Wednesday 8 October: Anti-Semitism has left many Jewish people afraid to stay in this country

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

596 thoughts on “Wednesday 8 October: Anti-Semitism has left many Jewish people afraid to stay in this country

  1. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's New NoTTLe site. Today's Wordle was a Bogey.

    Wordle 1,572 5/6

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      1. I see his numerous posts on FB which are quite direct to say the least. I often think that if Mrs Bloggs had said some of those things she would be swiftly dragged down the station for questioning.

        1. They've tried everything they can do to smear him – Reform that is.

          It was the turning point to realise that they're just another bunch of politicos. Just more infighting, tiresome, argumentative idiots.

    1. I don't really get it. Is the power suit supposed to be Kemi Badenoch and the shabby one Boris Johnson? If so, whose is the clown outfit?

        1. It is. Paul Johnson's article on the conference refers to 'an exhibition of her outfits worn during her 11 years in power.'

    1. This cartoon reminds me of the estate agent that has been marketing my flat for the last 12 months.

      It's me that has to pay the Service Charge, the Council Tax and the standing charges.

        1. I know people, who once held down important jobs of high rank, who are still being taken in by the crap and continue to have jabs.

          When I try to explain the silliness of it, I am angrily dismissed.

        2. A public sector chum tests himself regularly, desperately hoping to get it so he can have two weeks off.

        3. Absolutely.
          This morning I was with a group of people, and was shocked at how every single one was totally brainwashed. A couple were disappointed that they aren't eligible for the free conjab this year (since the qualification age was raised from 70 to 75). They were talking about the 'new variant' that is, allegedly, building and causing illness – but NONE of them would accept that in 2020 regular flu cases more or less disappeared for the first time ever. I suspect they all watch TV news and read newspapers. We are surrounded by the gullible.
          Not that I bothered to broach the subject, but I bet they all want the digital ID control. You can't fix stupid.

          1. Its hard to believe that so many just do as they are told by the state and media. They never question anything from these sources.

      1. Not all of us unfortunately.
        There are many who still believe the lies that the Government told us.

        1. Our lib dumb neighbours test themselves every time they have a sniffle – and he then wears a facemask! Ostentatiously

          1. Unfortunately, that includes my very dear friend who has terminal cancer (3-6 months) and COPD. I think she actually enjoys the drama of the muzzles. When we go out for lunch or coffee, she religiously wears the rag (below her nose, natch) outside and until we sit down. It's very sad, but if it helps her feel more confident, at least she isn't harming anyone else.

  2. That link posted yesterday..
    Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Moran Stella Yanai..
    being so proud that her four children died when they tried to explode themselves to kill other people.
    she has two more grandchildren, and she can't wait for them to die too.

    Jihad. They've even put it in writing for the hard of hearing. There's even a not-so-gentle reminder on X & Ticky-Tokky.
    However, it took Owen Jones nineteen years to finally acknowledge that rape gangs do exist, and he still doesn't care two hoots.

    It's going to be a very long uphill battle to clear this mess up.

    1. "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us" – Golda Meir.

    2. Owen Jones is a strange, petulant, hypocritical, ignorant sort who can't take it but loves to spew it around.

      Thing is, like all Lefties he is simply wrong in everything he says, does and thinks.

  3. Lenny Henry 'comedian' uses a new book he has co-written called The Big Payback to push for the UK to shell out £18trillion in compensation – targeting not just Caribbean nations, but British citizens too.

    Sir Lenny teamed up with TV executive and diversity charity boss Marcus Ryder to write the book.
    LOL

    The thing is Lord Hermer agrees.

    1. I propose that Great Britain calls in the debt incurred stopping the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

      1. Don't forget;
        Pharaohs, Barbary pirates, Romans, North Korea, Eritrea, Mauritania, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia
        That'll be 180 Trillion in Lenny money.

        1. And the Belgians.

          And Austrians.

          Odd that you never hear Ozzies complaining about being deported as criminals. Is that because industrious white folk just got on with making their civilisation better rather than the lazy sub par blacks whinging and expecting someone else to solve their problems (as we always have).

          Next time they bleat and whine the best thing we can do is just leave them to it. Yes, millions of Africans will die to whatever is causing them a problem, but they need to be forced to solve their own problems.

      1. Is the only reference to Dawn French that she is fat?

        She's quite good in stand up. There are better, but then comedy is like beauty.

    2. Seeing as one theory is that the human race emerged in Africa, I will identify as black and collect my hand-out.

      1. It likely did. A hot area, surrounded by seas. Ideal for new life. The difference is we moved away, across joined land masses to this funny little place we now call home. Some even more mental folk went even further north.

        Then we all drifted apart.

        A few thousand years later we got some big wooden poles out and pushed ourselves away from Johnny Foreigner and became an island. Now Starmer is making sure we're chained to that thing we tried to escape and allowing the wasters we left behind to invade us again, with the inevitable consequences of low intelligence mud hutters used to banging rocks together suddenly finding they have access 21st century technology with stone age grievances..

    3. Henry has not done too badly for himself given that he would have been living in a mud hut had his forefathers not been sold into slavery.

      1. Good morning Kaypea

        Knighting celebs has cheapened the award system .. Why are people who clearly hate the UK awarded gongs and sword play ?

