Wednesday 8 July: The Prime Minister should avoid a war of words with care homes

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/07/lettersthe-prime-minister-should-avoid-war-words-care-homes/

626 thoughts on “Wednesday 8 July: The Prime Minister should avoid a war of words with care homes”

    2. Forecast none-too-good for test cricket in Southampton. Perhaps when play eventually starts the thought of muddy knee stains might prevent the spineless ones from grovelling.

    1. Actually the cut in Stamp Duty in order to push up property prices for the speculators is like directing the hose away from the wilting money tree and onto the wall.

      1. When there was a petrol shortage they limited the amount of petrol or diesel you could buy at the filling station to ten litres at a time.This resulted in people going from garage to garage putting ten litres of fuel in their tanks each time and causing incredible congestion at the pumps.

        A bit of lateral thinking would have come up with the solution that the shortage of fuel would be better addressed if people had to pay the price of a full tank every time they filled up so they would only get more fuel when they had to do so.

        If people have more money to spend on buying property they will spend it and this will push property prices up. As far as I know no politician in living memory has ever understood this basic law of supply and demand and so they pump in more money when they ought to restrict the supply of money.

        1. High house prices make those who already own feel happy. Until they move… or their kids want to buy a house. Then the Bank of Mum & Dad gets a call.

          3. We are going to give our children private mortgages – the interest they pay will be the same as our bank would give us on a deposit account.

            Of course we shall lose liquidity but we shall not lose interest income and our children will have a far cheaper loan than they would get from commercial banks.

          5. There I disagree slightly; it would be useful for them to have some form of bank mortgage because that would help build a good credit record.

        2. Excellent lateral thinking Mr T.
          In the days of the tanker lorry strike, I owned a battered little car that drank leaded petrol. Plenty of that around, as most people had switched to unleaded.

    2. The Chancellor is a Brahmin, so he would probably instruct Priti Patel to irrigate; Patels were Gujarati farmers before becoming business people.

  4. Line in the sand crossed as Zimbabwe reaches a deal with evicted white farmers. 7 July 2020.

    Zimbabwe has agreed to pay nearly £3bn in compensation to white farmers who had their land taken from them nearly two decades ago in a significant new agreement.

    The agreement is expected to be signed within weeks, but it is being treated with caution. Zimbabwe is bankrupt and is suffering from high inflation rates and food shortages. The government in Harare is currently unable to get international loans, or import enough fuel for its population.

    Morning everyone. This would seem to be an exercise in futility. The Zimbabwean Government has no means of paying and there is no sign that it will ever have one that functions under the Rule of Law, a prerequisite for property ownership and investment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/07/line-sand-crossed-zimbabwe-reaches-deal-evicted-white-farmers/

    1. Zimbabwe is the model for a Black Lives Matter regime planned for the UK by our institutions.

      1. 321066+ up ticks,
        Morning JM,
        I was posting the very same, you have it in one.

    3. I suspect that the quid pro quo will be an expectation of Trillions from the West in reparations for slavery. This is merely an opening move.

    2. 321066+ up ticks,
      JM,
      Re-distribution of wealth innit,all things being equal, been tried before methinks, kicked off at 7.17 am I assume,not pm, on the 8th March.

        1. 321066+ up ticks,
          B3,
          It’s the same the whole world over it’s the poor & real UKIP that gets the blame
          whilst the electorate go apolling and elect the same again.
          Could very well be the idiots lament.

  6. Name Calling….

    e-mail sent to Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune after an article he published concerning a name change for the Washington Redskins.

    Dear Mr. Page:
    I agree with our Native American population. I am highly jilted by the racially charged name of the Washington Redskins. One might argue that to name a professional football team after Native Americans would exalt them as fine warriors, but nay, nay. We must be careful not to offend, and in the spirit of political correctness and courtesy, we must move forward.
    Let’s ditch the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians. If your shorts are in a wad because of the reference the name Redskins makes to skin color, then we need to get rid of the Cleveland Browns. The Carolina Panthers obviously were named to keep the memory of militant Blacks from the 60’s alive. Gone. It’s offensive to us white folk.
    The New York Yankees offend the Southern population. Do you see a team named for the Confederacy? No! There is no room for any reference to that tragic war that cost this country so many young men’s lives. I am also offended by the blatant references to the Catholic religion among our sports team names. Totally inappropriate to have the New Orleans Saints, the Los Angeles Angels or the San Diego Padres.
    Then there are the team names that glorify criminals who raped and pillaged. We are talking about the horrible Oakland Raiders, the Minnesota Vikings, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Pittsburgh Pirates!
    Now, let us address those teams that clearly send the wrong message to our children. The San Diego Chargers promote irresponsible fighting or even spending habits. Wrong message to our children.
    The New York Giants and the San Francisco Giants promote obesity, a growing childhood epidemic. Wrong message to our children. The Cincinnati Reds promote downers/barbiturates. Wrong message to our children. The Milwaukee Brewers. Well that goes without saying. Wrong message to our children.
    So, there you go. We need to support any legislation that comes out to rectify this travesty, because the government will likely become involved with this issue, as they should. Just the kind of thing the do-nothing Congress loves.
    As a die-hard Oregon State fan, my wife and I, with all of this in mind, suggest it might also make some sense to change the name of the Oregon State women’s athletic teams to something other than “the Beavers” (especially when they play Southern California). Do we really want the Trojans sticking it to the Beavers?
    I always love your articles and I generally agree with them. As for the Redskins name, I would suggest they change the name to the “Foreskins” to better represent their community, paying tribute to the dick heads in Washington DC.

    2. There are even more examples of just how ridiculous these ‘progressives’ could get.

      Edit – Link removed, new link posted below in reply to Bob3

      2. I’m only getting the rotating cogs on your post.
        Is it a Youtube link?

  7. Morning all, at the time of posting there are 18 comments about the article, 17 are very critical the remaining one must have been written by a politician, letters forming words but nothing said to my mind. Interesting is the fact that not one comment from the DT subscribers relates to the forthcoming games or series itself. They are all about the virtue signalling that will be taken. How long before comments are removed.
    All you Nottlers who subscribe had better get their comments in PDQ.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2020/07/07/get-ready-series-like-no-fiery-bowlers-struggling-batsmen-strange/

    1. Don’t subscribe.
      You can easily break the paywall, although there’s precious little worth reading. The comments are the only thing I go there for, and if they are stopped, then I won’t be wasting my time further.

    2. Here’s the BTL reply from the article author; “NICK HOULT
      CRICKET CORRESPONDENT8 Jul 2020 8:04AM
      @Aberrant Apostrophe @TheSpywho Lovedme Very happily. Where are the black county players (down to 9 from 33), where are the black coaches (2 in the pro game), where are the British born black players in the England team? What happened to the African-Caribbean wandering cricket teams? Why has the ECB recognised this problem if it did not exist and vow to improve it (announcement yesterday)? And don’t say the black population don’t like cricket anymore. When Surrey recently launched a talent search among its local black population they gave out 26 scholarships expecting only to find around a dozen or so that would be good enough.”
      It doesn’t sound like ‘abandonment’ to me.

      2. Dear Nick, I have learnt in life that to succeed in sport you need at least three things going in your favour, a passion for it, the talent for it and some luck with it.
        Perhaps that is the reasons for the examples you quoted in your reply. I know that is why I am not world champion at Cheese Rolling.
        BTW, in the 60’s I made a guest appearance for the local West Indian cricket team when they were short of available players, BLM was not uttered, only ARM (all runs matter).

      3. It’s been asked before, but where are the white players in the Windies team?

    3. They had the English captain on this morning explaining that the team would be making a gesture in support of BLM even though he does not support their political principles – it’s all for equality, innit.

      Just as well they are doing this in front of recorded crowd noise; they’d have to censor out the jeers from a real one.

  8. Morning all

    SIR – I am disappointed by the Prime Minister’s suggestion that care homes have fuelled the spread of Covid-19 by failing to follow the correct procedures (report, July 7).

    My wife has been in a nursing home for the last 12 months. Its rating from the Care Quality Commission is outstanding. I have been in daily contact with the management and staff during the pandemic, and seen the efficiency with which they have carried out their roles – often at great risk to themselves and their families.

    I have also followed the Government’s announcements to the nation. These have often lacked direction. My impression is that politicians were late in identifying the facts, and late in giving guidance to care homes. The Prime Minister should not try to pass the blame.

    Rev Canon Brian Hails

    Sunderland

    SIR – The Prime Minister is receiving criticism for his comments about care homes, but he has a point. At the care home close to where we live, a number of staff flatly refused to be tested and could be seen regularly leaving for home in their work clothes..

    It doesn’t take much more than that to exacerbate the situation.

    Leonard Harper

    Ayr

    SIR – Many of our care homes are privately owned. The proprietors charge high fees and make large profits.

    It is the responsibility of those running such homes to procure the appropriate equipment for the staff and to ensure that all correct procedures are followed.

    It is too easy to blame the Government for every shortcoming. Where care homes are concerned, the Prime Minister has nothing for which he needs to apologise.

    David Kidd

    Petersfield, Hampshire

    SIR – The Government has given an unparalleled amount of money to adult social care in the last 20 weeks – but because it has delivered this via local authorities, bureaucracy has got in the way. In a number of cases, local authorities have refused to give the money directly to care providers.

    Localism is an ineffective means of supplying money in a crisis: it is ridiculous to allow more than 300 authorities to deliver this money in their own ways, with different hurdles to jump.

    If we are to have a second wave, the Government must get a grip to ensure that frontline care is prioritised. Under the Infection Control Fund for care homes, for instance, providers have been at liberty to build bicycle racks but not reimburse PPE or labour costs. Furthermore, the Care Quality Commission has continued to bill care providers when it did little or nothing to help oversee the regulatory process. A bonfire of quangos may be in order.

    Professor Martin Green

    Chief Executive, Care England

    London E17

  9. What have we come to?

    Only following orders

    SIR – Last week my wife came off her bicycle, injuring her knee and spraining both wrists. In the immediate aftermath, in shock and on the ground with her heavy bicycle on top of her, she asked a young couple sitting on a bench a few yards away for help. They refused, saying that they didn’t want to catch anything.

