Wednesday 4 October: A mess like HS2 leaves ordinary people with little faith in politicians

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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445 thoughts on “Wednesday 4 October: A mess like HS2 leaves ordinary people with little faith in politicians”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s story

    Blindingly Obvious
    A blind man interviews for a job as a quality controller at the local wood mill. The manager calls the blind man into his office and asks him how he expected to do this job since he was blind. The blind man replied he would do it by smell. The manager decides to test him and places a piece of wood in front of him.

    The manager asks, “What is it without touching it?”

    The blind man replies, “That’s a good piece of fir.”

    “Correct,” says the manager, “now try this one.”

    “That’s a bad piece of willow,” says the blind man.

    “Correct,” answers the manager. With that, the manager decides to play a trick on the blind man. He got his secretary to lift up her dress and put her crotch in the blind man’s face.

    “I’m confused,” says the blind man, “Can you turn it around?” The secretary turns around and puts her arse in his face.

    The blind man says, “Oh, you’re trying to fool me! But I know exactly what kind of wood that is. It’s the shit house door off a tuna boat!”

    2. Sometimes when the page refreshes I have to use the drop-down under my name! ‘Morning to you!

      1. Morning Sue. I’m usually on Classic. It has changed overnight. I wanted to see if there was a pattern.

      1. All of the above I find totally unintelligible, Minty, Sir Jasper, Sue Mac and BoB. But, like BoB, I just click on the NoTTLe icon on my computer and read the emails. Please don’t try to explain your posts to me, they will probably just confuse me.

  5. Good morning all.
    A cloudy but currently dry start to the day with 7°C outside.
    Notwithstanding my early mug of tea, I’m up a bit earlier than I’d like as I have a run to Stoke to see Step-son planned.
    Going to have to read the riot act to him regarding his benefits and the amount of money he is spending.

    1. PM promises to tackle broken political system ahead of next election….

      No doubt it’#ll be for the worse!

    2. And I can’t be alone in being distinctly unimpressed by the flurry of announcements this week. Where has he been for all this time – asleep? Too little and far too late, even if as much as 1% of them ever happen.

      ‘Morning, Minty.

  7. ‘Morning, Peeps. That was a rough night, with a noisy vixen nearby, together with sounds of something (rabbit?) being killed. Still, another dry day to come, with a slightly more sensible 17°C.

    I see that Sgt Bilko is at it again with an article in the DT. It seems that he just can’t leave it alone as he continues to bang the drum for the Bigoted Broadcasting Corpn. Methinks he really doth protest too much and it begins to look as though both he and his employer are seriously rattled if this headline is any guide:

    “You might not like the BBC – but we still serve this country well

    Despite politics becoming more divisive and the media more fragmented, 61 per cent of people still say they trust us”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/nick-robinson-bbc-news-avoidance/

    Needless to say, this required an immediate visit to the BTL comments, and I wasn’t disappointed…here are just a few:

    Old man from the north
    1 HR AGO
    Hi Nick
    I gave up on the BBC for the sake of my mental health some years ago. I take no news from the Biased Broadcasting Corp nor from the Brussels Broadcasting Corp with it selection of experts who are later exposed by Guido as Labour Party activists.
    I resent having to pay a Poll Tax to keep you Metropolitan lefties who appear to hate our still wonderful country in clover.
    You need to get out of London a bit

    Mark F Nowland
    1 HR AGO
    No, you’re a lying, cheating, prejudiced, hypocritical, sanctimonious, science and biology denying bunch of absolute ****s.
    Reply by Tim Hawkins.

    Tim Hawkins
    1 HR AGO
    Hear hear !!

    Soy Sauce
    1 HR AGO
    Robinson its people like you who have undermined and destroyed the BBC with your smug superior we know better attitudes remember this the little people always win.
    Comment by Angus Old.

    Angus Old
    1 HR AGO
    Absolute nonsense Mr Robinson. You are left-wing flunky pushing your woke, socialist agenda which is totally against the BBC charter and their absolute necessity to be impartial. You are a fraud and so is your employer. I await your defunding with relish.

    1. What a smug, pompous fathead he is! Behave like that, then blame the listeners! What a moron!

      1. I suppose if one gets top exam results in school, a good degree from Oxford, goes straight into a BBC traineeship and rises up the ranks to become a Big Cheese…and then the audience starts booing…one is probably very likely to think that it is the audience that needs to be changed!

        The system has always worked for the likes of Nick Robinson, so they genuinely don’t understand how rotten it is.

    2. Well said Angus.
      Stuck in his rut Robinson gets worse by the day.
      I suspect ‘mention’ health issues are spurring him on.

    3. Yes…but…yes…but…he was a Young Conservative.

      Therefore he’s a Brexit-supporting right-winger, typical of the BBC. At least that what you’ll read in The Guardian…

  8. ‘Morning, Peeps. That was a rough night, with a noisy vixen nearby, together with sounds of something (rabbit?) being killed. Still, another dry day to come, with a slightly more sensible 17°C.

    I see that Sgt Bilko is at it again with an article in the DT. It seems that he just can’t leave it alone as he continues to bang the drum for the Bigoted Broadcasting Corpn. Methinks he really doth protest too much and it begins to look as though both he and his employer are seriously rattled if this headline is any guide:

    “You might not like the BBC – but we still serve this country well

    Despite politics becoming more divisive and the media more fragmented, 61 per cent of people still say they trust us”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/nick-robinson-bbc-news-avoidance/

    Needless to say, this required an immediate visit to the BTL comments, and I wasn’t disappointed…here are just a few:

    Old man from the north
    1 HR AGO
    Hi Nick
    I gave up on the BBC for the sake of my mental health some years ago. I take no news from the Biased Broadcasting Corp nor from the Brussels Broadcasting Corp with it selection of experts who are later exposed by Guido as Labour Party activists.
    I resent having to pay a Poll Tax to keep you Metropolitan lefties who appear to hate our still wonderful country in clover.
    You need to get out of London a bit

    Mark F Nowland
    1 HR AGO
    No, you’re a lying, cheating, prejudiced, hypocritical, sanctimonious, science and biology denying bunch of absolute ****s.
    Reply by Tim Hawkins.

    Tim Hawkins
    1 HR AGO
    Hear hear !!

    Soy Sauce
    1 HR AGO
    Robinson its people like you who have undermined and destroyed the BBC with your smug superior we know better attitudes remember this the little people always win.
    Comment by Angus Old.

    Angus Old
    1 HR AGO
    Absolute nonsense Mr Robinson. You are left-wing flunky pushing your woke, socialist agenda which is totally against the BBC charter and their absolute necessity to be impartial. You are a fraud and so is your employer. I await your defunding with relish.

  9. 377324+ up ticks,

    Wednesday 4 October: A mess like HS2 leaves ordinary people with little faith in politicians

    Really should read With genuine politicians at the helm HS2
    would still be a figment of british, pro eu, ersatz scamming politico’s imagination.

    When a country resorts to charity collection for cancer research while financing HS2 and the paki space program,plus
    5* hotel bills for felons you and the collective number of village idiots just know something is amiss once again, and vote accordingly.

    Tis fact,
    Fools and their countries are soon overrun and parted.

    1. I wonder how much was spent in Bungs during all this.
      What a complete waste of time and money. And the bungs of course.

  11. I see that the Americans don’t hang about when they want to get rid of a Speaker! He was only appointed in January and last night he collected his P45. Contrast this with the fact that it took us ten years to be shot of the Poison Dwarf, a committed narcissist who was determined to reverse our decision to leave the Evil Empire!

    2. I wonder what that horrible little s h one t is doing for a living now.
      Not that I’m particularly bothered.
      But in contrast remember Elizabeth (now dame) Filkin. She did such a good and efficient job in monitoring pms expenses. They chucked her out PDQ.