  4. Good morning all,

    October weather this morning , the ever optimistic golfer is wearing his shorts and is off out in his car, a nice 15mt journey via tanks and hooting lemurs for his tee off time in an hour!

    We know the hedgerows are full of berries , crab apples , hazel nuts etc , but the elderberry tree in our garden hedge has not produced any elderberries this year, why is that ?

      1. Yes , yes yes , the blossom was very scarce this year.

        Usually the pigeons have a real feast , but sadly none , and talking of birds , we have had no sign of anything in the garden , the lack of birds is making me feel very anxious .

        1. Good afternoon, Maggie. I just got back from a visit to my dental hygienist, who said to me "If you are ever anxious, inhale through your nose for four seconds, then exhale through your mouth for eight seconds. This is a good way to reduce anxiety and can be practised several times a day, even when not particularly anxious." Worth a try?

          1. Also a good way to increase your blood oxygen level. Deep breath in through the nose and breathe out through the mouth. A cardiac specialist nurse told me to pause and do that whenever I remember.

    1. Just a harsh thought.

      If he hadn't been released early from prison he might still be alive.

      1. We have the kind heartedness of Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum to thank for that. I wonder if he would have been freed if he was of a different hue?

        1. Given that it was consensual and only a month or so before the girl was 18 I wonder if he’d have been imprisoned if he was a different hue.
          Also I wonder whether they were aware of the man’s gangland connections or whether the mother, who reported it to the authorities, gave the game away or even if the girl was of a different hue.
          All very odd.

    2. What's the Queen song? 'Another one bites the dust'?

      Odd that the media kept showing that picture of him in his school uniform – just as they did the vile savage Kabana. All to play a narrative. He was a disgusting diversity thug.

    3. Not often you get a news article with a happy ending. How refreshing. Wish there were more like that.

    1. Leftists are, at heart, cowards. As soon as there's real opposition they run and hide to go and find some of their mates to make them feel better. They do this everywhere because they know they cannot debate using the arguments.

  5. A somewhat belated Good morning to all.
    A bit of a lie in today, but it's a bright and sunny start though the clear skies 20 minutes ago have began to cloud over.
    A tad over 11½°C this morning.

  6. Good morning, all. Overcast.

    Courtesy of The Lotus Eaters. Yesterday's podcast well worth a watch and listen.

    Carl, Josh, and Lewis Brackpool discuss the Conservative Party conference, the depths of digital ID, and how Britain is a tragic comedy.

    From the opening segment presented by Carl Benjamin aka @Sargon_of_Akkad. A review of the disaster that is the Conservative conference.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1cb5f11955b3a7505c8c5f7e1e996c0099cc8f8b4b04828b4709df8ccc0c63d1.png
    From the final segment presented by Josh Ferme: comparing the current situation with the fictional political comedy "The Thick of It".
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d06b0f06afcb3d6615d429e294f6a958a27a3eec39e8ca978b0ee96f4086e280.png

    Leadership? We're all in it together!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06a37c773ebfa45b6d49ce7f421e09123a729143fbac1fe542359ba5c37eb5b3.png

    Not a good idea.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/62579aa119a2f0699a873403356c74d3b19f81eddd7f557f4411cb81a33f1eee.png

    Initial estimate of cost – £1.25 million. Ten years of vacillating added an additional £8.25 million. Way to go!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8b3e7b2be8d5a84b17bf27f0e195350e379560d64b8668f08dd4fe8a54cc9e6.png

      1. I keep getting asked WTF is going on in the UK, and it uses a lot of time answering.

    1. Yes, but look at the adverts on the second screen shot. Firstly, that's not a muslim brat. It's a white kid, so folk will click on it. The second is even worse.

      I'd far prefer we did declare war on Israel, then sent all the muslim there – unarmed. Then we could say we're no longer at war with Israel and carry on.

  7. A BTL Comment:-

    A quote from Alison Pearson's excellent article:-
    "Hamas knew that there would be consequences to October 7,"

    Of course they did.
    Part of the plan was to weaponise those consequences to create a propaganda narrative that has swept round the world and, tragically, their plan has succeeded.
    Israel may win the Military War, but they will NEVER win the Propaganda War.

  8. Had the worst day ever. I paid a joiner to build me a double bed and he's done a bunk.
    It's just one thing on top of another.

  9. I like this..

    A Allan
    35 min ago
    Why do we have to travel from Dan to Beersheba to find Allison Pearson's articles?

    This is not the first time this has happened.

    What is going on at the Telegraph?

    Is it succumbing to pressure from the government or its new owners?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/two-years-on-labour-would-rather-appease-muslim-voters/

    I am just wondering whether I spoke to Alison Pearson yesterday on the beach, or Anne Allan or any of our Nottler ladies , because all reasonable discussion about the now , before and later is being aired by complete strangers needing to discuss our terrible state of our Nation ..

  10. SIR – Where are all the ladybirds coming from? I counted 10 on the sheets as I brought them in from the washing line, and there was one on the inside of the blind. I have never seen so many at once.

    Ellen Ross
    Stanley, Co Durham

    SIR – In case anyone was wondering what might eat ladybirds (“Bug invasion stops play at World Cup”, Sport, October 6), I can reliably inform interested parties that my litter of Labrador puppies thought this ladybird feast was laid on just for them.

