “migrants”. I do not expect them to further develop into “invaders” or “illegals”, although they may well become “undocumented” in the future. There was no mention of Syria in the report.

    1. No mention of ‘invaders’ of course.

      As far as I can tell from mainstream discourse ‘invader’ is a very specific term that can only describe a uniformed, armed, paid, (white) employee of a foreign (white) government.

  115. BBC now reporting FlyBe is going into administration within hours

    In reality it seems it has already gone under and just the flights in the air to land and then they will be grounded

    1. You love it when private enterprise goes toes up. One of the contributing factors in this case was the overhigh level of passenger tax.

      In your time at HMRC did you have a special mission to see how you could use tax to bring down as many companies as you could and did you get bonuses for doing so?

    1. If one looks at the total number of deaths and the total number of “recovered’ It seems the death rate is at least 6% or am I mis reading the data?

      1. Based on the combined total of deaths and people who’ve recovered, yes I agree.

      2. There are still many people still suffering from it who haven’t died or recovered. They are the balance.

  117. Consumers and celebs have fallen prey to greenwashing corporations

    JAMIE BLACKETT

    These cynical ventures have become a sick joke in farming circles

    Until recently you would have described me as a ‘luke-warmer’: I live by the sea and have been increasingly concerned by coastal erosion. I’m also a farmer who battles with the weather daily and thinks we have had a turbulent decade meteorologically, though I recognise that other factors like solar variations may have more to do with it. So while I’m worried, I refuse to buy the ‘climate emergency’ talked up by teenagers and preached by Marxists.

    But now I am toying with the idea of coming out as a… “Denier” (sharp intake of breath). This agnosticism is partly to annoy my legions of trolls on Twitter. So incensed were they by my comments that Greta Thunberg looks ill and should reconsider her diet (I maintain that she does and she should) that they have been calling me a fossil and a ‘boomer’ and telling me that I will be dead soon anyway, bequeathing their generation a “f****d” planet. Predictably, it is all my fault.

    It is also partly because if Extinction Rebellion has achieved anything it has forced us all to analyse the case for anthropogenic climate change carefully. And the results have been mind-boggling. Patrick Moore the former President of Greenpeace is the latest luminary to come out and rubbish the science. He says he “fears for the end of the Enlightenment.” Amen to that.

    His speech to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers is an outstanding example of Enlightenment rationalism and should be recited at every school assembly in the country. Unsurprisingly, the BBC blanked it entirely. Actually, I now realise that I have been doing more to save the planet than I realised.

    Here’s a pub trivia question for you. I have a bull that dies weighing one tonne. The knacker removes him, the carcass is rendered down and its tallow turned into biodiesel. How many litres of biodiesel do I get? The answer is 180 litres. Who knew? Vegans are driving cars fuelled by cows!

    If, as Patrick Moore believes, this whole climate change racket is ‘a logical fallacy’ historians will not view the ‘greenwashers’ kindly. I suspect they could be up there with the reprobates who flogged shares in the South Sea Company or the charlatans who sold the relics of dodgy saints with forty-three toes in the Middle Ages.

    Now, I think I should be given some credit for all the carbon I am saving by displacing fossil fuels with biodiesel. But it transpires that Big Business got there first, the biodiesel company is owned by an airline and I am told that they are already ‘offsetting’ it. Greenwashing is becoming a stock joke in farming circles, how corporations and celebrities have bought carbon credits for sickly looking Sitka spruce on Scottish hillsides that are probably sequestering less carbon than the grass in adjacent fields.

    And when the zeitgeist shifts back to fears about the next ice age, as it surely will one day, the story may be about the ‘impartial’ BBC presenters who have taken the corporate green-gold, like Radio 1 presenter Greg James reportedly being paid £100,000 by Shell to front a five-part series in which he plugs the company’s eco-credentials.

    The good news is that we will all be able to have our say when the government hosts the UN climate change conference in Glasgow this November. Our Prime Minister is an Enlightenment figure fond of quoting Adam Smith. I hope he will use the opportunity to remind the world that our self-confident post-Brexit nation is also the one that gave humanity David Hume’s empiricism. Boris is said to be thinking of moving it from Glasgow to avoid nationalist trouble from you-know-who. He should move it to Edinburgh, a Unionist city in the 2014 referendum and the cradle of the modern age in the Enlightenment.

