Wednesday 5 June: The election debate won’t have convinced voters that change is coming

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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706 thoughts on “Wednesday 5 June: The election debate won’t have convinced voters that change is coming”

  2. Good morrow, gentlefolk. today’s (recycled) story

    Definition of the word "coincidence".

    A chicken farmer went to the local bar. He sat next to a woman and ordered champagne.

    The woman said, "How strange, I also just ordered a glass of champagne".

    "What a coincidence" said the farmer, who added, "It is a special day for me – I’m celebrating"

    "It is a special day for me too, I am also celebrating!" said the woman.

    "What a coincidence" said the farmer.

    While they toasted, the man asked: "What are you celebrating?"

    "My husband and I are trying to have a child for years, and today, my gynaecologist told me that I was pregnant".

    "What a coincidence!" said the man. " I'm a chicken farmer and for years all my hens were infertile, but now they are all set to lay fertilized eggs."

    "This is awesome" said the woman. "What did you do for your chickens to become fertile?"

    "I used a different rooster." the farmer said.

    The woman smiled and said: "What a coincidence"

  3. Good morning, chums, another dry day, quite sunny in the morning. Thanks for today's page, Geoff. Wordle in four this morning.

    Wordle 1,082 4/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie.
      Wordle 1,082 4/6

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  5. The election debate won’t have convinced voters that change is coming

    So the toolmakers son got hammered by Sunak yesterday, how useless is he? He keeps on about voting for change but doesn't appear to know what that change will be or if he does know, he is too afraid to say.

    2. The man who openly admitted to preferring Davos to Westminster because you can get more things done in Davos (without pesky democracy, one assumes) knows perfectly well what is coming down the pipeline…as you say, he just doesn't want to admit it.

      Mass culling of our food supply due to "bird flu" manufactured hysteria; digital id, leading to a technocratic social credit system; punishment for travelling and other net zero despotism; more attacks on Christianity. If Starmer becomes PM, I think he will try to accelerate the destruction of the Church of England. Oh and more war of course.
      Hidden behind all that, a financial reset that protects the interests of the parasite class.

      1. He doesn't need to undermine and attack Christianity, especially the CofE, Welby is doing a grand job for him.

        1. Various governments have done their part, eg wrecking marriage. Another attempt at disestablishment was tried recently. What if it had the government behind it?

        2. That is why the atheist Cameron appointed Welby to be the Archpillock.

      2. He doesn't need to undermine and attack Christianity, especially the CofE, Welby is doing a grand job for him.

    3. The man who openly admitted to preferring Davos to Westminster because you can get more things done in Davos (without pesky democracy, one assumes) knows perfectly well what is coming down the pipeline…as you say, he just doesn't want to admit it.

      Mass culling of our food supply due to "bird flu" manufactured hysteria; digital id, leading to a technocratic social credit system; punishment for travelling and other net zero despotism; more attacks on Christianity. If Starmer becomes PM, I think he will try to accelerate the destruction of the Church of England. Oh and more war of course.
      Hidden behind all that, a financial reset that protects the interests of the parasite class.

    1. The most sickening aspect of that is that, of course, Keir’s family won’t have to wait for private healthcare because somebody will ensure they get seen promptly in the NHS. Furthermore, Keir lives in London and, while the NHS isn’t perfect here, it is a sight better than in many other parts of the country.

      1. By insisting that his family use the NHS, millionaire Starmer is ensuing that poorer people wait even longer for their treatment.
        Like Lord Greenswill deliberately sticking his children in a local primary made life more difficult for parents without his £millions.

        1. If those who can afford school fees send their children to private schools and if those who can afford private medical care use private medical care then this:

          SAVES THE STATE MONEY!

          Starmer probably knows this but has decided to keep going with the Old Labour philosophy of spite, envy and hatred and biting the hands that feed the state by not using the services to which their taxes entitle them.

          The amount spent on private medical insurance and school fees should be an allowable charge against a person's income tax.

          A Conservative Party should acknowledge this but it won't. What does Farage's Reform Party think about this?

          1. Private health insurance used to be tax deductable.
            One of Blair's first action was to nix it to keep his token pleb Prescott onside.

    1. Is there a number you have to call and send them 12.50 from your credit card to claim the prize?

      1. One of my prizes in May was £25 and I haven't seen anything to the contrary

        1. Oh – maybe we’ve just been lucky not to have any £25s recently . I remember they cut to £25 when interest rates were very low and had naively assumed that the rate rise had made them reverse that.

    3. 388147+ up ticks,

      Morning B3,

      I have always liked you Bob and currently I find myself in a bit of a bind, cashwise that is, if you
      could see your way…………..

        1. £6450 so far this year – I can afford to put stamps on the begging letters now

  11. 388147+ up ticks,

    Morning Each.

    Wednesday 5 June: The election debate won’t have convinced voters that change is coming

    But I do believe it could be enough,the climate is right as in the electorate are fear susceptible, softened up these past three plus years to in this case, once again accept the devil they know against a well proven devil they FEAR above all.

    That would leave the tory (ino) party and, in my book, the tory (ino) auxiliary branch, reform.

    So, in short NO CHANGE.

    🎵
    Things can only get worse.

    1. They will get worse before they get better, because that is the cyclic nature of life.
      Headlines on Twitt yesterday were that the WHO has agreed its slavery pact pandemic treaty after all.

      Interesting that the letters headline isn't "Sunak's sound performance will surely convince voters that he is a safe pair of hands."
      One could almost suppose that Bridgen is correct and the Tories don't want to win this election…

      1. 388147+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,

        🎵,
        California calling on a winters day,

        I personally want the same mob in place or the remnants of it, when the shite hits the fan and court appearances are demanded.

        1. There's worse coming.
          We will only ever get the small fry.
          It looks as though they may have decided to sacrifice Fauci in the US for his role in the covid fraud.
          I would like to see Drosten in Germany (who convinced the world that the PCR nonsense was a "gold standard" covid test), Hancock and Gates in the dock at a minimum – there are plenty more of course, including that smug b*rd in charge of serial felon Pfizer.

      2. How can the WHO agree the treaty when U.K. has no legitimate government at the moment? Or is it majority voting?

        1. The WHO, having been thwarted from bringing in their 'Pandemic Treaty', acted swiftly to amend the 'International Health Treaty'. Even as nations cheered that they had stopped the Pandemic Treaty, the WHO continued amending the IHT.

          It's not unlike when the 'EU Constitution' was voted down but was replaced with the 'Lisbon Treaty'. It means that the WHO, just like the EU before them, have managed to bring in a document that can be amended to mirror the original 'treaty'.

      3. “The worst is not
        So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’’

        [King Lear]

    1. Without knowing the state of the tides in each photo, whether any sea defences have been put in place or if there's been any land uplift, these comparisons are not very meaningful.

    1. Gradually 0rish & UK towns & cities have become unrecognisable..
      the majority of people just live their own lives in their own way and only look at the broader questions when reality & life impinges upon them.. then the hand of life grabs them by the collar.. and they cannot do any other thing but sit up & notice what's in front of them.

      Or.. do like all Leftie progressives do.. ignore it. Move out of town or go to Texas. Then continue to preach Leftie progressiveness from the safety of the evil white racist countryside.

      1. It is quite funny seeing Lefties leave a very Left wing area because crime, cost of living and taxes become too heavy to bear and then move to a normal area and want to set about forcing the exact same things they supposedly left behind.

    2. Gradually 0rish & UK towns & cities have become unrecognisable..
      the majority of people just live their own lives in their own way and only look at the broader questions when reality & life impinges upon them.. then the hand of life grabs them by the collar.. and they cannot do any other thing but sit up & notice what's in front of them.

      Or.. do like all Leftie progressives do.. ignore it. Move out of town or go to Texas. Then continue to preach Leftie progressiveness from the safety of the evil white racist countryside.

    3. Well, towards the end of the video they all stopped at a very convenient lamppost.

      1. 388147+ up Ticks,

        Afternoon MM,

        I hear they tried( 3 times) but found the rope was to long for the drop.

        By the by £6 a pint a, abloodytrious.

    4. Good for them. If politicians faced the public more often and realised how much they are despised they'd behave better in office.

  16. Good morning all.
    5°C on the Yard Thermometer with a bright start after overnight rain.

    I've a bit of a drive today to pick up another auction purchase from Manchester then down to Stoke to see Stepson who is, or at least was last night, in Hospital.

    8. Oh, what did you buy?

      I sympathise on the hospitalisation. My brother burned himself quite badly on the new oven they've had put in. Even the warden lass is starting to stick to a common uniform of sorts and argued against the new appliances – installed because they're more 'energy efficient'.

      Yes, because severely autistic people really care about a tax scam hoax!

  17. Good morning all,

    A bright start at McPhee Towers in North-West Hants but cloudy soon and it's going to be cool -10 ℃ and no more than 15℃ later.

    Not far from here some folks have done the silent majority proud in not putting up with Pride.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b10be73763d14ca0e510f10752c725bc854f2639329643e7b9e70438e7d5f97d.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/04/pride-flag-next-war-memorial-army-town-torn-down/

    Danny Kruger, Conservative candidate for Devizes has been a bit wet though.

    Danny Kruger, the Conservative candidate for the area at the general election, said he understood residents’ concerns but was “dismayed” that “vandals [had] taken matters into their own hands and damaged public property”, urging residents to instead “object… through the ballot box”.

    Sorry, Danny, the ballot box is too slow and the outcome too uncertain.

    1. It is public property, paid for by the tax payer. Therefore, the tax payer tearing the wretched thing down is entirely appropriate.

      Although, a small part of me also acknowledges that the wars were fought so people could be free to choose how they lived. However, a much larger part of me also realises that the same people demanding the freedom to play let's pretend want to force their views on me, so really all the nasty flag is missing is the Nazi swastika. Heck, as many of those adherents also want communism slap the hammer and sickle up there. I don't know if fascism has a command iconography, but wherever that flag is that's the intent.

    2. Good! That disgusting flag is about domination and control, not the rights of the oppressed.

    4. "LTC (Ludgershall Town Council) are trying to be a diverse and more progressive council and therefore along with many other councils around the UK agreed to fly the progressive pride flag."

      Register of Interests Ludgershall (Town) Council

      Mayor and Chair: Owen Stanley White – None, nothing, zilch, aucune. What has 'Gay Boy' Owen got to hide?

      Note use of 'Chair' rather than Chairman.

  18. Good morning, day started well, but now clouding over with the wind picking up.

  19. Good morning, all. Blue sky and sunny at 06:00 with cloud forecast to build this morning. Temperature a tepid 15 degrees; flaming June still to arrive.

    Here, Dr David Martin explains, amongst other things, that the "virus" was released and spread by the means of an aerosol in an attempt to create the illusion of a pandemic. Are 'they' reprising this performance with the latest fear inducing "virus"?

    https://x.com/Uncommonsince76/status/1791556926490222602

    2. I hope not. It'd be nice to get the clothes dry outside today. It is supposed to be cooler than previous days though.

      Last year didn't we have snow?

      1. No snow to speak of this past winter, just a very light dusting one night. I've seen more icing sugar on a cake.

        1. We had a heavy shower of rain yesterday afternoon and I'm sure there was some snow in it

  22. 388147+up ticks,

    Rishi takes the prize as leaders clash on 1990s game show set
    Not only did Sir Keir seem pettier than the PM but, thanks to the magic of TV, he also managed to look smaller

    Fanbloodytastic,

    The prize being , where they got it from I know not,a four foot
    platter mounted, gold-dust sprinkled, TURD.

    1. What bothered me was the deceit. Sunak said 'he'll cost you £2000' and I thought… you're already costing us vastly more than that, and more over time.

      It was dogwaffle without challenge.

      I'd also ask why Gaza was raised. It's a foreign country. It has no business being raised in a UK election debate. If folk care about it, move there.

      1. A "dogwaffle" sums it up perfectly from what I heard.
        I bet no mention whatsoever was made of the really important issue, i.e. both parties' adherence to Agenda 2030 and signing Britain over to one world government via the WHO.