    Elizabeth Harrington
    Higham, Suffolk

    What are these two dozy, gormless bints ranting on about? They clearly have no clue about the balance of nature (few do!).

    Remove all these ladybirds (one of nature's most effective predators) and you will have an epidemic of uncontrolled aphids, clouds of them attacking all your plants and your vegetables.

    1. So many people are totaly uninterested in expanding their kowledge of the world around them.
      So long as they have their hand held brain with them, thats all that matters.

      1. People, these days, are so disassociated with nature that they think they are no part of it. Well, I have news for them!

        I blame thick parents and even thicker teachers.

        1. In my generation people were scarcely one remove from someone who worked on the land (my grandfather farmed, my father was born on a farm), but these days, scarcely anybody unless they belong to a farming community has any connection with agriculture.

    2. They are on the move, Grizzly …to hibernation, often in window frames. I have a small window here which has no opener, it's a favourite of theirs…in Spring (depending on temperature) they will swarm out and if they find a way into garden – eat aphids eating greens…

      1. We also have a good number here, Kate. I've found a few in the car. They present no problem whatsoever and are easily picked up and placed elsewhere.

  11. Good morning Nottlers, 12°C, cloudy with westerly winds. I wonder what #TwoTierKeir will be giving away on his jolly to the Subcontinent?

    1. Well… it was fairly obvious on all those counts that he was blatantly lying.

      A lawyer who has fought to keep gimmigrants inn this country? Appointing Milioaf as net zero secretary? A hard Left Labour government, restrict any level of government spending?

      It would never happen. He was lying then, he lies now. All he does – all any of them do – is lie. Because we cannot control them and stop them wasting our money, they will keep lying.

    2. They have kept one promise – to impose VAT on private schools.

      25,000 pupils forced out of private schools since Labour took power.

      How proud Starmer and Phillipson are at having cruelly thwarted the aspirations and education of so many children and of sadistically imposing their VAT raid in the middle of the school year in order to hurt the children with special needs and those whose parents were already struggling to pay the school fees.

      1. I don't understand how, if education can be a human right how it can be considered a luxury good and acquire VAT.

        It is compulsory that children be in education. Suddenly that's now taxable. Then they simply gave the money stolen to their union paymasters inn a back hander.

      2. 25 000 pupils now occupying a taxpayer-funded school place, adding further strain to the system. Before, they were educated not at government expense, but now…

    3. Again with the thumb over the forefinger, when his mouth is moving…got to be a whopper…

    1. Their blankets and bowls were manufactured by whitey.

      They just simply picked up their sticks.

      1. Good afternoon, Grizzly

        Have you the words or a link to "A Blanket, a Bowl and a Stick' I can't find them on my computer.

        1. In the matter of racial comparisons
          The media shouts to the moon
          About all the historic achievements
          of the Redskin, Spic and the Coon

          Yet strangely when strolling museums
          The white mans creations stand thick
          but all we can find of those others
          is a blanket, a bowl and a stick

          No telephones, timeclocks or engines,
          No lights that go on with a flick.
          No airplanes or rockets or radios
          Just a blanket, a bowl and a stick

          Not one sioux indian submarine,
          No african ice cream to lick,
          not a single mexican x ray machine,
          it's a blanket, a bowl and a stick

          So remember when historys the subject,
          and revisionists are up to their tricks,
          the evidence tells quite another tale
          of a blanket, a bowl and a stick

          A poem by A.Wyatt Mann

    2. Sure the 2025 picture isn't from one of the immigrant enclaves in the UK?
      Oh, yes, the clue is that the sun is shining…

    3. Their IQ levels must be rather low. So many appear to be totally lazy bar stewards to make it even worse.

    1. Labour appointed muslim in Chakrabalty to say they were not anti-Semitic. Of course, she found they weren't. Then she got a peerage and vanished.

      Labour of course, are. Corbyn refuses to adopt the international term for anti-Semitism for goodness sake. They're a vile party of Jew hating bigots.

    2. Lovely!
      Why has not the UK lit up the House of Commons in the same manner? Oh, I forgot, the UK is less than one step from being the new Caliphate.

      1. As muslim is the violent one, it's fairly obvious it's them.

        An easier way to do it – cut off welfare for any immigrant who has not been here for ten years. Scrap child benefit and housing benefit. See the muslim head for the door while the Christian goes back to work.

      2. There are only three possibilities:-
        1. Christianity is true and Islam is false.
        2. Islam is true and Christianity is false.
        3. Both Christianity and Islam are false.

        In any event, Islam denies the central tenet of Christianity, which is that Christ is the son of God and the Redeemer of the world. Why Christians do not realise this fact and still accept Islam as worshipping the same God, I have no idea.

        1. It never was the same God.
          Allah is based on the deity that the Arabs worshipped before Muhammad embroidered his narrative with plagiarised bits of the Old and New Testament.

    1. Thanks, Sue:-) I liked this reel very much. My husband is fond of telling me I am the most Catholic person he knows who isn't actually a Catholic. I give him a blank look which he thinks proves he's correct…what…

  12. Good morning everyone.
    Here's something to skew the statistics: yesterday there was a DT letter about the late Jilly Cooper (a writer – Ed.) from a lady in Horsted Keynes, Sussex.
    Today there is another letter about Mrs Cooper, from a different lady in … Horsted Keynes, Sussex.
    Could they be related, or is there a secret Cooper Commemoration Society in the heart of East Sussex?

