Wednesday 5 March: Time to be frank about the economic implications of rearmament

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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705 thoughts on “Wednesday 5 March: Time to be frank about the economic implications of rearmament”

  6. Good morning, chums. And thank you, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,355 5/6

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  7. JD Vance accused of denigrating British troops. 5 March 2025.

    JD Vance has denied denigrating Britain’s war record after making comments suggesting that the UK and France had not fought a war in 40 years.

    This is my bêtes noir on any comment thread; the deliberate misunderstanding of someone’s words to foster controversy. This, I have to admit, is because it is, (as here) usually successful. You can let it stand and look like a schmuck or try to set it right and make yourself look a weasel. I am pretty sure that Vance had nothing of the sort in mind when he said these words. For one thing they are untrue and it would have been stupid to even hint at such a thing. He was of course trying to point out the vainglorious words of the Europeans. Like Putin’s claims to a Russian Empire it is one of those things that will follow him as long as he lives.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/03/04/jd-vance-europe-leaders-zelensky-ukraine-fox-interview/

    1. It is perfectly clear that Vance was not referring to Britain. The "30 to 40 years" could not possibly be interpreted as referring to the UK, as it has been involved in conflicts within the last 25 years e.g. Gulf War 2 and Afghanistan. Vance clarified his remarks soon after. It is either mischievous or stupid to claim that Vance was denigrating Britain, and it is obviously deliberate.

      1. As Nigel Farage pointed out Britain has joined the US several times in military activity in recent years (as has France) so either Vance was not referring to Britain or he was wrong.

        What many would like to know is to which random country Vance was referring?

        It might have been Andorra:

        They spent four dollars and 90 cents
        On armaments for their defence
        Did you ever hear such confidence
        Andorra Hip! Hooray!

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOCWTRJCnf0

      1. As I sailed around the Caribbean on my sabbatical year I visited Grenade at the end of 1984.

        As I visited some of the islands I added a verse to the calypso I was writing called Hey Skip.

        When I got down to Grenada
        The US army was there
        Wearing short pants and tee shirts
        And driving Jeeps everywhere
        They screamed and whistled and waved machine gun as they drove by past me
        It made me think that it is not true that worse things happen at sea.

    3. It never occurred to me that Vance was referring to Britain.
      But then I don't suffer from TDS.

    1. Lovely photograph.

      Full right rudder, flaps down and landing gear deployed. Doggo and human both look pleased.

      1. Certainly looks like her. Talented young girl. Awarded MBE at 14. Youngest person ever to have received this honour.

  12. 402589+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Halal on the parliamentary canteen menu,the how to kill, maim, abuse instruction manual resting betwixt the dispatch boxes and a fully fledged political king rodent / rattesses running the show.

    Would advise this lent is used in contemplation of ways to delouse this nation firstly of treacherous politico's, then the launching of a brace or six lookalike MTBs patrolling the English Channel.

    This could very well be a lent to remember NOT, "best we forget" as has been the clearly seen case over these past four decades, our hard won heritage and those who did not return, make the 11/11/11 a daily thought day not just a once a year occasion.

    https://x.com/VividProwess/status/1897060420667761057

    1. Muslims don't give a flying one for Palestinians, nor Gaza.
      They just like to stick it to the rest of us.

      1. Why is it that no Arab countries in the ME will accept Palestinian refugees?

    1. What is planned to celebrate VJ Day?
      Or is that the Forgotten War yet again?

      1. Exactly Bob,

        Dad was serving on aircraft carriers in the Indian ocean , and also based with air squadrons in Ceylon and Southern India .

        He always said VJ day was forgotten about ..

        He had friends who were captured and held as POW's and his best friend was released ,in a very bad state , he had been tortured by being restrained on bamboo.. He had a huge bamboo X on his back . I can remember seeing him , because he and his wife followed my father and mother , me and my baby sister out to Africa in 1951.. and for years always wondered why there was an enormous cross on his back when we all swam in the Sudan club swimming pool.. there are things one never ever forgets .

  17. Time to be frank about the economic implications of rearmament

    I can't see it being worse than net zero, just abandon that madness.
    At least we most of the money can be spent and kept in the country.

    1. If we start re-arming now, the gear will arrive by 2039, a mindful reminder of the past

    2. It's not though Bob, most of the gear will be made in N Ireland by companies which are foreign owned

      1. I hope you have a very enjoyable day and many more birthdays to come
        Here's to health and happiness.

      2. and from me

        and of course have 364 Happy Unbirthdays, til your next anniversary

    2. Happy Birthday Sue from another Paul.
      I hope you have a lovely day today and best wishes to you. 🤩🥂🍾🍹🤗
      Cheers.

  20. I did hear that when Trump was elected that the USA was going to stop all that cloud seeding malarkey.
    The weather appear much improved, I've hardly seen a contrail this week.

  21. SIR – With regards to the article “Beer with lunch? Non-alcoholic lagers added to supermarket meal deals” (Business, March 3), I regularly took a can of alcohol-free beer to my desk from the canteen for lunch while serving in our embassy in Washington DC in the late 1980s. Alcohol-free wine wasn’t available, as it is now, but I hope that those currently serving there have this or something similar to accompany their food, particularly in the hot and humid summers.

    Malcolm Watson
    Ryde, Isle of Wight

    "May I have a bottle of oxymoron, Please?"

    "What?"

    "The stuff you call 'Alcohol-free beer'. The term is an oxymoron since beer is an alcoholic beverage. Has been for millennia. If it has no alcohol it should be given a different name."

    1. "If they wuz to dehydrate war-time beer, we'd have nothing left to pour cold water on." (Usaul prize for spotting the source.)

      1. Watney's: the beer of punters having sex.

        Watney's beer — like sex in a punt — is fucking close to water.

          1. Whitbread 'Tankard', Ind Coope 'Double Diamond' and a few other paltry examples of a brown liquid marketed as 'beer' were similarly feeble.

            I was in despair and close to teetotalism when CAMRA rode to my rescue.

          2. DD, or Dirty Dick as it was known hereabouts was bad for my ‘system’. Ben Truman, a similar gassy product was no better. Stacks of good ales available now: locally, Nethergate’s and Mauldon’s breweries both out Sudbury way and Mighty Oak in Maldon Essex make first class ales.

          3. Joules is our local brewery (in Market Drayton). Apparently it doesn't travel well. I wouldn't know (although I've been round the brewery) as I'm not keen on beer.

          4. Reminds me of the vicar entering his local just as the busty barmaid has a clothing malfunction with her low cut top.
            After apologising to him, he responded by saying that, as a "Man of the Cloth" such things did not bother him continuing with "And now I'll have a pint of Titbread Wankard!

        2. I think I've mentioned this before Grizz. The use to be a camra pub at Tyttenhanger a small village just south of St Albans. They had a white board for jokes and comments in the gents with felt tips pens. That joke was written on the board around 50 years ago.
          Another old pub shut down now.
          The best pint ever imho was Fullers ESB.

          1. St Alban's is the birthplace of CAMRA, as I'm sure you are aware, Eddy. I love all Fuller's beers and a good many others from around the country. I once kept a list of all the decent cask-conditioned bitters I had sampled and there were well more than a few of excellent standard and delicious flavour..

            Then, nine years ago, I visited Sussex and sampled my first pint of Harvey's best bitter. I was simply in raptures, as Johnny Norfolk also well knows.

          2. St Alban's is the birthplace of CAMRA, as I'm sure you are aware, Eddy. I love all Fuller's beers and a good many others from around the country. I once kept a list of all the decent cask-conditioned bitters I had sampled and there were well more than a few of excellent standard and delicious flavour..

            Then, nine years ago, I visited Sussex and sampled my first pint of Harvey's best bitter. I was simply in raptures, as Johnny Norfolk also well knows.

          5. Love the ESB, can't get it here in Norway.
            Local pub gets London Pride, so not all bad news.
            Some of the Weegie hand-brewed beers are damn good (NSB, for example), just not widely available. The NSB is a play on words – short for Numedal Stasjons Bryggeri, in Rollag. Also short for Norges StatsBane (Norwegian State Railways)

          6. We went to Bruges a few years ago for a long weekend. The beer was very good.

        3. Remember that William Shakespeare also put in some pretty vulgar stuff to appeal to the groundlings :

          When I saw what the young girl was doing
          I said: "Why squirm so when you're screwing?"
          She relied with a giggle
          "A screw without out wiggle
          Is only for screwing canoeing."

        4. Remember that William Shakespeare also put in some pretty vulgar stuff to appeal to the groundlings :

          When I saw what the young girl was doing
          I said: "Why squirm so when you're screwing?"
          She relied with a giggle
          "A screw without out wiggle
          Is only for screwing canoeing."

    2. We have some in one of our fridges.
      My good lady and mother buys alcohol free lagargle for our sons when they visit. They are usually driving.

      1. Yo, Mr Effort.

        A good (female) friend came around for coffee last week. She said that, at home, she always puts oat 'milk' in her coffee instead of dairy!

        Yesterday I collected her from hospital after an overnight stay having an operation on her thyroid gland. She also has quite a 'tummy' on her. I cannot help but think there must be a connection with this and her choice of 'milk' (and, quite possibly, food in general).

  22. 402589+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    Live, Trump tells Congress Zelensky is ready to negotiate

    President Trump reads out letter sent by Zelensky.

    Way to go president Trump, you have a supporting army in the United Kingdom.

      1. The government should supply him with some extra strong drugs to help him on his way.

    1. 4025898+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Gerard Batten
      @gjb2021

      ·
      Mar 3

      Please sign & share the above.

      5253.

  27. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely bright Sunshine melting the frost again this morning, nice to see.
    Who has reached the conclusion that we need to re-arm ? It makes absolutely no sense at all, which is not unusual in this country.
    We are a peaceful hard working fun loving group of islands run by experts in all divisions. (Sarc)
    But I'll bet we are all looking forward to the 15th of March and praying for change. Not begging but honestly hoping that history will repeat its self.

  28. Mike b
    12h
    There was an opportunity to remove the BBC charter in 2017 that option was muted at the time.
    One reason given for refusal was that in the event of a so-called political right-wing party emerging the BBC could counteract them..well it's happening the bias against Reform is unrelenting.

    ..Reform 🇬🇧

    terence patrick hewett
    13h
    The level of anti-Farage invective in the MSM is now quite astonishing. The old cliché applies; 'the flack is heaviest when you're over the target.'

    Dame Priti
    terence patrick hewett
    11h
    Not found it too bad on Twitter or my MSM page. Most people are still slating TTK and angry about the amount of arrivals via the Cal ais Yac ht club. What is maybe worse is the lack of cut through by the Tories. Kemi puts up a post about the farmers and 8 hours later she has 112 likes. Rupert Lowe gets 1.2k in 30 minutes. Polls a bit strange. In theory, Labour has gone up in the polls with YouGov to lead but City AM has Reform in the lead for the first time.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e058d6fc49be38f8f300e3f89e6f916f6f013c3755ac583eb38a2d916e10593.png

    1. The most astonishing thing in this poll is that the LibDems have as much as 15% support.

      1. The most astonishing thing in this poll is that Labour don't have 0% support.

        Having said that, I forgot about the brain-dead.

          1. And getting stupider by the second.
            Trouble is, the politicians know it and act accordingly.

  30. If this passes it will mean we've finally succumbed to dhimmitude.
    I can hardly believe it is even being considered.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14461483/Possessing-photos-Muslim-woman-without-hijab-criminal-offence-MPs-say.html

    Possessing photos of a Muslim woman without her hijab should be made a criminal offence, MPs have proposed.

    The Commons' women and equalities committee said pictures of a Muslim woman without her headscarf – taken without her consent – should be considered 'non-consensual intimate images'.

    Such photographs should be treated the same as child sex abuse images, possession of which can carry long prison sentences, the MPs said.

      1. She has had several miscarriages and a recent child – but no mention of a husband.

      2. I personally have no wish to possess any photos of Muslim women with or without hijabs.

        I cannot believe there are many people here who do.

          1. I've noticed that the person who was assisted to win Bbc Bake off a few years ago. By along way nowhere near the best Baker, now has her own cooking programme and now wears a more obvious form of head gear.
            Just to make her point.

          3. One of our friends was a teacher at her school. Our friend wasn't complimentary.

          5. Ah yes, the wobbly purple cake creator.
            As a gesture towards Her Late Majesty's anniversary.
            Of course, she got the job on merit.

          6. Her winning bake was some sort of an awful looking bird with shop bought icing and smarties stuck to it.

    6. "child sex abuse images, possession of which can carry long prison sentences" unless you get the "right" judge, [nudge, wink] when you may end up with community service, but only if it's not too inconvenient for you!

    7. We still have freedom, though (according to Starmer, who wouldn't recognise truth if it bit him on the nose).

  31. Left-wing activists are now threatening our national security
    Taxpayer-funded charities are demanding pro-migration measures that go against the interests of the British public

    Annabel Denham
    Columnist and Deputy Comment Editor
    05 March 2025 5:58am GMT
    Annabel Denham

    Eight hundred million. That’s roughly the number of people worldwide with a potential claim to asylum in Western countries, once you include the 120 million who have been forcibly displaced, existing refugees, those in modern slavery and the millions who, as per the Refugee Convention, have a “well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.