    What in earth is happening to our society? If my wife had been more seriously injured, what might the outcome have been?

    Philip Hays-Nowak

    Cambridge

    1. What on earth did you expect, Phil? When you breed generation after generation of even more spoilt, self-centred, entitled, brainless brats; all schooled by Common Purpose-indoctrinated Lefty teachers, this is what you end up populating the country with.

      Stupidity breeds stupidity; it is an unassailable fact.

    2. “If my wife had been more seriously injured, what might the outcome have been?”

      Well, he could have sold the bike to pay for her funeral.

  10. SIR – We are all grateful for those in the NHS who have worked tirelessly throughout this difficult time – but there are others who deserve to be recognised.

    Our bin men have called each week without fail and we rarely see them. Supermarket staff have been there, too, for essential food.

    A big thank you from me. I hope they know they are appreciated.

    Val Mills

    Stourport-on-Severn, Worecestershire

    1. A special thank you to our Morrisons supermarkets who have handled this crisis of fear with good grace and welcoming common sense.

      1. Morrisons Barry were the same, and especial thanks to Valley View grocers in Dinas Powys for delivering to my Mother when all others were too booked. They even took payment by international Bank transfer, without a qualm.

    2. Thanks to the recycling team who collect my overflowing bottle box without laughing.

        1. Thanks to the Postmen who have come every day without fail – always cheerful and helpful.

          1. There are a lot of people who just got on with their job, without orchestrated applause, and typically without recognition, yet we’d all be in the deep doo-doo without them.

  11. Putin Admits Taking SATs for Trump. July 7, 2020.

    The firestorm of controversy swirling around the upcoming tell-all book by the President’s niece exploded on Tuesday, after Vladimir Putin revealed that he took the SATs for Donald J. Trump.

    Putin said that he had hoped to keep his role in Trump’s college admission a secret, but, with the impending publication of Mary Trump’s book, “it was only a matter of time before the truth came out.”

    The Russian President said that, when young Donald Trump was applying to college, in the nineteen-sixties, Putin was making “a few extra rubles” by offering his services as a test-taker to wealthy but academically hopeless American high-school students.

    “I recall the day that I took Trump’s SATs as clearly as if it were yesterday,” Putin said. “I totally aced them.”

    Hmmm. Sounds quite reasonable compared to the Skripal Saga and Bounty Money!

    https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/putin-admits-taking-sats-for-trump

    1. And didn’t Prince Harry get his Art teacher at Eton to do the art work for his GCSE exams?

      1. So, his only qualifications were obtained by somebody else? Good recommendation to not hire him.
        Edit: Yet again, spellings…

  12. SIR – On Saturday, I went to the hairdresser’s.

    On arrival, I was presented with a plastic bag containing one mask, two aprons, one pair of gloves and one shoulder-guard. Apart from the mask, every item was made from plastic. Nobody could tell me whether or not it was biodegradable, and all of it was binned after use.

    I then sat, separated by a plastic screen, two metres from the only other customer. No tea was served. I paid from behind another screen.

    Apart from the question of how long salons can survive like this, there’s the serious issue of untold tons of plastic waste. I left looking better but feeling much worse.

    Veronica Timperley

    London W1

    3. And herein lies today’s irrebuttable evidence of the accelerating stupidity of the human species (the increased production and use of tons more non-biodegradable plastic).

      [Numerous examples are provided, daily, and their degree of stupidity and frequency of occurrence is increasing exponentially]

    2. Thank you for posting this. I was reading NOTTL at lunch time in the office, as I often do. Luckily I had the room to myself as I burst out laughing.

    1. Good, it saves a lot of time spent in the evenings pointing the garden hose all over the place.

  16. Laurence Fox has been blackballed in the acting profession for daring to suggest that Britain is one of the most racially tolerant countries in the world. He was right to say so.

    But this current BLM movement with people displaying incredible hatred towards white people – added to the state’s deliberate blindness about Muslim rape gangs risks changing Britain’s racial attitudes.

    How many times must we be told we are guilty for being white and we are guilty of what happened in the past because we are white and how many Muslim rapes must go on happening until we all become more rather than less racist?

    Laurence Fox was right – Britain is a racially tolerant country – but for how long will it continue to be so?

    1. 321066+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      “How long will it continue to be so” ?
      Not long now, that continuing voting pattern ie nostril gripping, best of the worst,party first, three monkey mode of voting especially over the last two decades is coming to fruition.

  18. Prince Andrew agonising over whether to condemn Ghislaine Maxwell, says source. 8 July 2020 • 2:45am

    Prince Andrew is agonising over whether to condemn Ghislaine Maxwell after insiders admitted that “this is not a good time to make enemies”.

    The Duke of York has declined to comment in the days since Ms Maxwell was arrested and charged with grooming underage girls and sex trafficking them for her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

    The Telegraph understands that the Duke is caught in a dilemma over how to proceed as he tries to save his own reputation while facing the prospect of being questioned by the FBI.

    Andy dare not inform on Maxwell because she would reciprocate and undoubtedly has more on him than he does on her.

    Another Royal down the tube. Her Maj will probably be the last!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/07/prince-andrew-agonising-whether-condemn-ghislaine-maxwell-says/

    1. If the speculation over the Late Mr Epstein’s ‘Fantasy Island’ is correct it would mean an awful lot of prominent men suffered from the incurable Dickhard Disease…..

      1. Morning Stephen. He must have known something or they wouldn’t have murdered him!

        1. i think one would have to be exceptionally naive to believe that Mr Epstein chose the moment when the cameras were turned off to commit suicide.

          How are the Houdini Clintons going to escape?

  19. SIR — I am one of those who has fallen prey to the sharp practice of a private parking firm (report, July 6).

    I’d entered one digit of my registration number erroneously when buying my ticket. The company wrote to me within a week, imposing a £100 fine, reduced to £60 if paid immediately. I wrote back pointing out the circumstances: it was pouring with rain, my glasses were steaming up and I was inputting characters on an Alpha keyboard (not the usual Qwerty).

    Back came a heavy letter. The fact that the company had my £8 parking charge (shown on my debit card statement) made no difference. I finally cut my losses in battling the company when the costs reached £170.

    The maze-like appeals procedure is, from the outset, weighed against the driver. The company operates anonymously behind a box number, with no names or contact points appearing anywhere on its website or letterheads. The word “unpleasant” doesn’t begin to describe it.

    Gordon Casely
    Crathes, Kincardineshire

    More fool you, wee Gordy, for wasting your time and cash on these twats. The fact that this bunch of charlatans had received your parking fee is enough. If that had been me I would have simply chucked all their demands in the bin and told them to go to hell. They are not a court and have no power … whatsoever … to “fine” you. Even if they went to the trouble of issuing a summons your debit card statement is your bomb-proof defence. If you cave in to freebooters, such as these, they’ll walk roughshod all over you.

    1. Exactly, Grizz.
      I go as far as I can through the endless appeals procedure, not because I expect to win (I did a couple of times) but because it’s good sport to waste their FECKING TIME, the bassas.
      Hah! That’s fun!

    3. Spot on! Mostly they do not take a claim to the Small Claims court as it is not worth it. Their spurious fee letters, and ever-increasing imaginary “fines” are very scary. They are meant to scare you.
      Some of the car parks are owned by companies like Aviva, from whom some people buy their car insurance. Ironic or what? They are managed by the sort of people who send out those sorts of letters. They tried it on with the Sultana. She had visited the car park twice in the same day and the dogs had erroneously conflated the times. We also had proof from CCTV that she had been parked elsewhere during the times stated by them.

      1. One wonders whether it might be possible to sue them for some sort of defamation?.

    4. Exactly. His registration number as printed on the ticket/proof of purchase was 85% accurate (assuming a modern car with registration comprising 5 letters and two digits).

    5. Exactly. His registration number as printed on the ticket/proof of purchase was 85% accurate (assuming a modern car with registration comprising 5 letters and two digits).

  20. The delectable Allison Pearson has had a good go at Woke Harry and his Missus today – not a subscriber so I can’t post it but I did like the bit about living in an $18 million mansion on the Beverley Ridge Estates – “It is quite a diverse community with lots of non-white people watering the gardens and cleaning the pools“. And her final point – “That bit about wanting a quieter life and not seeking the attention of the dreadful, intrusive media? Still a good plan...”

  21. Good morning all.

    Thoughts with Korky today. And with our ” Max ” …

    Max Bonamy 8 Jul 2020 5:52AMFYI

    “Please tell us why you have cancelled your subscription:”

    With only 280 characters allowed I responded as follows:

    1. Endless Trump-bashing by Ben Riley-Smith, latest garbage article being supreme example

    2. Increasing censorship of fair and reasonable comment

    3. DT gone full-on lefty woke

    4. Ongoing misandrist articles by DT resident coven

    5. The execrable BG

    —-

    Dear fellow commenters,

    Thank you all for many great insights and excoriating wit over the years –
    often better than the articles or letters themselves. In due course I
    may see you on The Spectator or the like, and on censorship-resistant
    platforms.

    Lately I’ve been focusing on my teenage
    children who have just returned to England to finish their education /
    get vocational training. Whether any of us would care to stay in the UK
    beyond this is a moot point.

    From our quarantine in Marlborough, very best wishes to all.

    Max

      2. It would be nice if it was. The adjective execrable comes from the transitive verb, execrate.

        execrate eks’i’krāt vt to curse; to utter evil against; to denounce; to detest.

        1. Wow! Now I know more – but, unfortunately, am none the wiser.
          Thanks, Grizz.

          1. Just think of execrable as detestable, Paul, and you won’t go far wrong.

            Förstår?

  22. Just heard that the Chinese Communist Party has given their State Security operatives carte blanche, with no legal control whatsoever, to raid Hong Kong for suspects, so they can be traded on the open market back on the mainland.