    1. I hope they are in no way related to Yvette.

      Talking of a literary people with a homophonic name, here is a poem by William Cowper:

      The Nightingale and The Glow Worm

      (William Cowper)

      A nightingale, that all day long
      Had cheered the village with his song,
      Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
      Nor yet when eventide was ended,
      Began to feel, as well he might,
      The keen demands of appetite;
      When, looking eagerly around,
      He spied far off, upon the ground,
      A something shining in the dark,
      And knew the glow-worm by his spark;
      So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
      He thought to put him in his crop;
      The worm, aware of his intent,
      Harangued him thus right eloquent:

      "Did you admire my lamp," quoth he,
      "As much as I your minstrelsy,
      You would abhor to do me wrong,
      As much as I to spoil your song,
      For 'twas the self-same power divine
      Taught you to sing, and me to shine,
      That you with music, I with light,
      Might beautify and cheer the night."
      The songster heard his short oration,
      And warbling out his approbation,
      Released him, as my story tells,
      And found a supper somewhere else.

      Hence jarring sectaries may learn,
      Their real interest to discern:
      That brother should not war with brother,
      And worry and devour each other,
      But sing and shine by sweet consent,
      Till life's poor transient night is spent,
      Respecting in each other's case
      The gifts of nature and of grace.

      Those Christians best deserve the name,
      Who studiously make peace their aim;
      Peace, both the duty and the prize
      Of him that creeps and him that flies.

  13. Weather holding up in a seaside village in Valencia. High today 24 degrees and sunny. Still threatening rain for the holiday weekend. Puente beginning tomorrow

  14. Tee-hee.

    Before wrapping yourself in a Tommy Robinson-branded Union Jack and £20 bucket hat and heading to a migrant hotel, would you like to know where they were made?

    The anti-Muslim activist has been furiously promoting clothing from his Unite The Kingdom range but it turns out the UK-emblazoned t-shirts, caps and key rings weren’t made in this country by British workers.

    Robinson’s merch range was actually manufactured in Bangladesh, a majority Muslim country, the Daily Mail revealed.

    The label on the products, that only arrive after the obligatory 14-day shipping from Asia, actually say ‘Made in Bangladesh’.

    https://metro.co.uk/2025/10/05/tommy-robinson-hawking-patriotic-clothing-made-muslims-bangladeshi-sweatshops-24346456/

    1. Just about all the tat that is sold in this country is from China or the 3rd world, so not exactly a great surprise. With the awful 'halloween' arriving soon, the shops will be full of unnecessary plastic rubbish that will be discarded next day.

      1. My nearest 'Spoons is already highly decorated with Halloween tat, as was the front of a house I passed yesterday. It's been available in stores since early September and there's still 23 days to go.

          1. The main reason I can see for this surge of interest in Halloween is the influence of US television and cinema. Furthermore, interest in Guy Fawkes or Bonfire night is waning, partly due to tighter restrictions on the sale of fireworks and a growing frowning on the lighting of bonfires.

            Decorative plastic banners declare "Happy Halloween". While it's supposed to be an evening of fun, it seems on odd sentiment for an occasion devoted to being scary.

          2. Our local small branch of Morrison's has a big box of sad-looking, rather on the small side pumpkins – I didn't notice anyone buying them.

          3. I first encountered Trick or Treat when living in a village near Catterick in 1991. I had previously only heard of it in Peanuts cartoons.

        1. I was in Spoons on Saturday, as a great supporter of Tim Martin. However, it is sometimes difficult to make out which are the halloween props and the clientel on a Saturday night.

      2. Yes, landfill near all of us. I know a chap works in refuse collection, he knows people who work in recycling – tells me very little is recycled, mostly burnt, dumped at sea or in landfill.

        1. Yes. We have blue bins for recyclables. The council's own statistics show only 19% of that is actually recycled.

          And my neighbour still washes out her tins.

          What's the point?

          1. Keeps her busy I suppose 😀 I think for plastics they have to be labelled numerically and something like only 1, 2, 3 are recyclable. I've also read manufacturers say costs less to make new plastic than recycle, perhaps that's one reason they don't want to do it – cost, passed onto consumers = fewer sales.

          2. Good advice, Phiz, will pick you up on that one. Good news today, for me anyway – it’s not the Covid virus which causes long Covid, but instead it is the Covid vaccine. Vindication!

          3. We have a green box, a green bag and beige sacks for non-recyclable waste. No wheelie bins on the Hill.

    2. There is practically nothing made or owned by the British. British Airway, for example, is a Spanish owned company and so are most of the Scottish whisky distillery companies. Boots, Selfridges, Fortnum and Mason, Harrods, Rolls Royce, Jaguar and 70 per cent of all Englands water companies just a few more examples.

  15. For the avoidance of confusion…

    Two years on from Oct 7, Labour would rather appease its Muslim voters than root out anti-Semitism

    Several Cabinet ministers need the community's votes to shore up slim majorities

    Allison Pearson
    7th October 2025, 7:00pm BST

    This is the second anniversary of that monstrous festival of mass murder in southern Israel when small children watched their parents being executed, a grandmother's murder was livestreamed to her relatives, and entire families were burned alive.