        1. Was any mention made of the unsustainable immigration figures? Or the almost guaranteed acceptance of the non-stop flood of illegal enemy aliens?

          1. No. I imagine that's one topic both sides will intentionally steer away from .

            The government isn't deliberately bringing them in. What it is doing is refusing to stem the flow. On the other side of things universities desperately need foreign students or else they will either close or reduce dramatically. Is this a good thing? Probably. It would be a huge blow to university towns though. Soton's heavily reliant on the student cash and the salaries of university employees.

  23. Route to Stoke from Manchester checked and route card made up, carry-mug of tea made and just need to pump bilges before heading off.
    TTFN for now.

    2. Back in 1981 I needed to travel by train from Lancaster to Chesterfield to be back in time to start my night shift.

      The journey from Lancaster, via Bolton, to Manchester Victoria went without incident; as did the bus transfer between the Victoria and Piccadilly stations. When I arrived at Manchester Piccadilly though, large signs told me of a rail strike curtailing travel between Piccadilly and Sheffield Midland. The only alternative was to catch the Stoke train, then another to Derby, then a third to Chesterfield.

      I managed all that without incident but I arrived much too late for my night shift so had to take a night's leave of absence.

  24. A question:

    Who knows why those little strips of buttered bread or toast used to dip into a soft-boiled egg (in an eggcup) are called "soldiers"? Why not "sailors", "airmen", "tinkers", "tailors", "beggarmen", "thieves" or "politicians"?

    When I was growing up we simply called them "fingers".

      1. I see. I tend not to line mine up, life's too short. I just chuck them in a heap on the side plate.

      1. They were called soldiers in my childhood. My parents were born and raised in London.

    3. On a different tack.
      Why "funeral parlours"?
      Is it a throwback to the coffin being kept in the (icy cold) "front room"?
      Or does it sound more genteel and less harsh?

      1. There was an upright piano that no one could play in the front ‘parlour’ room of my paternal grandmother’s house. A room only used by the women on Christmas Day (to escape the men for a while). As a toddler I was fascinated by that piano and took every opportunity of going in there to plonk on the keys, only to be admonished every time instead of being encouraged to learn.

        It transpired that the item had been bought for my 10-year-older female cousin who never showed any interest in the damn thing. And there it sat, year after year, just getting the occasional dusting down.

        1. My grandmother had a harmonium in the front parlour. I used to go in and pump the treadles. I was not popular.

  25. Telegraph front page: 'Starmer: No magic wand to fix everything.' Yes, there is. Cut state spending. Cut taxes. Let markets work.

    See? It's really really easy. The problem is you, just like Sunhat are a big state, high tax interventionist who can't stop himself from meddling with things you don't understand.

    1. We both know that state spending cuts will mean fewer teachers, fewer police, crumbling school buildings and hospitals, reduced armed forces, poorer roads, closed museums and art galleries, but the bloatocracy and DIE will continue to thrive.

        1. Doesn't have to be but will be, designed to show the harshness of reduced state spending.

      2. "Get worse? How can it get worse?"
        We've already got all those things.
        If the govt really would back off, we'd have a bad year or so and then things would improve. but they won't. They will prolong the agony for years, maybe even a generation with their meddling.

      3. Fewer teachers – this is what Starmer's policy of envy and spite will bring about.

        Many of the best teachers teach in private independent schools and many of these teachers will decide to leave teaching altogether when the schools in which they teach close down.

        When Mitterrand tried to abolish private schools in France all the teachers in private schools said they would never teach in state schools. The severe resultant shortage of teachers would have meant that the state sector would collapse and so Mitterrand had to abandon the policy.

      4. Fewer teachers – this is what Starmer's policy of envy and spite will bring about.

        Many of the best teachers teach in private independent schools and many of these teachers will decide to leave teaching altogether when the schools in which they teach close down.

        When Mitterrand tried to abolish private schools in France all the teachers in private schools said they would never teach in state schools. The severe resultant shortage of teachers would have meant that the state sector would collapse and so Mitterrand had to abandon the policy.

      5. The trouble is that cuts in the state will be administered by state managers; and they will not sack themselves or their cronies. So you are exactly right, it will be the front line workers that get the boot.

  26. Carol, the BBC weather lady, said there'd be some wintriness in Scotland's weather.

    1. It’s certainly bloomin’ freezin’ at the moment! Sunny, but a very nippy wind!

  27. 'Morning All
    Well this is "Awkward"
    https://x.com/LeeHurstComic/status/1798243112986476792
    No wonder Mitchell cleared the Chamber……..
    Rest
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aee797c0b6b34ffed3dc689c41616325bb1534a764bb6416bb77ecff47f0ba30.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a3cf1743fe558d3f11716ffe5165a667069b7b04135f820ee74dc01080b3982.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/25ce6357768db0271f22481d6adf2d687f8db5996a7a3c112ba87913d5b75d44.jpg

    1. Were the donations received from companies involved in the Private Healthcare sector pocketed by the MPs or did the MPs pass them on to their political parties?

      If Owen Paterson – on the list – was hounded out of politics then surely Keir Starmer, Yvette Balls and Wes Streeting should be hounded out too? Or are Labour politicians given a free pass when it comes to corruption?

  28. I'm really tired of people complaining about the price of everything – £3 for a coffee, £2 for a pot of tea, 50p for a slice of cake, £4 for parking
    I'm just going to stop inviting them to my house

    1. Wow , good value , I'd say .
      I will be around in a tick,

      Put the kettle on, hang on , I have to organise a flight first , because the trains are far too expensive to Inverness.

      1. "Danish Pastries" are not called that in Denmark (nor here in Sweden). They call them by their proper name of Wienerbröd ("Vienna Bread") since that is where they originate from.

        The Danes cannot, for the life of them, understand why the English have named an Austrian delicacy after their country.

        1. Interesting and "Not a lot of people know that." Any day in which one learns something new is not a wasted day.

        2. Interesting and "Not a lot of people know that." Any day in which one learns something new is not a wasted day.

        3. I learn something new every day. Must say, they don’t taste typically Danish, but then I have little experience having only visited once. Definitely more Austrian.

  29. I'm really tired of people complaining about the price of everything – £3 for a coffee, £2 for a pot of tea, 50p for a slice of cake, £4 for parking
    I'm just going to stop inviting them to my house

  30. Just experienced a few days of ghastly BBC bossy, droning voices. How can anyone stand hearing that day in, day out? I would want to shoot them or myself after a month!
    If you are still addicted, try two months completely without them – you won't go back!

  31. Women's brain works better on their period [sic].

    Sarah Knapton, Daily Telegraph, June 5, 2024.

    IT IS a tired old trope that women on their period are irrational, volatile and unable to function effectively. But a study from University College London (UCL) has demolished the myth, suggesting that women have quicker reactions, have better mental agility and make fewer mistakes, during menstruation.The study, with the Institute of Sport, Exercise & Health (ISEH), assessed sport-related cognition in the menstrual cycle as part of a larger project supported by Fifa. It found women were 12 per cent more accurate in a moving balls task and made 25 per cent fewer errors in attention and accuracy.Dr Flaminia Ronca, the study’s first author from UCL Division of Surgery and Interventional Science and ISEH, said: “What is surprising is that the participants’ performance was better when they were on their period.”The research was prompted by concerns from female football players and their coaches that injuries were more likely during their periods. More injuries seem to occur during the luteal phase, the time between ovulation and menstruation, and experts were keen to find out if fluctuating levels of mental agility could be behind the increased risk. For example, if women were less able to gauge the speed of a ball, or judge a tackle, it may result in an injury that would not normally occur.Although the women reported feeling worse during menstruation, believing performance would be impacted, reaction times were faster and they made fewer errors. In contrast, reaction times were slower in the luteal phase, although the women did not make more errors.The research was published in Neuropsychologia, an online journal.
    Most men know this, of course. It is why a resigned, "Yes, dear" seems to be the standard, measured, response to anything the poor dears utter at this time.

    1. Good morning, Grizzly

      Does this mean that women lose their rationality after the menopause? How many Nottlers would dare to suggest such a thing to their wives?

    2. Controversial as ever Grizzly. Good morning.

      The big flaw in your argument you do realise is that the research was by FIFA 😆

      1. Good morning, JG.

        The 'big flaw' is that it is not my argument. It was made by the DT's new little science mouthpiece, Sarah Knapton.👍🏻

        1. Yeah but, I know that. Just like having the odd prod! 🤣

          But seriously, save us all from journos is your real point. A point that cannot be made often enough in my opinion.

    3. Clearly none of those women suffer pain – that alone can dominate all thought processes.

  32. History as it is .. People say that if Pearl Harbour hadn't been attacked , the Americans would have sat on their hands and not entered the war over here .

    What if they hadn't , a big what if ?

    2. The Americans should not be regarded as proxy English or Europeans. America is for America and has always had much self interest is the truth. They shouldn't be relied upon that's for sure.

      The media will play along with the narrative too. Has anyone for instance seen this that's being escalated in Golan Heights and Lebanon during the past few days?

      Hezbollah attacks Israel

      You won't have, not from any European or American MSM. If it is on the BBC it'll be buried as a "Hezbollah continued to launch sporadic attacks from Lebanon". There were actually hundreds of rockets capable of reaching all of Israel fired over the weekend.

      This is unsurprising. Israel was going to neutralise Hezbollah just a week after Oct 7 but Biden got them to stand down. When Israel finally does open fire it'll be reported as "Israel genocide continues in Lebanon" or some such pro Iran guff.

      Go figure. I don't think anyone can truly get to the bottom of why America entered the war. If the truth is known. It's probably more to do with internal politics in the Senate concerning trade links, or something equally left field. America might be your friend, but it isn't what you'd call your "fast friend", never forget.

    3. Like the First World War they were very happy to see the British Empire being reduced. They were more than delighted to supply billions of dollars worth of arms, ammunition and ships but got uppity when the Germans started sinking the supply ships three years after the start of the war. A serious mistake by the Germans, if they had paid for the stores the US would have diverted the ships to Hannover and Bremen.
      Again, in the Second World War they were making billions supplying the Brits and their allies. If the Japs hadn't bombed Pearl Harbour they wouldn't have joined in then either. They never did declare war on Germany, quite the reverse, Germany declared war on the USA. We may not have won the war so soon without their help but the first atomic bomb may well have been dropped on Berlin rather than Hiroshima.
      Most Americans are sympathetic to the British, many of their ancestors were from Britain, but there was/is a great number who are antagonistic, especially amongst the politicians and leaders of industry. A lot of it is to do with education and religion but mostly, nowadays, it is to do with money. Money talks – and wars make money – for a certain few.

        1. USA wants resources and wealth out of Ukraine, a favourable market into a financially stable Europe (if it gets it and that's unclear) and a stable frontier with Russia. Russia I bet wants the Iron Curtain returned so that it can keep America off its financial turf, so to speak. Russia's intentions lie elsewhere.

          2. Hopefully Biden jnr will be up to his neck in the doo-dah come December too.

      2. I think America was solely interested in carving up Europe post war, because of the financial opportunities. No other real reason. If Germany had won had they left off completely, I think that they would have just shrugged their shoulders. The little Austrian would never have been able to threaten them, in any case.

        There's much sentiment for the "Oirish" in America because of the migration. Similarly for the Jews because of other reasons, but I'd say the American support for Israel is much more hard headed. As Leonard put it when Sheldon Cooper got his cat mania, naming them after all the world's leading 10 physicists: why should I worry just because you named all your cats after a bunch of Jews (sic).

        Similarly with Britain and its puffed up moralising windbags for the high ground were on about putting sanctions on Israel. We lose more in terms of expertise, secret intelligence and weapons hardware than they do in return. Go figure, once more, as they say…

          1. I thank you! I'm good at expressing my feelings verbally without ever showing them. It's personal you know.

      3. Interesting that Wall Street funded much of German industry before and through WW2. They wanted to reduce Britain's influence in Europe and carve Europe up between themselves and Russia. Which is one of the reasons Eisenhower insisted on a broad front attack against Germany, to prevent British forces getting to Berlin before the Russians as Churchill and Montgomery wanted. I've read reports that Market Garden was sabotaged by the Americans for that reason.