  12. A mess like HS2 leaves ordinary people with little faith in politicians

    Why did Boris back all the wrong policies?

  14. Good morning, chums. Looking forward to a mid-morning visit from Korky the Kat today. With a morning cup of tea or coffee I shall offer him a choice of Hot Cross Bun or Mince Pie, both of which were available in my local Aldi earlier this week. Lol.

  16. US warns of Chinese global disinformation campaign that could undermine peace and stability. 4 October 2023.

    In a first-of-its-kind report, the State Department last week laid out Beijing’s tactics and techniques for molding public opinion, such as buying content, creating fake personas to spread its message and using repression to quash unfavorable accounts.

    The Global Engagement Center, a State Department agency tasked with combating foreign propaganda and disinformation and which released the 58-page report, warned that Beijing’s information campaign could eventually sway how decisions are made around the world and undermine U.S. interests.

    Wow! Imagine that! Wherever could they have got such ideas! Lol!

    https://apnews.com/article/disinformation-china-us-xinjiang-global-opinion-c9e033f22622841935a2b1bc1060c01b

    1. Fake Personas have been a outstanding influence in US political classes for decades.
      We’ve also had and still have many.

      1. She was hoping to inflict as much damage on Britain as Blair did. There is no doubt about it – she is evil to the core.

    2. From what I have seen of other countries around the world none of them are trying to be the martyrs of the universe with their daft policy of net zero.
      I’ve got a feeling this particular net will flounder and be found on a beach. Hopefully that daft overly self righteous woman will be in it. Washed up.

        1. But as we know from our own experience that’s only what they say.
          Take look on google earth at capital; cities any where and you’ll see millions of cars.

  18. Just one of the critical letters surrounding the cancellation – allegedly, at this stage.

    SIR – If construction of HS2 had begun in Manchester and Leeds, working its way south, cancellation would never have been considered (“Sunak to sound the death knell for ‘HS2 north’”, report, October 3).
    The PM risks ripping the heart out of the northern economy for generations to come, and creating a seething rift between North and South.
    As a lifelong Conservative voter, a party member since 1975 and a former association chairman, I feel that our region will have been deserted by our Government, and my party allegiance will be sorely stretched – possibly to breaking point.
    Neither Margaret Thatcher nor Boris Johnson would have treated the North so disdainfully.

    John H Lowe
    Rossendale, Lancashire

    I think Mr Lowe needs to go and lie down for a while in a darkened room. He, along with all the other moaning minnies, seem to think that the north is being stripped of all train services going anywhere – and that is the same whinge coming from a whining Burnham. The fact is that not so long ago interest on government borrowing was at 0.5%. It is now 5.5% and consequently this grandiose vanity project has become completely unaffordable (as if it ever was). What part of ‘the country is broke’ are these people struggling to understand??

    1. Let me get this clear in my mind.
      If HS2 had been started in the north, it would be single track and no trains would travel south? Or maybe no trains would carry passengers as they travelled south.

      1. There was a jocular comment, attributed to ‘Viz’ (it’s a juvenile humorous periodical, M’lud) that suggested that if HS2 construction had begun in Manchester, it would be finished by now. Joking aside, it is not without merit. The ‘pull’ from London would be greater than the ‘push’ to the English hinterland.

  19. G’morning all,

    Grey start at McPhee Towers, , sunny periods later, wind South–West, 11℃ going up to 16℃ today, another final day of clown-worship at the Tory conference. Apparently Braverman is supposed to be the new darling of the pretend right, the new Maggie.

    Tim Stanley probably gets it about right with his tongue in cheek piece.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/84ab043444b4dfedbf0b595eb6fdbd6d2b4c2a49502580375d0cc8de56464b0b.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/03/michael-gove-suella-braverman-conservative-conference/

    Some pundits are already talking of her as a Sunak replacement, or Badenoch, or Patel. Have they gone stark, staring bonkers? Where are all the eloquent, upright, moustachio-ed, former Brigadiers and Professors of Greek when you need one? I think I’ll start praying. Perhaps we all need to pray. Maybe some of us already are.

    1. For a few weeks he was the youngest brigadier in the British Army, and he was one of only two men in the entire war to rise from private to brigadier (the other being Sir Fitzroy Maclean).

      1. Enoch Powell was one the few politicians I greatly admired and respected. I once met him when I was a sixth former attending a local political hustings. After no more than ten minutes chatting to him afterwards I was left in no doubt as to his huge intellect and his fearless approach to politics.

      2. Enoch Powell was one the few politicians I greatly admired and respected. I once met him when I was a sixth former attending a local political hustings. After no more than ten minutes chatting to him afterwards I was left in no doubt as to his huge intellect and his fearless approach to politics.

    2. I think Braverman is good, but she will be frustrated by civil serpents as usual. She never stood a chance of getting anything done at the Home Office, so she wisely made no promises.
      Does she have the courage to take on the Blob, and can she win?
      I think she probably does have the courage, but it won’t just be the Blob trying to stab her in the back, it’ll be many of her own parliamentary party as well. Her chances of success are slim.

    3. Professors of Greek? The last Classics graduate PM partied while ensuring that anyone else doing so got locked up!

  20. Labour’s foolish embrace of BLM ideology. Spiked. 4 October 2023.

    Given that the Race Relations Act of 1965 outlawed discrimination on grounds of ‘colour, race, or ethnic or national origins’, and the Equality Act of 2010 specified race as a protected characteristic, one might have thought further legislation in this area superfluous. Yet Labour is not focussing on ensuring equality of opportunity, as these pieces of legislation tried to do. As Starmer has it, Labour is focussing on tackling ‘structural racial inequalities’, a variation on the BLM-style idea of ‘structural racism’.

    According to this idea, every disparity is to be attributed to racism. For instance, if the percentage of black people caught up in the criminal-justice system exceeds their percentage in society as a whole, which it does, this is not seen as a consequence of disproportionate offending rates. No, it’s seen as a product of the racial prejudice of the criminal-justice system. The same goes for every other disparity, from the relatively small proportion of black people who own their own businesses to the relatively large proportion of black children excluded from school. Each complex problem, which will have its own complex causes, is simplistically blamed on the racial prejudice that supposedly ‘structures’ every area of social life.

    A glimpse into a darkening future. This is really about overt positive discrimination. In reality reverse racism enshrined in law. Whites will become, as they are now in the TV adverts, a marginalised sector of the population. An anti-white Apartheid!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/04/labours-foolish-embrace-of-blm-ideology/

    1. Oh well, even more black teenagers will meet a premature end.
      What a victory for the race relations industry.

    2. There is no such thing as “reverse racism!” The whole concept of “racism” was sold to us as discriminating against someone of a different skin colour, not being anti black.

      I remember before I had ever heard of racism. I bet it’s one of the first words babies learn nowadays!

  21. Labour’s foolish embrace of BLM ideology. Spiked. 4 October 2023.

    Given that the Race Relations Act of 1965 outlawed discrimination on grounds of ‘colour, race, or ethnic or national origins’, and the Equality Act of 2010 specified race as a protected characteristic, one might have thought further legislation in this area superfluous. Yet Labour is not focussing on ensuring equality of opportunity, as these pieces of legislation tried to do. As Starmer has it, Labour is focussing on tackling ‘structural racial inequalities’, a variation on the BLM-style idea of ‘structural racism’.

    According to this idea, every disparity is to be attributed to racism. For instance, if the percentage of black people caught up in the criminal-justice system exceeds their percentage in society as a whole, which it does, this is not seen as a consequence of disproportionate offending rates. No, it’s seen as a product of the racial prejudice of the criminal-justice system. The same goes for every other disparity, from the relatively small proportion of black people who own their own businesses to the relatively large proportion of black children excluded from school. Each complex problem, which will have its own complex causes, is simplistically blamed on the racial prejudice that supposedly ‘structures’ every area of social life.