    My mother needs a cheap slave to care for her and avoid having to go into a £1000-a-week death mansion, and I would rather like a nice lithe lady as a lifetime companion, given that feminists and the LGBTQ lobby have made wives impossible to find here. What’s the going rate for a nice HK suspect, and given that few of them if any are black, do their lives matter enough to risk my statue on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square being torn down by an enraged mob in masks?

    1. 321066+ up ticks,
      Morning JM,
      Go for it, with winter soon upon us get a big un, better than the overcoat on top of the bed.

    2. I’m currently reading the “Delayed Rays of a Star” by Amanda Lee Hoe, a novel that gives Marlene Dietrich just such a maid. I’ve often wondered why the well-off have not offered domestic jobs to young people from the EU, where youth employment is very high.

        1. Hmm. Good Point. We have not received any notification from au pair agencies though.

  24. So, very small particles can stay in the air a very long time. WHO knew?

  26. liberal-leaning group and individuals are using social media to
    encourage Trump opponents to reserve tickets for the president’s
    upcoming reelection rally in Portsmouth, N.H., in an attempt to make the
    venue appear empty.

    “Get your tickets and don’t go,” one Twitter user wrote Monday.

    The “Make America Great Again! Rally” is scheduled for Saturday and follows one in late June in Tulsa, Okla. In advance of the rally, TikTok users reserved tickets and didn’t show up to reduce crowd size.

    2. It’s a bizarre twist when a politician’s popularity can be measured by the number of empty seats at the rally.

  27. DM Story

    England and West Indies will take the knee for 30 seconds before first Test of the summer on Wednesday to show support for Black Lives Matter

    The two teams will sport the campaign’s logo on their shirt for the matches and, after discussions over how to further support the fight against racism, will now adopt the symbolic gesture at the Ageas Bowl.

    Is this the end of cricket in England?

    I used to regret not being able to watch live test cricket on terrestrial television – now I never want to watch it ever again. That’s it.

    (What does Geoffrey Boycott have to say about it? And what about Jonathan Agnew and Henry Blofeld?)

      1. John Arlott used to do the commentary on the live Sunday one-day match shown start to finish on BBC2 in days past. Well at least he used to do up to the tea break when the bars opened.
        The occasion I remember most clearly was when he commentated at a Somerset CC home match at Taunton, and came out with the line, “the hills you can see in the background is the Blackdown hills. They have a saying here in Taunton, when you can see the hills, it’s going to rain, when you can’t see the hills, it’s raining already”.
        Classic Arlott.

    2. Boycott doesn’t mention it in his DT article today, nor Aggers in his BBC match preview; he hates arguments and would avoid the question. Blowers rarely writes for the media and if asked about this would probably make his excuses and open another bottle.

      1. I wonder if this act of public worship for an ex-criminal, whether or not nailed to the perch, is subject to the usual social distancing rules? And no singing either.

    4. I would be interested to see if every player does, as is the case with yer soccer teams or whether any exercise independent thought.

      It was refreshing to see five or six F1 drivers not kneel alongside LH on Sunday.

      1. They’ll ALL conform, Stormie. More than their jobs are worth to show independence.

          1. Said Julius Henry.

            “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

      2. Supposedly fewer will be kneeling this week, give it a month and Hamilton will be on his own.

        No kneeling for some of the US football players. They are trying to restart their league but the CV tests are a bit too positive, ten FC Dallas players are now in isolation.

  28. Am I missing something?
    The government thinks they can throw money about and create worthwhile sustainable jobs where there is no demand for them, mainly on the here today gone tomorrow green energy scam.

    1. 321066+ up ticks,
      Morning B3,
      Is johnson falling foul of rhetorical pillow manipulation
      that always has a strong platform with a stiff short lived opposition.

  29. ‘Morning All

    How things change,not so many years ago I would have been appalled at this comment,now I find myself in complete agreement

    “We shouldn’t be surprised by this recent doubling down on ‘racism’
    perpetrated by white people. Even the most liberal, tolerant and
    uninformed whites are now waking up to the evil of mass immigration by
    people who at best are economically worthless and at worst violent
    animals that hate us. The recent inconvenient murders of three gays in a
    Reading park or the two girls in a Wembley Park are glossed over and
    dropped by the media like a hot brick in favour of fabricated sob
    stories of imaginary racism towards chippy ethnics. TPTB are worried
    that their plans to eradicate whiteness from this world might come
    unstuck if whitey wakes up too soon”
    Keep on pushing and eventually you’ll get pushed back,”liberal and tolerant” that used to be me,but I’m bloody tired of being pissed on by people telling me it’s raining

    1. The two idiotic policemen who took ‘selfies’ at the scene appear to have garnered more publicity than the suspect, who has a name that wouldn’t have been known in Wembley 80+ years ago.

    2. 321066+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      If the peoples insist on continuing along the vote & whinge line ie supporting the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / submissive pcism & appeasement / paedophile umbrella coalition party, they can rest assured they are guaranteed to be drenched in a continuous shower of political liquid sh!te.

  30. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a group of luvvies to a dinner party and, just before they sat down at table, one asked them all:

    “What do you think about Laurence Fox’s views on racism in Britain?”

    To those who replied that they think he is disgrace the response should be:

    “On this occasion it is YOU who have given the wrong answer. Get out of my house immediately – we do not entertain people here who do not have the right opinions!”

    .

    1. How about people like me* who would respond to your question with another, “who’s Laurence Fox?”.

      * the sort who are never invited to dinner parties.

    1. I don’t like this clapping idea for anybody.

      It’s not that I doubt people’s good intentions. I sincerely believe that those clapping genuinely want to show their gratitude. It’s just that for me, well it’s just not British…

      1. I have participated in a minutes applause at the start of rugby matches when someone of note has passed on. I would rather people applaud my achievements rather than stand in silence when the time comes.
        I would also like to say that I am not in any rush for people to do either just yet. 😊

        1. I’ll give you a clap right now, VVOF – just in case you don’t make it to lunch!

          1. Thanks Bill, just finished a light lunch. I am determined to hang on until Sunak has finished dishing out the dosh, who knows, I may even get some.
            Clap again for me next week, you could make it a regular event, don’t forget to tell your neighbours, they can join in as well.
            I love feeling loved. 😍

      2. Things stopped being British when people started leaving flowers and teddies and candles all over the place when someone died; when the overwhelming grief for Diana and the mass of flowers for her appeared; when any young kid who crashes a car has a mouldering plastic-wrapped bunch of flowers left on a lamppost nearby.

        Why did people start with these things? It’s just not British.

        1. I remember the Queen and senior members of the Royal Family refused to clap as cheers swept through Westminster Abbey at Princess Diana’s funeral after her brother Lord Spencer’s eulogy. …

          Quite right too

          2. There was never any clapping in Gloucester Cathedral when we used to go to concerts there – just a stunned silence to enjoy the music.

        1. Oh god.. German theatre audiences do that ALL the time! Used to drive me bonkers.

    3. Black anarchy rules UK – OK?

      The police will refuse to arrest any black people in future for fear of jeopardising their careers.

  33. Black Lives do not Matter – to blacks:

    “Dame Cressida said that last year 72 per cent of homicides of youths under 25 involved black victims, while nationally black people were four times more likely to be a victim of violent crime and eight times more likely to be a perpetrator.”

    ‘Nuff said.

    1. The problem is, that when you tell the young black lads to “Get a life”, they take it literally.

    3. This has been known for some time now and possibly even mentioned on this site.

      1. Certainly has. Why anyone would have thought otherwise beats me. If pollen can do it, viruses can.

          3. Like tobacco smoke. When I pass a garden where the labourer is smoking and I smell the smoke, I remember all those little covid particles that could be mixed in with it…

      1. Had this reply from Pinks.

        Thank you for your email.

        Our shirts are made in
        India, we have employed more traditional and lengthier shirt making
        practices and we now only use Egyptian cotton woven in Italy and
        Switzerland which is then put together
        by our highly skilled tailors in our factory in India.

        Shirts from our Bespoke service are made in England, however this service is currently under review and is not available.

        We hope this information is helpful.

        Kind regards,

        1. Hi, Jill.

          Still plodding slowly on, thank you, losing just about a pound a week these days but, at this rate, I should reach my target weight of 175lbs by Christmas.

  36. DT Story

    Rishi Sunak drops plans to force employees to pay for coronavirus tests

    Who pays for the tests? It’s rather like fly-tipping.

    Tell people they will be able to drop their rubbish at rubbish dumps free of charge and you don’t have the problem of fly-tipping. Order them to pay to dump their rubbish and you do.

    1. You don’t pay (at the point of use) for anything else in the NHS, so what’s the logic for making people pay for Corona testing? Or, is testing to be made private health only?

      1. I believe that people avoided being tested for AIDS because they did not want it confirmed that they had it.

        It is comparable to receiving your exam results by post – do you tear open the envelope immediately you see it or do you hide it away and try to forget it?

        1. Talking of hidden envelopes. Not so long ago my son was doing renovations to the house he found some envelopes hidden behind the rafters, which he thought I must have put there. When I looked at the contents I realised he must have hidden them himself as they were missives from school about misdemeanours and no homework handed in. I had to laugh and told him he should hide them back behind the rafters for someone in the future to find and said I hoped he might find his final school report, (which I have never seen,) as he moves onto other areas!

        2. As far as I know, HIV tests have always been confidential in UK, and carried out at the local Gum Clinic.

    2. Good morning, Rastus.

      “Tell people they will be able to drop their rubbish at rubbish dumps free of charge and you don’t have the problem of fly-tipping.”

      I’m afraid that only happens if you are a sensible, clean and unselfish man or woman who cares about the environment. There are still thousands of scum out there who still fly tip, even when free rubbish dumps are provided for them.

      1. They might argue that the public should be grateful for all the free stuff being given out to them.

      2. Good morning, Grizzly

        Since we have had a very efficient and well-equipped rubbish tip – déchetterie – just outside the local village we have had no fly-tipping near us. It is free of charge and they manage to sell the rubbish on for recycling and so it is self-funding. We have been doing a lot of clearing work in our garden recently and we have taken trailer-load after trailer-load of clippings to the dump. When we arrived 30 years ago there were piles of rubbish dumped randomly in fields all around us.