    I will be taking part in an event in London: October 7: A Time to Speak. When the 'Our Fight' organisers told me that 20 police officers had been assigned to protect us, I didn't know whether to be relieved or appalled. Had it really come to this? Simply to stand publicly in our capital city against anti-Semitism and show solidarity with our wonderfully loyal Jewish citizens against a tsunami of hate from the "be kind" brigade now requires high security. Tragically, it has come to this.

    After the despicable attack during Yom Kippur on a Manchester synagogue, such a stand feels even more essential, particularly because, in the days after two Jewish men were killed, various media outlets, including the BBC, reported that police were still "searching for the motive". Seriously? You could have asked any of the people trembling and crying in fear behind those synagogue doors, held shut against the knife-wielding Jihad (Holy War) Al-Shamie by courageous members of the community, and they would have told you, without hesitation, what his motive was: Islamist hatred of Jews.

    You may have noticed the authorities are very reluctant to put a name to Islamist extremism and the cancer of anti-Semitism that has metastasised in our broadcasters and institutions, and spilled on to our streets over the past two years. So reluctant that the Government is even working on a definition of Islamophobia to prevent hatred against Muslims, or so they claim, but mainly to try and stop us talking about the problem at all.

    After numerous heinous terror attacks by second-generation immigrants from the Middle East, Somalia and Pakistan (Mr Holy War Al-Shamie was born in Syria), it should be perfectly clear that it is Jews, Christians and everyone else who need protecting against Islamist hate, not the other way around.

    After the sickening barbarity of October 7 2023, Al-Shamie's surgeon father, Faraj, posted on Facebook that Hamas thugs were "Allah's men on earth". Instead of deporting him, Britain gave him a council house. Of course we did. Who needs to build a wooden horse when the Leftist fools give their enemies first dibs on social housing?

    Along with the undocumented young males swarming ashore on our south coast, rancid anti-Semites pose a risk not just to Jews but, ultimately, to all of us who enjoy the British way of life. A fact that Telegraph columnist Jake Wallis Simons points out with eloquent urgency in his new book, Never Again: How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself.

    Yet, every month, thousands more Jew-haters are waved in with negligible checks, and MI5 is expected to keep tabs on more than 40,000 jihadists on the UK's terror watchlist. We must be stark, staring mad.

    I am not Jewish, but I was never in any doubt that the Hamas attack was a great ripping of the fine gauze of civilisation. Barbarian hordes rampaged through peaceful kibbutzim in a frenzy of depravity; the killers and rapists were "excited and happy", the freed hostage Eli Sharabi told me. As documents released this week reveal, the carnage was planned in grotesque specificity with an eye on how to hoodwink and manipulate international supporters.

    Over the past two years, I have spoken to shell-shocked young Israelis who saw their friends hunted down and slaughtered at the Nova music festival, to grieving parents and bereft spouses, to an architect, Shari Mendes, who led an all-female volunteer team tending to scores of young women's bodies. For as long as I live, I will never forget Shari's description of legs hacked off, groins and breasts shot, a perfectly manicured hand without an arm, the attempt to gently remove a nose ring from a once beautiful face with no face. Not one girl's body was in a fit state to be shown to her parents, Shari said. Not one.

    Normally, such extreme sexual violence and cruelty would provoke only sympathy and compassion. At Liverpool University, students the same age as those poor, dead girls have decided to mark those atrocities with a "Palestine Bake Sale: Time for Dessert." Time to hang your heads in shame, you deluded young idiots; Hamas would kill you in a heartbeat.

    Sir Keir Starmer, faced with pro-Palestine protests at more than a dozen universities on what should be a solemn day of remembrance, found the moral compass he had somehow mislaid down the back of the sofa. The Prime Minister said anti-Semitism was a threat to the country's values. He warned students not to take part in "un-British" protests marking the anniversary and accused those who call for violence against Jews of a "total loss of empathy and humanity".

    In an article in The Times, Starmer noted that many Jews in Britain "are living in fear and hiding their identities amid concern for their safety". You don't say.

    Is this fellow who is suddenly so concerned about anti-Semitism any relation to the Keir Starmer who has remained conspicuously silent on the subject of the weekly hate marches with their calls to "globalise the intifada" (by murdering Jews in Manchester, for instance)? The leader who, only a fortnight ago and to the despair of most British Jews, recognised a Palestinian state, while 48 Israeli hostages (20 of whom are believed to be still alive) were still detained in hell by Hamas.

    That action was greeted warmly – by the Labour Left and terrorist leaders, one of whom declared it to be a "victory" and a "fruit" of the October 7 massacre of 1,200 men, women, children and babies. I honestly didn't think I could loathe this Government more, but my country rewarding a group responsible for the worst slaughter of Jews since Auschwitz induced feelings of shame and helplessness.

    Is this also the Keir Starmer whose foreign secretary (David Lammy) told a Commons select committee that it could not conclude that the IDF action in Gaza, although bloody and terrible as war is always bloody and terrible, was genocide because the Genocide Convention says such an act must be based on a "specific intent to destroy an ethnic, racial or religious group". (Surely it is Hamas that is genocidal with its charter committed to the elimination of the Jews?) Not a single minister has admitted that fact publicly. Nor has that weasel of a PM rebuked any of his activist MPs who continue to bandy about the term "genocide" exacerbating the threat to Jews every time they do so.