    Better yet, he could use Britain’s chairmanship to run a sanity check over the entire Net Zero project, inviting dissenting voices like Patrick Moore, Frank Mitloehner, Alan Savory and my friend the rational optimist Matt Ridley to challenge the Groupthink that appears to many, perhaps the majority of us, to have blinded governments and the scientific community. Over to you Bozza.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/03/consumers-celebs-have-become-prey-greenwashing-corporations/

    No chance, Jamie. Boris has swallowed it, and swallowed it whole (to borrow a phrase…).

    1. I’m a member of Shell GO Pro (it took over from the old Shell loyalty card). They are forever sending me emails about how they are carbon off-setting (by planting trees) and how green I am by buying Shell. Hmm. I rarely put Shell fuel in my car because it’s so expensive. I shop around to find the best price. Why should I buy Shell petrol at 130.9ppl when I can buy Texaco for 117.9ppl? Go well, go Shell? Buy Shell, go broke!

    2. When you look at whose oven he has now bunned, he will be held to the green rubbish. Until his next-but-one divorce.

      1. I read recently that the point of the mask is not to stop you catching it but to stop you spreading it if you have got it.
        So hopefully the orangutan will be fine.

        1. You will catch it unless you are wearing a full medical respirator. And yes, all the mask does is stop you spraying particles quite so far when you (inevitably) sneeze.

        2. Yes, I suspect people wear masks to protect themselves. But it would seem more likely that the masks are slightly more effective at stopping one spreading it, rather than catching it.

  121. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5bf5e11fe410f4ab375af9ad1ae116e64aeec487edcea2283b618d0688d46228.jpg

    “Coronavirus has mutated into two strains, one which appears to be far

    more aggressive, scientists have said, in a discovery which could hinder

    attempts to develop a vaccine. Researchers at Peking University’s

    School of Life Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, discovered

    the virus has evolved into two major lineages – dubbed ‘L’ and ‘S’

    types.

    The older ‘S-type’ appears to be milder and less infectious,

    while the ‘L-type’ which emerged later, spreads quickly and currently

    accounts for around 70 per cent of cases.

    Genetic analysis of a man

    in the US who tested positive on January 21, also showed it is possible

    to be infected with both types.

    The finding comes just days after

    government health experts warned that the virus could hit Britain in

    ‘multiple waves’, and led to fears that some vaccines might not work on

    mutated strains.”

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QnHVh9DYumI/Xl_U6pk4agI/AAAAAAAAFKY/xiicdTN1e-EjNCb-H2N8UAzl-GthkSeagCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/coronavirus.jpg
    Oh Joy…………………..
    Edit forgot the linky
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2020/03/04/coronavirus-has-mutated-aggressive-disease-say-scientists/
    Comments rip the scaremongering apart

      1. Could be worse. It could mutate into Corbynvirus. Stiil, at least it would have a short half-life.

        2. If it mutated into Kellogg’s Cornyvirus it would have a short shelf life.

          I’ll get me coat. . .

    2. Rik…have you been watching ‘The Expanse’ ?

      Best Space Opera i have ever seen as a TV series.

        1. Thanks for the heads up.

          I have just started ‘Flag in Exile’.

          I want a Treecat…….

  122. I rather like the way Boris dealt with the critics of Pritti today.
    Won’t it be wonderful if she can nail the dodgy bastards in the civil service.
    For what it’s worth she has my backing.

    1. 316840+ up ticks.
      Evening RE,
      All in-house deflection when many are witnessing the chinese as conkering
      champions, ( bet they’er soaked in vinegar)

  123. Question IDS’s technical analysis if you will but his four concluding paragraphs are correct.

    The Government is failing in its duty to keep Britain safe by pushing ahead with Huawei 5G

    IAIN DUNCAN SMITH

    The Government’s decision to go ahead with Huawei in the 5G network has angered our allies and perplexed those of us who see this as an avoidable risk. It has brushed aside the concerns of our most important partners around the world, leaving us friendless on the world stage. It has also disregarded the overwhelming body of evidence which indicates that Huawei, an untrusted vendor, should not be given any further opportunity to access our most vital communications networks.

    Having decided to go ahead, the Government justifies this decision by saying it can contain the risk by limiting Huawei’s involvement to 35 per cent of the system and only the periphery in order to protect the core. That you can protect the system by doing this is utter nonsense. Most cyber experts know this doesn’t bear scrutiny as it is obvious a whole 5G network can be attacked starting from compromised edge components.