        1. Yeah, the locals used to hope that all that rubbish would keep the foreigners away.

      1. Yes thank you, Paul. Couldn’t sleep last night so I came down & worked on the laptop until past 5 am.

        1. Urgh. Probably a smart move, if you can’t sleep, be useful. It’s very light here just now, so once awake, difficult to get back to sleep.
          Many years ago, I was lying awake at 01:00 or so, worrying about a report that neded delivered soon. It occurred to me that I would be better off working at the report than worrying about it, so I got up & went to work. Fixed the problem by about 17:00, then home for a relaxed snooze.

  40. Police who arrested a Nigerian scammer say they recovered $40m in cash,
    13 luxury cars worth $6.8m, 21 computers, 47 smartphones and the
    addresses of nearly two million victims.

    As his business partner I can tell you that’s the tip of the iceberg,
    but I need to transfer the remaining funds to a bank account in your
    country before its frozen……

    Please send me your bank details.

    2. My country will be frozen in about 8 weeks, if this cold spell keeps on.

          3. That’s just her iphone and sun tan lotion in a holster for easy application.

  42. Dominic Cummings to tour sensitive MoD sites amid defence review. Wed 8 Jul 2020.

    Dominic Cummings is to visit the SAS and four other of the Ministry of Defence’s most sensitive sites, a leaked email has revealed, at a time when the armed forces are battling to avoid swingeing cuts in an upcoming review.

    According to an email seen by the Sydney Morning Herald, the Cummings tour will also cover the Special Boat Service, defence intelligence and the Rapid Capabilities Office, which is responsible for special project development. Cummings has visited MI5 and MI6, the domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, twice already, it said.

    You don’t think that Cummings might be a Shadow NoTTLer and has realised that only the NHS work for the Government? The rest are either in bed with the CIA, Mossad or Soros and sometime all of three of them at the same time!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/08/dominic-cummings-to-tour-sensitive-mod-sites-amid-defence-review

    1. But , but , but … why is he allowed to do this ..

      I would question that chap’s integrity ..Is he a hatchet man , a slayer of all things solid?

      Didn’t he comment that we could just exist with 10,000 manpower and the rest would be cyber and drone warfare?

      Did I dream that or did I read about it somewhere?

  43. Article in the DT Money section…

    I have eight rental properties and a £350k pension. Can I travel and buy abroad in retirement?’ Kate Owen

    Is that a genuine question or a public boast? Surely she could afford to ask an accountant.

    Would be nice if the DT published some advice for those of us in the more highly occupied financial range.

    2. It’s like those houses they show in the weekend newspapers – “a snip at £3.75 million” – as though people with that sort of money would open the D Torygraph and say, “Gosh – just what I want…”.

    3. It goes with their reviews of charming restaurants that only cost 500 pounds for two at lunch.

    2. I hope you get the oil leak sorted ok – I have to say, I was very impressed with the service I got from the windsreen glass people. It cost me £50, the windscreen excess – of course it might bump up my insurance for next time. It’s due for renewal in August.

      1. That was a good deal . I’ll bet you were well pleased with that.

        My car is a Peugeot 307 Sw. It has done so well and very economical running on diesel. Any way the dogs love it . They have proper dog box in the rear, plenty of space for wellies and bits and pieces.

        1. Mine’s a bit smaller – Peugeot 206 – I bought it new in 2007. But a reliable little workhorse – carries lots of stuff for when we go to events (not this year!)
          I thought the service was very good – it happened on Friday evening, I phoned the Peugeot dealer on Saturday – they don’t do glass but the girl told me who to contact. I had to search for the insurance forms and the number, but once I had that, they were very helpful.

  46. Replanting and restoring hedges is a good idea in itself. Its justification is not made greater by ‘climate change’ nonsense. I doubt very much that the carbon ‘stored’ by even a doubling of hedgerows would amount to more than 1-2% of our annual ’emissions’.

    Climate change is wokery’s mad cousin.

    Restore hedges to pre-war levels to help UK become carbon neutral by 2050, says CPRE

    Countryside charity says move would ‘use nature’s toolbox to capture greenhouse gases from the air’

    Christopher Hope, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

    England’s hedgerows should be restored to their pre-war levels to help Britain hit its carbon neutral target by 2050, campaigners will say on Wednesday in a report backed by ministers.

    Rebecca Pow, the environment minister, is due to speak at the launch of the report, from countryside charity the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which recommends using hedges – “nature’s toolbox” – to reduce carbon emissions.

    There were twice as many hedges before the Second World War as there are now, but many were ripped up to make way for new housing and motorways, while the push to produce more food saw fields merged and enlarged in a quest for efficiency.

    Their decline has slowed in England and Wales since 1997, when the Hedgerows Regulations made it illegal to remove or destroy certain hedgerows without permission from the local planning authority.

    The 2007 UK Countryside Survey found there were 600,000 kilometres (372,000 miles) of managed and unmanaged (“relict”) hedgerows in Britain, with the vast majority found in England. This was a significant decline since 1984, when the same study reported some 680,000 kilometres of hedges across Britain.

    The Government is currently committed to planting more trees, having launched a new trees strategy earlier this month, but is silent on the need to increase hedgerow cover.

    The CPRE’s report, entitled “Greener, better, faster: countryside solutions to the climate emergency and for a green recovery”, calls for millions of pounds to be spent on new hedges.

    It also asks ministers to “invest in the restoration and planting of England’s hedgerows to achieve at least a 40 per cent increase in their length by 2050”.

    The study says: “By planting more trees and hedgerows, restoring peatlands and moving towards a more sustainable way of farming, we can use nature’s toolbox to capture greenhouse gases from the air while revitalising our natural environments.”

    The report looks forward to a future in 2045 when “England’s landscapes are thriving, abundant in character and bustling with wildlife”.

    It says: “The rich patchwork of fields and hedgerows remains, but there is now an enhanced network of natural corridors criss-crossing the countryside, connecting new wilder areas and playing a vital role as nature-based solutions to the climate emergency.

    “The network of hedgerows has been enhanced, restored and replanted, with thousands of miles of new hedgerows spanning the country. New wetlands have been created and some areas have been deliberately left to nature, becoming wilder in character.”

    Crispin Truman, the CPRE’s chief executive, said: “The Government is slowly waking up to the invaluable role the countryside and rural communities can play in tackling the climate emergency.

    “For too long, the role of the countryside and nature based-solutions have played second fiddle to large, glitzy ambitions.

    “Tackling the climate emergency, caring for the countryside and rebuilding the economy post-pandemic can, and must, go hand in hand. We know that some of the best ways to reduce our emissions make our countryside more resilient.”

    Shaun Spiers, the executive director of the Green Alliance think tank, backed the call, saying more hedges were “good for nature, good for carbon capture, and good for people’s experience of the countryside”.

    And Rosie Duffield MP, a member of the Environment select committee and vice chairman of the Net Zero All-Party Parliamentary Group, said: “This is a really great initiative and a cost-free way to work toward the 2050 net zero target. This would win cross-party agreement.”

    A Government spokesman said: “The Prime Minister has been clear that the government will be accelerating investment in infrastructure and technology that can shape an economy and society that is cleaner, greener and more resilient.

    “We’re already championing innovative and eco-friendly technologies, and our ambitious Environment, Fisheries and Agriculture Bills will enable us to protect our precious natural environment and diverse ecosystems for years to come.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/07/restore-hedges-pre-war-levels-help-uk-become-carbon-neutral/

    1. To remain viable farmers growing crops need larger fields.

      I would suggest planting fruit and hazelnut trees of all varieties everywhere there is room to plant them. Free for people to forage.

        1. Getting in before Peddy? I refrained from pointing that out, but I must say it does jar.

    3. Hedgerows are important as a wildlife corridor – but nothing to do with climate change or carbon storage.

      1. I expect they have decided that hedges need help and the fastest way to getting government support and dosh is by linking it to climate change and carbon footprints. You only need to promote the most tenuous of links.

      1. It’s the middle of July and, after a very warm May and June, I had to chuck a blanket on top of my duvet last night!

          2. We are in the middle of a heat wave in Wild and wonderful West Virginia, 12 consecutive days of temps in the mid 90’sF so far and according to the people who profess to know about these things, it is going to continue until the end of next week, with the odd thunderstorm to break the monotony!

    5. Hedges take more maintenance than fences, and occupy more land too. One huge field is more tractor-friendly than six small ones.
      More hedges are good for wildlife, but mean more expensive farming. Maybe there should be a “hedge supplement” to all produce to pay for it – in the same way as wind power supplement to the ‘leccy bill.

        1. Also we should stop developers covering trees to prevent birds nesting.

          1. Absolutely right – also landowners like the D of Devonshire who put netting round his statues on Chatsworth House. He got planning permission for that – of course it did more damage to the stonework for the fixings than the birds ever did. The ecologist who did the survey in the winter couldn’t tell swifts from house martins or swallows.

    6. Although the carbon dioxide argument on behalf of hedges is baloney, let’s not fight it. Hedgerows are homes for all sorts of creatures, including birds and small mammals and insects. Anything that improves the prospects of our wildlife is good.

      1. 3. Restaurant and pub meals out slashed in half
        Restaurant and pub bills will be slashed in half when you eat out as part of a new government scheme that aims to boost the struggling tourism industry and economy.

        Brits who dine out Monday to Wednesday in August will only have to pay for 50 per cent of the tab, Mr Sunak has announced.

        The government’s will cover the other half of the bill through the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, up to £10 per head, to boost the hospitality industry post-coronavirus lockdown.

        The discount includes children’s meals too although it won’t cover any booze ordered to go with your food.

        It will see an £80 bill for a family of four reduced to just £40.

        https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/12063113/rishi-sunak-mini-budget-affect-finances/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=sunmaintwitter&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1594218545

        1. Not many places offer meals for £10. Business lunches in Chinese restaurant and all the chains, MacDonalds, KFC and all the others I haven’t heard of. Really? How does this help anybody but the multinationals and their offshore bank accounts?