    Our system is struggling to cope with an annual inflow of 100,000. The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank believes the cost of housing and supporting the average asylum-seeker has reached £41,000 per person per year. The majority of these would-be refugees now cross the Channel in flimsy, crammed dinghies. On the night of November 23 2021, one of these vessels capsized. Tragically, 27 drowned.

    As this was the deadliest day on record, and because our gutless politicians love to kick a can down the road, an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding these fatalities was announced in 2023. This followed the publication of a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, which itself recognised that the “operational picture” in the Channel had changed significantly since the tragedy. So why was the Cranston Inquiry, which launched this week, ever signed off?

    Already, the British taxpayer has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on this exercise. In 2023-24 alone, it cost us £500,000. Yet it’s almost guaranteed to tell us nothing we don’t already know, while adding to the pressure for liberalisation of our asylum arrangements, and quite likely for compensation to survivors and relatives.

    The calls for more money to patrol our waters will grow shriller – even though by mid-2022 the Ministry of Defence was putting the cost at £34,000 a day (which sounds like an underestimate). That’s nearly £12.5 million a year before inflation, on top of the £470 million we are paying the French over three years to supposedly try to control migration.

    If we must have an inquiry, let it add the role played by taxpayer-funded refugee organisations to its terms of reference. Let it scrutinise the charities which oppose government efforts to clamp down on illegal migration and lobby for measures which are tantamount to open borders, and do so on the public purse.

    Responding to deaths in the Channel, the Refugee Council published a briefing paper recommending we open up more safe and legal routes. The charity received more than £10 million from the government in 2023-24, has over 300 staff, lists among its achievements “successfully challenging” the state’s efforts to identify the age of young people seeking asylum, and boasts of its role as “a leading voice” opposed to the Rwanda scheme.

    Then there’s Refugee Action, which receives more than £5 million in government contracts. It “helps overturn asylum rulings by providing expert legal advice” while campaigning for “policy changes to improve the asylum system overall”. This indirectly encourages migrants to risk their lives and those of their children – something which is rarely acknowledged.

    Opening up legal routes, as these organisations endlessly demand, only eliminates the boats if everyone who applies is admitted. Otherwise, there’s still an incentive to make the crossing. It’s a view people are free to argue, but not one the taxpayer should be funding these pressure groups to advance, given the obvious risks associated with allowing migrants into the country at levels we cannot conceivably integrate.

    Issa Mohamed Omar was one of the survivors on November 24 2021. His testimony to the Cranston Inquiry this week was harrowing. But one line stood out. “The smugglers told us that we would be accepted as asylum seekers once we entered British waters,” he said. “This was always my understanding and intention”. So long as this is the understanding and the intention, people will choose to journey from the safety of Northern France.

    Indeed, over 600 people crossed the Channel on Monday, the highest number so far this year. For all Keir’s tough talk of smashing gangs, there are only two ways to “stop the boats”: make clear that people who gamble with their lives won’t gain from it, or else let everyone in. When the EU came to an agreement with Turkey in 2016 that irregular migrants travelling to Greece would be immediately returned, Aegean crossings fell from over 800,000 in 2015 to less than 50,000 in 2017. Deterrence works. There’s no need for an open borders experiment.

    2. Jean Howell
      3 hrs ago
      So we now have more illegal “fighting-age” migrants than we have members of the Armed Forces – and adding more daily. How can the Government square that with keeping its citizens safe? This situation is farcical and dangerous.

      Ian Perry
      2 hrs ago
      Reply to Jean Howell – view message
      This government has no interest in the health, happiness, prosperity or even basic safety of its people. It priorities the wants of illegal immigrants above us all.

      My belief is that Starmer, Hermer, Sands et al are looking to ICJ for their next big jobs. The betrayal of their country, to benefit "the international community" and demonstrate their devotion to "international justice", is their job interview.

    3. The French government is complicit – and always has been. They are more than happy to get rid of the pestilent scum and to impoverish the British at the same time.

    4. I have a “well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” owing to the fact I am an indigenous ie white Christian in a country that is rapidly becoming over run by people who wish to eradicate such categories. Where can I run to?

  32. Reposted from late last night

    Wednesday, 5th March, 2025

    Sue MacFarlane

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

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e959d6d35d444143d7f1a8bcbffad1351dc598abc516e9b733b9dfc7ea22821.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab846f31e39007dfda6a2b7f0c3b316ea3163a235a52969acd55f188a814c072.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c942d515407b07722d6ecd3faf8fbe64ea62478ff7d8ab957c42b05da0433ff.png
    With very best wishes,

    Caroline and Rastus

    6. Happy Birthday, Sue. I hope the weather where you are is as pleasant as it is here. Whatever, enjoy your day.

  33. Good morning all.
    And I'm feeling a lot better now, still a bit snuffly, but greatly improved on yesterday.

    A bright overcast start to the day and a bit less cold. 3½°C when I checked.

    1. Morning Bob,
      We have both experienced similar symptoms and I found a small jar of Vic Vaporub decongestant, after putting a couple of small blobs just inside my nostrils I managed to sleep undisturbed.

    2. Morning Bob, keep resting though. You might be over the bump but your body isn't ready for your usual 16 hour days of carrying a forest up a mountain. Rest, stay overly warm, eat a lot of protein and carbs.

    3. Hi Bob. That's good to hear. Vitamin C, lots of it, will make youi feel better fast.

    4. And leave the sodding trees alone.
      Another day to two won't hurt them but will hurt you.

    5. And leave the sodding trees alone.
      Another day to two won't hurt them but will hurt you.

  34. Grattis på födelsedagen, Bonnie Lass. Gan canny and ha' a reet good day today, wor lass. Cheers, Pet.👍🏻🥂🍾🎂😘

    Today is also my favourite grandma's birthday. She is 132! A wonderful birth date for lovely people.😊

  35. Grattis på födelsedagen, Bonnie Lass. Gan canny and ha' a reet good day today, wor lass. Cheers, Pet.👍🏻🥂🍾🎂😘

    Today is also my favourite grandma's birthday. She is 132! A wonderful birth date for lovely people.😊

  36. Fullers blotted their copybook by buying and immediately closing Gales of Horndean.
    Something I will NEVER forgive them for.

    1. I remember Gales when they were independent. Superb beer then. A wonderful pub I used to frequent in South Yorkshire often had it as a ‘guest’ beer.
      Similarly Marston’s Pedigree — an early favourite — suffered after being bought out by Carlsberg FFS!

        1. You never hear of a constipated Bass drinker (as they said in Scouseland)😘

        2. You never hear of a constipated Bass drinker (as they said in Scouseland)😘

        3. My brother called it “Daft Bass”. When I asked him why, he replied that two-or-three pints of it drives you daft.

        2. What, Marston's? I don’t think so Bob. But Grizz is right about Carlsberg messing with Pedigree.

      3. I drink Wye Valley Butty Bach in the club I use. Now all I need is a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord.

  38. Good Morning!

    In Starlin’s Progress, Iain Hunter sets out how Kneel Starmer has become so utterly loathed. We doubt that there will be much disagreement, but please pile in and tell us what you loathe about him. We would especially like to hear from somebody who doesn’t loathe him. Let us know please. We also have a new category today ‘Shorts’ for articles less than 800 words that can be read in a couple of minutes. To kick this off is a short on Lent, and our Editor’s giving up eating, completely. What are you giving up for Lent?

    Do you think mind control beams are the stuff of science fiction? Well, John Hamer says you should think again, and presents science based evidence to back up his claim. Please let us know by commenting under the article and voting in the poll if you agree, or if you think he’s lost in a conspiracy theory too far, in part four of his Chemtrail or Contrail series, Chemtrails, Aural Beams & Mind Control.

    Energy watch 07.30: Demand: 36.33 GW. Total UK Production: 31.24 GW from: Hydrocarbons 23.4%; Wind 40.6%; Imports 14.1%; Biomass 3%; Nuclear 11.1%. Solar: 0%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. For lent I am giving up courtesy.

      Next time someone walks into me in Tesco I'll deck them.

      Notable again that of the 70GW of wind we're paying for, only 12GW is being returned. And we're paying through the nose for that as well. Those imports are also costing us a fortune. Folk just don't seem to get it: energy isn't expensive because of profiteering. Energy is expensive because the government makes it so.

      1. I keep trying to tell people about the green taxes that make energy expensive. I'm not sure I'm getting through.

    2. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to enumerate why I loathe Starmer! I'm giving up listening to propaganda for Lent and I'm daily praying for islam to be swept from these shores.

  39. Just trying to imagine Labour rebuilding our armed forces.

    All the service men and women and theys will be working a four day week.
    They can work from home two days a week.
    White people need not apply as they are already over represented.
    Rainbow coloured camouflaged uniforms.
    All armoured vehicles, ships and planes will be electric
    Anyone with social media posts that do not fit with left wing values will be banned.
    Safe space will be provided when doing square bashing.

    We will have the most progressive armed forces in the world.

    1. You don't have to imagine Bob it's already in progress
      Royal Marine NCO's are trying to hold the line against instructions to pass women who just can't meet standard
      80lb pack weapon and a 20 mile yomp??
      Not doing the girls any favours

      1. Black kids at universities are already given more time in exams. Apparently this is 'fair' to make up for their disadvantages. Such utter, racist bigotry is hard to fathom.

    2. Ajax – the latest MoD nonsense tank – failed because it's engine is woefully underpowered to meet emissions regulations.

      It's a sodding war fighting vehicle. Only in the state could such mania be perpetuated. They must start paying for their failure with job losses.

    3. I suspect this government has found a use for despised white men – particularly from the 'working class'.
      Round 'em up and send them to die .
      (For details, ask Ukraine.)

      1. Have a lovely day.
        And a couple of even lovelier ones at the weekend. (As if you need an excuse.)

      3. Happy Birthday, Sue!! Wishing you a great year to come (because I appear to have popped in too late to wish you a wonderful day 🤣).

        K x

  41. Good morning to all. Nice day but quite frosty out there. I thought for the first order of business this morning I would post President Trumps address to Congress. Some spectacular things going on that, if he succeeds, will benefit us all. It's long, more than two hours but fascinating.
    Click on the link.

    https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369617793112

    1. Heh, we had a notice from one of our customers that while Trump might be abandoning the righteous cause of diversity, they were still intent on pursuing it to make them an inclusive and diverse organisation.

      Odd that they're so far behind the times and haven't realised 'DIE' is just an excuse for bigotry, intolerance, spite and racism.

      1. In the speech he made clear that DIE is now illegal. You can tell your customer he is now breaking the law and to pss orf! So if he persists he will have the government breathing down his illegal neck.

          1. Your customer is English? Sorry did not understand that. Will you still cater to him?

          2. Mores the pity. If it did we would have that most essential of thing to practice democracy, free speech.

  42. After the letters in the first word were eliminated it was difficult to find any word to fit that hadn't been used before. Got it in the end:
    Wordle 1,355 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. They won't. Labour have already refused to do this. If they did it'd be the end of the Left for good. They'd lose countless thousand entrenched Lefties if their arrogance were to be exposed.

    1. I'm so looking forward to this. Aren't you? A future of enlightened living under Islam.

      In Libya the women wore white But it was the same. I took it for granted, being young. After years living there I return to the West and one day it hit me. I had never seen an Arab women ever. I had noidea what they looked like at all. They were invisible women in white tents. I hear that it is a bit better now.
      https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2014/10/000_Hkg10109760-e1506859911100.jpg
      Women in Tripoli, Libya. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7d/0a/10/7d0a108324c33d6fe85343edccf716f3.jpg

      2. I don't want that in this country. It is the most obvious sign of racism, division, refusal to integrate going.

        Ban it. And muslim.

    2. "Parliament defending our liberty and freedom"? What a joke. When they are facilitating submission, that is the very antithesis of freedom.

  46. The other night the Warqueen turned to me and said 'you're angrier than you've ever been.'

    Once we got over the is it showing to Junior and her and no, it wasn't but it was shown in sharper calls to the dogs, less patience for day to day things, less conversation at dinner and in classes I've been far more vicious. We train – deliberately on opposite sides of the studio. She has her coterie and I mine. She pointed out last evening I missed an uppercut and bashed one of the exercise bike handles and knocked it over – and carried on.

    TLDR: she suggested speaking to the counsellor I had before rather than bottling it up. She knows she wouldn't really help me as she'd focus on the solution, not the problem.

    1. Do you ever get out to the pub, it is a useful place to let off steam with friends rather than fruitlessly bashing a keyboard. I am only able to control my rage by accepting that I can do absolutely nothing to change the direction of this mad government. If you were to try and actively challenge the gov, they will lock you up and throw away the key as they have done to TR. I'm afraid our only salvation is a leader like the Don but even NF would not be so radical as to do the things that need doing here. We are screwed and I will watch a once great country going down the toilet in my declining years. It is a defeatist attitude but woke is established in our society and is cancerous so cannot be eliminated. Cultural Marxism has done its stuff. The hippies of the 60s had the right idea by taking themselves out of the society they did not like and live on a farm in Wales, thus creating a social system they enjoyed. Perhaps I should do the same by casting out sources of media and becoming a recluse. However, before then, I hope to be at the conspirators meeting in the summer down your way. Perhaps you should come along!