    On this darkest day of all dark days, let us at least honour the dead by telling the truth. Starmer has found it politically expedient to turn his back on the UK's Jewish community, leaving them exposed and vulnerable. Jews were well aware it was a case of not if, but when, an attack would come. Their concerns were ignored until an Islamist embarked on murder in Manchester.

    A Faustian pact exists between this Labour Government and the four-million-strong Muslim voting bloc which it needs to shore up the marginal seats of several Cabinet ministers while seeing off the threat from a Corbynist-Green pro-Gaza alliance. If that means looking the other way while there is an obscene resurgence of anti-Semitism – pro-Palestine doctors spewing hate without losing their NHS jobs, Jewish children warned not to wear their school blazers outdoors in case they incite hatred against themselves – well, too bad. The Jews may be among our most well-integrated, productive and patriotic citizens (none has so far committed a terrorist attack) but, at fewer than 300,000 strong, they are expendable.

    That is the shabby, morally threadbare choice Sir Keir has made even as he cloaks himself in the shining raiment of outraged virtue. I wonder if Victoria Starmer, who is Jewish, would relate to the distressed friend of mine who texted: "We sit in synagogue and feel like we have targets on our back."

    I am not impressed that Shabana Mahmood is taking action to be able to ban the marches. A request by Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley could achieve that, but I am told Sir Mark is too afraid of a backlash from Mayor Sadiq Khan. I am concerned that, at this divisive historic moment, we have a Home Secretary who attended a pro-Palestine demonstration outside a supermarket because it was stocking Israeli goods. Is anyone else bothered about a potential lack of impartiality?

    Two years on, I am dismayed by the combination of cowardly political appeasement of Islamists and the credulous spouting of Hamas propaganda by the BBC that continues to demonise Israel as uniquely evil when the real devils reside elsewhere. As Wallis Simons says, "Hamas has brainwashed us into thinking it is Israel – and we – who are to blame."

    One thing is for sure: if we go on letting Jihad Al-Shamies into our country the Jews will leave. We can either take hard choices and deport the enemies of our way of life or meekly surrender to anti-Semitism and un-British values. When I speak at the event later, it will be very emotional. I will think of the victims of October 7, of the great evil that befell them that day, and of the attempt by Israel to make sure it never happens again. Trust me, their fight is our fight.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/two-years-on-labour-would-rather-appease-muslim-voters

    1. Lady Victoria Starmer Is Jewish, and therefore so are her and her husband's children. Discretion perhaps the better part of valour.

      1. Her mother converted to Judaism on her marriage. Does that still make Victoria Sponge Jewish?

        1. Jew haters aren't that bothered. In Nazi Germany any whiff of it in your family tree and you were done for. On October 7th just being in Israel was enough, that included murdering Muslims.

        2. I had two Jewish friends whose wives converted to Judaism when they married. Both marriages were successful.

          There are rumours that Victoria Sponge is unhappily married and that Keir Starmer is homosexual but I do not know whether there is any truth in this or whether it is just malicious gossip.

          I must confess that like most people I am more ready to believe malicious gossip about people I dislike than about people whom I like!

          1. Try to keep an open mind, Richard, whether you think the malicious gossip is about people you like or dislike. After all, gossip, malicious or not, is just gossip.

    2. Faraj al Shame.

      Trained as a doctor. Further training in UK. Becomes a trauma surgeon.

      Why is he living in a council house?

      They are all fucking parasites.

    3. Stop using the wrong terms – it isn't islamIST, it's islamIC. It's a result of the teachings of submission.

  16. For the avoidance of confusion…

    Two years on from Oct 7, Labour would rather appease its Muslim voters than root out anti-Semitism

    Several Cabinet ministers need the community's votes to shore up slim majorities

    Allison Pearson
    7th October 2025, 7:00pm BST

    This is the second anniversary of that monstrous festival of mass murder in southern Israel when small children watched their parents being executed, a grandmother's murder was livestreamed to her relatives, and entire families were burned alive.

    I will be taking part in an event in London: October 7: A Time to Speak. When the 'Our Fight' organisers told me that 20 police officers had been assigned to protect us, I didn't know whether to be relieved or appalled. Had it really come to this? Simply to stand publicly in our capital city against anti-Semitism and show solidarity with our wonderfully loyal Jewish citizens against a tsunami of hate from the "be kind" brigade now requires high security. Tragically, it has come to this.

    After the despicable attack during Yom Kippur on a Manchester synagogue, such a stand feels even more essential, particularly because, in the days after two Jewish men were killed, various media outlets, including the BBC, reported that police were still "searching for the motive". Seriously? You could have asked any of the people trembling and crying in fear behind those synagogue doors, held shut against the knife-wielding Jihad (Holy War) Al-Shamie by courageous members of the community, and they would have told you, without hesitation, what his motive was: Islamist hatred of Jews.

    You may have noticed the authorities are very reluctant to put a name to Islamist extremism and the cancer of anti-Semitism that has metastasised in our broadcasters and institutions, and spilled on to our streets over the past two years. So reluctant that the Government is even working on a definition of Islamophobia to prevent hatred against Muslims, or so they claim, but mainly to try and stop us talking about the problem at all.