      4. The last sentence in 1066 and All That:

        America became top nation and History came to a .

  34. I keep the sound off on my phone and laptop. Can't stand the telly – I wouldn't have one if it wasn't for OH.

    1. I keep the sound off on my laptop , and my phone vibrates , our landline has caller screening ..

      As I am sitting here , a huge wasp/ hornet has clattered against the patio window and flown off.

      1. We've just been watching our super swifts doing several fly-pasts around the house… we've got a proper colony now with 10 birds. Seven were flying, the others have one bird sitting on eggs. The newest pair haven't laid their eggs yet. Our n-d-n is thrilled to see them too – she said they were flying past her house at 6am this morning – too early for us!

  35. Indeed. I struggled to remember that, but that's where I was heading.

  36. I liked this comment on the DTletters

    Julia Derriman
    5 MIN AGO
    Truly revolting the way town councils have taken on the job locally, that the bbc are masters at – social engineering, and erasing our history.
    Don't let them, be careful how you vote in future elections. This is a quote, from one of these 'enlightened nonentities'
    Owen White, the mayor and chairman of Ludgershall council, said on Tuesday that they had wanted to “show they were a progressive council in a progressive town” but it seemed the town “had a long way to go”.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/04/pride-flag-next-war-memorial-army-town-torn-down/

    Re the pride flag , my no 2 son and his partner, conventional sensible couple , leading good lives in every respect , are appalled by the attention that the so called Pride logos everywhere are as loud and in your face as Islamic prayer rituals and the call from the Muezzin.

    Their lives are private .. and they prefer it that way , and do not wish to become targets .

    1. £ to a penny.. Julia will continue to vote Tory on the assumption they will get a grip on this.. like sometime never. The very same party that allowed all this nonsense to be ushered in.

      1. The lyric for Dear Lord and Father of Mankind comes from a much longer poem, "The Brewing of Soma" by the Quaker evangelist John Greenleaf Whittier, who I was taught wrote it for the American Indians he converted and woudn't approve of it being set to music. (Wiki now concentrates on his being anti-slavery – a more fashionable issue?) With that line "forgive our foolish ways", it's amusing that it's often chosen for weddings!

          2. Ah, but some of us find minor keys majestic rather than melancholic. I wouldn't have any favourites if hymns and carols were restricted to major keys! 🤣

          3. Indeed yes. The world would be very boring if only the major were allowed. Majestic melancholia? How about Vangelis? To the Unknown Man. Not a carol but fits the bill.

          5. I disagree entirely – but I would never dare give you a down vote.

        3. It is one of our favourite hymns – we chose it at our wedding – we thought there was an implied irony in the choice! However, 36 years later we are still very happily together so maybe our ways were not that foolish after all!

          The other hymns we chose were: Love Divine All Loves Excelling and My song is Love Unknown. The latter was a good choice as, living in a boarding school where rumours were rife, we decided to keep our liaison secret until we announced our engagement in the Daily Telegraph where a boy in the library saw it, cut it out and, having moved aside all the other notices, placed it in the centre on the main school noticeboard with brightly coloured arrows in a circle all pointing to it.

          So everyone knew – and many claimed they already knew – and we were very warmly congratulated!

        5. I'm convinced that as soon as words are set to music, they just register as sounds not sense in most people's brains. 🤣

  38. V. Good!
    Wordle 1,082 3/6

    🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
    🟨🟩🟩🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Good morning Belle,
      With his woeful record on crime (and everything else), how on earth did Khan get re-elected? Are the enemy aliens/savages/parasites really in a majority there? As with much of modern life, it just seems somewhat Kafkaesque/ Hotel California.

        1. Actually it has been renamed to celebrate Khan's incumbency as Londonistan. It's official now.

      1. Oops, just seen you've made the same point. Doesn't stop it being true of course.

    1. Heaven help us when this shower of sh** gets elected. R.I.P. Great Britian and the British way of life.

      1. It already died when Blair forced 10 million foreigners on us and Brown massively extended welfare. People were told – sod responsibility, duty and dignity. Those are old fashioned. Do what you want!

        The new parasites, having destroyed the crop are now killing the gardeners.

    2. Milioaf won't say anything else but when it's clearly not true it just reads as facile fluffing. I don't believe any of them have a plan except more of the same declinism, tax, waste, socialism. There is no vision for genuine reform (even from Reform).

      None of them are worth voting for. None offer anything. If they did have a policy they couldn't sell it such charisma vacuums they are.

    3. I wouldn't mop the floor with any of them.
      We it depends what's on the floor of course.
      They're all sitting awaiting the arrival of the king now. For D Day 80. In Portsmouth.
      The irony is outstanding as it usually is in UK politics. Our parents and grandparents managed to stop the huge force of the nazis invasion but can't stop rubber boats.

  43. Morning all 🙂😊
    Cloudy but bright.
    I missed the mass debate last evening.
    I was out for a drink with some old friends.
    We were 'kicked out' of the first pub at nine pm.
    They were closing. Second pub with only eight people in, seemed soon to be just the three of us.
    It must have been something we said 😄😆🤣

    1. Pubs are cutting hours to save on costs. The only ones that seem to be doing well is Spoons.

      1. And at nearly 5 quid a pint……
        Scaring customers away.
        Terrible state of affairs..

        1. I paid £2.75 for a pint of Ghost Ship on Sunday afternoon, and that was after a recent 30p price increase. It wasn't a Wetherspoon's, either.

          1. I'm not a beer drinker, but I make an exception for Ghost Ship.
            Support your (fairly local) industry.

          3. Do go to Our Mutual Friend in Stevenage. It's a Craft Union pub, part of the Stonegate group. The theme is plain boozer without food, other than crisps & nuts, although it does allow a food van in the car park for people to eat outdoors. There's no garden, as such, but an extensive patio with plenty of seats. It has a darts board and pool table. There are big screens for sports fans and some piped music, but not too loud. Entertainers are often booked for Friday or Saturday evenings. It's also the nearest pub to Stevenage FC, so gets busy on matchdays/evenings. I usually go Sunday afternoons.

            https://www.craftunionpubs.com/our-mutual-friend-stevenage

        2. I've just paid £1.99 for a pint of Titanic Plum Porter in my local Wetherspoons.

          1. That’s why the Wetherspoons pub’s are usually well occupied.
            I use to work on pub refurbishments and met Tim many years ago. A nice friendly unpretentious guy.

          2. I’ve heard the same from others who have met him, which is one reason I’m happy to support his business, and defend it from those who spread falsehoods about their business practices.

      1. He's just taking advantage of this country. We don't want him here but the state refuses to remove him or prevent others joining him.

        When we voted to leave the EU there were issues the sate raised and called us all racists. I simply believe this is just spite.

        1. That particular alien is in Dublin. His smirking adds to the insult of decent tax-paying people having to fund his freeloading lifestyle.

  45. Right to roam would be the end of the British countryside
    –
    If we want to preserve special habitats and encourage wildlife to flourish, some places have to be out of bounds
    –
    CLIVE ASLET • 3 June 2024 • 2:39pm

    Kate Humble has broken ranks. Usually, BBC presenters can be expected to take a woke stance on any subject, but speaking at the Hay Festival she has dared to come out against the right to roam. This is inflammatory stuff.

    Since the mass trespass movement of the 1930s, the idea that the world at large should have unfettered access to the land, whoever owns it, has been a key tenet of socialist ideology. Given that the predicted Starmer government won't have much to spend because of the dire state of the public finances, this is just the sort of legislation he might be tempted to enact. But Humble's right. However attractive it might sound in principle, we don't need it and – as experience already shows in Scotland – it doesn't work.

    Conditions are different from the legendary Kinder Scout mass trespass of 1932. Then, hundreds of young men and women, "in picturesque rambling gear" and "shorts of every length and colour", according to its organiser Ben Rothman, stormed the Duke of Devonshire's grouse moor at Kinder Scout, in Derbyshire.

    They came from the surrounding industrial centres like Manchester and Sheffield, incensed that so much inviting open space on their own doorstep should be owned by one man and used for an exclusive sport. There were clashes with the police and half a dozen arrests. Since 1951, however, Kinder Scout has been part of the Peak District National Park, and free to visit as, in tourist board jargon, "a walker's paradise".

    There are now 15 National Parks in the UK, with 2,000 miles of public rights of way in the most recent of them, the South Downs National Park, created in 2010. They are one of the glories of Britain. Admittedly, success can bring its problems, with too many people being attracted to some famous sites and footpaths becoming worn; as ever, in these crowded islands, the landscape must be managed so that it retains the beauty that people come to enjoy in the first place.

    But for more adventurous spirits, who want to get further form the beaten track, there is the extraordinary network of footpaths, bridleways and byways, all giving unlimited access to walkers across England and Wales. The Ramblers Association fights tooth and nail for every inch of them, and rightly so: the poet Geoffrey Grison called them humanity's "oldest inscriptions upon the landscape" – the result of the protection given by common law to paths that are constantly in use.

    True, the route taken by a shepherd or milkmaid going to and from the farm may not always be the most convenient for recreational use today and it might be sensible if some were rationalised, but I can understand the romance. Landowners tend to maintain footpaths and ensure themselves against accidents from falling boughs or wonky stiles, regardless of the general absence of financial return.

    But the spirit of Kinder Scout lives on, and particularly in Scotland, where the evils of the landowning class are part of national mythology. You can walk on nearly all land north of the border. And although Scotland is sparsely populated, the result has been a nightmare for people many of the people wanting to protect the natural environment.

    Rare wetland birds, nesting on the fringes of a loch, are driven away by walkers who insist on tramping past them, often with dogs. Farmers find it hard enough to make a living without sheep being chased and cattle stampeded. One person's beauty spot is someone else's workplace.

    Despite the fashion for rewilding, nothing in Britain is truly wild; it needs to be carefully tended if it is to retain the biodiversity and joy that people love. If we want to preserve special habitats and encourage wildlife to flourish, some places have to be out of bounds. It's all a question of balance between competing needs and interests: rampant ideology doesn't help.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/03/right-to-roam-would-be-the-end-of-the-british-countryside/

  46. D-Day 80, a story of bravery and sacrifice.
    We shall never surrender……….
    Politics, a story of lies and only being concerned with personal pleasures and profit.
    We would all have been speaking German if our current useless cretinous mob had been in charge 80 years ago.

  47. Not Poland Bill, a recent statement suggests that they are not haveing any of it.

    2. But, but – the ghastly little shyte Tusk (or Rusk or similar) who runs Poland is a 150% Euro person.

  48. That's the way to do it. It would be interesting to know how these creeps were 'processed' back at the Russian nick.
    The majority of gay people just go about their lives without seeking attention; that's fine. It's the nasty, unhinged types that insist on weaponising depraved behaviour, being 'in your face' that are the problem.
    https://x.com/RadioGenoa/st…

    1. I just asked, about the rainbow flag and celebrating diversity… where are the black & brown stripes?
      Silence…

      1. Yo Ol

        True diversity is white.

        Take all the colours of the rainbow, in spectrum order, apply them equally in segments on a disc that can be spun.

        Fit the spindle of a disc into a drill, rotate disc and it will become white.

        QED

        3. Only if the colours are absolutely pure. Otherwise you get varying shades of light grey. True though. White is all the colours and real black is a void. What we usually take for black dye is actually a very dark shade of a colour such as blue or purple.

        4. I like nature's way of splitting white light into its constituent colours through the prisms of raindrops.

    2. Being gay is legal in Russia. What is illegal is publicly promoting it. Fair enough, I think.

      1. As it should be. The antics and behaviour of these creeps (the publicity seeking ones), far from 'promoting' being gay, or promoting acceptance of being gay (or any other of the lgbtqxyz), have probably hardened the views of many ordinary people against them. Many/most of those who are gay but just keep their private lives to themselves, are probably just as disgusted by the militants.