      1. I see a lot of other people in my classes and am trying to do more positive things there – putting more effort in and working harder, also cutting physically down on food can only be good for me. Trying to just 'not eat after 3' if that makes sense.

        I joined Reform and went to a couple of meetings but it was a bickering fest with the same tired ideological attitudes rather than any new thinking. Frankly if Putin were to announce he was going to nuke the UK I'd ask he concentrate on London and do the job properly.

        I do wonder what will happen when everyone who produces things, who pays real taxes simply stops bothering. What will big fat state do then?

        1. Confiscate our assets. I spent a lot of money yesterday (needful spending mostly) and thought, if I don't spend it, Starmer will steal it, so why not?

          1. While you're right a part of me thinks 'what if I want to save it all? Why is that not my right to choose how I live my life? It's my money, earned from my effort. I'm already paying tax seventeen times over. Why should I pay more just because the thieving state wants to destroy my property?

          2. I don't disagree with you, but I have more years behind me than in front, so I'm buying whatever I fancy now and spending what I like on entertainment. There is no point in being frugal only for the greedy lefties to grab it (and p1$$ it up the wall).

          3. Exactly, I'm buying for the next generation as well. HMRC dont have the resources to unpick my past bills. They took 2 months to reply to a letter offering to pay the tax on a 'simple' estate and still didn't come up with the correct answer.

        2. I dont think there is long to wait Wibbs, The economy always has momentum but I fear a recession is on the cards in the next year. From April there will be just too many straws on the camel's back.

      2. One of the topics of conversation this morning, was the calmness and acceptance of one of our number with a terminal illness. We concluded that it was acceptance of the inevitable and a realisation that there was no point in being angry as he couldn't do anything about it. Sometimes I feel like that about this government, but then I think that it only needs good men to do nothing for evil to flourish.

    2. Please be careful Wibbling , your blood pressure will need attention .

      We are not paid enough to get angry .. and yes , we can shout and sound off , but it won't do you any good .

      I guess the house is causing problems really, if we read between your lines ..

      Everyone , yes everyone including really red under the bed socialists are wondering what the hell is going on .

      There are a lot of Labour and Lib dem supporters in our village and ….. and yes I will repeat , we have the Royal Armoured Corp up the road based at Bovington .. so how do we feel when we see splendid young chaps shopping for food in the village .. because they are charged money for victuals on camp , which is rubbish , and outsourced by a company that supplies hospitals prisons and goodness knows where else .

      So we are in the thick of it , tanks practise they roar down the road , not through the village , those are the armoured weaponised wagons who rattle through , teaching youngsters how to drive ..

      The military are under a lot of pressure .

      What can any of us do about anything .. we are living amongst fine fertile farms and here we have fields of sheep and lambs bleating .. do not ever get stuck behind a double decker sheep transporter .. their baaing and bleating as they are transported for slaughter is the worst ever .. I see them as fodder for the Muslims ..

      I have cried my heart out when I have been motoring behind one of those lorries ..

      Cruel times ..

  47. They want to create one big super council and create a pointless 'mayor' role for Hampshire, Portsmouth Isle of Wight.

    The facile joke is that this increases accountability and value for money – as if the needs of Portsmouth are the same as those for, say, Northam. It's just tedious. What it's really intended to do is increase the size and scale of the state to do more damage to as many people as possible.

    1. Help….When I was young, so much younger than today, we had a stack of old records and a wind-up gramophone.
      That song would have been one of them, including Sunny Side of the Street by the Andrews Sisters. I use to spend hours with my sisters playing the records. I have no idea where they came from.

    1. I remember the BBC endlessly playing the substandard Lita Roza pastiche copy of that song.

      1. Its funny. What you remember isn't necessarily what you like. Also, Good Morning Grizz!

        1. Good morning, Jonathan. It's funny what you remember. I got irritated at the endless repetition of just a handful of songs played on the radio. Even as an infant they hurt my ears.

          In 1963, aged 12, when 'my' kind of music (pop based on blues) kicked out all the tired old Teddy Boy and crooning crap of the 1950s–1962, my ears were in seventh heaven.

          1. Remember that dreary stuff well, unfortunately. The 60s definitely saved us. Until then it was the zombie apocalypse for young people, musically speaking.

          3. I thought that the original song in French was "La chanson du pauvre Jean" – "Poor John's song".

          4. Tut, tut, Grizzly. Crooners in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s sang some really lovely music with superb music. You need to listen to Mark Steyn from 5.30 to 6pm on Serenade Radio on Sunday afternoons to hear some fascinating and knowledgeable stories about some superb songs.

          5. I was generalising, Auntie Elsie. Unfortunately the Light Programme seldom played the good stuff.

      2. Is that the one that goes

        "How much is that dahggy in the window
        The one with the wahhgly head?
        How much is that dahggy in the window?
        I dew wish that dahggy was dead!" ?

    1. It's a familiar scene in Brighton if you go for a drink in a coffee outlet.

      2. Holding hands, arms around shoulders, a peck on the cheek all fine.

        Snogging in public gay or not is disgusting.

      1. "That will be 33⅓p please, Sir. Shall I round it up to a convenient 35p?"

        "No thanks, that is rather inconvenient. Please round it down to a convenient 30p."

    2. For those alive before 1971, it is a mathematical curiosity that the guinea was divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 ,12, 18 and 21. The old pound was divisible by 1 ,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 and 20.

    1. And the pain of the suffering of British people and Europeans from the endless, murderous attacks by some Muslims…

    3. I didn't think I could despise him any more, but he manages to give me yet more reasons to deepen my loathing. It's been an effing difficult time for us indigenous thanks to his freeloaders and their demands.

    4. Oh just bugger off you sycophantic muslim-appeasing-because-they-vote-for-you stain on politics. Go! Resign. Shut down parliament. Get out. Leave. Sack yourself. Your policies are ruinous, your attitudes gormless, your ability to understand non-existent. You're a fascist socialist.

      Sod the [beeeeeeep] off!

  56. NHS told: give statins to everyone over 50.

    Single daily ‘polypill’ made widely available could help prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes.

    The NHS should give everyone over the age of 50 statin-based pills, scientists have said. Experts from University College London said a daily “polypill”, which includes a statin and three blood pressure-lowering drugs, could be a “flagship” to boost the Government’s drive to prevent disease. The intervention could help prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes, the researchers said. They added that a polypill could be at least twice as effective as the NHS health check.

    THE NHS should give everyone over the age of 50 statin-based pills, scientists have said.Experts from University College London (UCL) said a single, daily “polypill”, which includes a statin and three blood pressure-lowering drugs, could be a “flagship” initiative to boost the Government’s drive to prevent disease. The intervention could help prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes every year, the researchers said.

    A study from 2003 published in the BMJ found such a pill could stop 80 per cent of heart attacks and strokes from occurring in over 55s.
    Currently, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which approves drugs for NHS use based on their cost effectiveness, recommends statins for as many as 25 million people at risk of heart disease, having lowered the threshold needed to be prescribed them in 2023.
    In an article published by The BMJ today, the UCL authors say the use of a polypill would be at least twice as effective as the NHS health check if both had optimal take-up.

    The health check is offered every five years to people aged 40 to 74 who do not have a pre-existing health condition, where they may be offered drugs to tackle high cholesterol or blood pressure levels that are putting them at greater risk of heart complications. A new “polypill” programme would only require eight per cent of those aged 50 and over to take up the offer of the pill to achieve a bigger health benefit than the NHS health check, the authors claimed.

    Professor Aroon Hingorani, co-author from the UCL Institute of Health Informatics, said the current health check-up system “isn’t working very well” and that just “four in 10 people” attend an appointment. “Lots of people who would benefit from medication are not prescribed it,” he said. “What is more, our complex risk prediction tools are not very effective. They do not predict very well who will get a heart attack or stroke. That is because most heart attacks and strokes occur in people with average levels of risk. “Now is the time to do much better on prevention. A population-wide approach could prevent many more heart attacks and strokes than the current strategy of targeting a more limited group only.”
    He said it would be a “simple, effective, and potentially low-cost strategy” with “inexpensive” drugs that are off patent.

    In practice, over-50s would have to answer a few questions rather than undergo a health check, in order to assess their risk of side-effects.
    In the opinion piece, the authors pointed to a randomised trial in rural Iran, which in 2019 found that a polypill taken for five years reduced heart attacks and strokes by a third.

    Prof Sir Nicholas Wald, co-author and director of Polypill, said: “Rather than being a ‘medicalisation’ of a large section of the population, a polypill programme is a preventative strategy designed to avoid a person becoming a patient. “It can be compared to public health programmes such as vaccinations, reducing salt in food and adding folic acid to flour.”

    In the UK more than seven million people are living with heart disease, and around 100,000 people have a heart attack and more than 100,000 people have a stroke every year. More than five million people in England already take statins, while about a third of adults have high blood pressure. “The status quo is not a justifiable option,” the authors concluded. “We have the means of preventing most heart attacks and strokes, many more than are currently being prevented. All that is required is to translate what we know into action.”

    This should be of enormous benefit to the giant pharmaceutical companies ("Big Pharma"). And that's before we start to talk about the governments, health authorities and universities these giants heavily fund in order to push their agenda on the gullible.

    If the insane advice in this report comes from a study, I wonder who funded it.

      1. Some of us were fortunate enough to be advised not to take the Convid Jabs by our doctors.

        1. I was fortunate — switched on — enough to inform my doctor that under no circumstances would I accept being inoculated with any experimental poison.

          1. Didn't you once say, probably on here Grizzly, that you knew the Covid masks were useless because in fact any germs in the air would infect the body through the eyes, or something like that? If so, could you please repeat it as I would like it in my arsenal to be able to say to those who still insist on wearing face coverings.

          2. Certainly, Auntie Elsie.
            The tear ducts drain directly into the sinuses and, from there, straight into the nasal passage. Any virus can enter the eyes and then access the lungs directly via this route.
            Wearing a mask to protect you from a virus is exactly as idiotic as standing inside a tennis court as protection from machine gun fire from outside that court.

      2. And drug dependency for a decade or so is so much more profitable than a bullet. My painful throat is back. It had eased first thing but then I've had a few coughing fits and food and drink since then.

        1. Chloroseptic spray numbs the throat. As does gargling with a small amount of whisky.

    2. I was prescribed statins twenty years ago, but came off them because they were causing brain fog, and in time would have brought on onset dementia. My mother noticed the same thing.

      Nobody seems to be mentioning this, but the effects were clear to me, and I actually believed for a time this was a wonder medication to drop my cholesterol levels. It may have something to do with the brain needing cholesterol to function properly.

      1. I had the same problem when I was prescribed with statins but my GP told me to continue taking them as my 'brain fog' was due to some phantom TIA that an MRI scan had picked up that occurred "some time in the past 20 years".

        As soon as I stopped taking the damn things my 'brain fog' dissippated.

        [GP = General Practitioner. TIA = Transient Ischaemic Attack. MRI = Magnetic Resonance Imaging].
        I've given an explanation of those initialisms for the benefit of those (like me) who hate their random use without explanation.

      2. I persuaded my husband to stop taking the statins when I noticed he was having memory problems. His memory didn't get any better but I don't think it's deteriorated further. I encourage him to eat plenty of eggs and meat.

    3. In practice, over-50s would have to answer a few questions rather than undergo a health check, in order to assess their risk of side-effects.

      A few tick boxed questions on your smartphone and you don't even need a GP.

      I can see where this is going which is what I wouldn't be able to do if I were taking statins!😵😵

    4. I've only once had a "health check" – I was about 40 at the time. I've certainly never been offered one every five years. I did send BP readings into the gp surgery last summer as they were nagging me. There's no way I want anything to do with their "polypills" or statins.

      1. I have had a regular — annual — "health" check at my GP's surgery ever since I moved to Sweden. The first one was when I was 61.

  57. 402589+up ticks,

    The power given to the political / pharmaceutical underworld by the spiritual underworld could have us
    hearing " I only did it for the best of reasons" leading on to,Harold Shipman actolikes.

    Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Harold_Shipman
    He is considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history, with an estimated 284 victims over roughly 30 years. On 31 January 2000, …

    1. Our nearest emergency hospital is 80 miles away – luckily we have the emergency helicopter (which has to come from there) but it's still quicker than the road journey

      1. Dinan Hospital's A and E (Urgences) is about 8 minutes away from us – but you could well spend more than that time trying to find a place to park.

      2. Dinan Hospital's A and E (Urgences) is about 8 minutes away from us – but you could well spend more than that time trying to find a place to park.

  59. You're not paying the French enough.. or they found out you've been fiddling them on fish quotas.

    More migrants being escorted across Channel by French ship. 326 crossed the Channel on Tuesday, adding to the 182 on Monday and 592 on Sunday.

    Meanwhile, nasal noise in the background..
    "Protecting our borders, our way of life is Labour's number one prioirity."

        2. Rapists. They got 18 and 20 years each. So they will be on on the streets in 3 years.

  60. You're not paying the French enough.. or they found out you've been fiddling them on fish quotas.

    More migrants being escorted across Channel by French ship. 326 crossed the Channel on Tuesday, adding to the 182 on Monday and 592 on Sunday.

    Meanwhile, nasal noise in the background..
    "Protecting our borders, our way of life is Labour's number one prioirity."