        4. I hope that doesn’t open the doors to the riff-raff.

          “Daa-ad! Kaneye ge’ an ice-scream?” “Noh! Shuddup!”

    2. “no one will be left without hope, says Rishi Sunak”.

      Except savers and taxpayers.

    4. I’m no mathematician, but I cannot see how reducing VAT on meals from 20% to 5% results in a 1/2-price meal.

          2. I know, but all the warmer the welcome when I return, assuming the staff are all the same.

          3. Going out tonight. Supposed to be on holiday, now the paint has run out, can’t be arsed to cook.
            Meatballs & potatoes for me, I think.

    5. Bonjour Monsieur Blanc. Avez-vous une table pour deux? Monsieur Sunak paiera pour l’un d’entre nous.

  48. Answers given in an R.E exam with spelling mistakes left in.

    1. Moses led the jews to the red sea where they made unleavened bread,
    which is bread without any ingredients.

    2. The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.

    3. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

    4. David was a hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. He
    fought the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in biblical times.

    5. Solomon, one of Davids sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

    6. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived they found Jesus
    in the manager.

    7. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

    8. One of the oppossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.

    9. St. Paul cavorted to christianity, he preached holy acrimony, which
    is another name for marraige.

    10. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

    1. Use the deaths figures, 544,000 and it’s 0.007

      We need James Bond to come to our aid!

      1. 321066+ up ticks,
        S,
        Brook Bond would be better james went tax exile rogue long ago.

        1. You’re thinking of Basildon, JB’s secretary, who keeps in touch with M via dead letter drops.

          Bail Bond is the one we’ll be needing sooner than Brooke.

        2. In my view, the WHOle damned thing has been blown up out of all proportion.

  50. Here is an idea. If athletes can afford Mercedes cars, they do not need taxpayers money. We should stop funding professional sport and professional sports people. This “elite athletes” stuff is a scam.
    Only amateurs should maybe be given some help, where there is no sensible prospect of becoming professional. I am thinking hockey and similar.
    I confess to being entirely cynical concerning Olympic Games and such. Who cares if some drugged up runner wins a medal?
    Ground level sports for children and youths is worth supporting, especially as schools have largely abandoned them, and councils have sold sports grounds to housing developers in return for bribes.

          5. Many years ago I met a centre forward who had played with Finney.

            He said he was the most accurate passer/crosser of the ball that he had ever player with or against. It’s a cliché, but he swore that Finney would ensure that a centre forward never had to head the laces when he crossed into the box!

          6. Of that era I think John Atyeo of Bristol City had a better goal average for England. Unfortunately he did not have that many matches.

            I recall we had a similar discussion about that most gifted of Sheffield United players Tony Currie. He should have been selected for many more games for England. The same with John Atyeo fifteen or so years previously.

          7. Tony Currie was one of that exceptional grouping of talented players that emerged in the 1970s, including (amongst others) Rodney Marsh, Alan Hudson, Frank Worthington and Stan Bowles. The suits at the FA deemed them all to be “mavericks” who wouldn’t toe the line. Their “safe” managers: an ageing Alf Ramsey, Joe Mercer, Don Revie and Ron Greenwood (all FA puppets) chose “safe” players who would toe the line. That is the direct reason why England failed to qualify for the World Cup between 1970 and 1982.

            Who knows what would have happened if they had chosen Brian Clough (another maverick) to be England manager instead.

            Later on another “maverick” was also discarded by England for the same reasons, despite being one of the most instinctive and talented players for his club. His name was Matthew le Tissier.

            The FA reflect parliament in many ways. Inept people making idiotic decisions that diminish the country.

          8. We are moving hopefully next year. I have been trying to sort out old stuff but find it difficult to give anything up. I came across some slides of the Chelsea players practicing at Stamford Bridge in 1974.

            The practice I worked for that year was Darbourne & Darke in Richmond on Thames. John Darbourne had attended the same school as Brian Mears.

            Darbourne & Darke designed the West stand at Stamford Bridge and I was sent to support the Architect doing the snagging of the completed structure. The steelwork structure was from memory abominable.

            Checking my slides I have images of the Chelsea greats, Ron Harris, Charlie Cooke, Peter Bonetti, Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson and a few others.

            I have thousands of slides and need to find a cost effective means to digitise the images. Do any Nottlers have any ideas?

          9. Do you have a branch of Max Spielmann near to you? They may be able to advise if not help you.

      3. I used to see Allan Wells at the bus stop. Not same bus stop where Ken Buchanan ran past me every morning.

    3. You can pick up a ten year old Mercedes for a few hundred quid. We don’t know how old their car is.

      1. She had also won medals in her chosen sport which would have attracted advertising revenue.

      2. Very true – well, maybe more than. few hundred, but second hand cars are good value. That was really a throwaway intro.
        My real point is that we are putting taxpayers money into professional sport. Some sportsmen and women make a lot of money.
        Sports for children and young people are less fortunate. Forget medals, sport encourages effort, teamwork, self-confidence and promotes health and sensible dietary habits.

    1. The school dinners (I am so glad you didn’t call them “lunches”) at my primary school were worse than pigswill.

      The school dinners at my secondary school were worthy of a Michelin star.

          1. Oh dear – my mum was quite limited as a cook, but what she did was usually ok. I remember one time she left some mince pies in the oven and we went to church on Christmas morning……..came home to cinders in the oven.

          2. My mother’s mince pies were like rocks – the pastry was so hard (and thick) you could have built a wall with it! They were so notorious, they even got a mention at her funeral! We all laughed because we knew exactly what the vicar meant 🙂

  52. This article by Heffer starts like a bowler struggling to land the ball in the right place in the morning but who eventually finds his rhythm and knocks some over in the afternoon. His observations about the black population and poor white boys apply to society as a whole.

    No comments allowed…

    Cricket should not associate itself with the offensive policies of the anti-semitic anarchists who run BLM

    A most effective way of eliminating racism from cricket is to ensure more black people play the game

    SIMON HEFFER

    The England and Wales Cricket Board’s leadership is doubtless following the furore in football’s Premier League about its swift identification, after the death of George Floyd, with the Black Lives Matter movement.

    Cricket is regrettably not free from racism, but football has had a terrible problem with it for decades. The game’s leaders abominate it and argue unequivocally for equal opportunity and respect for footballers of all races. So, when Black Lives Matter came along, the Premier League eagerly associated itself with the movement, and joined in the international disgust at Floyd’s killing.

    However, no one seemed to read the BLM small print. The movement has now been widely exposed as having weaponised anti-racism to attack society, not just anti-black bigotry. The white anarchists who play a substantial part in it wish, among other things, to overthrow capitalism, end the “nuclear family” and defund the police. Worse, statements by BLM activists about “Israel’s colonial, apartheid regime” have brought accusations of anti-semitism (apparently, some forms of racism are more acceptable than others). Crystal Palace last week said that while they abhorred racism, they could not associate themselves with other aspects of the movement. Sky and BBC pundits have removed the BLM badges they were proudly wearing on air.

    Premier League players will continue to wear a bespoke Black Lives Matter badge for the rest of the season, because it was designed by a Watford player, and is not the authorised badge of the political movement. It is hard to think of a more rampantly capitalist business in Britain than Premier League football; and professional football is marketed as a game to which parents can take their children – their nuclear family; and the game relies heavily on the police to deter trouble and, indeed, to round up abusive racists. The small print is, after all, hugely important.

    This should be a lesson to the ECB: but our cricketers and those of the West Indies will wear the bespoke Premier League badge on the collar of their shirts when the Test series starts tomorrow. The ECB and captain Joe Root say they will do so because there is no place for racism in the game. There certainly is not. But the ECB’s determination to signal virtue has, as in football, obscured the issue about the sort of people with whom it has jumped into bed. Cricket should be able to devise its own statement about a game that everyone plays on equal terms and that does not tolerate racially offensive behaviour by players, officials or spectators, without associating itself with the equally offensive policies of the anti-semitic anarchists who run BLM. It still has time to do so.

    It is, too, widely recognised that a most effective way of eliminating racism from cricket is to ensure more black people play the game at every level. Clare Connor, the former England women’s captain, who as well as being a senior ECB official will, in 2021, become the first female president of MCC, has already promised greater diversity. So, as Nick Hoult reported on this website last week, has the ECB itself. He quoted Lonsdale Skinner, chairman of the African Caribbean Cricket Association, as saying black people had been “deliberately excluded” from the game since the 1990s. The drop in participation is shocking: whereas in 1995 there were 33 black British first-class cricketers, now there are only 13. Skinner makes a very good point, too, when he says that the county academy system excludes players from “poor black communities”. It is, however, a point that applies to poor people from all communities, not just black ones.

    Cricket cannot pretend, as it often did when it included more black players, that it is entirely colour blind. But the dearth of black cricketers is also partly caused by factors that account for the growing dearth of white working-class cricketers, and these must be addressed by the ECB and clubs in order to encourage latent talent wherever it is to be found, and irrespective of ethnicity. In some areas, by contrast, Asian-dominated cricket clubs thrive: this is not least because there is a larger Asian middle class, and it has all the advantages middle-class people do – notably more opportunities to play and watch cricket, and to participate in the game in all ways. Black people, and poor white people, must be given the means and encouragement to organise themselves, or to join existing clubs that are, at present, too sectarian.

    Less affluent people, whether black, white or of any other race, usually attend schools without playing fields and where cricket is not played; they could never afford (as countless British West Indians did in the 1970s) to buy tickets to watch inspirational black and white cricketers playing Tests. For many poorer families, a monthly subscription to Sky’s cricket channel simply is not possible. Of course, there is a mass of untapped black cricketing ability out there that should be harnessed to the game at all levels, and thousands of potential black spectators, too; but the same applies to poor whites. Those charged with maintaining the commercial and moral health of cricket must enable the game once more to be open to people of every class and race – and not just to those whose families could afford to send them to a cricketing school, or to let them watch televised cricket, or who live near one of the enlightened clubs who make a point of reaching out to those whose lives are otherwise untouched by the game.