        1. Having lived in the San Francisco/Bay Area for many years, I know that to be true. Most gays are annoyed by the militant gays, your run of the mill gay person just wants to have a quiet life, like most people. They do not like or want the stereotyping that militant gay behaviour produces because it reflects badly on them. Most of the gay men I knew were perfectly normal, you would have not known they were gay. The only difference between regular men and them was that they were attracted to men not women. After quite a few conversations and just everyday contact with gay friends I came to the conclusion that there is a biological reason for homosexuality, they can do no more about it than you or I could do anything about being heterosexual. You would be surprised how many of them knew they were not heterosexual at a very young age, 4 or 5 e.g. long before they were aware of sex per se. It is not a perversion but like most other things it can be turned into one.
          It's actually interesting, I'm absolutely convinced that gay behaviour is 100% natural. So the question, why does it exist is fascinating? That is, what is it for in terms of evolution and society because the gay population across all societies remains a stable percentage of the population regardless of culture. It is around 4%. Why?

          4. The Sacred Band of Thebes were homosexuals. It enhanced their loyalty. I thought same sex mating in primates was a system of dominance.

          5. I agree, being homosexual is not a choice, just the way a person was born. As to why they exist, maybe it's down to something that occurred in utero.
            Rather like BLM damaging race relations, these militant LGBTQXYZ types have done immense harm to genuine gay people who, as you point out, just want to live their lives without interference.

          6. There is a theory that birth order and sex of preceding siblings plays a part.

        2. Having lived in the San Francisco/Bay Area for many years, I know that to be true. Most gays are annoyed by the militant gays, your run of the mill gay person just wants to have a quiet life, like most people. They do not like or want the stereotyping that militant gay behaviour produces because it reflects badly on them. Most of the gay men I knew were perfectly normal, you would have not known they were gay. The only difference between regular men and them was that they were attracted to men not women. After quite a few conversations and just everyday contact with gay friends I came to the conclusion that there is a biological reason for homosexuality, they can do no more about it than you or I could do anything about being heterosexual. You would be surprised how many of them knew they were not heterosexual at a very young age, 4 or 5 e.g. long before they were aware of sex per se. It is not a perversion but like most other things it can be turned into one.
          It's actually interesting, I'm absolutely convinced that gay behaviour is 100% natural. So the question, why does it exist is fascinating? That is, what is it for in terms of evolution and society because the gay population across all societies remains a stable percentage of the population regardless of culture. It is around 4%. Why?

      2. Good strategy. We have seen what happens when it goes too far. Drag queens reading story time to 5 year olds. The sexualisation of children.

      3. I don't think it needs to be illegal, but surely good taste would suggest just accepting it?

  49. That's the way to do it. It would be interesting to know how these creeps were 'processed' back at the Russian nick.
    The majority of gay people just go about their lives without seeking attention; that's fine. It's the nasty, unhinged types that insist on weaponising depraved behaviour, being 'in your face' that are the problem.
    https://x.com/RadioGenoa/st…

  50. I don't understand why they're so insistent that other people follow their chosen lifestyle. Why bleat so loudly about it?

    Is it insecurity? A sense that there's something wrong with them and thus they overcompensate?

        2. Somehow saying "An otter ran round the room" doesn't have the same impact as "A titter ran round the room."

        3. Somehow saying "An otter ran round the room" doesn't have the same impact as "A titter ran round the room."

          1. Yes. That's why I insisted on taking the display water feature. It was already nicely weathered.
            It would seem that the nursery either can't be arrsed to set up the display again, or have lost the remaining urn, as there was just a hastily dumped pot plant in the gap.
            A spot of rain and weather should remove the new look.

    8. Did you check for infestations of up to 40 thieves, you can't be too careful..

  52. Another unwanted housing development is to be imposed on the small town of March, Cambridgeshire.

    “To support the 45 new homes, significant open space and play facilities are proposed to aid recreation opportunities, exercise and social integration." Presumably, that means integration between those who will buy these houses and the occupiers of the 10 'affordable homes' (ie social housing to be allocated to ?).

    "The new homes will be of modern design and be of a mix capable of supporting the creation of a balanced and diverse new community."
    'modern design' – will they beanything like the awful cardboard Lego boxes being thrown up on the edge of Cambridge which bear no resemblance to local architectural styles or traditions?
    'diverse new community' – are the authorities planning on dumping some of the 'new' arrivals/ savages in this estate, or will prospective owners/renters be required to declare their bedroom preferences?

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/more-than-600-homes-could-be-built-in-cambridgeshire-village/ar-BB1nDu7j?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=8a0cb213ca334908b6f18c5d7bb7d605&ei=14

    1. That will be close on three hundred new people living off the UK taxpayers.

  53. All governments have failed our elderly veterans ..

    What hypocrisy we are viewing this morning .

    Distorted nostalgia .

    Anyway my father was serving in the RN , on carriers in the Indian ocean , Southern India and Ceylon during the war . My mother was a Wren . VJ day looms next year.

    Oh yes , Operation Overlord was cripplingly tragic for many .

    Kings speech was woke and rubbish .

    Yet today hundreds more wogs are landing on our beaches , coming from a safe country like France .

    The great British public applaud monsters like Hamas , and march for Palestine , yet Israel, and the history of the pogroms …an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jewish people in Russia or eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries appears to be ignored .

    Every British man and woman did their bit during the 6 years of the second world war ..

    Sacrifice after sacrifice during the war , but here we are in 2024 , and our children , adults , friends etc are being sacrificed HERE in the UK , none of us are protected , because we know stuff can get nasty , just like that . Foreigners are turning on us ,and yet we have to hold our tongues .

    1. The surviving veterans must be 98+, unless they lied about their age when they signed up to fight? That generation have proved remarkably hardy given that according to modern lifestyle mantras they did everything wrong?

    2. I noticed from the coverage how many bleks were included in the entertainment. All the historical pictures, however, were of white people. History being rewritten.

    1. Yes – it's coming out into the open now – Sarah Knapton must have been given permission…. there are 2776 comments – most of them know the truth though there are some still blind to it.

      1. Still plenty who are keen to book the latest booster. I just ignore the emails, texts and phone calls from the GP practice and NHS.
        In a few weeks, we'll be urged to book for the 'autumn booster' campaign.

        1. Yes – I do too. The elderly friend (84 ) I went to see on Monday – a sensible woman and retired farmer, has had all hers. I think she was a bit surprised when I told her I stopped at the first two and have had no boosters, and won’t having any more of any sort in future ( I’ve had very many for travel).

          1. I was asked the other day, at the surgery if I was booked for a booster. Didn't bother to explain I never had the jab in the first place. So no, I don't want it. Had Covid supposedly, but couldn't tell that I was ill. One tends to suspicion when you are told you are ill and you feel normal.

          2. I was asked the other day, at the surgery if I was booked for a booster. Didn't bother to explain I never had the jab in the first place. So no, I don't want it. Had Covid supposedly, but couldn't tell that I was ill. One tends to suspicion when you are told you are ill and you feel normal.

          3. Maybe your elderly friend was taken in by continually being told she is in the 'vulnerable' category, whether just by her age and/or having health issues.
            I only took the first two jabs because it was the only way we were likely to get into Canada when Turdeau finally allowed visitors – we knew that much in 2021. I'm still shocked by the continuing widespread use of muzzles when we went in August & September 2022. The Canadians were well and truly frightened/coerced/brainwashed into wearing muzzles and getting multiple jabs – even our grandchildren were stabbed as soon as each reached the qualifying age (5). Shame on the parents.

          4. Canada has become the most brainwashed country since the totalitarian rule of Turdeau.

            I took just the two jabs because I had a trip to Kenya already booked (and it was twice postponed). The flight was the worst part in 2022, as they enforced mask wearing on the plane. In 2023 that had been dropped, but I still had to show my vax cert at the airport in Nairobi. That has now been dropped and there are no restrictions.

            I think my elderly friend, who is in good health generally, has been conditioned by the flu jabs to accept the boosters without querying their necessity.

  55. A few months ago, I ditched my Spectator subscription due to it being an increasingly woke publication which has a veneer of independence – through it having a few independent minded journalists/writers. I did not like, though, paying the wages of unhinged, out of touch writers and staff such as Fraser Nelson, Kate Andrews, Nick Cohen and too many others. These writers clearly despise subscribers who do not agree with their closed, biased and limited world view.

    To cut to the chase, The Spectator is currently running a virulently anti-Farage campaign. And though many subscribers are fighting Farage's corner, new woke subscribers are enjoying the attacks upon him. I have re-established my sub to the Spectator just for the election. I am glad I did that as I think the Spectator is read by the chattering classes and robust arguments need to be made against their lefty, woke affinities. These people need to be re-educated and untethered from their brainwashing. Similarly, those who support Reform, who read the Speccie, need others to help reinforce their counter-arguments. I think it an important way to help Reform and to fight back against the dangerous woke uni-party. I would love it if some of the independent-thinking contributors to this forum would re-establish their subs to the Speccie too, just for the election. Your strength and articulacy is sorely needed, I think.

    Anyway, I have tried to copy today's article by Nick Cohen which attacks Farage. There is another one by Robert Ford attacking Farage in there too today in which Farage is described as a, 'clown-prince'. In addition to these two nasty articles Steerpike has also penned a dismissive glib account of Farage being assaulted in Clacton by a Corbyn supporter. Have tried to copy Cohen's article in two halves so see following posts for full article.

    1. Nick Cohen, The Spectator today. Part 1 of article.

      Conventional Conservative wisdom once warned about the dangers of appeasement. Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of imperialism, may be the most cancelled figure in British literature, but I imagine even leftists can see how his lines in Danegeld apply to the Tory party’s appeasement of Nigel Farage:

      ‘And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

      But we’ve proved it again and again,

      That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

      You never get rid of the Dane.‘

      I guess, too, that before the rise of Ukip, all Conservative politicians knew Winston Churchill’s line that ‘an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last’.

      Sunak is leading the Tories to a defeat from which they may never recover

      The eyes in Farage’s leathery face are twinkling with a hungry gleam as he contemplates feasting on the corpse of the Sunak administration. His triumph is a Tory disaster.

      For almost two decades now, successive Conservative leaders have appeased Farage. The consequences have been disastrous for the party and the country. You can see why they think it is dangerous to take Farage on. The last prominent Tory to do so was David Cameron in 2006 – yes, that is 2006: almost 20 years ago.

      ‘Ukip is sort of a bunch of…fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists mostly,’ Cameron told LBC radio. Defending his remarks, Cameron made pertinent points which can still be made today. Farage and friends were the ”Stop the world I want to get off’ party’, he said. They remain so to this day. They offer fantasy slogans whose costs far outweigh any potential benefits.

      I won’t go on about Brexit, enough has been said about that needless act of national self-harm. But Reform’s demand that we join Putin’s Russia and Belarus and leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), makes Lord Cameron’s point for him.

      Farage hates it because the human rights court can stop the deportation of asylum seekers. To which the only response a grown-up government can make is: ‘We are sorry Nige, we feel your pain, but that’s just tough.’

      The Belfast/Good Friday agreement requires that the ECHR is part of the law in Northern Ireland. There is no way for the UK to leave the ECHR without violating the agreement, endangering the peace settlement in Northern Ireland, as well as the UK’s relationship with Ireland, the EU and the US. I know for a fact that American officials have made this point very clear to British ministers in the strongest possible language.

      The ECHR is also woven into the devolution settlement and the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which governs the post-Brexit relationship. Indeed, the EU has stated that, if the UK left the ECHR, it would terminate this part of the agreement, which could effectively stop the extradition of criminal suspects from the EU to face trial in the UK.

      Do you ever hear Downing Street or the Tory leadership explaining the facts of life to potential Reform voters? Of course not, all they do is appease.

      David Cameron took on Farage and then backed away. He conceded a referendum on our EU membership and by taking the UK out by mistake made a nonsense of his premiership and his entire political career.

      1. Pat 2 of Nick Cohen's article from the Spectator today.

        The threat to the Tories from the Brexit party, Ukip’s successor, helped bring Boris Johnson to power (you may remember that Farage drove the Tory vote down to a paltry nine per cent in the 2019 European parliament elections.) The result was Johnson and Frost’s hard Brexit which has left the UK economy up to five per cent smaller than it otherwise would have been.