  61. You're not paying the French enough.. or they found out you've been fiddling them on fish quotas.

    More migrants being escorted across Channel by French ship. 326 crossed the Channel on Tuesday, adding to the 182 on Monday and 592 on Sunday.

    Meanwhile, nasal noise in the background..
    "Protecting our borders, our way of life is Labour's number one prioirity."

    3. I'm looking at some when in July. And yes, there will be no sausages.

      All Nottlers are welcome…even the ugly ones.

      3. Don't forget to flag it up for me, Phizzee. I might be able to cadge a lift with Annie Allan or another NoTTLer.

    5. Have you one with those little mini sausages? I'm feeling a bit left out.

      Best put it a fair way out, too.

  63. World’s oldest and largest iceberg runs aground off British island
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f2e88faf8e327b7f1f926c13b3d5a01459c8678d2ce07e7fa11b7abe7a8350c6.png
    The Daily Telegraph. 5 Mar 2025. By Nick Squires.

    THE world’s largest and oldest iceberg has run aground off the remote British territory of South Georgia in the South Atlantic and is expected to deliver a “nutrient bomb” to marine wildlife as it breaks up. The iceberg, known as A23a, broke off from the Antarctic ice shelf in 1986 but remained stuck on the seabed for more than 30 years.

    The giant chunk of ice, which is twice the size of Greater London and weighs nearly a trillion tons, broke free from the seabed and drifted out of the Weddell Sea and into the wider Southern Ocean. Since 2020 it has been heading towards South Georgia. It has not reached the island itself but has run aground in shallow waters on the continental shelf, about 50 miles (80km) from the coast of South Georgia. There had been fears the berg could have a negative impact on the millions of seals and penguins who live on the island.

    While a few species such as macaroni penguins may be affected, scientists said the overall effects are likely to be positive. They said as the iceberg breaks up into smaller chunks as a result of tides and waves, it will release huge amounts of nutrients and could prove beneficial to a wide array of creatures living on land and in the ocean.

    Prof Nadine Johnston from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said: “It’s like dropping a nutrient bomb into the middle of an empty desert.” The release of nutrients will result in phytoplankton blooms appearing around the iceberg – so vast that they will be visible from space.
    Dr Andrew Meijers, an oceanographer at the BAS, said: “It is unlikely that South Georgia’s populations of seals and penguins are impacted by the iceberg. “Potentially, it could interrupt their pathway to feeding sites and force the adults to expend more energy to travel around it. “This could reduce the amount of food coming back to pups and chicks on the island and so increase mortality. “However, there could be an upside too. Nutrients stirred up by the grounding and from its melt may boost food availability for the whole regional ecosystem, including for penguins and
    ‘It’s like dropping a nutrient bomb into the middle of a desert’ seals.” But the iceberg could present dangers for commercial fishing boats.

    “As the berg breaks into smaller pieces, this might make fishing operations in the area both more difficult and potentially hazardous,” said Dr Meijers.“Large bergs have made some regions more or less off-limits for fishing operations for some time due to the number of smaller – yet often more dangerous – bergy bits.” Satellite imagery shows that A23a is vast – a frozen colossus that is about 300 metres high.

    Little by little it is breaking up. From being 3,900 sq km (1,500 square miles) in size, it is now an estimated 3,234 sq km. Wedged on the continental shelf, it will be slowly ground down by the action of waves and tides. Although the calving of icebergs from ice sheets is a natural process, scientists believe the pace at which they are breaking off has increased in recent decades as a result of man-made climate change.

    A barren, mountainous island, South Georgia is located about 800 miles south-east of the Falkland Islands. It was claimed for Britain by Captain James Cook in 1775.

    Clearly the clueless staff of this once-great newspaper do not know the difference between an iceberg and an ice-floe. This flat-topped sheet of ice is an ice-floe. An iceberg has 'bergs', i.e. mountain-shaped towers of ice.

    1. Although the calving of icebergs from ice sheets is a natural process, scientists believe the pace at which they are breaking off has increased in recent decades as a result of man-made climate change.

      Oh they have to get that bit in don't they. And soon it will cause all the beach properties of the rich and famous under water. Experts say !

    1. Their mistake was obeying the law. Their mistake was doing the right thing. Being law abidin citizens. For having jobs. For being – I'm sorry to say – white.

    1. Firstly, Or town isn't a sentence. Both could be conflated into one question. Then she should have used an apostrophe on 'neighbours'. Then obviously, the autocorrect.

      But the lack of a full stop should be a shooting offence.

      Dylan though… so many errors in three words. Hardly bears dicussion.

      1. No apostrophe in neighbours – it's just the plural (unless she meant one neighbour is just jump starting my car).

    2. Firstly, Or town isn't a sentence. Both could be conflated into one question. Then she should have used an apostrophe on 'neighbours'. Then obviously, the autocorrect.

      But the lack of a full stop should be a shooting offence.

      Dylan though… so many errors in three words. Hardly bears dicussion.

  67. Moment French navy officers refuse to rescue 60 migrants from dinghy filling with water – instead demanding UK Border Force step in even though they were spotted just 1.3miles from French coast
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14463857/french-navy-rescue-refuse-migrants-uk-border-force-help.html

    The French don't want illegal immigrants any more than most people in Britain want them.

    However if Starmer is prepared to give the French vast sums of money for doing nothing to help the problem of illegal immigrants in the English Channel – even in French waters – then the French will not look a gift horse in the mouth and will take the gullible Starmer for every centime they can.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c38aacd3f89b180f8ec2445461d7a128660476312ecb00c0b9aa3c077b3922bf.jpg

    1. Starmer is the sort of Lefty who wants to stop Russians getting into Ukraine bu happily wants criminal welfare gimmigrants who do nothing but murder and sell drugs in this country.

      He is an abect hypocrite.

    2. Funnily enough, I was saying to someone this morning, that we'd never had a proper revolution (The Glorious Revolution of 1688 didn't really count); even in 1848, the Year of Revolutions in Europe, we didn't have one, but the population was changing and becoming more emotional and volatile now. That might be the trigger for a revolution to kick off if we have some hot, dry spells this summer and utilities fail plus the supermarket shelves are empty.

        1. I can't see him being replaced by any improvement, Johnny, so whoever is in charge the result could well be the same!

    3. This Tweet shows two things..
      1/ This site is 14 days ahead of the masses.
      2/ X is the best place for news.

      Anyhow, here's a handy David Betz check list.
      1/ failure to secure borders. TICK..
      2/ failure to protect children. TICK..
      3/ denial & high level culpability. TICK..
      4/ wealth extraction of middle class. TICK..
      5/ 2 tier justice system. TICK..
      6/ incompetent police service. TICK..
      7/ creation of martyrs.
      8/ heavy handed police overreach. TICK..
      9/ police considered untrustworthy. TICK..
      10/ efforts to shutdown social media. TICK..
      11/ underestimate of the depth of animosity.
      12/ competing communities detached from our history. TICK..
      13/ The ongoing industrial rape gang revelations undermines govt legitimacy. TICK..
      14/ "the feral city". Essentially ungoverned. Crumbling infrastructure. No go zones. Private security. Negotiated police control. Corrupt communities. TICK..

      Just No 7 missing. [Tommy R].

      1. I think we tick no. 11 as well. They think they can cow and control us. They are complacent.

      2. A woman was arrested and jailed because the state didn't like her ideology. A man was killed in prison again, jailed because the state didn't like him. How many more must die to slake the thirst of this evil, corrupt state?

        1. Want martyrs?
          Remember Tamara Lich, the grannie who became a leading figure in the Canadian truckers convoy?
          Her trial is still not completed, the judge will make a ruling on the mischief charges maybe next month maybe not.

      3. When did the police Force become a Police Service.? and why. When did the Fire Brigade become the Fire Service and why.?

      1. Oh yeah? And who does this chap think will volunteer to fight as part of the Newest Model Army?

        The populace have been spoon-fed for generations now and are as soft in the head as they are in the body. They would much sooner stick their thumb back up their arse and continue whingeing on social media —while either "working" from home (hah!) or awaiting the latest hand-out, hoping that someone else will do their fighting for them.

        This "civil war" will not happen. Not now, not later. The British bulldog spirit has been replaced by a milksop mouse.

  71. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/05/woke-charities-britains-borders-immigration/

    Our system is struggling to cope with an annual inflow of 100,000. The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank believes the cost of housing and supporting the average asylum-seeker has reached £41,000 per person per year. The majority of these would-be refugees now cross the Channel in flimsy, crammed dinghies. On the night of November 23 2021, one of these vessels capsized. Tragically, 27 drowned.

    Nothing tragic about it. They chose to be criminals, they paid the price. If only more died.

    What's that equate to? 41,000,000? oh, no, that'd be £41 per criminal scrounger. it's 41,000,000,000. Or 41 billion. A year. Every year wasted on putting up criminals. Rapists, thugs, stabbers, thieves, drug runners – 41 billion flushed down the loo. Nearly two month's entire tax income spaffed on dross.

    Get. Rid. Of. Them.

    2. Rapists, thugs, stabbers, thieves, drug runners –

      just the sort of people needed as a peacekeeping force between Russia and its former CCCP neighbouring territory.

    3. Rapists, thugs, stabbers, thieves, drug runners –

      just the sort of people needed as a peacekeeping force between Russia and its former CCCP neighbouring territory.

    4. The only tragedy about 27 drowning, as far as I'm concerned, is that it won't stop more trying.

  72. Afternoon, all. Back from my parish surgery (I consult my parishioners about council matters once a month) and filling in time until I get ashed tonight.

    We need to be frank about the economic consequences of Starmer's government, never mind rearmament!

    1. Most folk just won't understand the problems. People don't. They don't understand what inflation means or it's origins. Tell them that government is responsible for high taxes and they just say 'profiteering companies'.

      They're ignorant. Decades of Left wing education, low attainment and high taxes have kept them dependent.

        1. Yes. By the way Orthodox Easter and the West coincide this year, makes a change.

          1. Yes, I did know that. Aren't there some talks being mooted to bring the two into line?

          2. You mean permanently? If so I'm not aware of that. Perhaps in the UK? If you find anything out please let me know. But I honestly would be extremely surprised if the entire Orthodox Church would swing behind the West on that.

          3. I can't remember where I heard it now. Perhaps in a report from General Synod (our priest is an attendee). Only talks, nothing definite.

        1. Point taken, Conway. I shall try to remember that when I wish you, Kadi and Winston a Good Night.

    1. 402589+ up ticks,

      Afternoon ETB,

      Do the bobbies realise that ash on the forehead could also be a target marker

      1. The man with the inkhorn went through Jerusalem and made a mark on the forehead of the righteous that they be spared the Wrath of the Almighty.

    2. "Our officers are on duty as always, keeping our communities safe."

      But which ones?

    3. I don't want plod to have anything to do with religion whatsoever. I don't want you to care what religion someone is – muslim – when they commit crime. It's irrelevant.

  74. Surprisingly this morning, some of the people I was talking to were mentioning how one sided racism was and how they couldn't freely express their opinions unless they trusted the person they were talking to!

  75. 402589+ up ticks,

    Cur starmer I now rate you as on par with your fellow Cur " miranda" and soon to take the leading position of the most greatly dispised creature within politics to date.

    Questions that must be asked and as the oath has been compromised by your actions, under a lie detector test,

    sample,
    Have you desires to be a mullah ?
    Have you any paedo. tendencies ?
    Have you frequented any park toilets on cottaging missions ?
    Have you a strong liking for t blair ?

    These questions will put on being answered truthfully simple minded folks minds at rest, and the route to pursue in future

    https://x.com/RadioGenoa/status/1897152918840860975

      1. Hello, Alec…was it you going to a watercolour class..if so, how did it go please? Thx Kate x

        1. Hi Kate, not too bad thanks. I'm learning a lot. Here's a few examples (Please don't laugh). Thanks for asking x
          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74a06c217a63f321f03c3a859bf6d0ed011fb3e197edc4fb428901e02a67c3a5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a65285b59fc69e6b4b0630696c7e621318eac97038a4987c6b1a6bd61e91e9f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c90fe24d9c4813a4346add509b779de27c3b8f50f77ff48470c3b19d4a61cd35.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbd06cab7458d91c9ac0464a066b4eefc4d86e1c1f18dec4f99f06a85a40b381.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9801dafb2e58b019ee3ebdc2f4222cce1055bdf5549a762b6688d9d8001df02.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/55ca0ae0bb5205b37d8aa54fe48dd59666875339a1f5bcd364861fd3cd43214c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd77402aa38cf1039c557bf7c4d495f40317a62bda9e56c514a726e41456a54f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cdfab1731a88608ebcca68c33ea966346ed7e1ecdd757b31c9d8cfc561d0a665.jpg

          4. My signature – I learnt to draw him when I was 8 or 9. My ma was in hospital and i used to take her a drawing every day when I visited

          5. They’re excellent, Alec – especially for a newbie. The one of the schoolboy is particularly good, everything is in place and the pose is difficult. Your placement of all pieces on the paper is also excellent. My daughter has the strangest style, she starts at the top, often in one corner and draws from there – it’s almost like a print being produced. I noticed when I started out – men would often be good at shapes/straight lines/angles (eg buildings, cars, etc) whilst women were good at curvy things like flowers, leaves. Many style themselves as ‘botanical artists’ but don’t show the whole plant or it’s cycle – Dianne Sutherland is a good one tho. I haven’t done anything in a long time, and I must re-start. Seren Bell is a current favourite – graphite, crayon, ink. I’ll post for you to see when I have something worthwhile. Meantime you’re a 10/10, hope you keep it up. Lots love, Kate x

          7. Infinitely better than anything I could draw or paint.
            I come from a very artistic family but the genes have by-passed me completely

    2. I can't quarrel with that statement; they ARE making a difference. It's deteriorated considerably under their influence.