    Furthermore, as a simple example, a hostile adversary could disable our 5G network just by shutting down the aerials and/or routers by remotely activating a malware embedded in the edge components. Such kill switches are nigh on impossible to detect and, as a result, mitigate.

    The second issue the Government prays in aid is that we need 5G now because it offers three main benefits – faster data transmission rates, shorter delays between data dispatch and reception, and increased network capacity.

    While faster data transmission rates can improve user experiences, for most people 5G will not make a significant impact. Tasks such as viewing a movie wouldn’t be perceptibly different from 4G. In any case, the data speeds offered by 5G (100Mb/s to 1000Mb/s) are in the range offered by more conventional superfast fibre broadband and so often the desired performance can be achieved by other means right now. Completing that roll-out is more important.

    Then there is the claim that 5G will lead to much shorter delays. While true, I question how vital it is for the UK to rush this decision. I am sure there may be response-time-critical benefits in future – such as how self-driving cars share safety information with other cars. However, these applications overwhelmingly lie in the future and will importantly rely on a wider set of technological changes as well as significant changes in social attitudes.

    I am led to believe that the Government’s other main concern is the need for increased network capacity, mostly for the proliferation of connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices and next-generation telematics. Yet surely policy makers should pause and consider the downside risks. After all, having admitted there are significant unmet security concerns, myriad IoT sensors in homes and offices could be used against us by hostile actors. Surely security is a greater priority.

    The weakest concern the Government has raised is the fear that Britain will be left behind. Given the growing number of leading Western nations that won’t use Huawei or any other untrusted vendors, surely the worldwide rollout of 5G must inevitably slow down. That should be seen as an opportunity to prioritise national security over breakneck 5G deployment.

    The jury is out on Huawei’s capability but I do recall the exasperated technical director at GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) referring just one year ago to Huawei security as “very, very shoddy” and saying it was “engineering like it’s back in the year 2000”.

    The Government points out that Telcos are all reliant on Huawei and that a delay would leave them significantly out of pocket. Of course, that reliance on Huawei is because Huawei was able to bid well below other market competitors for UK business. This while governments turned a blind eye to their growing dominance. The Civil Service has known there is a long history of the China Development Bank providing low-cost financing for Huawei customers, such as guaranteed financing many times annual revenue and updated every few years. A recent report estimated that when one takes in tax breaks, grants and low cost land acquisition, this comes to more than $75 billion.

    What isn’t common knowledge is that at least one very significant UK service provider has already made it clear they will not use Huawei in their 5G network system, suggesting that the idea these systems cannot be created without Huawei is nonsense. However, the financial pressure to do so grows as Huawei continues to be able to underbid others.

    My concern is that when it comes to security, government and the civil service have drifted along, wilfully ignoring the real threat that Huawei poses. It is becoming very clear that where national security is concerned, the only way to ultimately ensure security is to use only trusted products from trusted vendors. We should, as well as using only trusted vendors, have been working with our Five Eyes colleagues to develop and deploy an ability to audit components for hidden malware.

    The only way out of this mess is that the Government should accept we are deeply compromised and ensure that Huawei goes from its present position to not just 35 per cent but to 0 per cent involvement over the next two to three years.

    Successive British governments have been desperate to take advantage of China’s growing markets, yet we should have been doing so with our eyes wide open. After all, this totalitarian regime is not an ally of ours and poses threats to us – both in the cyber realm and in its refusal to obey the rules of international trade.

    Huawei is also seen as a national security threat. They continue to deal with Iran; they built the mobile network for Korea; they have provided security, surveillance systems to authoritarian regimes, not least of course the Chinese government. Of course, it is well documented that Huawei also has a long and intimate history with the Chinese security services.

    It seems to many that the UK is too concerned about upsetting the Chinese and in continuing to use Huawei we are losing our friends and allies. In the week we launched our hopes for a free trade deal with the USA, our continuing determination to use Huawei now, as President Trump make clear, puts that trade deal at risk.

    As we leave the EU, the first priority of any government remains defence of the realm. Yet now, with Huawei embedded, it’s only demi-defence of the realm.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/03/government-failing-duty-keep-britain-safe-pushing-ahead-huawei/

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