        In 2006, Eric Pickles, then the deputy chairman of the Conservative party, backed Cameron, saying he had a ‘legitimate point’ and Ukip had had ‘too easy a deal’. But too easy a deal is exactly what the Conservatives have offered their enemies on the right in the years since.

        I can see them making two calculations. First, if you say Ukip and its successor parties are filled with ‘fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists’ you are not only insulting Farage and his followers, but a substantial portion of the Conservative membership and the Tory hinterland in the Conservative press and wonk world.

        This strategy worked for Boris Johnson. But it is a disaster for Rishi Sunak

        To outsiders they may look like fruitcakes, and indeed, loons, but Conservative leaders cannot say this to their followers and expect them to receive the news with equanimity. Their only strategy appears to be to unite the right behind Conservative leadership.

        Fair enough, this strategy worked for Boris Johnson in 2019. But it is a disaster for Rishi Sunak in 2024 in ways that Conservatives do not begin to comprehend. Let me count them.

        There is strong evidence that the Tories will never be rid of the Dane, however much geld they offer. No amount of bribery will appease a large section of the Reform vote. As a study by YouGov put it recently. ‘The large majority of Tory defectors to Reform UK seem unlikely to change their minds – 45 per cent say they have totally made up their mind and won’t change it, while a further 31 per cent say they’ve probably decided and are unlikely to wobble.’

        By constantly harping on Farage’s themes, the Tories have elevated rather than neutralised him. Concern about immigration fell after Brexit with the public becoming strikingly more positive. Sunak has played to Farage’s strengths by jacking concern up again, and then failing to offer any workable solutions.

        Imagine being Giles Watling, the Conservative candidate in Clacton, or any other Conservative fighting Reform. What briefings are they receiving from Tory HQ? What lines of attack are on offer? They can’t say that voters shouldn’t listen to Farage because he damaged the country with a hard Brexit. They cannot say that his plan to leave the ECHR would cause a constitutional and international crisis. They can’t say that he has no plan for how to compensate for the economic consequences of cutting migration.

        In short, they cannot follow Eric Pickles’s advice in 2006 and stop giving Farage an ‘easy deal’. Years of appeasement have meant that an easy deal is all the Tory party can offer.

        Meanwhile, no one in the Tory command thinks about the effect of Sunak’s dangerous posturing on moderate conservative voters. He is driving them away.

        I have no doubt that Farage can win in Clacton and maybe Reform will take a couple of other seats. But scores upon scores of Tory seats will fall to the Labour party, including seats in southern England that have been Tory for as long as anyone can remember and then some more.

        I cannot overemphasise to conservative readers the iron determination on the centre-left to destroy the Tory party. If that means putting up with compromises by Keir Starmer we once would have hated, so be it. He must do whatever it takes to win. If that means Labour people voting Lib Dem or vice versa, bring it on. Nothing else matters. All that is left is the imperative to do whatever it takes to just get rid of them.

        Sunak, with his infantile stunt and half-baked populism, is feeding the anger on the centre left that will lead to his destruction. Journalists are prone to hyperbole; it’s an occupational disease. But Sunak is leading the Tories to a defeat from which they may never recover. And all I, and millions of others, can say is that they bloody well deserve it.

        Nick Cohen
        WRITTEN BY
        Nick Cohen

        1. What I find remarkable with such twaddle is that they never stop to think that they may have betrayed Conservativism. The elite, in their arrogance can't see it, whilst it is obvious to the ordinary person, being hammered by disastrous left wing policies, that the only thing that is Conservative about the Party is the name.

        2. The trouble with the Conservative Party is that it has surrendered the ground it used to have to Farage who started life as a traditional Conservative.

          It is not surprising that traditional Conservative voters now find that Farage has far more in common with their way of thinking than the left of centre Conservative Party into which Cameron turned it.

      2. The reply is interesting and painfully typical of those who are unhappy they've not got their own way.

        The GFA can be re-negotiated, or applied in part with replaced UK law that's nigh the same. Leaving the EU was a positive thing for the country. The political class refusing to let us out is their fault.

    2. The Cohen article is total dreck, and suggest that he has finally been tipped over the edge by the pressure of chronic Brexit Derangement Syndrome. There are many, many multiples of comments below the line to that effect.

      1. Yes there are now, but earlier on there wasn’t but rather a lot supporting Cohen’s point of view. Scroll about halfway down or maybe a bit further now and you will see what I mean. Maybe the brighter ones had to gather their innards before they ventured into the predictably annoying Cohen article. Possibly the thinkers chose to read the better stuff first. Or maybe, like me, they caught the whiff of anti-Faragism from the Spectator, all of a sudden and decided they would robustly attack Cohen’s tripe. Thing is, I definitely noticed anti-Faragism and I definitely noticed a new set of subscribers who support this woke seam in the Spectator. Fortunately, there is still a robust cohort who seem up to challenging this nonsense. Whilst the election is on I am subscribing on a vastly reduced offer.

        1. It is true that I am usually not keen to click on a Cohen article because it can be predicted to veer rapidly into unadulterated BDS. I therefore leave it at least 24 hours (and sometimes much more) so it’s likely that many others respond the same way.

  56. Trying to apply for this grant to get changes made to the house. I send them pictures of the things we've changed and they query them – that's too new, that's new, and you say 'yes, it had to be – the thing leaked. Why are you so in credit? Because we didn't use the leaking tank nor had an oven for 4 months.

    Sent the man a picture of our house temperatures. Mean average 12'c. That's with one room heated to 15.

    I'm not trying to rip people off. I just want to solve the biggest problem the house has – namely that it's damned cold.

    I think the C rating was clobbered because if it was any lower it couldn't be sold.

      1. Maybe. I don't know. The problem really is that the EPC lark says 'cavity walls, double glazing, loft insulation' three points, that's a C.

        What it doesn't bother with is how effective those things are. If the cavity wall is 40 years old and the loft insulation pants then having it is irrelevant.

        It's my fault for buying it and not paying enough attention. The Warqueen had resigned and wasn't in a good place to be checking my work. I'd moved precisely once before and that 15 years ago. It's on me. I thought we could put gas in and we couldn't.

        A lot of money, a big stamp duty bill and the living room temp in winter is 12.9. Yay.

          1. If – IF we can get this grant that gets us radiators and a heat pump and solar.

            If those changes make the house more comfortable then we can put off moving immediately. We said we would sit tight for 5 years (before we had problems) so we'll see.

            I don't expect to get this grant thing which puts us on plan A, moving.

    2. Seeing the photo reminded me of an article on the Cruising the Cut blog where the author replaced his batteries, and linked to the webpage below explaining about battery balancing in banks of multiple batteries. I apologise for commenting after the job has been done, but it seemed relevant.

      I haven't had my own boat, or done maintenance on one, but I have a fair knowledge of physics, and the explanation on the webpage seems entirely credible to me.
      http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html

      1. Thank you Angus. The chap I paid to install the electrics for the boat is qualified as MIEE. He also has his own boat so I was happy to accept his recommendations.

    3. Crikey, that's a fair old weight.

      Do you find you start thinking in watts of power use? Do they recharge from solar?

      1. They are 4 X120Ah 12 volt batteries. The best advice is not to allow lead Acid batteries to discharge below 75% of their capacity. Therefore to my simple mind, I have just 1x 120Ah on tap. I do have 2 solar panels which in bright conditions keeps the bank at around 13.7 V. I also have a 3kW inverter providing a 240v AC supply for the Fridge, Induction Hob, Microwave, and washer dryer. However, although the solar panels will happily keep the fridge running without flattening the batteries in 30oC heat. If I want to use the other appliances I find it best to run the engine which has a 240 Amp alternator topping up the battery bank. So I only use the washing machine when on the move..

    4. We had a similar set up on Mianda and a separate system for starting the engine.

      1. I too have a 61Amp Starter battery linked to a second, 60Ah alternator. Both alternators are mounted on a 2 litre Barrus Shire Engine (based on a Yanmar block) downrated to 45hp. And although the boat weighs in at 13 tons at full speed 3,000=Revs, I reckon it would easily tow a water skier from the stern (where speed limits permit of course!)

    1. Will Ange be wearing her meek and dignified Muslim attire, or revert back to her baps out 304 look.
      Part-time Penny will of course be wearing her D-Day Landing medals.

      1. Dressed as a woman from the front; but like a bloke from the back. Remember Kenny Everett?

    2. Will Ange be wearing her meek and dignified Muslim attire, or revert back to her baps out 304 look.
      Part-time Penny will of course be wearing her D-Day Landing medals.

  60. Here's one for all Y'all:
    Don't put a cream cake glazed with marzipan onto a cheap paper napkin.
    You'll be eating paper-flavoured ('cos it's paper-covered) cream cake, that's a bit tough and fibrous!
    ugh.

    1. Marzipan is like marmalade and marmite.

      No one is ever ambivalent about any of them.

        1. Because not many people like him. Most people either hate him or couldn't give a toss about the tosser.

  61. Belgium & Spanish farmers 2nd day of violent protest against EU climate regulations.
    News blackout by BBC, Sky and.. all the rest. Quelle surprise.

    3. The oil tanker drivers are on strike. Has that hit the headlines. Just a three day token, I think. Somebody told me about it on Sunday and someone else mentioned it today.

  63. Not that I care about which WEF muppet won the leaders debate
    But from the reaction of the Lefty mainstream media and Labour politicians screaming liar and trying to pull apart the source of Rishi's tax rising accusation.
    Points to the fact that Labour took a direct hit below the water line

    1. Freezing the tax allowances for basic rate tax payer – £2000 / year increase means £100 in net monthly pay.

      That was £1200 last year and year before that. Freezing until 2028 – as he plans, another 4 years is £4800.

      Sunak has already cost us £2400 He would cost us £7200. It's even more for higher rate payers.

      Then there's the allowances that Hunt recently crushed. Capital gains going down next year. Stamp duty first tax band dropping to £125K from 250. Inheritance tax likely going to be fixed. ISA allowance fixed.

      Then there's the refusal to frack and the taxes n conventional fuels, the shortages that will lead to more expensive energy as the susbidies for wind keep going up in real terms and above inflation.

      I'm sorry Sunhat. You can [expletive] the [expletive] off you wretched crook.

      1. You’re so restrained wibbling, well done. The Cons have gone barking mad over the last 14 years and should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act for calling themselves Conservatives.

      2. Add Gove suddenly going full Drakeford by letting councils charge multiples of council tax for second home owners.

    1. If this were to kick off I expect they will call it VD day on the grounds that we are likely to be well and truly fucked!

    2. Drip, drip, drip. Normalise what is planned so we don't scare the horses when things actually kick off. The gradual normalisation and the ramping up of hostile planning has suppressed the normally anti-war population of Europe.

      1. They live BTL on The Grimes – especially the extremely unfunny Ian Hislop. Every day he'll post some remark about the "madness" of the referendum result.

  68. Back from Stoke and saw Stepson in the hospital.
    He's not in a good state.
    They'd left his clothes in a green plastic bag in his bedside locker so I got the bag out and began to look for his wallet.
    Then the stench hit me.
    Sometime over the weekend he'd pissed himself, probably several times.
    I've just soused them in rainwater from one of my water buts and left them to drain off.
    Will be giving them another sousing, using a length of 4×2 as a poss stick, in alight bleach solution before they go into the washing machine.

    He's a heap of dirty clothes in his flat that need washing too and they'll be getting the same treatment.

    1. I would avoid bleach, Bob. 60 degree wash should sort it.
      Stay strong. He has no one else.

    2. Aye, don't bleach. Hot wash, lots of rinses. Pre-wash so they're heavier and using more water (as washing machines are clever). Lots of rinses. If necessary rinse again.

      Maybe use one more tablet/a bit more powder.

      We get some accidents around here sometimes and that works for us.

      1. I use bleach to kill the smell.
        A weak solution for a quick sousing then straight into the machine for a rinse.