    3. Yes, but that difference is bombings, stabbings, welfare demand, debt, crime, litter and savagery. They're demanding special treatment, special laws.

      They need a kicking and to be reminded they're not welcome, all welfare cut off and to be shown the door.

    4. I wonder what his Jewish wife and children think of him? They should hold him in complete contempt.

    1. Loathsome nonce that he is; I still like it whan anyone sticks it up the BBC. Even him.

      1. Agree. But if that is what they paid him why do they have the right to demand it back?

    1. Surely, if the sea is rising, other places must be getting wetter, too. Or…?

    2. DM readers are not buying this propaganda. I read quite a few of the comments and all were against the climate change nonsense.

  79. Starmer’s secrecy over Southport ‘could have put trial at risk’

    Terror watchdog says withholding information from public could have been ‘far more prejudicial’ than revealing facts

    Robert Mendick
    Chief Reporter
    05 March 2025 11:55am GMT

    The failure to disclose “basic facts” about the Southport attacker led to “dangerous fictions” that could have prejudiced his murder trial, the terror watchdog has disclosed.

    In what may be seen as a sideswipe at Sir Keir Starmer, Jonathan Hall KC criticised the authorities for refusing to reveal details about Axel Rudakubana prior to the trial.

    Sir Keir had insisted that disclosing information “ran the risk the trial would collapse” in defending himself from claims of a cover-up.

    But writing in The Telegraph, Mr Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, said withholding information could have been “far more prejudicial” than making the facts public.

    His intervention will add pressure on politicians to change contempt of court rules to allow more information into the public domain.

    The Law Commission, which advises ministers on new laws, has been asked by the Government to fast-track new contempt rules to prevent a repeat of the riots that followed the Southport murders.

    Police stand in front of a burning vehicle in riot helmets and shields
    Police hold back rioters in Southport on July 30 2024 Credit: Getty
    Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Hall warned that the impact of the “chaotic online world” had been to stoke the violent reaction to Rudakubana’s brutal murder of three children at a dance class in Southport in July last year.

    Mr Hall wrote: “The failure by the authorities to spell out basic and sober facts about the attacker led to contagious disinformation about a murderous Muslim asylum-seeker that stoked the ensuing riots.

    “I would go further than that: it led to dangerous fictions that could have been far more prejudicial to the prosecution of Rudakubana than some of the true facts which were suppressed in the name of contempt of court.

    “Had there been a trial, jurors could have entered court with the impression that Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum-seeker and, more toxically, that the authorities were determined to hush it up.”

    Mr Hall said it would have been “far better” for the authorities “to provide an accurate lead than ineffectual near-silence”.

    He wrote that the digital age meant that the current Contempt of Court Act, passed into law in 1981, now needed an urgent re-examination.

    Mr Hall also raised further and deep concerns about the lack of restraint now being shown by US tech companies, emboldened by Donald Trump’s election and a determination to protect free speech regardless of the debilitating effect that can have on national security.

    In the case of Southport, the internet was allowed to run wild with conspiracy theories that fuelled public anger and in the immediate aftermath stoked the riots.

    Mr Hall wrote: “This leads to a wider reflection on the national security landscape where the public’s news information, increasingly obtained from social media as the principal source, is intimately connected to the policies of US tech companies.

    “The bracing approach of the new Administration is to emphasise, with some justification, the need for freedom of information from government influence or control.”

    He said President Trump’s support for the tech companies would make it much harder for the UK to police the internet as it wanted to, with the new Online Safety Act.

    He added: “A lesson from Southport is… more authoritative speech from trusted institutions, not enforced silence.”

    He also raised concerns over the knock-on effect of the Leveson Inquiry, which exposed and was heavily critical of tabloid newspaper practices, and which prompted police forces to curtail off-the-record press briefings and interactions between officers and journalists.

    He said that the “damaging consequence” of the Leveson inquiry was “a cooling of relations between the police and mainstream media” which had prevented information being put in the public domain. That had resulted in “information voids” which were then “filled by speculation and mischief”.

    He added: “Accurate information is crucial for public trust and confidence, particularly in the wake of terrorist attacks and other horrors.”

    Mr Hall recently visited Washington DC on a fact-finding trip, investigating whether the UK needed new laws to combat the threat posed by hostile foreign states such as Russia, China and Iran.

    He warned that a failure by the UK authorities to control the “information domain” would create opportunities for Vladimir Putin, for example, to wage online campaigns to “mislead the public and degrade trust in institutions”.

    A mugshot-style photo of the killer, who bites both is his upper and lower lips in a grimace
    Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the murders, avoiding a trial
    The riots in the wake of Rudakubana’s murderous rampage were blamed in part on false claims circulating on social media, including that he was a Muslim asylum seeker who arrived in the UK on a small boat across the Channel. Other false rumours suggested the killer had been on an MI6 watchlist.

    The only information released by police was that Rudakubana was a 17 year-old from Banks in Lancashire who was originally from Cardiff.

    Two hours later, Merseyside police amended that to “born in Cardiff”. But the force did not divulge family background details, including that the attacker’s parents were Christians who had come to the UK from Rwanda.

    It also later emerged that he had been charged with terror offences, including manufacturing the biological toxin ricin and possession of an al-Qaeda terrorist handbook.

    The 18 year-old pleaded guilty to the murders of three young girls and the attempted murders of eight other children and was jailed for life in January and ordered to serve a minimum of 52 years.

    How a lack of transparency led to dangerous fictions
    By Jonathan Hall KC, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation

    When Shelley’s traveller surveyed the wreck of Ozymandias he saw the lone and level sands stretching far away. But breaking things is rarely followed by silence. The Move Fast and Break Things era of Big Tech set the course for the brilliant but chaotic online world whose impact on violent lonely teenagers, world leaders and society at large is far from understood. The reaction to the Southport attack is a prime exhibit. The failure by the authorities to spell out basic and sober facts about the attacker led to contagious disinformation about a murderous Muslim asylum-seeker that stoked the ensuing riots.

    I would go further than that: it led to dangerous fictions that could have been far more prejudicial to the prosecution of Rudakubana than some of the true facts which were suppressed in the name of contempt of court. Had there been a trial, jurors could have entered court with the impression that Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum-seeker and, more toxically, that the authorities were determined to hush it up. Far better for the authorities to provide an accurate lead than ineffectual near-silence. Whether or not this leads to reform of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, there is an urgent need to understand the balance of prejudice in the digital age.

    This leads to a wider reflection on the national security landscape where the public’s news information, increasingly obtained from social media as the principal source, is intimately connected to the policies of US tech companies. The bracing approach of the new Administration is to emphasize, with some justification, the need for freedom of information from government influence or control. This will inevitably clip the wings of the UK’s Online Safety Act.

    A lesson from Southport is therefore, to adapt the words of Justice Louis Brandeis in 1927, more authoritative speech from trusted institutions, not enforced silence. A damaging and unintended consequence of the Leveson Inquiry into phone-hacking has been a cooling of relations between the police and mainstream media, pinching off the flow of accurate information into the public domain. As Southport, and the disappearance of Nicola Bulley in 2023 both show, information voids will be filled by speculation and mischief. Accurate information is crucial for public trust and confidence, particularly in the wake of terrorist attacks and other horrors.

    But it would be complacent to end there. More and better information is sometimes not enough. I finished a recent trip to Washington DC with a profound sense of how differently the UK and US treat disinformation. On the absolutist view, disinformation should never lead to arrest and prosecution, but the more pragmatic British approach accepts that some disinformation could be harmful to national security.

    Take the UK’s desire to increase defence spending to counter an aggressive and resurgent Russia. Whilst it is important not to overstate our adversaries’ effectiveness in the information domain, it is obvious that Russia has the intent to mislead the public and degrade trust in institutions at a time when sacrifices may need to be made to achieve a stronger military. The UK’s National Security Act allows the prosecution of disinformation operations in a manner that is unthinkable in the US. Although US federal agencies have shown major creativity in the past against unregistered foreign agents, domestically, and internationally, the information domain is up for grabs.

    1. Didn't he turn out to be a murderous asylum seeker after all? Hardly "contagious disinformation" in that case.

      1. But the withholding of information was a great triumph for Starmer.

        The 'rioters' suspected the truth immediately and so they rioted – a thing they would not have done had the truth been given at outset

        So why was it a triumph for Starmer? It allowed his evil forces to identify those who disagreed with him and justified him locking them up with the strong menace that this was what would happen to dissenters in future.

        Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor was jailed for 31 months for stirring racial hatred after the Southport attack; Mike Amesbury has manged to wriggle out of his ludicrously short prison term after having violently attacked one of his constituents.

        We can no be in no doubt that the application of the law is very much dependent on you political leanings.

        1. Not a bright move to highlight that fact, I would have thought. Even the hard of thinking are beginning to notice.

          1. The hard of thinking might be beginning to notice but there is still no cure for stupid.

      2. He was Islamic convert Islam and his parents were Rwandan immigrants, so it was only the generation of immigrant that was wrong (i.e. his parents rather than him). The labels Islamist and immigrant weren't that far out. Apparently second and third generation immigrants are more belligerent than their parents.

        1. He's still an immigrant; he isn't indigenous. Being born in a stable doesn't make one a horse.

          2. Perhaps I misinterpreted with your saying it was his parent that were immigrants.

    2. I've reached the stage where what the government or its apparatchiks say is immaterial.
      I assume they are lying, regardless of how plausible – or even vaguely on the side of this country and its inhabitants – the utterances may be.

  80. Oof
    "The war in Ukraine is the FO part of FAFO. Putin gambled that EU and NATO backing was totally insincere, and that's been a very safe bet from the outset. The EU was never in a position to promise membership, nor was Ukraine anywhere close to meeting the accession criteria. The rules can be fudged but not to that extent. The association agreement was as far as it was ever going to go, and even that could not be fully implemented.

    Similarly nobody should be the least bit surprised to see that NATO membership is not forthcoming. Ukraine has been led up the garden path by the West, and Zelensky was a fool to ever believe them. Armed neutrality was the best hope of staving off a Russian invasion. As soon as Ukraine abandoned that stance, invasion became an inevitability. It's not as though there weren't explicit warnings.

    The inherent weakness of the West also made invasion inevitable. Putin knew that NATO aid would be piecemeal and bound in bureaucracy. He knew that NATO states would not get directly involved. Putin understood all this. Ukraine's leadership did not.

    You can argue that Ukraine has the right to choose, but choices have consequences. Ukraine chose to believe the West's empty promises, and the West has done nothing but backtrack ever since. So now Ukraine is in the exact same position as before, but is now fighting for its very survival, and losing by the looks of it. You can bleat about "standing up to bullies" but in the real world, when the bully happens to be nuclear-armed diplomatic superpower, you are basically fucked eventually. You either make peace or you die. Nobody is going to risk a nuclear war for a scrap of Slavic rustbelt.

    Only now that the penny is dropping does the EU feel that action is required, whereby it might be able to re-arm sometime in the next few years, but they've known for two years what the posture of a Trump led USA would be, and in that time EU member states have made substantial cuts to their own armed forces. There is no reason to take them seriously, and given the fleeting nature of political virtue signalling, should a ceasefire be declared, the renewed commitments to defence spending will last all of about five minutes.

    Anyone could have seen this coming. Europe is a joke. We've run down our own armies, while Germany has made its entire economy totally dependent on Russian gas, and wrecked its own industrial capacity with Net Zero measures. Whatever economic clout the EU might have been able to leverage has been utterly squandered. Meanwhile, Europe is still buying Russian gas and is thus, in effect, funding both sides fo the conflict while chastising Donald Trump for attempting to bring an end to it. This is an absolute clown show. It would be hilarious if Ukrainian men weren't being cut to pieces in the trenches.

    The only thing sustaining this conflict is the Euro-boomer delusion that the Red Army is poised to race across the Fulda gap at any moment, despite telling us that Ukraine in winning and the Russian army is reduced to donkeys and walking wounded. Do these people even listen to themselves? Is there even a glimmer of self-awareness?

    The real and present danger to European security is the stupidity and narcissism of European elites who are busy wrecking their own economies while destroying the social fabric with mass immigration, and exporting industrial jobs to China. Most of Europe's problems are wholly self-inflicted, and Putin himself could not hope to inflict similar damage with a limitless supply of hypersonic missiles.

    As such I am not minded to see a single penny of mine go to sustaining this war, and while I pity Ukraine, they've all made their own beds. Moreover, since the British establishment is literally rolling out the red carpet for the enemy within, allowing Moslems to squat in Windsor Castle, and when we have daily boatloads of invaders arriving in Dover, I'm hard pressed to give a shit whether Ukraine even exists or not."