    One superb initiative, which greatly benefited black youngsters, was the Haringey Cricket College, founded in the 1980s. It morphed into the London Cricket College and then the Grass Roots College, and bred a number of first-class cricketers from poor backgrounds. The ECB must assist poorer communities to build a national version of this, beyond the MCC Foundation’s admirable “hubs” idea, that gives young people the chance to play cricket.

    It requires the enlistment of volunteer coaches; fundraisers who can provide the means to buy kit; but above all places to practise and play. It requires the co-ordination of a ground-sharing scheme between clubs and schools with facilities that are only now used at most two or three days a week. It would require state school teachers and parents, as of old, happy to give up their Saturdays and evenings to coach and supervise. It would require Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport support, not least to persuade the Government to schedule GCSE and A-level examinations later in the summer (as Covid-19 is forcing to happen next year) and running the summer holidays from late July to mid-September, to allow a serious three-month cricket term.

    Above all, it would require the establishment and strengthening of links between existing clubs and schools or new clubs that are attempting to organise teams for the first time. Black and disadvantaged white people themselves should be enabled and encourage to own these schemes, and not patronisingly organised by well-meaning middle-class-people more than is absolutely necessary.

    Such a programme would be in everyone’s interest. It would break down racial barriers and class barriers. It would give a new sense of mission to county, town and village clubs. It would improve the nation’s physical and moral health. It would empower people who feel they lack any power at all.

    Cricket has become a closed shop in too many ways: it is time to open it up again. And virtue-signalling is not enough.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2020/07/07/cricket-should-not-associate-offensive-policies-anti-semitic/

    2. The same thing applies to pretty well all sports outside of football – after all, the cost of a ball isn’t so much, and you can develop an interest and some talent by a kick-around using two jumpers as goalposts. Other sports require (very) expensive facilities and equipment – dinghy sailing, velodrome cycling, ice hockey… and someone to teach and supervise, to get the best out of each individual. Hell, I only took up running because all it needed was a pair of (good) training shoes and some scruffy loose clothing – and is transferable wherever you go, shoes not taking up much space in your baggage.
      I thought the government made grants to sports organisations to get around this – or was it to form committees and discuss endlessly, before going home for tea?

      1. If you look at the medals amassed by British participants in the 2012 Olympics, you will observe that a fair proportion involved expensive kit (hard luck poorer countries) and activities that involved sitting: yachting, rowing, riding, shooting.

      2. Children used to play football and improvised cricket on any open space they could find, even into the 80s. Now there are so many other distractions as the open spaces disappear. A previous generation of young West Indians in England had an interest in cricket given to them by their parents. This coincided with the rise of West Indian cricket in the 60 and early 70s and their ensuing 15-year dominance of the Test arena. That’s now gone.

        As the number of WI supporters attending Tests in England plummeted during the first part of this century, absurd accusations of racism were levelled at the game over here. The fact was that for a while their team was very poor and interest in cricket in the black population had already declined. The silliest of charges was that WI supporters were discriminated against because they couldn’t turn up on the day and pay at the gate. The fact was that the appetite for Test cricket in England had grown markedly in the 90s and by the turn of the century, matches were selling out in advance and have continued to do so even as prices continue to go through the roof.

        I went to my first Test match in 1975, the second day of the Ashes Test at Lord’s. What a place to start! I went with a follow sixth-former and we paid £5 at the Wellington Road end. We sat on the grass in front of the grandstand but could have sat in the benches in the lower deck at the Nursery End – no reservations back then. By RPI, £5 is about £40 today and if it were that price today it would represent good value. However, the cheapest seats for Lord’s are now nearer £100 than £50 and big matches are sold out months in advance. That’s why you can rarely turn up on the day. The exceptions are perhaps on the fifth day at a big game or any day for some of the lesser opponents.

      1. How must it feel to be a plod in Londanistan knowing Dick of the Yard has your back. (In her sights).

    6. Dick Head of the Yard told MPs that the Perlice had “apologised” to the woman.

      1. Under Sir Robert Peel the police were known as “Bobbies” or “Peelers”
        Under Dame Cressida??………………………..

  54. Well let’s see how this goes.

    They are introducing mandatory mask wearing across most of Ontario this week. It started in the big cities with transport, now it is becoming a case of wearing masks in public. Stores have been told that their policy should be no mask, no service!

    Naturally we have some saying about time, others echoing comments here.

    No one seems to be answering or even asking the question why now? It is almost two months since we had a case, there was an outbreak about 100km away but that was localised to one nail salon. Do they know something that they are not telling us? Is the upward trend in US cases spooking them?

    1. “Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devices that were designed to be worn by medical personnel to protect accidental contamination of patient wounds, and to protect the wearer against splashes or sprays of bodily fluids (36). There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

      https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article?fbclid=IwAR2V1hPqN0WKb2kXVExP_1UE9ARvru6mtPZvZN0w1jx0S3l3fXLhxMP_bXs

          1. Ackshally, I was being serious. Weeks ago, some foreign (British) doctor was reported as saying that wearing masks caused many more lung problems – because there was a reduced oxygen intake.

          2. Sorry Bill (Sometimes difficult to tell ….) I don’t recall the reduction in oxygen intake suggestion. However, several weeks back I read a piece on why it wasn’t sensible to wear a mask. For example, the constant need to adjust the mask potentially contaminating the mask with mucky (i.e Virus ridden ) fingers etc.

          3. Yes. It reduces your carbon footprint though. You’re basically inhaling your own stale carbon dioxide.

      2. When a senior student colleague was approached by Rosa Klebb* & asked why he was wearing a face mask while treating a patient, he replied that he had a cold. “You do realise that mask is no protection at all,” she growled. “I know,” he said, “but it prevents the patient from having to look up my snotty nostrils.” Exit one Klebb while the patient laughed his head off.

        *She was a senior lecturer & consultant in periodontology. She had the appearance & charisma of her film counterpart. Funnily enough, I can’t remember her real name.

      3. Yes. As I posted yesterday and previously. As I wrote to my MSPs.both of them Labour (List) and Tory(voted in). They wrote back in agreement with the SNP controls. I suppose they look forward to employing the same level of control if they win a majority in the Scottish Parliament.
        Nobody is “following the science”. Nobody is listening to facts. Nobody is thinking.
        Nobody is going against the flow.

      1. Er, try Scotland. Masks everywhere on transport and in shops from Saturday. By Law.

    4. What they now know is that if they say jump, people will jump. That sort of power is intoxicating.

    5. So, if you do NOT have a mask, and do not do online shopping, how do you go into a shop to buy a mask?

      1. I ordered one yesterday, Walter – from a lady in Bristol, via Etsy – lots of small handicraft businesses sell their wares there.

      2. You have until Friday to buy the mask, otherwise buy on Amazon, wrap a pair of undies round your nose or starve!

        The other excuse coming up is that they have medical issues. It is amazing how many of these refugee doctors have a morbid fear of masks.

    6. The PTB want to be seen to be doing something – however useless and however late.

  55. Leslie Thomas QC, representing bereaved families of the Grenfell tower
    victims, said the fire was “inextricably linked with race” and ” did not
    happen in a vacuum”.

    No, It happened in a fridge freezer. Which as we all know is ‘White goods’. Or bads if you are a Lefty.

    1. There is so much BS in that statement I wouldn’t know where to start…………. If all the victims and inhabitants of that block had been white British, what would have been the cause then?

      1. White privilege don’tcha know. All the Whities would have had a better address.

      2. The biggest bit of bullshit is about a fire not burning in a vacuum. Even 1st-year chemistry students know that’s true.

    2. Yup. We have plenty of evidence if the racial characteristics of the occupants and more so in those many crooks who claimed fallaciously to have been occupants whilst living the high life in hotels with credit cards and other freebies.

      I hope those fraudsters have been prosecuted, any remaining assets seized and the buggers jailed. I somehow doubt it. Being an ethnic minority nowadays seems to be a licence to commit crime with impunity.

    1. Are those ‘corn rows ‘ in his hair. Surely as he is only 50% black he should have just had the left side done !

    2. Strange how one of the wealthiest sportsmen in the entire world can rattle on about disadvantage. He should put his money where his mouth is and give it to the descendants of Jews whose property was stolen to provide the resources used by Daimler Benz to make Diesel engines for U-boats, S-boats and much else in the German armaments industry.

      He could throw a few million at the Czech survivors whose lignite mines and clothing factories were bought cheaply or stolen by the Third Reich. The Petschek family spring to mind. Survivors live in New York, Scarsdale for example.

      The idiot could turn his attention to the modern slavery practised by the Germans in order to produce the goods. This involved the compulsory enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Silesians and other unfortunate Eastern Europeans. He could suggest his sponsors make more appropriate reparations than any given thus far.

      Instead the cretin spouts forth about matters of which he is ignorant and laughingly the twit is not even black. He merely identifies as black.

  58. Good afternoon, Nottlers.
    As you are aware it was my darling wife Lizzie’s funeral this morning. Elsie, in the guise of her alter ego, has kept me abreast of all the best wishes etc from you and I thought an update was fitting.

    The rain held off while the 20 primary mourners gathered at the chapel and also spared the 40 to 50 family and friends who were barred from attending, but who lined the avenue to the chapel, from a soaking.

    The service led by Kate, the Celebrant, was everything I had hoped for. I’d read her words more than once but her delivery gave them real meaning. My son was terrific when he gave his, Memories of Mum, speech and I was very proud of him as he didn’t falter once: knowing how cut up he is over his Mum’s death that was a wonderful performance. I held up as best one can in these circumstances: shedding tears but not falling apart as I feared I would.

    Afterwards some of us went for tea/coffee and cakes at my son’s home and we chatted for an hour or so. That helped break the tension and helped people to relax. I then treated my son, daughter-in-law and Lizzie’s and my grandchildren to lunch at a nearby hostelry.

    I decided I wanted the rest of the day to myself to reflect on Lizzie’s and my life together and think about what my future holds without her. She had been the focus of my life for nearly 54 years and more especially for the last 4 or 5 years as her health failed and I had to care more and more for her. Her passing has created a huge void in my life and one that I must fill somehow.