    4. Lord.
      Looks like, however reluctantly, you're the only person who can take any effective action, Bob.
      Not much fun for you, but at least t'Lad would have some effective support. Everybody else seems to be effin' useless. Who bags up pissclothes into a cupboard?

  69. Went to collect small boy (who's not so small any more – he's getting his dad's body and his mother's face, so is going to be fine). Took Mongo along as if I don't he knocks the front door off.

    As he walks up, there's this sudden pull at my side and he's off, runrolling (as he's more bear than dog and his run does look as if he's going to fall over his back feet) toward Junior, barrelling into him and leaping up and gets made a fuss of by all his chums.

    I swear though, his tail is going to leave bruises.

  70. Asylum seeker convicted of stalking Labour MP. 5 June 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eafc928c083fe0dba0710d8028512e1fdda258a268d2ea1218b71b78eb983c86.jpg A Labour MP was stalked by an asylum seeker enraged at the lack of support for his immigration application.

    Stephen Morgan, the shadow minister for rail, said he was “disturbed and intimidated” by Yaser Ahmed, 41, who loitered outside his constituency office for a week watching him.

    Ahmed, an Egyptian man who uses a wheelchair, was angry that Mr Morgan, who was the Portsmouth South MP at the time and is currently the Labour candidate for the constituency, could not help advance his asylum application.

    A brain surgeon no doubt. There’s irony here. Just for once one of those responsible has been hoist with his own petard. I’ll bet the need for the wheelchair is fake as well.

    No comments allowed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/05/asylum-seeker-convicted-of-stalking-labour-mp/

    2. They're always such utter thugs. Why not write to the fellow politely and state your case, with evidence? I suppose he doesn't have one. Why have the political class lumbered the dross of the third world on us?

    3. Perhaps some one should give him an effective tip on how to behave.
      As in backwards..

        2. Wouldn't it be fun if three people were to dress up as Wilson, Keppel and Betty and attend one of the pro-Palestine marches in London? They could do the sand dance instead of shouting 'From the river to the sea'. Much more entertaining.

    1. I'm not sure about this.
      I think the Russians do not quite apprehend how suicidally stupid their Western counterparts are.
      There is a danger that Starmer drags him (AND US!!!) off a cliff in the name of virtue or kneeling for career criminals or something.

  72. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8e5bfd2860936e062fe228fbb1b92bf308d4032a877964d87301dc153937df1.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/016f0a8f8edc8cd9af1808e4d9e7415b02e5c3269789a2e9059e6ce27da7fdea.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/207b0f7c98d8faa2831fafb060a0737f9c27c45090ba7a64b5dd264e97daa7e8.jpg Now, while it is said that man cannot live by bread alone, as a carnivore I simply cannot live without pork lard. Trouble is, I can't buy any here in yer Scandyland.

    Today was not just a rendering of garments pork back fat to make my own stash of the vital stuff; it was a scientific enterprise to see what percentage of that späck [pron: "speck"] or back fat could be rendered into lard.

    The raw fat was weighed and found to be 2·312kg [5lb–2oz]. After slicing up, mincing (to ensure a more efficient render) and then placing into an oven at 180ºC, the end result was 1·132 kg [2lb–8oz] of pure white lard. This represented 49% of the weight of the original back fat, which I think is a pretty good return. I weighed it out into 200g portions for freezing and got 5 of those with a 130g portion left over. Only 2g was lost in this portioning process.

      1. Indeed.

        Styckat (one word) i butik, translates as "cut up (i.e. butchered) in the shop".

          3. Good luck. We have our fingers firmly crossed for ours because of the bitterly cold nights since I planted them out.

      2. Indeed.

        Styckat (one word) i butik, translates as "cut up (i.e. butchered) in the shop".

  73. I've just had to climb onto one of my shed roofs
    The bloody pigeons roost in the branches of the neighbours oak tree and crap all over the roof. A couple of shiny old music discs hung in the branches with usually see them off. It works well in other shrubbery.

    1. Wood pigeons are determined to build a nest in my Hazel tree. They spend hours weaving twigs into a crook in the branches before I take seconds to dismantle it with a long pole.

      They keep trying … and failing. I'm not having my garden festooned with shit from those flying turds.

      1. I use a Luger air pistol. Haven't managed to hit one of the magpies yet who are stealing baby birdies from the nest but it does make them hunt elsewhere. Perhaps i need a more shotgun approach.
        Though current trends suggest a Scorpion. Hmmm…

        1. The magpie youngsters need to eat as well. Same for the jays. If they're taking wood pigeon eggs and squabs then that's an all round good result (ecologically speaking).

          1. The magpies can eat carrion/road kill. Not baby song birds in my back garden.

      2. Pigeons are the worst at choosing appropriate nesting sites. Years ago we had a weeping willow in the garden and without fail the same pair I reckon each year tried their damnedest to build one there. The best I ever saw was when they got about ten twigs assembled before the whole lot ended up in the stream.

      3. Pigeons are the worst at choosing appropriate nesting sites. Years ago we had a weeping willow in the garden and without fail the same pair I reckon each year tried their damnedest to build one there. The best I ever saw was when they got about ten twigs assembled before the whole lot ended up in the stream.

      4. I call them the politicians of birdlife.
        They are interested in anything to their advantage they sit on roof tops and high branches hooting and chanting, scoff everything that’s going. Go for a drink in the birdbath and crap in the water as they fly off.

    3. In our parish church, the organ is situated just by an enormous pillar which, at some 7 metres height, has a cornice surrounding it. In the last few weeks the church has been invaded by nesting pigeons and one of the nests would appear to be just above my head… It's only a matter of time before I get crapped on!

      We're not allowed to deal with this ourselves, sadly, but have to call in the "experts" who will charge the parish a fortune. We, and they, are not allowed to kill the pigeons or even move the nests if they have eggs or fledglings in them.

      I suppose I'll have have to wear a sacrificial hat.

      2. I hope it’s a wide brimmed hat Caroline.
        These creatures are an absolute pest.

      4. In the UK we're used to being shat on from above, but mainly from our current crop of politicians.

  74. 3 today makes a nice change.

    Wordle 1,082 3/6

    🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟩🟨🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  75. A musical Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,082 3/6
    🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
    ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Four here

      Wordle 1,082 4/6

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

    2. Well done. Par here. Right letters, wrong order :-))

      Wordle 1,082 4/6

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

    3. Back to normal today – Boring par!

      Wordle 1,082 4/6

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

  78. Fine BTL Comment from elsewhere…
    "Carbon credits are nothing but a variant on medieval priests who sold indulgences, which supposedly absolved sins and released one from purgatory.
    There is nothing new under the sun."

  79. Who is Zelensky representing, the SS?

    Bomb disposal experts sweep Normandy beaches for explosives as part of D-Day anniversary ring of steel – with 43,000 troops and even missiles deployed to protect world leaders including Biden and Zelensky

  80. From the Beeb's website:

    Unforgivable!!

    "Former Post Office chair Alice Perkins was warned about potential faults in the Horizon IT system as early as 2011, an inquiry has heard.
    At the time, the Post Office had prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters for fraud on the strength of faulty data from Horizon accounting software.
    It would carry on with these cases until 2015.
    Ms Perkins, who was giving evidence at an inquiry into the scandal, said at the time she did not make a link between the two.
    She was also told that the Post Office had "driven a very hard bargain" on the price of Horizon, and in return developer Fujitsu had cut corners on the quality of the software.
    The inquiry was shown a handwritten note from Ms Perkins about a meeting on 27 September 2011 with Angus Grant, an auditor at Ernst & Young (EY).
    'A risk for us'
    According to the note, Mr Grant had flagged concerns about Horizon, describing the program as "a real risk for us".
    He also warned that if Horizon was not accurate, then EY would not be able to sign off Post Office company accounts.
    "Does it capture data accurately?" was a concern raised by Mr Grant, according to Ms Perkins' note.
    Lead counsel for the inquiry, Jason Beer, said the information given by Mr Grant had been "very significant".
    In 2011, some 11,900 Post Offices branches still used the computer system to process millions of transactions worth billions of pounds per year, he said.
    "[If it's] a real risk to the independent professional auditors, then it's also a real risk to the Post Office too, isn't it?" Mr Beer said.
    Ms Perkins said her meeting with Mr Grant was one of her first as chair, and she had interpreted his point "as a point from the perspective of the auditors, and their ability to audit the accounts".
    "I don't think – wrongly – that I would have made the connection to the operation of Horizon at the branch level," she said.
    "Doesn't one follow the other?" Mr Beer replied.
    "I don't remember that that was the connection I made at the time," Ms Perkins said.

    2. A while ago, I had an interesting conversation with the lady who used to run the PO counter in our village shop until the owner retired last year. My memory fails me, but the gist was that the boss never fully trusted the Horizon system, so continued doing the PO books the old-fashioned way.

      1. I was just thinking as I read it “is that Mrs Jack Straw?”
        A tribute to the value of connections.

    1. We were discussing the fact that you could find weather stats that could prove any pov, I suspect that this might be a similar case.

    2. The correct version should read "54% of the limited and biased group selected for the poll agreed that Israel should not exist."
      Similar non-logic to "97% of scientists agree humans are causing climate change."

    3. "A new UnHerd/Focaldata poll out today reveals that 54% of Britons aged 18-24 who identify as slammers agree with the statement: "The state of Israel should not exist"

    5. 54% of 18-24 year olds are really that stupid? What do they think was there before modern Israel? It would be interesting to ask what they know about the Ottoman Empire. Nothing, I suspect. Yet from 1517 to 1917 Syria Palaestina was all Turkish territory. There was no Arab paradise destroyed by Jews.

  84. Vaughan Gething has lost a vote of confidence in the Welsh 'parliament'.

      1. Not when two Labour members failed to turn up because they were 'ill'. He lost by two votes.

        1. Oh how sad. (There was intended to be an element of humour in my comment!)

          1. I know but in a moment of vindictiveness quite out of character I found humour in his missing-votes misfortune.

          1. Let us just say my new health situations are somewhat surprising. Hard ons but not where i would prefer. My hands and feet.

          3. Of course. Pollen i think is the main thing which has made breathing a bit more difficult.

  86. Observations from walking and driving round Colchester.
    Based on my years of canvassing and delivering leaflets, by and large, the Labour and LibDem posters are on the same houses that I have observed for 40 years.
    Conservative posters are lacking, as they have been for years because so many were frightened by the damage done to posters and even property by Conservative opponents.

    2. Probably very sound – I'm up in South Lakeland at the moment and there are literally hundreds of houses and businesses displaying horrible orange 'Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat, Winning Here' posters.
      I feel like putting all their windows in……

      2. One of the villages round here has gone orange. Makes me want to become a pyromaniac.

  88. Went to the hospital this afternoon for OH's cardiology check up. All seems well – ECG & blood pressure fine. We had quite a long chat with the cardiac nurse and she's signed him off, back to the GP. The cardioversion, which he had at the end of January, seems to have worked, for now at least. She said if necessary, they can repeat it. So all's well for now – they had a chat about tennis – which he can no longer play, which was a big change for him, though he seems to have come to terms with it. He's fairly fit and well now, for 81.

    1. He's nobbut a lad, Jules! Advise him to avoid ladders………….(an expert writes!)

      1. I managed to get him to not go up the ladder to replace one of his swift boxes in the spring – our neighbours did it for him.

      2. I've climbed many ladders and scaffolding during my working life.
        But I must admit today's efforts to get up on my shed roof were a bit shaky.

          1. Me Obs.
            I was hanging old CDs in the overhead oak to try and stop the pigeons roosting and crapping on the roof..

    3. Great news ,and a huge relief for you , because you have been on duty 24/7 re being on alert care.

      Did you have to travel far ?

      So glad for you both .

      1. It’s about 15 miles – I got pretty used to that journey while he was an inpatient for nearly three weeks. He wasn’t too sure of the way, though, but we made it ok. It’s a relief to know that his heart is working normally as it should, and not in AF any more. I really can’t fault the care he’s received over the last couple of years – well, a bit longer, really, since the prostate trouble emerged.