    A glimpse into a darkening future. This is really about overt positive discrimination. In reality reverse racism enshrined in law. Whites will become, as they are now in the TV adverts, a marginalised sector of the population. An anti-white Apartheid!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/04/labours-foolish-embrace-of-blm-ideology/

  22. Labour’s foolish embrace of BLM ideology. Spiked. 4 October 2023.

    Given that the Race Relations Act of 1965 outlawed discrimination on grounds of ‘colour, race, or ethnic or national origins’, and the Equality Act of 2010 specified race as a protected characteristic, one might have thought further legislation in this area superfluous. Yet Labour is not focussing on ensuring equality of opportunity, as these pieces of legislation tried to do. As Starmer has it, Labour is focussing on tackling ‘structural racial inequalities’, a variation on the BLM-style idea of ‘structural racism’.

    According to this idea, every disparity is to be attributed to racism. For instance, if the percentage of black people caught up in the criminal-justice system exceeds their percentage in society as a whole, which it does, this is not seen as a consequence of disproportionate offending rates. No, it’s seen as a product of the racial prejudice of the criminal-justice system. The same goes for every other disparity, from the relatively small proportion of black people who own their own businesses to the relatively large proportion of black children excluded from school. Each complex problem, which will have its own complex causes, is simplistically blamed on the racial prejudice that supposedly ‘structures’ every area of social life.

    A glimpse into a darkening future. This is really about overt positive discrimination. In reality reverse racism enshrined in law. Whites will become, as they are now in the TV adverts, a marginalised sector of the population. An anti-white Apartheid!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/04/labours-foolish-embrace-of-blm-ideology/

  23. SIR – The news that Steve Barclay is to roll back NHS wokery raises questions about its current leadership team.

    If the NHS were a listed public company, the Health Secretary would be the non-executive chairman, representing the interests of the shareholders (taxpayers and patients). If he had to step in to overrule the CEO and executive board on a strategy or policy, they would have to resign. Where does this leave the invisible Amanda Pritchard, the head of NHS England, and her mass of managers?

    Peter Knowles
    Leigh on Sea, Essex

    Quite right, Mr Knowles! And all the while Prtitchard and her expensive and incompetent chums remain at the helm there is no prospect of an end to waste and wokery.

    1. If the NHS were a listed public company it would now be remembered with the same fondness as Barings, Equitable Life, RBS, the South Sea Bubble, BCCI, Polly Peck, MG Rover, etc

  24. SIR – Like many shoppers, I now make most of my purchases online and find physical shopping a chore.

    However, needing an in-store-only item (kitchen knives), last week I visited John Lewis in High Wycombe. While there, I bought items from menswear, stationery, bedding and kitchenware, and in every section was served by friendly and efficient staff. For a glorious hour and a half, I forgot all my cares. Thank you John Lewis.

    Sharon Wilson
    Wendover, Buckinghamshire

    Has Sharon White changed her name for this letter?!

    1. I was in JL WGC yesterday afternoon I know it was ‘midweek’ and after 4 pm but there were more staff than customers. It’s still a lovely well organised shop. I had to find my wife for a lift home. It didn’t take too long. 😉
      And tha carpark was almost full up.

    3. It is a bit unrealistic to expect the shop to be there for you if you always buy things online.

  25. Morning all 😀😊
    Grey again but supposedly no rain. That’s difficult to believe.
    Let alone ordinary folk I think the vast majority have little faith, if any in the lying cheating, me, me, me, people of Westminster.
    Most of them are in politics because the personal gain. That’s been obvious for decades.

  26. Right, off to pump bilges, then off to Step-sons where I’m going to have to try VERY hard not to rip his arm off and beat him up with the soggy end and then shove the remains up his arse.

    A52 from Ashbourne permitting, see you all later.

  27. From the letters:

    Wokery in the NHS

    SIR – Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, should be congratulated on bringing some common sense to the NHS with his plans to push back against wokery and restore women’s rights (report, October 3).

    There is a sense that the tide is finally turning against the ideology that has been wreaking such havoc.

    Peter Rosie
    Ringwood, Hampshire

    So, Barclay ‘has plans’ to ‘push back’, has he? In other words, nothing will happen because his snivel serpents will frustrate him.

    1. A LOTof legislation will have to be repealed first, followed by a significant number of redundancies.

      1. Morning Sos. To right the NHS (without implying that it is possible) would require an employment blood bath. Tens of thousands would have to be sacked!

        1. I’m not sure it would need to be at such high numerically levels; remove the cancers and the body itself would be in a better position to recover.
          Let front-line staff get on with their jobs, provide support, not unnecessary interference.

      2. Repealed? What a quaint notion! They will clearly see it their duty to enact lots more laws to enable their plans to go ahead (and recruit more people to administer it, of course).

  28. Morning Folks!

    Actual Headline in the DT:

    “Crocodile sex frenzy triggered by Chinook helicopters”

    Said Mrs Croc to Mr Croc: “Do you fancy some Chinookie?”

    1. I am taking a short break from P.G. Wodehouse and have started reading the Rumpole stories again. Rumpole’s Return is currently at my bedside.

      Rumpole has returned from Florida where he and his SWMBO are living with their son, Nick, a university Head of Sociology. Rumpole managed to escape in the middle of the night to catch a budget flight home to “help” with a case involving bloodstains.

    2. I am taking a short break from P.G. Wodehouse and have started reading the Rumpole stories again is currently at my bedside.

      Rumpole has returned from Florida where he and his SWMBO are living with their son, Nick, a university Head of Sociology. Rumpole managed to escape in the middle of the night to catch a budget flight home to “help” with a case involving bloodstains.

  30. 377324+ up ticks,

    OGGA1,
    He always was,in my book a covert tory coxswain

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    13h
    Farage never really left the Tory Party.

    Sunak refuses to rule out welcoming Farage back into Tory party

    PM leaves door open for Farage to rejoin party he left in 1992 – but ex-Ukip leader later says he is not interested

    1. I’m sure all the old goats will appreciate it. I hear pine branches are a natural dewormer if you are thinking of a gift to take.

  32. Isabell Oakeshott

    The COVID inquiry has confirmed the 2 meter rule was twaddle. All those stupid plastic screens and yellow circles on floors, bossily enforced by terrified mask wearers – completely pointless. And ministers knew it. Never forgive. Never forget. #lockdownfiles

    @covidinquiryuk

        1. Sadly I guess most residents of most care homes are there because of dementia. It’s such a cruel disease.

        2. Sometimes they can sing along, and that could provoke a smile. But I suppose you are know that already!

          1. Yes I play a medley of singalong songs, they remember the words but can’t remember anything from the previous minute

  34. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40b46c6051e892cb9ee2e9224aeb8ac354dcb92703dbbbfe0a882bc078652e0b.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/germanys-had-enough-of-emmanuel-macrons-games/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

    BTL (Percival Wrattstrangler)

    Macron himself said that he would not dare hold a referendum on the EU as the French would vote to leave it.

    Remember when the European Union Treaty was on offer? The French, the Dutch and the Irish all voted in referenda against it. The negative result from the French and the Dutch was ignored and the Irish were told that they would have to vote again and would pay a heavy price if they voted against it again.

    The eurocrats got what they wanted – they renamed the European Union Treaty the Lisbon Treaty and did not allow any country to have a referendum on the matter.

    1. I thought that was just Brown, in this country? The treaty would have triggered a referendum by default, so it was amanded in name to avoid that clause in our rather poor legislature – and so Brown avoided democracy yet again.