    After numerous heinous terror attacks by second-generation immigrants from the Middle East, Somalia and Pakistan (Mr Holy War Al-Shamie was born in Syria), it should be perfectly clear that it is Jews, Christians and everyone else who need protecting against Islamist hate, not the other way around.

    After the sickening barbarity of October 7 2023, Al-Shamie's surgeon father, Faraj, posted on Facebook that Hamas thugs were "Allah's men on earth". Instead of deporting him, Britain gave him a council house. Of course we did. Who needs to build a wooden horse when the Leftist fools give their enemies first dibs on social housing?

    Along with the undocumented young males swarming ashore on our south coast, rancid anti-Semites pose a risk not just to Jews but, ultimately, to all of us who enjoy the British way of life. A fact that Telegraph columnist Jake Wallis Simons points out with eloquent urgency in his new book, Never Again: How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself.

    Yet, every month, thousands more Jew-haters are waved in with negligible checks, and MI5 is expected to keep tabs on more than 40,000 jihadists on the UK's terror watchlist. We must be stark, staring mad.

    I am not Jewish, but I was never in any doubt that the Hamas attack was a great ripping of the fine gauze of civilisation. Barbarian hordes rampaged through peaceful kibbutzim in a frenzy of depravity; the killers and rapists were "excited and happy", the freed hostage Eli Sharabi told me. As documents released this week reveal, the carnage was planned in grotesque specificity with an eye on how to hoodwink and manipulate international supporters.

    Over the past two years, I have spoken to shell-shocked young Israelis who saw their friends hunted down and slaughtered at the Nova music festival, to grieving parents and bereft spouses, to an architect, Shari Mendes, who led an all-female volunteer team tending to scores of young women's bodies. For as long as I live, I will never forget Shari's description of legs hacked off, groins and breasts shot, a perfectly manicured hand without an arm, the attempt to gently remove a nose ring from a once beautiful face with no face. Not one girl's body was in a fit state to be shown to her parents, Shari said. Not one.

    Normally, such extreme sexual violence and cruelty would provoke only sympathy and compassion. At Liverpool University, students the same age as those poor, dead girls have decided to mark those atrocities with a "Palestine Bake Sale: Time for Dessert." Time to hang your heads in shame, you deluded young idiots; Hamas would kill you in a heartbeat.

    Sir Keir Starmer, faced with pro-Palestine protests at more than a dozen universities on what should be a solemn day of remembrance, found the moral compass he had somehow mislaid down the back of the sofa. The Prime Minister said anti-Semitism was a threat to the country's values. He warned students not to take part in "un-British" protests marking the anniversary and accused those who call for violence against Jews of a "total loss of empathy and humanity".

    In an article in The Times, Starmer noted that many Jews in Britain "are living in fear and hiding their identities amid concern for their safety". You don't say.

    Is this fellow who is suddenly so concerned about anti-Semitism any relation to the Keir Starmer who has remained conspicuously silent on the subject of the weekly hate marches with their calls to "globalise the intifada" (by murdering Jews in Manchester, for instance)? The leader who, only a fortnight ago and to the despair of most British Jews, recognised a Palestinian state, while 48 Israeli hostages (20 of whom are believed to be still alive) were still detained in hell by Hamas.

    That action was greeted warmly – by the Labour Left and terrorist leaders, one of whom declared it to be a "victory" and a "fruit" of the October 7 massacre of 1,200 men, women, children and babies. I honestly didn't think I could loathe this Government more, but my country rewarding a group responsible for the worst slaughter of Jews since Auschwitz induced feelings of shame and helplessness.

    Is this also the Keir Starmer whose foreign secretary (David Lammy) told a Commons select committee that it could not conclude that the IDF action in Gaza, although bloody and terrible as war is always bloody and terrible, was genocide because the Genocide Convention says such an act must be based on a "specific intent to destroy an ethnic, racial or religious group". (Surely it is Hamas that is genocidal with its charter committed to the elimination of the Jews?) Not a single minister has admitted that fact publicly. Nor has that weasel of a PM rebuked any of his activist MPs who continue to bandy about the term "genocide" exacerbating the threat to Jews every time they do so.

    On this darkest day of all dark days, let us at least honour the dead by telling the truth. Starmer has found it politically expedient to turn his back on the UK's Jewish community, leaving them exposed and vulnerable. Jews were well aware it was a case of not if, but when, an attack would come. Their concerns were ignored until an Islamist embarked on murder in Manchester.

    A Faustian pact exists between this Labour Government and the four-million-strong Muslim voting bloc which it needs to shore up the marginal seats of several Cabinet ministers while seeing off the threat from a Corbynist-Green pro-Gaza alliance. If that means looking the other way while there is an obscene resurgence of anti-Semitism – pro-Palestine doctors spewing hate without losing their NHS jobs, Jewish children warned not to wear their school blazers outdoors in case they incite hatred against themselves – well, too bad. The Jews may be among our most well-integrated, productive and patriotic citizens (none has so far committed a terrorist attack) but, at fewer than 300,000 strong, they are expendable.

    That is the shabby, morally threadbare choice Sir Keir has made even as he cloaks himself in the shining raiment of outraged virtue. I wonder if Victoria Starmer, who is Jewish, would relate to the distressed friend of mine who texted: "We sit in synagogue and feel like we have targets on our back."