    1. "Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake!"
      Clausewitz, I think.
      Putin's strategy as described in Rik's post above.

          1. It's a line in the film 'Waterloo'. Napoleon says "Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake. That's bad manners".

        2. A good saying, whoever came out with it.
          I’m at least better informed, thanks. No wiser, though.

    1. Yep. Submission is almost complete. Someone needs to tell them he's eligible for free flying lessons from a high building.

  83. 402589+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Starmer vows Britain will ‘never forget our soldiers’ bravery’ after Vance criticism

    I do believe he is going to call for ALL viaducts to have weatherproof dooring installed.

    Tic,

  84. A hero of mine.

    Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse, VC & Bar, MC (9th November 1884 – 4th August 1917), RAMC, 10th Battalion, King's (Liverpool Regiment), the Liverpool Scottish.

    Chavasse was awarded his first Victoria Cross for his actions on 9th August 1916, at Guillemont, France when he attended to the wounded all day under heavy fire. The full citation was published on 24th October 1916 and read:

    Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse, M.C., M.B., Royal Army Medical Corps. For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. During an attack he tended the wounded in the open all day, under heavy fire, frequently in view of the enemy. During the ensuing night he searched for wounded on the ground in front of the enemy's lines for four hours. Next day he took one stretcher-bearer to the advanced trenches, and under heavy shell fire carried an urgent case for 500 yards into safety, being wounded in the side by a shell splinter during the journey. The same night he took up a party of twenty volunteers, rescued three wounded men from a shell hole twenty-five yards from the enemy's trench, buried the bodies of two officers, and collected many identity discs, although fired on by bombs and machine guns. Altogether he saved the lives of some twenty badly wounded men, besides the ordinary cases which passed through his hands. His courage and self-sacrifice, were beyond praise.

    Chavasse's second award was made during the period 31st July to 2nd August 1917, at Wieltje, Belgium; the full citation was published on 14th September 1917 and read:

    War Office, September, 1917.
    His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of a Bar to the Victoria Cross to Capt. Noel Godfrey Chavasse, V.C., M.C., late R.A.M.C., attd. L'pool R. For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty when in action. Though severely wounded early in the action whilst carrying a wounded soldier to the Dressing Station, Capt. Chavasse refused to leave his post, and for two days not only continued to perform his duties, but in addition went out repeatedly under heavy fire to search for and attend to the wounded who were lying out. During these searches, although practically without food during this period, worn with fatigue and faint with his wound, he assisted to carry in a number of badly wounded men, over heavy and difficult ground. By his extraordinary energy and inspiring example, he was instrumental in rescuing many wounded who would have otherwise undoubtedly succumbed under the bad weather conditions. This devoted and gallant officer subsequently died of his wounds.

    Chavasse died of his wounds in Brandhoek and is buried at Brandhoek New Military Cemetery, Vlamertinge. His military headstone carries, uniquely, a representation of two Victoria Crosses. Chavasse was the only man to be awarded both a Victoria Cross and Bar in the First World War, and one of only three men ever to have achieved this distinction.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1495d40cee143c573a0f3443c65d2461b4ab0dbb0d59bfe95e398daac16a3f38.jpg

    4. Only three; Lt. Col. Arthur Martin-Leake was one, Captain Charles Upham, 20th Infantry Battalion (New Zealand) was the other. They deserve a mention, too.

    6. I believe his VC & Bar have recently been taken, like other VC medals, from public view at the Imperial War Museum.

    1. We can save a fortune by not translating everything into a myriad of non-European languages. No speakee da English? Pay for your own translator/interpreter.

    2. Many of the English people who settle in France cannot speak even rudimentary French.

      The year before we moved out to France we had our lunch with the pupils in the school dining hall and those who wanted to sit with us had to speak French as French was the only language we allowed at our table. Most of Caroline's Sixth Form joined us. I also worked my way through Whitmarsh so that when we did arrive I could cope. Indeed in times gone by many English families had this French at Table rule in their homes. My French is far from perfect and I cannot get rid of my strong English accent but my vocabulary is reasonable and I get by.

      Strong regional French accents still defeat me but so do the voices of Glaswegians.

  86. From the DT this morning in response to the wonderful Allison Pearson article regarding Starmer's zeal to shove us all off to war on our dime.

    'Good Evening Allison. As a former Royal Marine and Northern Ireland and Falklands War veteran I cannot find the words sufficient to illustrate how much I despise Starmer and the feckless wretches who sit around the cabinet table with him.

    He and they have never been wet, exhausted, frightened, hungry and stinking whilst suffering the indignity of poor pay and even worse kit with which to do the politicians bidding.

    This November the prat will be at the Cenotaph pretending to honour the war dead of a nation he abhors. He and his co- conspirators on the Tory benches have wrecked our defences.

    I detest them all.

    2. The food is crap too. Provided by Sodexo who were responsible for the horse meat scandal.

      Though i am told MRE's have improved.

    3. Well said Royal! Re the next post down – I was told that MRE stood for Meals Rejected by Ethiopians?

    5. See my comment several hours ago.

      I live near where the action and training is continuing , there are a handful of Royal Marines here as well .

      These politicians know nothing , and Labour and the Tories knew sweet f all about some of the kit discrepancies .. and the low mood?

    6. "…the wonderful Allison Pearson article…"

      I was appalled by the US decision to side with Russia in a recent vote in the United Nations condemning Russia's territorial aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. That put America in the company of Belarus and North Korea for goodness sake. The US then drafted and voted for a resolution at the UN Security Council which called for an end to the conflict, but contained no criticism of Russia (the UK and France abstained after their attempts to amend the wording were vetoed).

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/04/starmers-sabre-ukraine

      I wonder if it was partly due to embarrassment because of the part previous US administrations had in provoking Putin…

  88. Starmer is the power broker we need in the war between Trump and Zelensky. 5 March 2025.

    There are plenty of observers willing to hail Keir Starmer as the saviour of the free world. They praise him as a brave voice defending the principle of freedom from aggression at a time when the United States has, at least temporarily, vacated its historical role to do the same.

    All I can say is that they must be mental.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/05/starmer-is-power-broker-need-in-war-between-trump-zelensky/

  90. 402589+ up ticks,

    To make sure there was no interference with the invasion RESET troops coming ashore.

    Dt,

    Russian warship shadowed by Royal Navy through Channel and North Sea
    HMS Somerset watched the Boikiy on its voyage from a Russian base in Syria

      1. 402589+ up ticks,

        afternoon BT,
        You gotta watch them, they could pick up recruits for their war effort thereby robbing the S(TOOL) of future protective voters.

      2. If it were to dock and offer asylum to any white indigenous citizen that turned up i think there would be a stampede. I would go if they let me take my doglets.

      3. Meanwhile hundreds of slammers are celebrating ramming the damned in Windsor Castle.
        That's a shock.

    2. These reports of the RN shadowing Ruskies through international shipping lanes makes me smile. Do they think the offending vessel is going to take a sharp turn and sail up the Thames. If Vlad really wants to hit our country he has a variety of buttons to press at home I suspect.

  91. Wordle No. 1355 3/6

    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 5 Mar 2025

    A Pack for Birdie Three?

    1. Well done! – a great result from my second starter word made this a very straightforward birdie!

      Wordle 1,355 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Much to my surprise.

      Wordle 1,355 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Better late than never

      Wordle 1,355 3/6

      🟩🟩⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      it could have been better but I decided to confirm my gues with word 2.
      Ah well.

    5. Well done. Just back from disappointing trout fishing day (poor result on the fish front but much fun and a beautiful day at a beautiful location) and a few at the local and somehow still made a birdie.

      Wordle 1,355 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  93. I won’t forget you. Early or late July. There is a bit of a festival in the town in the middle of the month and accommodation will be scarce then.

    I will get a Mod to highlight it at the top of the page for a week or so in June. Annie will have the details anyhow. When i know them.

  94. 402589+ up ticks,

    Not just yet but ,when there are enough, dead, suffering lifelong unto death, paedophile child victims
    then you will not be able to purchase one of these patriotic smocks bearing the cross, to be worn with very serious intentions in mind, maybe a child in every other indigenous family will be the ignighter, MAYBE.

    https://x.com/TexasBelle/status/1897150571494433030

    1. Wot I just posted:-

      Disgraceful.
      But please, a bit of context would be useful.
      OK we know Who, but
      Where?
      When?
      What?
      Would be VERY appreciated.

        1. That is when it was posted, but when did the event depicted actually happen?
          Radio Genoa does have a habit of posting events from several years ago without any context whatsoever.

          1. 402589+ up ticks,

            evening Bob,

            The way I see things currently is that only diversity is black & white.

    1. Get out of gaol free if you aren't indigenous, then. We really should be up in arms about this. Discrimination is getting beyond a joke.

      2. Nah, old stuff.

        For some time, Canada has been twisting the legal system to favour those of hue with reduced penalties.

        Black, no problem you will serve less jail time if you ever get there. Preferred religion, turn a blind eye. First nations, no problem go smoke a pipe in a healing lodge instead of being locked up.

        Trudeau has a lot to be ashamed of.

    3. BB barrister has a vid on these new sentencing guidelines. Would you expect anything less when slammers get into positions of power. There will be more to come.

  97. Here's one for you.
    My local paper asked "What needs to be done so the EU has the same level of defence as the USA?"
    I asked ChatGPT about budgets, and got the answer:

    In 2024, U.S. defense spending was approximately $2,239 per capita. STATISTA.COM
    In 2023, the European Union's combined defense expenditure reached €279 billion, marking a 10% increase from the previous year. EDA.EUROPA.EU
    With the EU's population estimated at around 447 million in 2023, this equates to approximately €624 (about $700) per capita.
    Therefore, per capita defense spending in the U.S. is significantly higher than that of the EU.

    So, the EU needs to spend 3 x the current sums on defence for many years to match the US capability.
    Scary.

  98. I've just a clip on FB of the kneelers celebrating in side Windsor Castle. I hope it's not real.
    But it wouldn't surprise me in this dump of a third world country.

    1. Alas, it's true. My apolitical neighbour mentioned it (with disgust) a couple of days ago.

      1. I wonder who will be tasked to cleaning the piles of shit out of the hallways…Meg and Hal could volunteer. They always want to be seen as helpful.

  99. We have not been well since our move on Monday last week coughing, sneezing and all the nasty things associated with shortness of breath, sore throat’s and use of boxes of tissues. Chest pains as though my diaphragm was being stretched beyond capacity. Waking up in the middle of the coughing and bunged up unable to breath properly.
    This morning phoned the surgery and got an appointment together and saw a very efficient Advanced Nurse Practitioner who ask a lot of questions, took BP, temperature and after a lot of tapping on the back listened to our chests.
    The diagnosis was that we both had infections that probably started off viral but are now bacterial. Sent prescriptions to Chemist and they were ready by the time we got back to the village.
    Can’t have alcohol while taking this antibiotic as it makes you vomit. Not a problem for us but certain Nottlers would find that difficult to cope with.
    Anyway hope we’ll be on the mend in a couple of days.

      1. I spent the majority of my working like in the alcoholic beverage business and I drink less and less as time goes by. I still enjoy a drink but vw doesn’t particularly like alcohol except for an occasional glass of of Champagne or a small glass of Fonseca Bin 27 port. I helped launch Bin 27 in this country in 1974.

        1. I do like a glass or two (wine and fortified wines), but I am going to mortify the flesh for 40 days.

      3. Well done! I tried it once but was psychotic after two weeks and cracked.

        It's like the bloke who gave up alcohol, smoking, gambling and chasing women and asked his Doctor if it would help him live longer.
        Came the reply 'No, but it will bloody seem like it!……'

        1. I take heart from the fact that Sundays are not fast days 🙂 I’ve only given up alcohol, not non-alcoholic drinks.

          1. Is that right about Sundays? I might have been able to manage it if I’d known that!

          2. If you count 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday (when Lent ends), you’ll find there are a few left over.

    2. Oh, God bless. Let's hope killing the bacteria does the job. My sore throat would heal a lot faster if I could stop the coughing fits. Did the nurse take bloods to identify the bacteria?

      1. No bloods Sue as it takes too long to get the results. If it get worse she said go to A&E as they get results as a top priority. If needed we will travel to Guildford for that. Don’t like going to St Peter’s as I get the feeling I won’t come out again.

    3. Bloody hell ! Stay well wrapped up even if you are sweating like crazy. Let the body burn out the infection.

        1. Try an extra pillow at night. Raising the head helps the phlegm go down the throat rather than sit there bunging you up.

          It will be no consolation – but there IS a lot of this about.

        2. Try an extra pillow at night. Raising the head helps the phlegm go down the throat rather than sit there bunging you up.

          It will be no consolation – but there IS a lot of this about.

        3. The high temp will show your body is fighting. Remember when you both begin to feel better to wipe down all surfaces door knobs and light switches with bleach like sprays to avoid reinfection.

          3. I think at the moment we’re pretty helpless but thanks for your concern

    4. Oh – what rotten timing, or maybe it was the stress of moving that brought it on. Anyway all the best for a quick recovery both of you – and you got good service from your surgery. Good job you didn't have to find a new one.

      1. Very good service. Phoned at about 8.20 and the appointment was at 10.40 and on time.
        Our local chemist is also good. Luckily didn’t have to change doctors or chemist.