  35. If the French can be allowed to make Brits queue for up to 24 hours to get into France/Europe by painstakingly checking their documents. We can do the same thing to people traveling from France. And send them back where they came from if they don’t have satisfactory reasons and paperwork to land here. Its become perfectly obvious that our government are so stupidly useless and they are using Publicly (by donations) funded Life boats to ‘rescue’ these illegal invaders. They don’t need rescuing they need turning back this will stop the invasion.
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/furious-suella-braverman-pinpoints-biggest-reason-tories-can-t-end-illegal-migration/ar-AA1hDzlk?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=1228d0da28d64e699cf648d50cb97a4d&ei=65

    3. Am I the only one who is unable to view the Twitter links in the message on here and have to open the link to see what they are about?

      I notice that there is a “?s=20” extension to the links now that is not p[art of the original URL.

  37. Just had a phone call from my hairdressing salon – my hairdresser of more than 30 years has left………. do I want to keep the appointment with another stylist? When I asked where Grahame has gone she said she wasn’t able to tell me but I would find out very soon…….. so I will keep the appointment and see, but it’s all very unsettling.

      1. He owned the salon for many years, but sold it to the current owners a few years ago and stayed on. I hope I’m not going to read anything bad about him – he’s in his 50s, with a young family, and he was still in the salon when I walked past the other day.

  39. ‘Morning all

    medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3d3826978c6fff8cddfbe6cc6ec39be13e0da98b40e2b5bda895b6a08ea96937.jpg

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    1. Not sure I agree with the death penalty for child rape. There’s no incentive for them not to kill the children.

      3. I would certainly add rape of any type to the Death Penalty which I want re-introduced., together with Birching for minors > 25.

    2. Penny, people do not come in “amounts”, they come in numbers!

      Actually in unfeasibly colossal numbers.

    2. Bah, nonsense. HS2 hasn’t laid any track, let alone have any trains running on it. It wouldn’t until 2038.

    1. Don’t go for the shave ……….🤔

      I remember a TV programme about Greece and there were apparently more Porsche Cayenne’s on the Greek mainland mainly owed by farming communities, they in the whole of London and New York collectively. But nobody earned enough money to buy one.

      1. I remember the farmer neighbour/cousin at my BiLs family village bought a million drachma tractor after the EU gave her a lot of compensation for her olive and cotton land when they widened the main road to Thessaloniki!

      1. Strange – I had to refresh the page to see that I had in fact made the same post twice………

      2. No, I have just suffered from a monster”switch-off” from UK politics … plus I am preparing for my first travel outside UK in 15 months – to Poland, 5-30 October.

  42. Has David Beckham bought the Daily Mail? There are no less that 26 articles about him and his family. I have never known any subject generate so much tosh.

    2. I always ask the question:

      How many international competition-winning England football teams has Beckham been in?

    3. You read the Daily Mail? Tell me it ain’t so? And I had you down as a man of substance.

      You get more up-to-date news and sensible comment in The Beezer.

  44. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12590513/QUENTIN-LETTS-Suella-Braverman-migration-speech-conference.html

    QUENTIN LETTS: What a wig-lifter! This was the first properly

    spellbinding, dramatically assured speech seen at a conference for years

    Predictable voices will hate it. But even they must admit that Sou’wester Sue was, as they say in twister corridor in Kansas, one heck of a blow.

    What a wig-lifter of a speech. If Michael Fabricant was there, his topknot must have been blown all the way to Bolton.

    Suella Braverman
    described an immigration ‘hurricane’ but she herself was a tornado
    making a determined path towards polite conventions, ripping elite
    etiquette from its moorings. The Establishment will be appalled. Tory activists (bar one) loved it.

    The Manchester conference centre, a venue with all the charm of an aircraft carrier’s loading deck, was packed.

  45. Morning, all. Bright, light overcast with a chilly breeze.

    Listen to Matt Gaetz (from 10 minutes, 12 seconds in), Republican Congressman, whom the PTB would like to see thrown out of the House. Do we have anyone with Gaetz’s fire and eloquence in the HoC?
    We did in the past but now…

    War Room – Matt Gaetz

    1. 377342+up ticks,

      O2O.

      Seems like the fox is surrounded by the chickens,could he have been driving in a bus lane whilst on the blower.

    2. When that inevitable war breaks out, what chance will we have against the Russian (msm favourite bogey), Chinese, Muslim (msm cannot mention this threat) hordes?

  49. Afternoon, rail fans! If the HSTs are to run from Brum to Manchester, albeit at a snail’s pace, they’ll need to work on the line in order to accommodate them as they are built to the UIC G loading gauge.

    1. It’s all spin. Spin to be abandoned as soon as possible. Sunak just want a few headlines while ensuring absolutely nothing whatsoever changes.

  50. I’m just watching Richie’s speech, not sure if he’ll ever complete the tasks he’s talking of.
    There’s plenty of applause, I’m a sceptic when it comes to politics and speeches. A lot of it could be Clap Trap. That remains to be seen. But they don’t have very long.
    Stop the boats today.

    1. Look at what they have not done that they could have . Do not believe him its all a con.

      1. I’ve got a great story from a guy I use to work with he was a radio officer on a British Aircraft Carrier.
        It’s a bit long for here.

    3. There’s a Yes Prime Minister sketch where Hacker is gving his speech to conference and is guaranteed a 5 minute standing ovation. ‘People have stop watches’ goes the joke.

      Sunak has no intention of stopping the boats. He’s doing what he always does – lying.

  51. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4651f4ab172b8d633ebdba1e06d7364ba3bc325942cf44346f65f7e42ba11c16.png

    “The Prime Minister said “great progress” had been made already on tackling smoking but in order to do the “right thing for our kids we must try and stop teenagers taking up cigarettes in the first place”.

    Mr Sunak said his plan was to “raise the smoking age by one year every year”, adding: “That means a 14 year old today will never legally be sold a cigarette.”

    Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose
    [Kris Kristofferson]

    Choice is now a dirty word.

    1. Maybe they could reduce illegitimate births by making sexual intercourse illegal for all those under the age of 25 who are not legitimately married?

      1. If that could be. No bonking until 25 years after becoming a British citizen, that would do a lot to keep immigrant numbers down.

        1. If you want to reduce the immigrant birthrate just scrap child benefit. Not only will they stop breeding, if you cancel housing benefit as well they’ll all leave.

    3. I’m sure newsagents are looking forward to asking 80 year olds for their proof of age in the future…

      1. When I reached 60 and qualified for a railcard, the woman at Gatwick Airport station told me not to bother producing my passport – “It’s obvious, dear,” she said!!

    4. Never legally sold a cigarette – of course not! It will all go underground (and become far more atttractive).

    5. I never smoked before my father, a 40 a day Woodbine smoker died. I smoked Gitanes for about five years after his death and then bought a couple of pipes, an English Briar and a smaller pipe in order to stop smoking cigarettes.

      Eventually I tired of smoking (and took to drinking wine instead) because it left a smell on everything, clothing and so on and gave up altogether.

      My smoking career came to a halt when one of the partners in the architectural practice for whom I worked and whom I greatly admired asked me to promise him that I would quit smoking before the age of thirty. I did just that.

      My pipes are for sale on Etsy. Bargains for those of discernment.

    6. I never smoked before my father, a 40 a day Woodbine smoker died. I smoked Gitanes for about five years after his death and then bought a couple of pipes, an English Briar and a smaller pipe in order to stop smoking cigarettes.

      Eventually I tired of smoking (and took to drinking wine instead) because it left a smell on everything, clothing and so on and gave up altogether.

      My smoking career came to a halt when one of the partners in the architectural practice for whom I worked and whom I greatly admired asked me to promise him that I would quit smoking before the age of thirty. I did just that.