    I have a bottle of champers cooling in the fridge and a little later I will toast her memory and my great luck to have met and married such a wonderful lady.
    As my son and so many family members and friends have said, “Your new life starts tomorrow,” and while my head says that they are right, my heart, whatever that really is, doesn’t want to know that.

    Thanks again for your kind wishes. I will return to this blog sometime but only after I’ve resolved all the swirling thoughts that are clouding my mind and I’ve plotted my new life’s course without my darling wife alongside me.
    Best wishes to you all,
    Korky.

    2. Thank you for taking the time to write this. I’m glad it went as well as it could.

      I wish you all the best in your time of adjustment (and please remember to be kind to yourself).

    7. Thank you for taking the time for us.

      I’m sure we are all vey moved by your words and I hope the evening of reflection will bring back many, many happy memories.

    10. Glad it went well and thanks so much for letting us know. All the very best to you and yours.

    13. Our thoughts and best wishes are with you and your family. Take care of yourself.

    14. Concentrate on the good things and be thankful for the time you had together. Thoughts are with you, Korky.

    15. Korky, your account of the most poignant day of your life has moved me to silent tears. The passage of time will soften and smooth those edges which are hurting. I understand that at the moment you do not want a new life, it is the old one that you want, and that you need, to mourn for the time being. But one day the sun will shine through the clouds for you again. All the best. We will be thinking of you here. poppiesmum.

    17. A very moving story and tribute, Korky. I’m quite new here but I can only add my poor wishes for a requite in you very obvious sorrow.

      Death is a very harsh removal of one who has been loved, especially one who has been loved for a long time, I can only wish you all the support you may glean from the family of NoTTLers, all of whom, I’m sure, will join with me in wishing you a speedy recovery from the natural grief and a strength on the shoulders of your loving families. Bear up old chap and feel free to talk to us.

    18. A difficult day Korky, but your bravery shines through. Our thoughts are with you.

  59. Rain stopped paint – again. But, progress being made :-))
    Half the house is done now. Looks smart & bright in it’s new off-white. Once we have the dark green on the wondows, it’ll be right lovely!

          1. No, plastic bucket
            ;-))
            Windows are work-in-progress. Need to get the walls done as priority, windows can be done later – fewer overspray problems…

          3. No, plastic bucket
            ;-))
            Windows are work-in-progress. Need to get the walls done as priority, windows can be done later – fewer overspray problems…

        2. You don’t get the brightness from the pic – weather isn’t exactly great, as you can see.
          Using a sprayer, that wall took about 40 minutes to paint, including moving the scaffolding twice.
          #MeloveSprayer!

        3. Behind the stående panel (vertical panelling) are horizontal logs, laid about 270 years ago – so, the house is older than the USA! The outer panelling covers insulation and makes the place more mouseproof.
          I’ll put a picture of the vedsjul – wood store – which we believe is the original house, so is maybe 100 years older. I’ll do that once I can get outside – raining, doncha know?

      1. #meetoo.
        Be nice to have some summer in between the winters.
        Contrasts, you know, like yin & yang.

          1. We have home-made yin – 74% – rocket fuel, so it is.
            Also known as “antibac”.

          2. Are you going to send it around the world on a long sea voyage before you drink it?

          3. Nope.
            Currently testing some flavours – raspberry, juniper, and granskudd<7i> (pine shoot. Somehow, I’m not so sure about wunderbaum-flavoured spirits, but we’ll see – in he spirit of being open-minded, of course.
            (see what I did there?)

          4. I have a bottle of Finnish 60% spirit. I normally use it for home-made limoncello (or even “limecello”) but I’m going to use caraway seeds this time.

    1. Hated Waiting for Godot when forced to read it at school but then a few years ago I saw it performed to perfection by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.

      1. “Hated Waiting for Godot…”

        Yeah. The bugger took bloody ages to arrive! :•)

  62. 321066+ up ticks,
    You certainly showed us how to treat an invading force in no uncertain manner priti.

    breitbart,
    Migration Watch: 7,500 Illegal Boat Migrants Will Reach the UK by Christmas

  63. R Sunak cheerfully spending, spending, spending. No mention yet about how we are going to pay for all this largesse. More opportunities for fraud

  65. Further good news for Pres Trump.

    A British judge on Wednesday ordered former British spy Christopher
    Steele to pay damages to two Russian bankers he accused in the infamous
    Trump dossier of having illicit ties to Russian President Vladimir
    Putin.

    The ruling, handed down by Sir Mark Warby, a justice on
    the High Court of England and Wales, marks Steele’s first loss in a
    dossier-related lawsuit.

  66. Evening, Peeps.

    Unfortunately I have just been listening to R4’s PM programme. Lengthy interview with someone from the Black Police Association, during which the bellend of a presenter tossed in a few lame questions, and even joined in with the person being interviewed.

    I would like to think that, for balance, an interview with the White Police Association will be as easy a ride…

    2. Yes, I heard that. The correct answer was “Dick should not have apologised”.

      1. Bizarre, isn’t it? The car is reported as continuing for 20 seconds after it was ordered to stop. The video is also incomplete – but strangely both aspects are usually ignored by the media. Why did the perlice say initially that the incident was properly conducted, and then send two senior officers round to apologise? Cressida’s Dick seems to lack any stiffness…

  67. 321066 + up ticks,
    Why not make an offer that cannot be refused ? say 1/8 of body weight in gold to volunteer to be chipped then ship out.
    Run parallel with a very serious campaign of tracking down / deporting illegals.
    Goes for any indigenous also.
    All the infrastructure, medication, education, incarceration, accommodation would benefit straight off.
    Then make the supporting of the lab/lib/con coalition a criminal offence carrying a life sentence NO REMISSION.

      1. 321066+ up ticks,
        Afternoon N,
        Not all the while the most treacherous virus known
        to man / woman / poof / others is rampant.

        That being the politicorearexitrhetoricalexcreation
        bug.

        They can be ID by their pin stripe markings.

    2. I thought it voting for liblabcon was already a life sentence with no remission.
      I guess most of the guilty parties haven’t yet realised it.

      1. 321066+ up ticks,
        Evening BB2,
        I do see the electorate locked into servicing a political roundabout that have for decades been rubber stampers & in the main brussels assets.
        The voting pattern kept them & their lifestyles safe
        vote for A keep out B regardless of consequences.
        The lab/lib/con are a coalition joined at the political hip via mass uncontrolled immigration
        still ongoing.
        Without a doubt the continuing voting pattern got us to where we are today.
        My personal view.

  69. Drinking time.

    I’ll join you tomorrow – after a trip to Fakenham market.

    Have a jolly evening blacking up.

    A demain

  70. Here is a little quiz for y’all. What, at just 20 yards in length, is Britain’s shortest county boundary and where, precisely, is it located?

      1. Old and New. I have two large wall maps of the UK. One before 1974 and the other after. In this case it matters not since that boundary was not affected by the boundary changes.

      1. That’s the one, Corim. The short boundary runs along a tributary of the Welland, which is parallel to the main Stamford to Oakham railway line, just north of the A1 and to the south of Stamford.

        1. Stamford is a pleasant town. I once accepted an invitation to go on a pub crawl in Stamford with about 12 others (not why it’s a pleasant town). Hard to believe there were so many pubs in such a small area, as well as a considerable number of medieval churches. It was one of Alec Clifton-Taylor’s ‘6 English Towns’. Anyone remember that wonderful programme?

          1. I never gave a toot about architecture and buildings until Alec Clifton-Taylor’s programmes. Bought the books, too. He, and the way he illuminated the subject, was fantastic!

          2. Last time I was in Stamford was to buy a tyre for an ancient caravan. January 1988. En-route to East Anglia for a new job, I braved the snow on the A66, and got as far as a layby near Wittering, when one of the caravan tyres blew out. I spent a very cold, wet, uncomfortable night (the rooflight had blown open and admitted the snow). The caravan, once dried out, was a useful base for house-hunting, on a site at Burwell, Cambs. Ended up living in Thetford, Narfulk (©BT), for around ten years…

          3. After a second read, I worked out that you weren’t ten years in the damp caravan in Thetford, Geoff.
            I must be getting slow. :-((

          4. Aah Burwell. Their white bricks were highly prized viz. Burwell Whites. They now make lovely roof tile ‘mixtures’. Or at least they did the last time I sourced them for tiled roofs in Cambridgeshire.

            I dare not check in case the company has gone to the wall.

          5. Stamford is a lovely town. It was used as the location for a BBC production of George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

          6. My favourite pub on the A1 was for years The Haycock at Wansford, a bit south of Stamford.

            I would stop there on my way back to London from Sheffield and enjoy a wonderful meal in one of its rooms by a fireside in the winter.

            Years later I took my wife there having eulogised the place for years. Regrettably some pub company had taken it over and we were met by a geek in a suit with a green carnation. The wonderful and generous country furniture was gone and the furniture was now spindly black metalwork with glass tabletops. Yet another piece of old England lost forever.

    3. Rutland/Cambs? Somewhere around there. More your territory than mine.

        1. ‘Evening, JBF – that is a terrible Americanism. How can one make a verb out of ‘bad’?

    4. Between which two African countries is there a 100 metre (disputed) border?

      1. Any border between African countries is likely to be disputed.

        They were usually drawn by whitey and they paid no attention to tribal affiliations, let alone traditional nomadic grazing lands.

        1. Botswana and Zambia. Namibia and Zimbabwe think that there should be a quadripoint there.

          1. There used to hordes of quadripoints there until the wicked White Hunters shot them all. Didn’t Mr Odinga Odinga once demand reparations? Or was that the Reverend Canaan Banana?

            :-))

          2. There’s an 80 metre border between Morocco and what used to be a Spanish island which became a Spanish peninsular when a sandbank was thrown up.

    5. I believe it’s the NE corner or Northants where it meets Lincolnshire near Stamford.

        1. Good evening, Grizzly.

          Northants is also the only English County with
          eight immediate neighbours.