    6. You're lucky with your surgery and support.
      I hope you are quickly on the road to recovery and that you'll soon be up and at 'em again.

    7. Oh blimey, Alf! What a horrible time you’re having. Forget the house for a couple of days, and get yourselves better. Do take care and keep cosy.

      1. Thank you for your kind words. The nurse, this morning, said go home and do nothing.
        We almost achieved that but the butler and cook both had the day off. 🥲

        1. Yeah! That’s the problem with ‘staff’! They apparently need time off!

          3. Odd that.

            I thought you were always "out for lunch"

            Either way I hope it was a great day!

        2. Bad scheduling on your part, I have to say. 😉

          Hope.you both feel better soon x

        3. Bad scheduling on your part, I have to say. 😉

          Hope.you both feel better soon x

    8. With all your problems and other things going on, that's the last thing you need!
      At least I'm otherwise healthy enough to cope with my current lurgy, even is it does engender some massively explosive sneezes!

    9. Probably an opportunistic bug. You were both stressed and drained by the move and the darn thing saw its chance.

    10. Probably an opportunistic bug. You were both stressed and drained by the move and the darn thing saw its chance.

      1. Thank you I think it might be another couple days before The antibiotics kick in. It seems to be never ending so far.

  100. 'Night All
    All the organs of the body were having a meeting,
    Trying to decide who was the one in charge.
    "I should be in charge," said the brain, "Because I run all the body's systems, so without me nothing would happen."
    "I should be in charge," said the blood, "Because I circulate oxygen all over so without me you'd all waste away."
    "I should be in charge," said the stomach," Because I process food and give all of you energy."
    "I should be in charge," said the legs, "because I carry the body wherever it needs to go."
    "I should be in charge," said the eyes, "Because I allow the body to see where it goes."
    "I should be in charge," said the rectum, "Because I'm responsible for waste removal."
    All the other body parts laughed at the rectum
    And insulted him,
    So in a huff, he shut down tight.
    Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache,
    The stomach was bloated,
    The legs got wobbly,
    The eyes got watery,
    And the blood was toxic..
    They all decided that the rectum should be the boss
    .
    The Moral of the story?
    Even though the others do all the work…
    The ass hole is usually in charge.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6a1352487ecbc35eef26fdbd06d1a06d4ddc0fa0dbe54aa2c2f296eeb583b40.jpg

    1. I do have friends that live just a couple of miles down the road from you. They keep me informed.

      Say hi to Harry Kobeans next time you go to market. :@)

    1. A toxic individual, but I cannot understand all the fuss about the numbers; surely everyone knows that when you have a Chinese, you fancy another one ten minutes later.

  103. That's me gone for another sunny day. Still chilly outdoors, though. Be nice to have some warmth….

    Have a spiffing evening – lovely sunset here.

    A demain – we are giving the market a miss for once.

    1. Red sky at night, shepherd's delight – but a damn nuisance if you're driving west.

  105. Well, what a beautiful evening with a lovely clear sky promising a cold night.

    I've just had another couple of hours in bed trying to catch up with the lack of sleep.
    Not a lot done, other than some chicken breasts done in a light curry sauce with a pack of stir fry veg served on rice.

    I sleep on my side so, when I have a cold, I tend to get what I call "Upper Nostril Syndrome" where the lower nostril clogs up with all the nasal gunge forcing all the air I breathe in to go through whichever nostril is uppermost.
    This engenders a sensation like someone hammering nails into my sinuses and, if I have actually fallen asleep, inevitably wakes me up and forces me to roll onto the other side.
    Whereupon the gunge blocking the now top nostril slowly slops down to the former upper nostril and the process begins again.

    Does anyone recognise the description?

    1. I'm a side sleeper too so I know the feeling! At least it does mean you can generally breathe through one side or the other.

    3. Deffo…drink water so you don't get dehydrated. Zinc supplement might be useful. Couple days in bed, hot water bottle….chicken broth, hope well again soon x

    4. Cup warm salty water in your hands , snort it up your nostrils , then spit it out .. Gaggingly horrible , but can give some relief .

      Also , chicken stock cube dissolve in mug of water hot , straight from the kettle , could be helpful, nice drink .. failing that buy a bottle of mucous relief medicine , or rub some Tiger Balm under your nostrils .

      Hope you have a better nights sleep tonight .

  106. Hello folks! Just a little note to thank you all for your birthday wishes, and if I’ve not replied personally, I’m going to go through the comments! Also, if anyone has emailed me, I’ve only just managed to get Hotmail to let me back into my account! Of course, the chances of remembering the new password are just about nil! Thank heavens for children who understand computers!
    Thank you all again! It’s much appreciated!😍

    3. What are you doing on here? You should be out on the town, kicking the ass out of it and running off with Italian waiters!

      You're only about 3 months older than me and I intend to be more disgraceful with every additional yearly celebration I have on this mortal coil…..

      2. Well, don’t tell anyone, but Mario and his brother were here earlier on! Mario doesn’t like mushrooms….

        1. I said waiters not plumbers! Nonetheless have (what's left of) a great b'day sweetheart!

          1. Oh good! I’m glad you got the connection, otherwise it looks as though I’m drunk!💕

    5. Whoops, Sue – I've been away for a few days and sorry, I missed it too. Hope you had a lovely day. xxx

        1. Looking at houses, we were both knackered! Going for another trip soon – it's hard work…

    1. Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi, the military commander in charge of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, said: 'From what I see and hear, not a single NATO army is ready to resist the cascade of drones.'

      Ukraine's defence of its territory over three years has led to the rapid development of low cost drone warfare targeted at very high value military assets that are difficult to replace. Whilst there are doubts about boots on the ground being of any use to resolve a confrontation it is clear that hives down the hole may be necessary as a last resort.

      3. "Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces"

        Unmanned? Take 100 demerit points from Woke Central.

  108. Believe the below was reported as being said by one Oliver Cromwell, 20th April 1653, London, England. Ever more appropriate!

    It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
    Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.
    Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
    Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
    Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
    Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
    Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.
    Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
    I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
    Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

    In the name of God, go!

    1. Yup. I have that speech in my commonplace book, and roll it out at frequent intervals.

  109. No pleasing a Leftie.. one minute they demand a war with with Russia. The next, they call the Trump administration war mongering.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the US is prepared to go to war with China. He told reporters. 'Well, we're prepared. Those who long for peace must prepare for war,'

    1. China beat them to the punch saying that they would fight the tariffs even if it ment going to war.

  110. Oh dear. Estrined in law.

    Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said in the Commons: “The new sentencing guidelines published alongside this statement will make a custodial sentence less likely for those 'from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community'.

    2. in other words, the most criminal in proportion to their numbers will be excused.

  112. Weather forecast has +15C in the next few days, followed by, next week, -5C! Snow likely, too.
    Hoped winter was over… 🙁

  113. Oh dear. Word is that Trudeau may be talking of staying on as PM even after the coronation of heir apparent Carney.

    Canada used to be a good upstanding country, what have we done to deserve this?

      1. No, they were all well-bred girls and didnt like to speak with their mouths full…..

  117. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Everything they taught you in school is a lie. Carthage was not salted, Canute knew he couldn’t control the tide, Marie Antoinette never said ‘let them eat cake’, and Mrs O’Leary did not start the Great Chicago Fire. Yet the biggest fallacy of the best years of your life is peddled not by teachers but by parents and schoolmates: namely, that you must always stand up to bullies. The logic is tempting. It sounds right all of the time, proves right some of the time, but gets you punched in the face most of the time. Bullies are bullies because they have power and should only be confronted directly if you have, or can amass with others, a greater quantity of power. The most dangerous bullies should be avoided, flattered, bribed or placated unless and until you can hit them so hard they daren’t hit you back.

    Donald Trump is a bully, which is why some – the SNP’s John Swinney, the Tories’ Alicia Kearns – want his second state visit to the UK cancelled. The president and vice-president JD Vance’s treatment of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office was a display of verbal thuggery that sickened even the most devoted Atlanticists in British politics. (It sickened me, even if, as I wrote over the weekend, I think Zelensky mishandled the meeting.) Even so, cancelling the president’s visit would be a mistake. Keir Starmer’s dismissal of calls to do so is the first time in eight months that the prime minister has looked like a leader. Because Trump is not only a bully, but a dangerous bully, one who cannot be stood up to because he has all the power. As Owen Matthews observes, no matter how tough Europe talks on defence, until it spends, procures and recruits like a superpower, it will be in no position to defend Ukraine or the rest of the Continent.

    So Europe must buy time. Truth be told, Ukraine’s fate is probably already sealed and those territories annexed to Russia will likely remain so for the foreseeable. But any other territorial ambitions on Putin’s part can still be checked by a massive build up of defensive and offensive capabilities.

    The goal should not only be to make Europe a superpower Continent but to re-run Ronald Reagan’s SDI playbook and spend Moscow into the ground, destabilising the regime and eventually making the recovery of Occupied Ukraine possible.

    Until that time, it is imperative that Trump be kept broadly in Europe’s camp, inveighing against its free-riding on US defence spending and its political follies (mass immigration, censorship) but ill-disposed to any expansion of Russian aggression, whether in western Ukraine or elsewhere.

    Europe needs the bully on-side, for now at least, and so instead of condemnation or confrontation, the strategy on Trump should be to heap upon him the thing to which he responds best: flattery.

    What do we know about Trump? He’s an egomaniac, in his late Seventies, a New Yorker, somewhat of an Anglophile and has said that he ‘feels Scottish’ as a result of his mother’s birth on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. This makes the UK the natural leader of Operation Suck Up, for we can draw on our traditions and the purchase they enjoy with a status-seeking American boomer.

    A few suggestions: Give him an honorary knighthood. The Queen made knights of Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush, as well as senators Dick Lugar and John Warner, and New York City major Rudy Giuliani. She even gave a knighthood to Teddy Kennedy, and whatever else might be said about Trump’s treatment of women, as far as we know he’s never driven one into a pond and left her to drown. Trump would beam like a lighthouse at the thought of being billed ‘Sir Donald’, even though technically he wouldn’t be able to use that title outside the UK.

    Slip a few quid to the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and get them to award him the Freedom of the Western Isles. It’s a rarely issued honour, typically restricted to military recipients, but Trump’s maternal connections to the Outer Hebrides would give this a personal poignancy.

    Bribe a Scottish clan to make him an honorary chieftan. (This is a real thing; I checked with an actual chieftan.) Stick a bunch of kilted worthies in a castle with a couple of pipers, give Trump a wee tartan bunnet and a claymore, and call it an investiture ceremony. Go all out and commission a one-off Trump tartan. It would be gaudy and ridiculous and cheapening, as everything connected to Trump is, but you wouldn’t believe just how much good will this would buy us.

    The idea of handing Trump a knighthood or other bauble might stick in the craw, but it would make the UK his new favourite country and increase the chances of the White House listening to Downing Street’s concerns about European security.

    Use that opportunity to gush in gratitude for America’s generous funding of European defence, agree that it’s time for Europe to take on more of the burden, and suggest a timeframe for reducing American outlay and increasing European spending.

    Negotiate as much time as possible for the ramping up of the Continent’s defence capability so that Europe can start to become guarantor of its own security and decrease its reliance on the United States. Flattering the bully might feel wrong, and that’s because it is morally wrong, but it’s the only practical option at this juncture. Every time Trump lashes out, we should bite our tongues and try even harder to ingratiate ourselves. We need America’s friendship now if we are ever going to do without it in the future.

    Stephen Daisley
    WRITTEN BY
    Stephen Daisley
    Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail

    1. Couldn't read it all, but he obviously knows nothing about bullies. They are weak by their very actions. Starmer's a bully, not Trump.

      1. I think we all know about bullies. Some are paper tigers, cowardly who fold when challenged. But there are different types and some are strong and powerful and have to be confronted differently. The writer simply points this out.

        1. So he contemptuously thinks that Britain should suck up to Trump whilst rearming until we are in a position to warmonger?
          What a dishonourable argument.

          The main difference between Trump and other US Presidents appears to be that Trump does everything in public that the others did in private. That scene with Zelensky would absolutely have happened, just behind closed doors. The industrialists in power – that always happens, he's just not hiding it. Likewise the Trumpcoin (remember that?). Trump shamelessly cashed in on being President. Biden's style was to pretend to give money to Ukraine and have it flow secretly round into a slush fund – Trump just did it straight out.
          The Americans have always threatened Germany to force that country to do what they want – they just did it in private (this has been confirmed by at least one ex Bundeskanzler – unlike Trump who said it straight out in public.
          That's the only difference, so to single out Trump and accuse him of being a bully is simple-minded, imo.

          1. Big difference between abrasive negotiations behind closed doors and public brawling.

          2. I feel as though I’ve had enough of lying and the media pretending that politicians are honest and competent.

  118. from Coffee House, the Spectator,

    There is a grim irony in today’s announcement of the commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8 May – at the very time that the Western alliance is collapsing. The plans include dressing the Cenotaph in Union flags, a military procession and flypast in London and a service of remembrance and thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey, followed by a concert. All good, and all appropriate.