      My pipes are for sale on Etsy. Bargains for those of discernment.

  52. Laurence Fox arrested for supporting Ulez camera vandalism. 4 October 2023.

    Laurence Fox has been arrested for conspiring to damage Ulez cameras and encouraging others to tear them down.

    On Tuesday, in an interview broadcast on video platform Rumble, Fox, 45, declared full support for the “Blade Runners” group of Ulez vigilantes.

    “I encourage them to tear down every single camera there is and I will be joining them,” the suspended GB News host said.

    It must have been like this at the beginning of Nazi Germany and during the communist rule of the Soviet Union!
    Guilt by association and Thought Crime.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/04/laurence-fox-police-search-ulez-gb-news-cameras/

    1. Fox was just noising off. Given that the disabling of ULEZ cameras has been going on for some time, a charge of ‘encouraging or assisting a crime’ should be thrown out of court.

      4. We all know it’s not about that. This is the state saying ‘We’re more powerful than you. You’ll obey and conform to our orthodoxy or you’ll be destroyed.’

    2. As the leader of a political party with an ambition for power, he is not coming across as being very statesmanlike.

  53. Laurence Fox arrested for supporting Ulez camera vandalism. 4 October 2023.

    Laurence Fox has been arrested for conspiring to damage Ulez cameras and encouraging others to tear them down.

    On Tuesday, in an interview broadcast on video platform Rumble, Fox, 45, declared full support for the “Blade Runners” group of Ulez vigilantes.

    “I encourage them to tear down every single camera there is and I will be joining them,” the suspended GB News host said.

    It must have been like this at the beginning of Nazi Germany and During the communist rule of the Soviet Union!
    Guilt by association and Thought Crime.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/04/laurence-fox-police-search-ulez-gb-news-cameras/

  54. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c815ff05647cfe7c723989d536f530b72ec27d1c9f7305b734b114ab4775276.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/10/04/rishi-should-be-begging-nigel-farage-to-join-the-tories/

    BTL

    The only way that Nigel Farage would be willing to be in the Conservative Party would be if he were assured of becoming its leader.
    He would also have to be given carte blanche to get rid of the remoaners who are still sullying and polluting the party’s parliamentary benches.

    Now is the time for Nigel Farage to get his own back on the treacherous Conservative Party for their determined effort to destroy the opportunities Brexit offered.

    If Nigel Farage wants to get his hat back in the ring he must make sure that he chooses the right ring – and the Conservative Party is no more the right ring than it it is still right wing!

    If the Reform Party allowed him to become the leader of their party in place of the rather uninspiring Richard Tice the Reform Party would wipe out the Conservatives at the next election.

    1. Jacob Rees-Mogg tried to persuade Nigel Farage live on-air yesterday evening. The only response was a grin.

      1. JRM should join Farage rather than the other way round! He has far more in common with Mr Farage than he has with Mr Sunak.

  55. An extract from a review of Treason May’s “Memoir”:

    “According to the veteran political journalist Andrew Marr, political memoirs serve three purposes: ‘to settle scores, to nudge the dial of the historical verdict, and above all to win a publisher’s advance that is unlikely to be earned out’. May, whatever she might claim, is clearly attempting to do the first and the second of these – in neither case very successfully.

    As for the third, who knows? Not that May needs to worry. Her post prime-ministerial appearances on the speech-making circuit don’t merit a mention. This is presumably because that would undermine the sense of her supposedly selfless commitment to public service she is at such pains to project. However, they have reportedly netted her well over £2 million and counting. Unless you worry that even this won’t be enough to keep her and her husband, Philip, in walking holidays in Switzerland, where, apparently, she first conceived of this book, I honestly wouldn’t waste your time with it.”

    Literary Review October 2023

    1. She conceived her book but did not want to conceive any children though she protested when people mention her childlessness.

      During our travels around the Med in Mianda we met a banker who had to work alongside May at the very start of her career. When she was asked how many children she wanted she exclaimed that she hated children because they are noisy and smelly and waste your time.

      Fair enough – if you don’t want children that is your own decision which should be respected – but that respect was lost when she lied about it saying how dearly she had wanted children and it was cruel of Andrea Leadsome to mock her sterility.

      Mrs May may or may not enter the House of Lords – but as Barrenness May it should be noted that her barrenness was deliberate.

  57. In case you were not aware. The Bank of Canada have announced that companies are increasing prices and passing on cost increases caused by inflation.

    Bestil, my beating heart. With such insight, how can our future wellbeing be in doubt?

    1. Well, they’re not wrong. Now, if they admit that the price increases come from a massive expansion in the money supply that’d be something.

    1. Note he hasn’t stopped the spending. He’ll claim he has cancelled HS2 (as the EU has let him off) but in reality he’s just wasting the money on other routes people may not want. It’s all waste so he can claim the credit for a short term change that’s really continuation.

  59. Folk living in Manchester should be pleased HS2 isn’t coming their way it just might give them a year or two longer before they are colonised like London…

  60. Judge the Conservatives on what they have done, not what they say they are going to do. They will say anything to be back in power and as before do nothing that we want them to..

  61. 377342+ up ticks,

    To my mind he never left, just done a kim, I remember him walking away on hearing the referendum result muttering those mutterences could very well have been “this was not as we planned”

    Rishi should be begging Nigel Farage to join the Tories
    The Conservative party have no choice but to be as Brexity as possible – and there’s no doubting Mr Farage’s Brexit credentials

    Lest we forget,

    Audacity,audacity,and more audacity.

  62. Fantastic plan by Fishi – to create a black (forgive me) market for children to get hold of cigaettes.

    1. Sunak the imposter is an absurdity. Everything he announced was entirely pointless, with the big things (tax, the demented green agenda) completely ignored and lots of bansturbation edge fiddling. The one thing he referenced, criminal welfare shopping, we all know he will do absolutely nothing about. He could have done something. He’s lying to cover until the election.

      I hate him, I hate his loathesome cabinet and I want the Tory party gone. In fact, I want the entirety of parliament gone. Put against a wall and shot would be a waste of bullets.

  63. 377342+ up ticks,

    Yet another sure-fired vote winner lifting the age of purchasing cigarettes, black comedy mindset, kid mortally knifed asks for a ciggy only to be told, most certainly NOT, they’ll kill you.

    1. It was part of our lives as we grew up.
      A Sneaky smoke.
      It’s all the vaping and drugs he needs to stop.
      But that would cost votes.

  65. 377342+up ticks,

    BREAKING NEWS🚨:

    GB News says it has “ended its employment relationship” with Laurence Fox and Calvin Robinson, but internal investigations into Dan Wootton “continue and have not been concluded.”

    Lozza Fox also raided and arrested by The Met Police!

    Put aside all thoughts you may have on Lozza and Calving but it is clear they are being singled out for destruction.

    Eventually this will happen to ALL OF US!

    Issues of this odious nature will be sorted post General Election by the voting majority.

    Fox & Calvin will do heavy time and ALL private dwellings will be subject to a 24/7 search with anus / mouth searches inclusive

    Do not forget, our health & safety is assured with a lab/lib/con/current ukip coalition vote.

    `

    1. Did Fox say anything illegal? Have plod really raided his home? That’s just insane. The police don’t bother investigating crime. They’re just the Stasi, the military wing of the Left wing fascist state.

        1. Laurence Fox used the Stasi word to describe the police.

          He’s not far wrong, so it would seem. We should be worried, very worried.

      2. He made some rather reckless public comments about supporting the Blade Runners which gave them all the excuse they needed. Comments, that’s all.

        It’s the same as the police arresting and fining the anti-invasion protesters in Dover last year because they blocked a road, while giving water and support to JSO.