    4. Well done.
      I've just been signed off from cardio rehab.
      I'm allowed to go to the next but top level of activity, but as the top level includes going to play Rugby, Judo, Scuba Diving to decompression depths etc. which I hadn't planned to do, I think I can live a normal life again, just need to watch out for high pulse rates when doing my exercises and working.

        1. It was.
          I was very concerned I couldn't do the heavy garden work, which would have meant we would have had to leave the chateau.

      3. In fitness terms one's maximum heart rate is accepted at being 220 – age.

        I find some discrepencies between cardiologists, GPs and fitness fanatics about the level of activity one should aim for to maintain optimum health.

        I subscribe to the regular activity of going up and down stairs and a weekly walk to the fish and chip shop.
        I find it somewhat perplexing that health should be based on the competitive attainment of high step counts.

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnkkqyek17zo

        1. That's pretty much spot on for my age and her recommended levels.
          My recovery rates off the exercises and monitors appear to have been reasonably good.
          Swiftly back to usual beat levels and BP readings.
          One thing I kept being told was not to be competitive!

      1. Absolutely, yes. He’s out there now mowing the lawn. Still quite active for 81, even if no tennis.

  89. Chief Windbag of the UN has given his monthly 'Burning Sky, Boiling Sea' warning. His announcement was treated with due reverence by the BBC.

  90. I'm sorry but I don't understand what Zelenskyy has to do with D-Day. Unless it's a pathetic attempt to have a dig at Vlad. At least the Russians got stuck into the nazis.

      1. Apparently he and Dopey Wokey Byeden are arriving in Normandy tomorrow for the ceremony.

    3. At that time ‘Russia’ was the Soviet Union so it included Ukraine. Stalin was a Georgian.

          2. Since you've married their mother, haven't they retrospectively become legitimate?

    4. I knew a German who'd been at Stalingrad. He'd been wounded and so survived, became a PoW and stayed in England.

      1. Good move.
        My own FiL was captured and forced to walk to Poland as a POW. A lot of his colleagues in the Durham Light were shot on site by the SS.
        5 years in the POW camp.

  91. Off topic
    Great excitement, and a first.
    We often get bats coming into the house, today a couple of swallows decided to visit.
    Windows and doors opened to allow them to escape and fortunately they didn't leave calling cards. They took quite a while to work out the way out and were fairly raucous, they didn't get upstairs, thank goodness..

  92. Right. I'm off. At least the weather is better in Normandy than it was 80 years ago.

    Have a spiffing evening avoiding politicians.

    A demain.

    1. A humbling thought, that the culmination of years of training and equipment purchase and planning was to be tested tomorrow. Sink or swim… and fortunately it went the right way, but so many youngsters killed on all sides.
      If translated to today, two would be mine. Sobering.
      My Dad was in the atom bomb programme by now, so was spared. So many weren't.
      A visit to Church tomorrow to give thanks might be appropriate.

        1. Thanks, Sue.
          An emotional time. So many young lads lost.
          And today, the news of a friend's death due to suddenly-diagnosed cancer… Had a couple of serious drams of quality whisky in his memory this evening.
          Terje Gran, the name. Good, steady, smart man.

        2. Ooh, God is our strength and refuge – to the tune of the Dambusters March, I hope. I have asked for that to be played at my funeral.

      2. Would be going but I have had an extra meeting added (to the two I was already due to attend). I shall be going wearing medals and a beret! I used to meet a chap who was in the first wave when he was out walking his dog and I walked mine. He was very interesting to talk to. He had a scar on his hand where a bullet had gone through and the chap in front of him had been killed outright with a bullet through his forehead. Lest we forget.

      1. 388147+ up ticks,

        Evening VW,

        For our own benefit and those following it has to be made to happen.

    1. At some point I will go through my treatment, but only to show how the envy of the world isn't what it's cracked up to be.

  95. Latest YouGov poll, hot off TheTimes;

    LAB: 40%
    CON: 19%
    REF: 17%
    LDEM: 10%
    GRN: 7%

    Reform 2 points behind the Tories (and taking share from Labour!) – is this the start of something big? Here's hoping…….

    1. Momentum building.
      5 Tories to jump ship.
      Matt Goodwin shows new calculation of 5 seats for Reform.
      UKIP standing down in some seats.
      Also, Marxist media stepping up attacks.. Novara Media rushing round Clacton trying to find haters. They are genuinely spooked.
      Everyone is talking about Farage.. as for that whatshisname guy.. Rishi.

        1. “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”.

    2. Just think. A proper united conservative party could probably catch Liebour.

    1. I was VERY surprised to see that I can still play Wendyball competitively.

      1. My old gas engineer, who is maybe 73, has just won the World Walking Football Championships (edit: or something). I presume he plays for an over 70s GB/UK or England team.

  97. Sunak appears to have played a bit of a blinder with the £ 2000 a year tax rise by Labour.
    Regardless of the accuracy of the figures, he has succeeded in getting the whole of the mainstream media talking about tax rises and scrutinising Labours plans.
    Labour have fallen for it hook, line and sinker, maybe because of their innate nastiness they immediately started screaming liar, because they always go full jackboot bully when challenged, instead of calmly challenging Sunak and keeping a civilised debate going.
    No wonder they haven't won many general elections in the past 100 years
    If it keeps up like this they might even come third in the election

    1. I think somebody has taken note of what happened when the Brexit Battle Bus displayed the 'apparently' dodgy stat that;
      'We send the EU £350M a week, let's fund our NHS instead' – one of Cummings' I believe.
      Net result – nobody talked about anything else other than what the EU was costing us…. result!

      1. Some of didn’t need the battle bus to know we were the second highest net contributor to a racket from which Luxembourg(!!) was a net recipient (quite apart from the massive contribution to their economy of being one of the EU parliament sites).

    2. Most of the people who vote Labour don't pay tax or even work and some probably don't even live in the UK..

      1. Most of the people who vote Labour don't pay tax or even work and some probably don't even live in the UK.

      2. Most of the people who vote Labour don't pay tax or even work and some probably don't even live in the UK.

    3. Kier Starmer: "I would always use the NHS; never pay for healthcare."

      That's a stupid lawyer abandoning his career in politics …

      1. A bit like the Union leader who took up a council house someone more deserving could have had.

  98. Battery red lining.
    Up early tomorrow for hospital appointment (pre op) they'll have another look and a poke at my painful left knee.
    Catch you later. 🐊

  99. What happened to those flaming June evenings when we watched the French open tennis drinking Pimm's with the windows open and with the fans on.
    Now it's a bit chilly and still on the single malts
    Bloody climate change

    1. I never knew Pimms had windows…
      I'll get me coat. Most appropriate for the weather just now.

    2. I never knew Pimms had windows…
      I'll get me coat. Most appropriate for the weather just now.

    3. My wife suggested lighting the stove this evening. I said "are you mad?".

      Only because I didn't fancy cleaning it out in the morning!

      1. We allow the wood ash to build up and clean the stove out after a week or so.

        Any good suggestions about what to do with wood ash.

        1. The internet is your friend (sometimes):

          Ash from wood fires, such as bonfires or wood-burning stoves, can be a useful additive to the compost heap or can be applied directly to bare ground and dug in. It can be a natural source of potassium and trace elements. It also has a liming effect, so can help to remedy excessively acidic soils.

        2. Any kind of ash is great for breaking up heavy clay soil by preventing the clay particles sticking together. or continuous thin layers of ash spread in the border.

          1. Wood ash, yes, but I thought coal ash wasn't good for the garden. I could be mistaken, Johnny.

      2. It's 22 'c in our bedroom. The Warqueen is in leggings and a top rather than the usual arctic survival gear she has been wearing.

        Junior's getting ready for bed and the big floof is already in it. The small floof is studiously being ignored downstairs and is perfectly happy. For once, all is well.

        It won't last.

        1. Definitely summer over here, it was about 30C today. A nice hot time on the golf course was had by all

  101. This is all going very nicely, Labour & Conservatives bashing each other up, while Reform avoids the fighting and takes the moral high ground.
    I can envisage now, Farage and Trump steering the free world back to net 100% safety by 2030.

    2. Meanwhile we are told we can’t deport actual criminals if they face far less than that. Apparently that’s an ECHR thing. Right.

  103. Headline and byline from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    Nobody can afford Labour’s secret tax bill

    Are we going to see rises in a range of taxes on savings, deposit interest, capital gains, pensions and motoring?

    We already have. Hunt introduced them. Not Labour.

    https://order-order.com/2024/05/30/tories-wont-rule-out-tax-rises-either/

    A reminder: Guido’s not sure Hunt should be encouraging voters to look at his record:

    Increase in income tax rate in October 2022.
    Council tax measures Autumn Statement 2022.
    Income tax/National Insurance thresholds frozen Autumn Statement 2022.
    Inheritance tax threshold freeze Autumn Statement 2022.
    Income tax Dividend Allowance reduced Autumn Statement 2022.
    Income tax additional rate threshold reduced Autumn Statement 2022.
    Capital Gains Tax reduced annual exempt amount Autumn Statement 2022.
    National Insurance employer threshold frozen Autumn Statement 2022.
    VAT registration threshold frozen Autumn Statement 2022.
    Individual Savings Accounts: maintain annual subscription limit at £20,000 for 2023-24 Budget 2023.
    Starting rate limit for savings income: maintain at £5,000 for 2023-24 Budget 2023.

      1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

        Reform’s Farage poll bounce spells trouble for the Tories
        Comments Share 5 June 2024, 5:49pm
        ‘I’m back’. Nigel Farage’s two-word tweet on Monday heralded the return of one of Westminster’s great celebrities. Barely 48 hours later, we are already seeing the impact that he is making in the polls. A YouGov survey published this afternoon suggests Reform are now on 17 per cent of the vote – just two points behind the Tories. It is the first polling done since Farage announced he was standing in Clacton and returning as leader. ‘It’s all about momentum’, he told me last week in Dover. Reform looks to have that in spades.

        The survey – which gives Labour a 21 point lead on 40 per cent – is also the first done by YouGov since it announced it was tweaking its methodology. In a statement, the polling giant confirmed that ‘Reform UK’s vote share rose three points regardless of which methodology was used, and so their increase in vote is not related to the methodology change.’ Under the previous methodology, Labour would have had a 27 point lead and Reform would have been on equal polling to the Tories.

        Some Conservative backbenchers are sceptical. ‘I’m starting to thinking there is a polling conspiracy,’ says one. ‘It’s just not like that on the doors.’ It is true to say that Reform’s ground game is limited and that, under Richard Tice, they continued to flatter to deceive. But three points is still a decisive shift and one enough to hurt the Tories. For them, the danger is that the direction of travel only continues to accelerate as Farage gets more exposure – starting with the seven-way leaders’ debate on Friday.

        For much of 2023, Tory MPs asked themselves the question ‘92 or 97’ – whether this election result would produce a narrow majority or a crushing defeat. The real danger for them is that the answer is Canada ‘93, when the governing centre-right party in Ottawa got wiped out by a party called – you guessed it – Reform.

        Farage has repeatedly said that this transatlantic precedent was a factor in the renaming of the Brexit party back in 2020. If his party’s polling continues to improve, then Rishi Sunak’s Tories will fear that what happened in Canada could be about to repeat itself here on 4 July.

    1. Lefties are crackers. They truly do live in a world entirely of their own invention.

    3. H e is a very stupid, show off. Just how do these types get into positions of responsibility, in his case is it to make trudeau look reasonable?

    4. H e is a very stupid, show off. Just how do these types get into positions of responsibility, in his case is it to make trudeau look reasonable?

  105. Oh, grreat. Local bus company has just announced it's gone tits up.
    Deep fcuking joy.
    No wonder there was so much chaos trying to get home this evening.

    1. I'm probably being thick, but are they not funded partly from local government?

      1. Yes. One wonders how they manage that level of incompetence to go bust?

      2. Yes, but they seem to have used all the money, and it’s not even July!

    2. I'm probably being thick, but are they not funded partly from local government?

    1. I had something from the Cons that I thought was from the LDs. Perhaps it's camouflage.

  108. Evening, all. After a brief shower the rain stopped and I managed to get out into the garden. I worked for several hours and it's almost impossible to see what I've done 🙁 I seem to get tired before I can complete a job and tick it off my list. Kadi frightened the (young) postman this afternoon. The lad came through the gate and Kadi ran towards him. Cue young postie backing himself against the gate. Kadi then ran away. Mission completed. I swear Kadi was smirking.