    But, according to the government press release, ‘street parties will also be held across the country’. Really? The symmetry is obvious, of course. VE Day was one big street party as the country celebrated the defeat of the Nazis and the triumph of freedom. The events in the White House over the past few days, however, and the sudden volte face in which the US has gone from being the leader of the free world to siding with Russia, North Korea and Belarus against Ukraine in a vote at the United Nations, have changed everything. Unless the proposed street parties are meant to be a wake for the death of Nato and the dismemberment of Ukraine, is there anyone who thinks now is the time for parties to celebrate the steadfastness of democracy?

    If Trump is now, at the very least, ambivalent about defending Europe, we have to change our mindset

    There are many lessons we need to remember from VE Day, but the two most salient have been directly challenged by President Trump – thanks to which we now find ourselves in such dire straits. First, and most obviously, VE Day was only possible because the US stood with us and the Allies in the second world war.

    Even after the Soviets joined forces with the Allies in June 1941, the key to victory was American involvement in December 1941. That was pivotal not just to victory in the war but to keeping the peace in Europe in the following decades up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. That was, of course, through the vehicle of Nato, the greatest and most successful defensive alliance in history. In the possibly apocryphal words of Lord Ismay, Nato’s first Secretary General, it was designed to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.

    The second key lesson was learned in the 1930s – and has remained essential ever since. Weakness in the face of tyranny and aggression means defeat by tyranny and aggression. Churchill was ignored when he made that case throughout the 1930s. Chamberlain thought he could do a deal with Hitler – a phrase with distinct echoes today.

    Parallels with the 1930s are, of course, inexact, and the revisionist case for the Munich agreement is that it actually bought time for rearmament so that, by the time war was declared in September 1939, defence spending had risen from 2.5 per cent of GDP (a familiar figure) to 7 per cent. But true as that is, the echoes of Munich are eerie. In September 1938, Czechoslovakia was carved up without it having any say in the arrangement, after the UK, France and Italy agreed with Hitler that the country must surrender its border regions (the Sudetenland) to Germany. Do I need to spell out what Trump is proposing to do to Ukraine with Putin?

    Hitler observed that when pushed around, his enemies would speak loudly but do nothing, and that led directly to the invasion of Poland in September 1939. Leap forward to 2013 and Obama’s supposed ‘red line’ for Assad, saying that if the Syrian leader used chemical weapons on his own people he would act. After David Cameron lost a Commons vote on the use of force (thanks to then Labour leader Ed Miliband whipping his MPs to vote against), Obama ran scared of Congress and did nothing.

    Assad’s main backer, Putin, drew the correct conclusion that the West was fundamentally weak. This was a conclusion he had already drawn in 2008 after his invasion of Georgia was met with no response, and after witnessing the US pull out of Afghanistan from 2020. That conclusion was tested successfully also in 2014 when Putin invaded Crimea, with no serious response, which led to his calculation that he could launch a full invasion of the country in 2022.

    The Ukrainians have fought with far more bravery and success than Putin expected. But while the US and Europe did at least help with military aid, our response – even before Trump – was too little. We gave ludicrous caveats on the use of weapons and equipment on the limited amount we did supply. It also came too late – coming after the invasion, rather than giving serious defensive capability before it to act as a deterrent.

    That word is the key. Hitler was able to march through Europe because we were unable – and unwilling – to deter him. Putin decided he could invade Ukraine because we were unable and unwilling to deter him.

    There does seem to have been a realisation across much of Europe that if Trump should now be regarded as, at the very least, ambivalent about defending Europe, we have to change our mindset. And while it’s true that for the UK increasing defence spending by 0.2 per cent to 2.5 per cent of GDP isn’t even close to being enough, and a commitment to 3 per cent in the next parliament is paltry in the circumstances, that misses the point. The entire debate has changed. The issue now is how much more and by when spending must increase.

    That is why VE Day remains of immediate and pressing relevance. We know from the second world war that if Putin is able to walk away with Ukrainian territory that he has grabbed by force, and that we have offered nothing but angry words in response, the die will be cast for the Baltics, Poland, and anywhere else. We have to be able to deter Russia. We have to do what we did not do in the 1930s.

    WRITTEN BY
    Stephen Pollard

    1. Chamberlain had a piece of paper to show that he had achieved peace in our time.
      Not long after, Molotov went to see Hitler who proposed dividing up Poland between them but the Russian envoy had doubts about the proposal when the air raid sirens went off. Britain's ultimatum had been conveniently swept under the carpet. Could that have been because the British Empire was still on the table?

    2. "There is a grim irony in today’s announcement of the commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8 May"

      80th anniversary? Ah, I thought you were talking about 2016 referendum.

    3. One thing to remember is that the US didn't want to join Europe in fighting the Axis, they eventually were left no choice after Japan attacked them. So how is it different now? Why should the West always look to the US to save our eggs from the fire?

      1. They didn’t enter the First World War until 1917 either. Experienced policeman won’t interfere in a pub fight until the brawlers have tired themselves out. The Americans use the same tactic when dealing with Europe.

    4. Our local area is organising at least one VE commemoration party. My heart sank when I saw it – what is the point of celebrating 80 years of peace when our country is in such dire straits – little social cohesion, a lifeless Church of England, reduced food production, rampant crime, eye-watering bills, a government and deep state that appears to hate us and forces us to kowtow to lies and a fiat currency that's on its last legs? People are just getting jingoistic with the propaganda from last time round, hating the Germans and remaining willfully blind to both the reality of how our young men were sacrificed in the 20th century and today's threats.

  120. I see tomorrow's DT Leters page is up a bit early!
    However, I'm off to bed.
    I've an auction collection from near Melton Mowbray for tomorrow morning.
    Good night all.

          1. Sadly, will not be going into the town its self, but turning off at Asfordby Hill for the site of the somewhat short lived coal mine that was sunk to get to the coal under the Vale of Belvoir.
            But we will be stopping in Asfordby village for a full breakfast and to pick up some things from the village butcher.

  122. Johnathan corrected it without my having to say anything. Winston is proving a trial at the moment, three weeks in. He's so excited to see me when I get back, he's leaving me little puddles. I put down a training mat and while I was away, he dragged that into his crate and ripped it up. I just hope he'll grow out of it. It's early days. At least he's affectionate (and loves his food, even if he's a thief – he is a beagle, after all – he took Kadi's Dentastix out of his mouth, for which he was soundly rated).

    1. Hi, Belle, don't want to click on it after this GB News demand;

      "Continue with cookies

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    2. Frankly, he's no sort of Christian at all. He'd rather be defender of vague "faiths" rather than nail his colours to the cross. As we were reminded today, "dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ."

      1. A King who is reassuring muslims that he is descended from their prophet Mohammed behind our backs is a King and head of the Church of England that we don't need.
        He could have hosted Christians for a Shrove Tuesday feast or an Ash Wednesday fasting meal, but he chose not to.

    3. I am beginning think there is more than just idiocy to The Idiot King. His idiocy is beginning to show signs of malevolent malignity.

      1. Strongly aligned with Starmer approach. Both want to eliminate the indigenous society in the UK.

  124. By backing an exit from the ECHR, Kemi could destroy the Tory party

    The coming Conservative mutiny over the court will make the Brexit wars look like a mere scuffle

    Sherelle Jacobs • 3rd March 2025, 8:02pm GMT

    Critics of Brexit shrug with bewilderment that a kooky Tory hobby-horse somehow exploded into a national civil war.

    A considerably different niche Tory obsession – namely erasing international human rights from English law – looks set to drag the country into a far darker existential crisis. Should the party open this particular Pandora's Box, its final demise seems infinitely more likely.

    When Kemi Badenoch signalled her shift towards backing the UK's exit from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a speech last week, some on the Tory Right felt pangs of relief; finally, their new leader was showing some willingness to materially harden her immigration stance in the face of the Reform surge.

    But other MPs claim they are "ready to leave the party" over the issue. Those on resignation watch are not all centre-tacking wets, but include a smattering of high-profile Brexiteers. Some insist that leaving the ECHR would be "a very bad day for Britain and further relinquish our international role". Many are flabbergasted at Mrs Badenoch's speech, claiming there was "no need" for such grandstanding.

    As one MP who is considering leaving the party told me: "She's perfectly entitled to set the mood music that the ECHR doesn't always work for us. But there are ways of doing that short of declaring that you're leaving."

    The idea of certain Brexiteers resigning the whip on the point of principle that Britain should remain a member of a European court may seem mind-blowing. But that is precisely what could happen, should Mrs Badenoch double down.

    It's hard to see how an already diminished party could survive a rush of defections. The remaining rump would have little choice but to seek a pact with Reform. It would be the end of the Tory party as we know it.

    The battle for Brexit and the crusade against the ECHR are fundamentally different beasts. Euroscepticism was a rebellion against a particularly remote vision of modern liberalism, based on technocratic rationalism.

    The movement to leave the ECHR displays a quite different motive, namely that one should be willing to sacrifice freedom and dispense with liberalism altogether in order to keep order and resist excessive social change.‡ Some conservatives might say that dispensing with human rights is simply the price that must be paid to stop the boats. For others, no political objective can be worth it.

    Tory libertarians have misgivings about the claims of rights-sceptics. The idea that overweening foreign judges pose a threat to democracy has grown popular. Yet it is Parliament – and increasingly an executive blob of ministers, departments and state agencies – that is ultimately behind the proliferation of law that has seeped into every nook and cranny of our lives. Such executive power sometimes asserts itself with brute force – such as it did during lockdowns.

    Rights-sceptics argue that European judges have expanded the definition of human rights beyond recognition, citing the invention of a right to family life. But the pandemic revealed the modern state's willingness to invade this sacred realm, preventing people from mixing with – or even attending the funerals of – loved ones. It may not be so wise to forsake such a liberty.

    The EU integration project is Continental in spirit, rooted in Gallic dreams of a Latin Empire that might match both the American and Russian power blocs. In contrast, the vision of a rights-based global order that underpins the ECHR was exported by Britain to Europe.

    Winston Churchill was one of its leading advocates. The idea that people are born with natural basic rights that have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society was invented by Englishman, John Locke.

    A conception of freedom that tightly links it with the rule of law – rather than the arbitrary rule of men – is a peculiarly English idea and derives from centuries-long struggles against monarchical despotism.

    It's bizarre that the Tory party has drifted towards a zero-sum choice between border control and human rights. If the objective is to pursue the Rwanda policy, it's hard to see how leaving the ECHR gets the Right closer to that goal.

    The Supreme Court's ruling that the Rwanda policy was unlawful, hinged on the principle of non-refoulement. This cornerstone of international law underpins the Refugee Convention.

    Even if one believes that international human rights law has become an obstruction to the national interest, it does not follow that the UK's only choice is to disengage from it.

    The ECHR has been changed more than a dozen times before. The UK has a track record in leading its reform. If other countries are also affected by European judges meddling in immigration cases, then it stands to reason that other member states will rally behind the UK.

    It is a myth that the ECHR strictly requires unanimous support to change the way it works. A few years ago, when Russia was still a member and refused to ratify a treaty change, the court passed an "interim procedure" to bypass this blockage.

    As Dr Stuart Wallace, an expert on the EU Convention at the University of Leeds told me: "There's absolutely nothing stopping a government from calling a meeting next week to speak with European allies and find common ground. It's feasible to arrange a conference and make changes to the convention. It's been done before."

    Perhaps more importantly, legal eagles reckon that fudging reform of the much-maligned Refugee Convention might involve fiddling with the definition of a refugee on the one hand, and a tightening of Article 31, which protects refugees who lack the proper paperwork, on the other.

    As Dr Reuven Ziegler, an expert in refugee law pointed out to me: "There's a strong argument for opening up formal routes for seeking asylum in the UK, with applications being initially scrutinised before refugees set foot in Britain. To some extent that is what happened when we allowed Ukrainians to apply online. If that approach was generally adopted, it could open the way for rethinking legal questions such as the particular framing of Article 31".

    That nobody is hashing out such a roadmap for reform – and the centre-Right's most influential think tank Policy Exchange is calling instead for the nuclear option – is testament to Toryism's brain-dead state. Kemi Badenoch is keen to offer the country robust but credible solutions. It is hard to see how leaving the ECHR in a sulk serves this end.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/03/tories-civil-war-echr

    ‡ What?! This country had freedoms unknown in much of Europe long before the creation of the ECHR in 1950 and it still had them before the passing of the HRA in 1998. They've been eroded greatly since then.

    Much of the 'excessive social change' is home-grown and nothing to do with immigration. What bothers millions of us is the fact that many tens of thousands of illegal and dangerous immigrants cannot be removed because HR judges are making up the law as they go along.

    This is one of the most muddled articles I've seen from SJ for a very long time.

    1. In UK, the Brits have no rights, the intruders are overwhelmed by them.

      A man prays silently in the street, prosecuted.

      Gangs rape young girls and Brits are prosecuted for taliking about it.

    2. In UK, the Brits have no rights, the intruders are overwhelmed by them.

      A man prays silently in the street, prosecuted.

      Gangs rape young girls and Brits are prosecuted for taliking about it.

    4. Didn’t Churchill say it was necessary for Europe but not the U.K., or something similar.

      1. He was referring to ideas for a proto-EU, no the ECHR: “We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not combined. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.”

  126. Well, chums, it's close to my bedtime now. So I'll head to bed a little early today. My day has been rather challenging, I'll wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow.

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