        1. ‘They’ didn’t seem too concerned when islamists paraded with kill the kufar flags in Jewish areas of London. In fact when those people paraded they gave them protection.

    2. Afternoon Oggy. Fox will probably have a nervous breakdown eventually. He was already fragile. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if he tops himself!

      1. I hinted last week that his outburst about the callous attitude of that repulsive woman towards suicide might have touched a rather personal nerve.

        It would be understandable given the messiness of his divorce from Billy Piper and the way he was dumped by his fellow actors for having different views from those the luvvies thought were acceptable.

      1. That was enough apparently. Of course he has been a naughty boy for years – as he has African heritage, he should have been in BLM not the Church, and if he had to be a Christian, he should damn well have been a Marxist one!

  66. Back from step-son’s and I refrained from assaulting him.
    I’ve been looking after his money for some years now via a 2nd account that I have control of into which his benefits SHOULD be paid into.
    Unfortunately, when his benefits were reinstated after his last hospitalisation, they were reinstated into his “spending account”. This has led to him spending a large amount of his benefits whilst still having further funds dripped in from his Reserve Account.
    On Monday he received a transfer of £80 from that reserve account and by Tuesday morning was ringing me up asking me to transfer another £10 for him.

    He now has the debit card for his reserve account as well as his spending account and I’ve washed my hands of heling him.

    2. How old is the fellow? It could be he is just immature and unable to ‘balance his cheque book’, as it were.

      It great that you’ve set up two accounts – a costs account and spending account. It really helps to narrow the mind on precisely how much money you have left.

      1. 51.
        Before I took over looking after his benefits, he’d receive a payment on the Thursday to last for 4 weeks and be begging me for a loan by the Saturday.

        His reserve account has money in it as his PIP payment was stopped some years back, but eventually, after some months, reinstated with a hefty back payment. That has almost gone now.

        1. My mobility over the last 4 years left me with having others to walk my dog. For the worst of it i needed a motorised wheelchair. Which i had to pay for myself. I could only walk a few yards without having to sit down. I don’t qualify for any benefits at all even the ones not means tested. I get nothing. And no back payments either.

          Free flat. Free council tax. Utilities paid.

          What the fuck is he spending his money on??? (

          His
          reserve account has money in it as his PIP payment was stopped some
          years back, but eventually, after some months, reinstated with a hefty
          back payment. That has almost gone now.)

        2. I have a brother who acts as irresponsibly as that. He has always been broke and scrounge money whenever he could, my mother always fell for the sob stories of course.

          After my mother died, one brother used his share of the inheritance and bought a restaurant, we invested the money and irresponsible brother paid to have his old car brought up to Concours d’Elegance standards before eventually having to sell it. He is back at square one with his the world is not fair to me pleas for money.

          We have taken the same route as Bob and just washed our hands of the affair.

    4. Blimey, Bob.
      He’ll get a nasty surprise once it’s all gone.
      Guess who gets to pick up the pieces then…

    5. Is his mother able to get him back on track? I’m not surprised you’re angry after all you’ve done for him.

        1. BoB

          You really are an inspirational, and aspirational, figure; certainly for me.

          I doubt that many others would support their unrelated son in the way that you have done.
          If I ever, God forbid, found myself in similar circumstance I would pray that I could do as well.

    1. For PR purposes ‘I am a married man with children. My wife is nice.’ Whereas in reality as you say she should have kept quiet. I absolutely loathe all of them.

      2. Are we more clued up than the average voter, or are they just really, really unsubtle about this?

        1. It is the US influence on UK politics. She prolly thinks of herself as the “First Lady”…

          2. Then she should have had the guts to stay away. Pathetic lickle girl voice. For a billionaire…

          4. For a billionaire, not exactly earned or made through her own capabilities ….. useful having a rich daddy.

          5. Admittedly I did (break my ad hominem rule and ) snipe at that Mr Shapps a few days ago, but at least the young lady tried to support the father of her children.
            Mrs Sunak’s father, Mr Murty, is self-made (albeit with middle class origins) and highly regarded in India. He built up an enormous business that provides many thousands of jobs; he is known to be modest, and his wife is also successful and writes books. Yes, it was a daft idea, but there are a lot of British Indians who might still vote Conservative.

    2. “As the ordinary daughter and son-in-law of ordinary billionaires, we feel your pain…”

      1. “As children of immigrants, we understand the anguish that the people crossing the Channel feel”

  69. Sunak proposes a Thatcherite revolution for the current age. 4October 2023/

    For a leader who is supposedly facing inevitable defeat in an imminent general election, this was a brave and visionary speech. Most of the major policy announcements had been trailed in advance but they now had official names: the replacement for the absurdly expensive HS2 link to Manchester with a large number of more regional transport packages is to be called Network North. The anticipated restructuring of sixth form education which will meld academic and technical training will be titled the Advanced British Standard. Both of these proposals were defended with convincing and passionate arguments which effectively blended personal commitment with common sense (a term which he used often to good effect).

    Janet Daley phones in her article from her holiday home in the Twilight Zone!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/04/sunak-offers-a-thatcherite-revolution-for-the-current-age/

    1. What a load of very dangerous tosh from Sunak. He’s up the same old tricks Johnson was attempting to play: make everything thing seem as normal as possible, all the while ploughing on with globalist policies e.g. reducing the number of farmers, encouraging County Councils etc to push on with ‘sustainable’ i.e. freedom limiting projects such as 15 minute cities and LTNs everywhere: the list is long and detrimental to our innate freedoms.

      His, look at my right hand with its promised goodies while wielding the globalist club in his left is worse misdirection than that of a cack-handed novice magician, although Daley seems to have been had by it. Perhaps the Indian rope trick would be more in his line and when he reaches the top he really does disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

    2. Common sense? Where will the cash come from to fund education to 18? What if kids leave at 16 – or can they not now? Those kids who need English and maths to 18 don’t want to be there and it won’t help them one bit. The ones who don’t need it… don’t.

      We fall behind Asia because we don’t have any sense of motivation or failure standard. If you fail at everything, waste every opportunity offered you can look forward to a life on someone else’s cash. If you do succeed and work hard you’re hammered with taxes and debt forced to pay for the loafer who couldn’t be bothered.

      Who cares what the names are. It is spending that won’t go where it should, when it should. Instead of engineering billions will be wasted on wonks, Lefties and DIE.

      Passionate and convincing? My backside. All he convinced me of was that he’s a back stabbing rodent with the morals of a viper (to properly mix metaphors)

  70. A man and his wife were celebrating 50 years together. Their three kids, all very successful, all agreed to a Sunday dinner in their honor.
    “Happy Anniversary Mum & Dad” gushed son number one, a surgeon, “Sorry I’m running late. I had an emergency at the hospital with a patient, you know how it is, and didn’t have time to get you a gift.” “Not to worry” said the father, the important thing is that we’re all together today.”
    Son number two, a lawyer, arrived and announced “You and Mom look great Dad”.I just flew in from Los Angeles between cases and didn’t have time to shop for you”. “It’s nothing,” said the father. “We’re glad you were able to come.”
    Just then the daughter,a marketing executive,arrived. “Hello and Happy Anniversary! I’m sorry but my boss is sending me out of town and I was really busy packing so I didn’t have time to get you anything.”
    After they finished dessert, the father said, “There’s something your mother and I have wanted to tell you for a long time. You see, we were very poor. Despite this,we were able to send each of you to university. Throughout the years your mother and I knew we loved each other very much, but we just never found the time to get married.”
    The three children gasped and all said, “You mean we’re bastards?” “Yes,” said the father, “and miserable ones at that”.

    1. Every year I’ve got my mother a birthday present she has said ‘Did you keep the receipt?’ Every year. Every Christmas.