  109. The DM has a story about a Russian Ukrainian bomb maker making a right mess of it in Paris today. Didn't quite blow himself apart.

    That's hedging their bets there with the Russian Ukrainian label.

  110. Here we go again – one for the birds!

    "The US government is poised to announce a multimillion-dollar investment in mRNA vaccines for H5N1 bird flu. The move comes as the virus continues to spread in mammals, threatening a new pandemic if it makes the jump to humans.

    The US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is understood to be nearing an agreement with Moderna to finance human trials for its experimental mRNA bird flu vaccine. The deal would include a commitment to stockpile millions of vaccines if the trials were successful, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. "

    1. There isn't time to fit in a new mRNA jab, they are still pushing us to get Covid jabs every few months.

    2. But, but…they’ve tried the bird flu scam before. Prof Pantsdown said hundreds of millions would die. Fewer than three hundred did and even then they probably died of something else entirely, if the truth were told.

      1. Oh yes. I remember standing at the meat counter and another customer explaining how she wouldn’t buy chicken because of bird flu.

  111. Last post. I do congratulate whoever arranged the illumination of all the gravestones at the Bayeux Cemetery. Not a dry eye in this house.

  112. Well, for those complaining about the cold, it's 17°C in this room and I'm quite comfortable with it!
    And with that, I'm off to bed.
    Good night all.

      1. I'd prefer the sleep of the "just after", but sadly that is beyond me now.

  113. I think I may have to write to my Tory MP suggesting he stands down to make way for the Reform candidate.

    1. Unfortunately there are no MPs now they’re all candidates. Ask him to resign from the party today and leave them without a candidate and the Reform candidate will have a free ride.

  114. Nigel Farage has driven the Tories to a state of near-total psychological collapse
    –
    We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives
    –
    ALLISTER HEATH • 5 June 2024 • 7:33pm

    Britain wants to give the Conservatives a good thrashing, but it isn't in love with Sir Keir Starmer's Labour. The first leaders' debate gave us a tantalising glimpse of what could have been, had the Tories not blown a historic opportunity to transform Britain.

    Starmer's performance was barely passable; in no way does he deserve the once-in-a-century landslide about to land in his lap. He would be eminently beatable by a Tory candidate with a decent record and a distinctive conservative vision; one with an added dose of common touch would trounce him.

    Starmer will be an accidental prime minister, and would do well not to take his impending gargantuan majority personally, or mistake it for a groundswell of public support for a Left-wing revolution. British politics is undergoing such intense convulsions that he too could be spat out in a few years' time, though not without leaving a trail of irreparable destruction in his wake. The latest YouGov poll puts Labour on 40 per cent, against 36 per cent for the Tories and Reform combined. The conservative electorate is hopelessly divided, not permanently vanquished.

    The debate went well for Rishi Sunak, but all his winning points were bittersweet: they were arguments from the Right, and thus merely remind us of 14 squandered years. He was cheered when he hinted at pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and when he rejected 35 per cent pay rises for junior doctors; he struck gold when he warned of Labour tax rises.

    But sending out strong Right-wing vibes at one minute to midnight in a desperate bid to deflect the oncoming Nigel Farage tsunami isn't enough: after 14 years of talking as conservatives but governing as social-democrats, the Tories have run out of excuses. They broke their promises on migration, legal and illegal, and never had the guts to pull out of the ECHR. They increased taxes, and are planning to do so again as a share of GDP.

    This is why I blame the Tory wets, in charge for almost all of the past 14 years, for the Starmer-ite calamity that is about to befall Britain.

    It is the wets who jettisoned free-market economics, deregulation, tax cuts and supply-side reforms, who crippled the City, who increased immigration, who ignored the collapse of community and family and the baby-bust, who failed to fix the Civil Service, who refused to scrap the BBC licence fee, who had no interest in properly reforming the public sector, including the NHS (and who promoted even more cultish reverence for a failing system), who vetoed prison building and a real crackdown on crime, who embraced net zero and the neo-Blairite quangocracy, and who wanted to surrender to the woke stormtroopers.

    It is they who snubbed Farage, especially after Boris Johnson was defenestrated, and who took the Brexiteers for granted. It is the wets who are responsible for the rise of Reform.

    The Tory Left failed to accept that Brexit wasn't just about leaving the EU in a technical sense, but also about resetting our politics, institutions, culture and economy. It was a mechanism to address the discontent that began to emerge during the early- to mid-2000s, in response to the pathologies of the Blair-Brown era and exacerbated by the slower growth that followed the financial crisis.

    By 2016, the electorate was crying out for a dramatic rupture; instead, the wets only offered up more of the same. By the time Sunak came to power, lockdowns and Russia had set off crippling inflation, there was no majority in the Tory party to do anything radical and, in any case, it was too late. The only agenda that could have saved the country and the party had been torpedoed by a group too culturally and economically comfortable to understand the concerns of the Red Wall and of suburban Middle England.

    Even now, when faced with their party's extinction, they are looking after themselves, stuffing the party's most winnable seats with their friends and excluding genuinely conservative candidates. This is a scandal, and a further betrayal of their long-suffering members: what remains of the parliamentary party will be even more dominated by the Left after the election, making it even harder for a united, rational opposition to Starmer to organise on the centre-Right.

    Yet the wets' greatest blunder was to believe the Conservative Party is eternal, that it can never be replaced by a more Right-wing, populist alternative. Such parochialism now looks delusional. In France, the hegemonic party of the Right is now Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy has displaced previous centre-Right parties.

    We are now at a tipping point whereby Britain could go the same way. The first question is whether any Tory parliamentary candidates defect to Reform just before the candidates' deadline on Friday, especially in Right-leaning seats, potentially robbing the Tories of the ability to stand in that constituency, kickstarting a great realignment even before the election.

    The second great unknown is whether we will see a crossover moment, whereby one poll – even if it is a fluke – shows Reform ahead of the Tories. The latest YouGov poll suggests that this is likely, with Farage's party a mere two points behind Sunak's at 17 v 19 per cent. Farage only wanted to return once he was convinced such an explosive outcome was likely, even if it still translates into the Tories amassing more MPs.

    Any crossover would inflict a near-lethal psychological blow on the Tories: Sunak's most powerful argument to Right-minded voters is that a vote for Reform is wasted, and tantamount to supporting Labour. A crossover would invert this equation, allowing Farage to claim that voting Reform, not Tory, is the best way to keep Labour out, and triggering another collapse in the Conservative floor in a classic self-fulfilling doom loop.

    Disastrously, it would also deliver even more seats to Starmer, but this point now looks moot as the Right eats itself.

    Farage's re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/05/tory-left-driving-party-to-annihilation-at-farage-hands/

    1. ‘had the Tories not blown a historic opportunity to transform Britain’
      Exactly.

    2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Watch: minister squirms on rising tax burden
      Comments Share 5 June 2024, 9:32pm
      Oh dear. As the Conservative £2,000 tax claim continues to implode, poor Bim Afolami has been sent out on the airwaves to prop up his party. Only Sky News aren’t taking his defence quite as well as he might have hoped.

      ‘How much has tax gone up under the Conservatives over the last parliament term, per household?’ Sky News’s Sophie Ridge quizzed the former Tory politician.

      ‘Well it’s difficult to calculate,’ Alofami confessed, before his interviewer stepped in again.

      ‘I’ll give you the answer,’ Rigby replied. ‘Since 2019, according to our Economics Data Editor Ed Colway and analysing OBR figures, taxes have gone up £13,000 per household since 2019. £2,000 sounds like a bit of a bargain in comparison, doesn’t it?’

      ‘I don’t recognise that number, frankly, because I’ve never seen that calculation,’ Alofami stuttered. ‘What I know is that the real disposable income, the amount of money that actually somebody is left with…is over £1,000 higher…now than it was in 2010.’

      It’s all becoming rather awkward…

      1. "… £13,000 per household since 2019…"

        Most of which is due to lockdown which most of the country supported….

    3. Heath is likely correct that Farage's return to the frontline of politics will have consequences for the GE. What he, and other journalists ignore, is the fact that Sunak and Starmer are not working for the British people despite their claims on the hustings i.e. sanitised TV debates. If they, and their recent predecessors, had been working for the people we wouldn't be in the state we are today.

      The rise of Sunak, Starmer and their ilk is a planned coup to usurp the people's freedoms and make control the norm. The same has happened in the USA with Biden & Co openly ignoring the constitution and pursuing their primary political opponent by the use of lawfare, and as of yesterday, turning their lawfare on his team/advisors.

      Perhaps Heath et al. should turn over a few rocks and expose what is really on the agenda.

  115. "Let China sleep, for when she wakes the world will tremble."
    © Napoleon, apparently.

    Just watching '55 Days at Peking'.

        1. Under the new system introduced by Disqus in the last week, I am now unable to publish using my iPad. However a method still exists and I took advantage of your kind nature to publish the above article from the Telegraph. Only for the perusal and enjoyment of the readers.

          1. Ahhhh, my friend, you are too kind! Definitely should have gone to Specsavers 🤣, but thanks for the very welcome giggle on a cold night in Buenos Aires.

            Sending a warm abrazo tanguero (tango embrace) x

    2. Altogether now: “diversity strength”

      ps the German one is truly scary. Europe is fooked

  117. In about half an hour, Sergeant Jim Wallwork will land within 50 feet of Pegasus Bridge in what was described by Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory as arguably the finest piece of combat flying in the second World War.

    "After training at Tarrant Rushton airfield, Wallwork set off on the evening of 5th June 1944 for the beginning of the invasion of Normandy. Shortly after midnight on 6th June he landed his Horsa glider in occupied France, ending up less than 50 ft from the water tower of the Benouville Bridge. The force of the impact catapulted both Wallwork and his co-pilot John Ainsworth through the front of the cockpit. Although stunned, this made them the first Allied troops to touch French soil on D-Day."

    1. The Horsa (the only one in existence, I believe) which was restored at Cosford is now in its own museum in the Netherlands. Cosford refused to keep it!

  118. Shakespeare's Polonius, who gets stabbed while hiding behind an arras, may be censoriously didactic but these words explain just how the Conservatives have destroyed themselves.

    This above all: to thine own self be true,
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.

    They were not true to the promises on which they were elected and they were false to all those who voted for them from 2010 onwards.
    They deserve to be wiped out.

    But Starmer does not deserve to win: he is far too dull, far too boring and he lacks humour, wit and presence.

    1. Neither Starmer nor Sunak will win the forthcoming election with an outright majority and I hope that both Labour and Conservative parties are annihilated by Reform.

  119. Our country is in the deepest shit thanks to fifty or sixty years of crap government. Nothing works, whether the state of the roads, management of rivers and effluent, basic infrastructure, management of public health especially the NHS, failure to build prisons for the increasing numbers of miscreants, near collapse of our Police effectiveness in confronting crime, acquiescence in allowing tens of millions of criminal gangs and illegal immigrants into our country (ably assisted by our useless Border Force and the discredited RNLI gone woke).

    Our formerly thriving cities and market towns are now shadows of their former selves. Almost everything is dilapidated and polluted with shit on the footpaths and foreigners going on stabbing frenzies when they are not kneeling on prayer mats and otherwise obstructing the highways and markets.

    We now have to accept a Gay Pride Month or whatever, an entire month of our calendar year given over to the whims of mentally ill people who would rather impose their delusional preferences on the rest of us despite being an almost insignificant percentage of our population and this not remotely representative.

    it is as though we have lost all identity. Despite the elaborate displays in Portsmouth earlier today I feel the whole D-Day 80 celebration was simply a stage set populated by actors. I find such displays both anaemic and cheap.

  121. Good Night, chums; sleep well and hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

    1. ' Morning, Geoff and thank you for all the sterling work you have lavished on us, on our behalf.

Comments are closed.