          13. Good grief, Grizzly, is Fanny Drayton still alive? We were both in Miss Lavinia’s pre-school class when we were just little tiny tots.

            :-))

          17. I used to live in Church Brampton, its a fine county. Northampton Casuals was my rugby club. Happy Days.

          18. It is strange but I seem never to have to go to Northampton. Most of the roads I use on my travels seem actively to avoid the place. Perhaps it’s central location means that the rest of us go around it.

            I often wonder which city is at the centre of gravity of England. I long thought it would be Sheffield.

          19. One of the best rugby counties in England, so many clubs for all skills.

          20. Yes I do agree. I was too small to play rugby successfully. I rejected school dinners and basically starved.

            My school however boasted an English Schoolboy International, Robin Neccho. We also had an England Number 8 in David Gay, a year ahead of me in the school.

            Our chemistry master was Tom Martland, Captain of Bath Rugby in 1971 and destined for an England call-up before being crippled playing against rivals Gloucester. I remember this large man having to walk the school corridors wIth walking sticks.

            I retain a great affection for Tom Martland and only wish that I had performed better at rugby and cricket and that I had studied Chemistry more attentively. Of course my failure was the result of a lack of proper nutrition, not of effort.

            Outside of school I was always the first choice bowler when we played on The Oval in Bath. This was a large green area surrounded by council properties. We often played with a white ball as the light deserted us.

          24. Good evening, Corrim.

            You are not the only person who never has to go to Northampton,
            most locals avoid it! There are some splendid buildings, Churches
            and statues; it also had a splendid indoor fish market and the largest
            outdoor market in England but successive Councils have completely
            ruined it.

          25. I know a bit about the fine buildings. The Town Hall is one such building that comes into picture. It was designed by E W Godwin, one of the masters of the Arts & Crafts movement. He designed everything including interior features and furniture (Architects did everything in those days before the invention of interior designers).

            Godwin was unique in that he combined a desire for exquisite craftsmanship with a parallel desire for functionality. He was years ahead of his time and employed the best artists and makers.

          26. I forgot:
            78, The Derngate, although, as you will know it
            was severely fire damaged.

            The Town Hall was enlarged a few years ago,
            very sympathetically; although the front entrance
            is still in use the main entrance is to the right of
            the steps, via a Courtyard.
            It amazes me to think Northampton was almost
            made the capital of England!!

          27. Hi, G. Worked for Birse at 500 Pavilion Drive for a few weeks, before being site-based. Ventured into the city on the occasional lunchtime. Prolly didn’t do it justice, since I was only looking for a sandwich…

          28. I foind it a great place to live, but you do need to live in the country and avoid Western Favall.

          29. Even Robert Stephenson’s London & Birmingham Railway avoided Northampton!

        1. Good evening, Garlands, and thanks, although the question was rhetorical. IIRR, that was part of the Grocers Local Government “reform” of 1972.

          1. Was that to prepare us for our division into ‘areas,’
            after we became fully integrated into the EU?

  71. “Ch Supt Karen Findlay, who is in charge of the Territorial Support Group which conducted the stop, and local area commander Helen Harper, also informed Ms Williams about the IOPC referral and the next steps in the process.
    But Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball told the committee that there had been “good grounds” for the car to be stopped and at that point the officers involved did not know who was in it.”
    Presumably if the officers had known, the occupants would have received special kid glove treatment?
    Dick of the Yard’s apology undercut the review carried out by her own force:
    “Despite two reviews by the force’s directorate of professional standards, Dame Cressida said the force had found no misconduct by its officers.”
    She apologised anyway. What grovelling.
    Her autobiography is coming out soon, “Murder and Promotion”.

        1. I know a chap who serves in TVP. He feels that they are just glorified social workers in uniform.

          1. They are its a police servive not a police force any more. Its been lefticated.

    2. TSG are a bunch of thugs.

      “good grounds” for the car to be stopped.

      Was the car stolen? False number plates? Intel on drugs?

      Or was it because two black people were in the car?

      1. Being driven away at speed on the wrong side of the road? Oh, and having tinted windows so the occupants couldn’t be seen.

        1. I would like to see the Police dashcam footage to back up their claim.

          Also, it is not against the law to have tinted windows. The windows may have been within the legal requirement. How did TSG know they were not without using a Tintmeter?

          1. The point is the Police couldn’t see what skin colour the occupants had, so claims of ‘racial profiling’ are nonsense.

          2. Once the car stopped and windows and doors open they could see so why the handcuffs?

            I believe the driving off on the wrong side of the road are lies to cover their over the top response. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the police have lied to cover their mistakes.

          7. It is not for me to prove anything. If the Police had footage they would have shown it. The only footage shown was after the event the Police said took place.

          11. United Kingdom has very clearly defined laws for window tint. Front windshield and front side windows may have up to 75% and 70% light transmission respectively, and all windows to the back of the driver can have any tint darkness levels.

  72. It’s really really quiet out there my fellow NoTTLers. I can only presume that the PTB (the real PTB) are having a staff meeting to decide their next move

  73. After months of lockdown, it was great to finally visit a second
    household and stay over. Unfortunately I was woken up by the Police at
    two in the morning.
    Apparently it has to be people you know.

          1. In case anyone is wondering, we she writes “Dear One”, in this instance it means expensive.

            };-O

  74. Evening, all. Good to hear from Korky on this sad day and I wish him well in coming to terms with what the future holds.

  75. Spiked

    The White British Saviour represents one of the most socially

    divisive forces in British society today. The flawed identitarian

    narratives and smug elitism of these people must be robustly challenged.

    A failure to do so will mean that their influence becomes more

    entrenched in various spheres of British life.

    Dr Rakib Ehsan is a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. Follow him on Twitter:

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/07/the-rise-of-the-white-british-saviour/
    The wankeratti at full chat……………..

    1. The author asserts that the offer to 3 million Hong Kong Chinese shows what a tolerant country the UK is. It does not. It merely demonstrates that yet another government has failed to understand the dangers of mass migration and limited resources.

    2. The author asserts that the offer to 3 million Hong Kong Chinese shows what a tolerant country the UK is. It does not. It merely demonstrates that yet another government has failed to understand the dangers of mass migration and limited resources.

  76. Apropos the discussion on this forum a week-or-so ago, after the death of Dame Vera Lynn, when I criticised the banal lyrics of the song “White Cliffs Of Dover” and its idiotic declaration that Bluebirds may fly over it; I have further evidence of mindless American paucity of knowledge of the UK in an even more clueless song (also citing Bluebirds) by Jimmie Rodgers: English Country Garden.

    The third verse of that dirge runs thus:

    How many songbirds fly to and fro
    In an English country garden?
    I’ll tell you now of some that I know
    Those I miss you’ll surely pardon.

    Bobolink, cuckoo and quail
    Tanager and cardinal
    Bluebird, lark, thrush and nightingale.

    There is joy in the spring
    When the birds begin to sing
    In an English country garden.

    Where to start? Bobolink, a black, tan and white American finch, has been recorded in the UK on 14 occasions as an accidental.
    Scarlet Tanager, a dazzlingly red sparrow, has been recorded in the UK on seven occasions and Summer Tanager just once.
    Cardinal and Bluebird have never been recorded in the UK.

    [Even the end refrain refers to a robin; but you can bet your bottom dollar he means the American Robin, which is a large thrush and bears no resemblance to the much smaller European robin. More evidence of similar American nonsense can be seen in the film Mary Poppins, ostensibly set in London, where they feed an American robin!]

    If you are going to write a song listing birds that are routinely found in an “English” country garden, please do some research and don’t make half of the species you name (5/10) birds that have never or seldom crossed the Atlantic to become commonplace features. There is no excuse, whatsoever, for this utterly risible nonsense, regardless of what any apologists may say.

    1. Oh come on, Mr Grizzly!! Where is your sense of romance? Songs are not meant to be factual recitations, but of amusement and not necessarily pedantic in nature!!

      ;-))

      1. Oh I agree with you in essence, Jill, but tell me this: Why write a song about English gardens, in England, and fill it full of birds no-one has ever heard of?

        I can guarantee that 99·9999% of English people have never heard of tanagers, bobolinks or cardinals. Some may have heard of bluebirds but few have seen one.

        Why didn’t Rodgers write about sparrows, chaffinches, blue tits and wrens; i.e. birds that the English would recognise in their country gardens, instead of obscure birds that would never cross the Atlantic?

        I suspect that he didn’t write it for the English after all, but for Americans.

    1. 321066+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Black comedy at it’s finest because she cannot be serious, surely.

    2. Back to statues for a sec.
      The idiots have finally gone too far for the police to ignore. Sir John A Macdonalds grave site has been vandalized, the police are now looking for the normal suspects..

    3. There’s no-one as stupid as someone who actually thinks they’re intelligent.

      2. Does the reverse hold true? Is no one as intelligent as one who thinks he is really stupid?

    5. She is going to have one hell of a job explaining how the apple fell up,

      South of the equator.

    6. In truth if the ignorant blacks can find no foothold in actual science it seems inevitable, as night follows day, that the idiots will seek to supplant all scientific evidence.

      The argument that the existing science is defective because no blacks were involved is of course pathetic. But then these blacks are pathetic.

    7. IMO, the best response was ‘If laws of gravity go then they can’t pull down statues.’

      1. 321132+up ticks,
        Morning AA,
        That explanation would be way above their heads.

      1. 321132+ up ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        Keep in mind frightening as it is that every negative has a positive,and we will have one on the side of the sane who will suggest that we anchor all remaining statues.
        There is always one ain’t there?

      2. 321132+ up ticks,
        BB2,
        I suppose a test would be to ask her how many things she can name that fall up.

    1. Women are the ones who eat puddings more, but Matt couldn’t make the man tell that to the woman. I hate political correctness.

  79. Been very busy all day,…sincere best wishes Korky. I feel for you.
    I’m worn out from, DIYing and now turning in.
    Don’t reply, but i think i read some stupid nonsense today about the Grenfell tower fire is now classed as being racist.
    It belies the old adage ‘you couldn’t make it up’.

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