      One Christmas, me being about 11 Mum had said she wanted a scarf. I asked what colour. I saved up, Dad drove me to John Lewis in Norwich and I bought Mum a 6 ft long cash mere off cream scarf.

      I wrapped it, had the card all ready. Now, this is me at 11. I was hopeless at presents generally for years but I’d actually tried and properly bothered. Way before the age of the internet and on line shopping. Mother said, on opening it: ‘Oh. It’s got tassles. I don’t like tassles. And it’s not white. Did you keep the receipt?’

      So up yours mother. You might have given birth to me, but you aren’t much of a Mum.

      1. You’re meant to keep that sort of thing to yourself. Mothers are what they are. They’re not always good or nice, but they’re the only reason that you’re on this planet and posting on the forum.

        1. Not always the case. My mother favoured my middle sister and youngest brother. She believed that one or other of them would care for her in old age. The sister died prematurely and the brother stole her pension and pissed it against the wall.

          Needless to say I paid for my family member’s funerals.

      2. How strange but your record strikes a chord with me. Every year I would gift really nice and relatively expensive presents to my wife’s family. These would be Liberty silk scarves, expensive bottles of Port, Whisky or Claret and other assorted trinkets.

        After a decade of receiving in return naff crap presumably from QD or else Thing Me Bobs I saw the light and called a halt.

        The fact remains that some of us are innately generous whilst others are born mean.

    1. he’s trying to prevent former Conservative voters from switching to one of the new smaller proper Conservative parties

    2. The headline is just sound bites. They’ve had plenty of time to do what they must know the Conservatives want. It’s far too late. I hope they get a real drubbing in the GE, they’ve earned it.

    3. Prepared to take radical steps – apart from cut taxes, repeal acres of law, and leave people alone. Beyond that, radical steps – like make law demanding yet more tax, regulation and debt.

  72. Here’s a small town story that demonstrates so much that is wrong with environmental policy. Gresley Rovers is a football club playing at the 8th level of English football. The ground is in Church Gresley in the south of Derbyshire, near to Swadlincote. The area was industrialised, with coal mining and significant deposits of clay used for making domestic pottery. Some pottery continues but the mining’s long gone. What’s left behind is wasteland returning to nature i.e. scrubland of hawthorn, ash, birch and elder etc.

    The club identified a five-acre plot of this wasteland as convenient for a new stadium with, in addition to the main pitch, six all-weather 5-a-side pitches and a large clubhouse to act as a community centre and a home for a boxing club. The project was to be funded by selling their cramped old ground, barely two acres surrounded by older housing, for more residences, including social housing.

    The club has withdrawn its planning application as unviable. Here’s an extract from the club statement:

    As a brief reminder, the main issues shared, among others, were:
    • Successful completion of an outstanding survey relating to Reptile and Invertebrate assessment
    • Discovery of Japanese Knot Weed and costs associated with remediation.
    • Costs associated with UK government mandatory legislation related to Biodiversity Net Gain

    Following the successful completion of the reptile and invertebrate surveys at a cost to the club of several thousand pounds in May, this particular barrier preventing things moving forwards was removed.

    On the topic of Japanese Knot Weed, the liability for the remedial costs required to resolve the issue was still being discussed however, the most significant issue remaining was to establish via the local council what the costs would be for the application to meet the mandatory UK government legislation on Biodiversity Net gain.

    In August we received an email from South Derbyshire DC provisionally outlining those costings.

    In summary, for the project to become a reality we need to find £1.1 million for Biodiversity Net gain costs.

    Breakdown of costs related to Biodiversity net gain
    Bio-diversity Net Gain/No Net Loss contribution £840,000
    Insurance Fee (10%) + inflation (1.75%) £85,470
    Management Fee (20%) + inflation (1.75%) £170,940
    Monitoring and enforcement £2000
    Set-up fee £7000
    Total cost for BNG £1,105,140

    https://www.gresleyrovers.com/news/article/5144

    That’s bloody outrageous. I’d like to know what legislation has been invoked by the DC. There’s some detail missing here but I’m not surprised that the club has pulled out if half the money it expects to raise from the sale of its ground is to be spent on bat-boxes and newt ponds – and consultants’ fees.

    1. WTF is Biodiversity Net Gain (apart of course from a wet blanket stopping anyone from doing anything unless they belong to the predator classes)?

        1. Ah. Thank you. That was a nice little earner along the HS2 route.
          We have to root out this attitude that humans are always the problem – it’s toxic.

    2. Ample clarification as to why nothing in this country works.
      Perhaps they should apply for permission to build a mosque. Bet they’d be no costs whatever.

    4. Are the club members naive and poor, or just poor? They might consider the possibility of first getting their hands on the land, in order to fence it and find a couple of lads who like to live an eco friendly existence in a caravan. The lads also happen to enjoy breeding rare pigs, and caring for vulnerable ponies, and lighting occasional bonfires. Also they collect scrap metal, in small quantities.

      Over a period of time, the pigs will clear the scrubland and the local children will enjoy the ponies (or goats or donkeys or ostriches or meerkats or alpacas, you choose). When the land has been transformed from a dump into an Equestrian Centre, reluctantly paying Non Domestic Rates, THEN the Club can apply for planning. And if the Planning Dept hints at refusal, introduce a few dirt bikes.

  73. Afternoon all! Been to a funeral this afternoon for an old member of the table tennis league – he was 97. The service was a good, traditional service in the village church, followed by burial. A good turnout for him as well. So nice to have a proper, Christian service with traditional hymns and prayers, rather than the quick conveyer belt job which is the usual thing now at the Crem.

  74. Would it not be splendid if Mark Dolan, Patrick Christys, Neil Oliver, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nigel Farage and Michelle Dewbury at GB News all went on strike simultaneously and said they would only return to work when Calvin Robinson, Mark Steyn, Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton were reinstated.

    As the saying goes: false friends don’t surprise me any more but loyal friends do.

    I don’t expect to be surprised very soon!

    1. Jacob can be relied upon to have a very principled reason why he won’t sacrifice his career to support anyone else.
      Neil Oliver’s the only wild card left now.

    3. Sorry for being late, golf came first

      Wordle 837 4/6

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

    7. Congratulations!

      Wordle 837 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  78. That’s me for this agreeable day. Chums this morning and caught up on gossip. Saved 75p by delivering a letter by hand. Potted on 36 broccoli, kale and winter salad seedlings. Finished all the crosswords. MR off to her Keep Fit class – startling Pickles as she came down in her PT kit!
    I have to assemble the pre-arranged supper. Then, when she is home, have a drink. Then watch more of the RSC “Hamlet” with David Tennant as the daft Dane. Modern dress but none the worse for that. Market tomorrow – and a talk in the evening. All go around here…

    Have a spiffing evening imagining what YOUR OH would say (in a little girly voice – male or female or trans) in a speech about you.

    A demain.

  79. I have not been following the latest HS2shit but if Sunak had any sense, ha bluddy ha, he would have stated that the whole thing would be cancelled and moved on to cater for the equivalent of the old inter-city 125’s mph trains, (not losing 10 minutes on a journey time for rich executives) utilising the work already done.

    And then that east-west lines would be similarly upgraded to I/C125’s.
    For example, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Hull.
    Carlisle across to Newcastle.
    Bristol Oxford Cambridge Felixstowe.
    Cairnryan, Glasgow Falkirk Edinburgh.
    Hubs to North South routes and all able to carry overnight roll on roll off freight trains.

    2. Afternoon all.
      “… but if Sunak had any sense, …”. – you’ve answered your own comment, haven’t you 😜 LOL. What a joke this government is, a really bad one.

    3. But, but, but…none of those routes involve London! And it’s London that matters, shoorly?

      1. London is increasingly irrelevant. I avoid the place like the plague.

        The London Stock Exchange is stuffed as is Lloyds Shipping Insurance. Banks are not only closing branches but vacating expensive iconic skyscrapers.

        In no time at all mosques will sprout from Anglican Church sites and synagogues.

        London is well and truly fucked.

    1. Hitler phones the headquarters of the US Democrats and is startled to discover he’s been linked to his own voice-mail.

  81. 377342+ up ticks,

    Were they HURTY comments ?

    breitbart,
    WATCH: Police Raid Laurence Fox’s London Home following Comments

    2. My response…………………I am sorry the restaurant is full. If you would like to come back another day the restaurant is full. If you would like to complain about the restaurant being full all the time then you will need to make friends of the people who regularly book this restaurant. If you don’t know any of these people then it is up to YOU to find one where they have space fatso ! BTW…we only serve vegan coleslaw. Now fuck off before i kick your head in.

    3. Now that’s a statement.

      He? she? it? has spotted the problem and has parodied it.

      Question 1: Will the artist be cancelled?
      Question 2: Will those doing the cancellation explain why?

      1. I fear the only way to help such people is to nail their feet to to a plank and force feed them insects until their livers are so bloated we can then feed them to pigs……………..hmmmmmmmmm…bacon.

        1. Slight problem with your solution:
          What on earth makes you think the pigs would eat them?

          Would you?

  83. Well I was persuaded by Erin to take a walk with her shortly after lunch. It was easy going down hill but my word I was sweating buckets by the time we arrived home again. Absolutely gknackerd.
    But after a bit of a doze and a rest. I managed to carry out other tasks afore mentioned, (aka instructions) before she went to pick up two of our grandchildren from school and take them to thier weekly swimming lessons. While I made Spag bol for 4 people. Two extra portions for the freezer.
    I’ll be in bed around 21:00.
    On my second glass of merlot now.
    I’m drifting. 😌

    1. A man who eats Spaghetti Bolognese and drinks Merlot has my fullest admiration, Ready Eddy.

  86. Russia beefs up army with 335,000 troops, West running out of ammo
    More men will not be called up to fight in the Russian army, as hundreds of thousands have signed up already this year, Sergei Shoigu claimed.

    “There are no plans for an additional mobilisation,” said the Russian Defence Minister on state television. “The armed forces have the necessary number of military personnel to conduct the special military operation.”

    He claimed more than 335,000 people have entered military service under “volunteer formations,” with 50,000 signing contracts in September alone.

    Russia is trying to beef up its armed forces as the Ukraine war grows ever more attritional while incorporating fighters from the Wagner mercenary force. Shoigu’s figures indicate Moscow has made significant steps towards these goals.

    West says it is running out of ammo
    Western allies of Ukraine have said they are exhausting their stocks of ammunition, possibly raising implications for Kyiv’s war effort against Russia.

    Most of the thousands of shells Ukraine fires every day come from NATO.

    However, Adm Rob Bauer, the US-led military alliance’s most senior military official, told the Warsaw Security Forum that “the bottom of the barrel is now visible”.

    Governments and manufacturers must “ramp up production in a much higher tempo”, he added.

    The admiral pointed the finger at a chronic lack of spending in NATO countries, which meant ammunition stockpiles were insufficient, even before Russia invaded Ukraine.

    “We need large volumes. The just-in-time, just-enough economy we built together in 30 years in our liberal economies is fine for a lot of things – but not the armed forces when there is a war ongoing.”

    Echoing this claim that ammo supplies were “looking a bit thin”, UK Defence Minister James Heappey urged fellow NATO members to spend 2% of GDP on defence, as they have agreed to do.

    “If it’s not the time – when there is a war in Europe – to spend 2% on defence, then when is?” he asked.

    In comparison, analysts say Russia appears more capable of ramping up production to replenish depleted military stocks.

    A deal on accelerating the production of munition and missiles in Europe to deliver to Ukraine was struck in July.
    https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/04/ukraine-russia-repels-land-and-drone-attacks-moscow-mobilisation-plans-west-running-out-of

    1. No need to worry.
      I’m sure the American military/Armaments industry can produce enough to sell to all European countries, so they can buy and give away to Ukraine.

    1. Equatorial Guinea or similar? Did a 3 month job offshore Fernando Pó many moons ago, some good fishing.

  91. Evening, all. The HS2 debacle was discussed while we were racing this afternoon. General opinion was that it was a money-making exercise that nobody wanted except those who were going to profit from it.

    1. I wonder if the people who’s property or even homes have been destroyed will be granted compensation.
      This will go on for years to come.
      Another government cock up.

        1. I know some homes were compulsory purchased but the owners would have at least disgruntled and feel hard done by.

      1. At the point this report was taken, I’m not sure anyone knew who or how many had been killed.

    2. That’s a little of anti conservative sentiment being shown in that rag. The letters are quite entertaining.

        1. I think they’re thick. People so desperately entrenched in their demented ideology that they simply refuse to see the truth.

        2. We have discovered more nasties in Canada.

          Apparently a few of the recipients of the Order of Canada have rather dubious backgrounds as members of the SS. The Governor General I doing the liberal thing – apologizing and throwing a few million dollars at reconciliation.

          This is the GG with her snout deeply embedded in the trough. A salary of $350,000 a year but in the past few years still managed to spend $80,000 on clothes and $120,000 on laundry bills.

          1. There are Nazis in most countries. Many found their way to Argentina and Brazil, others to Canada and many more countries.

            A skip load of the bastards remained in Ukraine where they thrived and were more recently early combatants in the proxy war with Russia. Initially they paraded and were armed with baseball bats. Some genius in the US thought it a bright idea to replace the baseball bats with machine guns and the rest is recent history viz. the destruction of Ukraine and the submission of the dollar as the default world currency.

            There are so many very clever persons of superior intelligence in the US government NOT.

          2. There are Nazis in most countries. Many found their way to Argentina and Brazil, others to Canada and many more countries.

            A skip load of the bastards remained in Ukraine where they thrived and were more recently early combatants in the proxy war with Russia. Initially they paraded and were armed with baseball bats. Some genius in the US thought it a bright idea to replace the baseball bats with machine guns and the rest is recent history viz. the destruction of Ukraine and the submission of the dollar as the default world currency.

            There are so many very clever persons of superior intelligence in the US government NOT.

          3. I understand the Canadian cattle organisations are trying to block UK entry into the CTPP.

          4. It wouldn’t surprise me, the powers that be seem to be going out of their way to annoy every ally that the country ever had.

    3. Surely Scottish contempt laws do not apply in England? When Jack Straw’s son was busted for supplying dope, he could not be names in England and Wales as he was 17, but was named in Scotland as our contempt laws did not apply there.

  94. I am sick and tired of the ignorance, stupidity and spite of people. Ranting whingers bleating about non-doms when they don’t know what the term means, let alone the tax status. Bitter Lefties hateful of Truss because she would have undone their miserable ideology. Remoaners blaming everything on Brexit when they lost the vote AND not a single pro UK policy has been implemented.

    The lot of them should be packed in a bus and sent off to a scrap yard and the bus crushed – with the sewage Lefties on it.

    2. It’s in the New York Post as well so the news item is probably true.

      It would make for an interesting fourth year of Bidens term. Could Trump hold back his ego and bring in the middle of the road voters by acting diplomatically?

      1. Trump has no interest in the Speakership. He is more interested in campaigning for President. This is a distraction.

        In any event Trump has to contest numerous specious lawsuits designed by Democrats and RINOs to hobble him.

  96. That’s me for tonight, chums, so I’ll wish you all a Good Night – sleep well.

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