    I am not impressed that Shabana Mahmood is taking action to be able to ban the marches. A request by Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley could achieve that, but I am told Sir Mark is too afraid of a backlash from Mayor Sadiq Khan. I am concerned that, at this divisive historic moment, we have a Home Secretary who attended a pro-Palestine demonstration outside a supermarket because it was stocking Israeli goods. Is anyone else bothered about a potential lack of impartiality?

    Two years on, I am dismayed by the combination of cowardly political appeasement of Islamists and the credulous spouting of Hamas propaganda by the BBC that continues to demonise Israel as uniquely evil when the real devils reside elsewhere. As Wallis Simons says, "Hamas has brainwashed us into thinking it is Israel – and we – who are to blame."

    One thing is for sure: if we go on letting Jihad Al-Shamies into our country the Jews will leave. We can either take hard choices and deport the enemies of our way of life or meekly surrender to anti-Semitism and un-British values. When I speak at the event later, it will be very emotional. I will think of the victims of October 7, of the great evil that befell them that day, and of the attempt by Israel to make sure it never happens again. Trust me, their fight is our fight.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/two-years-on-labour-would-rather-appease-muslim-voters

  17. Can a few of you remember when eating chicken was regarded as an expensive treat , a luxury .. Enjoyed on special days ?

    Chicken is now an ethnic necessity, a cheap meat , eaten by millions every day .

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9dcb75e2dca4695f1d7fb418fa5dfaf80e7c7a92c9873e4ab3f87795cae58756.jpg
    Thousands of people are seeking substantial damages and for the waterway to be cleaned of a ‘mountain of chicken manure’ https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/biggest-uk-pollution-case-river-wye-9zrs2rld5

    1. I remember very well. Always asked for chicken when I was small and my mother would reply we can only buy it when it's on special. It's very expensive. But I do remember they were much bigger
      Eggs too were expensive.
      My Spanish mother in law used to say to her children Cuando seas padre comerás huevos.( When you're a parent you'll eat eggs) whenever the kids protested about something not being fair.
      My English grandma told of her father coming home from work having one boiled egg for his tea and giving her the top of it.

    2. Yes, Christmas Day dinner at my grandmother's the only time I remember it. My mother would make 'beef stew' mostly consisting of carrots.

        1. We called pearl barley, ‘blackamoors teeth! Not sure I’d get away with that now!😱

          1. You just did, Sue..well done! I think dentists would do gold fillings at one time, on front teeth..?

          2. Yes, my first French teacher had a gold filling. I used to be fascinated watching it glinting! Amazing I did as well in French as I did, really!

      1. Always at Easter. We kept our own, and geese which were foul tempered and attcked small children such as me.

    3. I drove alongside the Wye from Chepstow to Ross on Wye a couple of years back, August 2021 in fact, and can confirm that back then the water was a VERY murky green looking with the algae feeding on the nutrients from the chicken shit polluting it from further upstream, effectively killing off much of the natural plant life in the river.
      Which, of course, allows me to show off some of the photos I took at the time!
      Chepstow Bridge https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/96f11659dbc1844aec35c62fc86ae658d7cd37d1628e2ccd4389742ae9f5e802.jpg Looking up the Wye to Chepstow Castle https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0a4dd5d77ee8143d21b4579e72706dc4e894ba4b0c98fa82078963a64707819.jpg And looking downstream https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c7d5a973c70bc309e0088210ea68f2e1c9f64269c0d9e836cc9c3c2e90c28eb.jpg The Wye from Wintour's Leap https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7770d9dc0324b584258b0ec292ee41335bf55a5b1c848068b4d08560343f1ae9.jpg The other direction showing how the river meanders https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d2f156b48e0033cb1e2604a9cdad3394598c5a22c62bbc9a9dee115fac97974.jpg Tintern https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8130cf1c2c2bc5274539e1e4f5cd4863a92f4b116d680ac027691b8c68daba6b.jpg Tintern Abbey https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0185cf1c6b81a8bcd9a203a0bdf65d8aa8413c99742c66f5adfe51f3bbe20c17.jpg Monmouth Bridge https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dff103e6edae1a035dc20f308e3125b4ed9d0c87af5c90b515892fe1da3fa0c1.jpg

          1. Given the age of it and the weight of traffic it's carried over the years, it's not done badly.

    4. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76474e51323f50102c39c4c4e27a431a9dd3731d94354fd883070d9fe4106da9.png
      "I'll go and pick a fowl for dinner", said my grandad. ["chicken" was a word only used for the little yellow fluffy things]. He then selected one from the coop, wrung its neck, then plucked and gutted it for Sunday dinner.

      My paternal grandparents had a fowl coop at the bottom of their garden, where delicious fresh chooky-eggs were had daily. Having a roast fowl for Sunday dinner was a not-very-often treat. The flavour was deep and sensational [nothing remotely like the bland, flavour-free 'oven-ready' crap that is omnipresent today].

      The photograph, above [c.1951], shows an infant me sitting on grandma's lap while feeding the chooky-fowls. They also had a bantam cockerel, named "Billy Cock" who was a terror. He would only permit grandma and me into his domain. My father and grandfather were terrified to go there since he inevitably flew at them in a rage, spurs bared!

      Happy, halcyon days of yore. Sigh!

      1. And the chooks recycled all the kitchen trimmings and as if by magic paid you back with eggs.

        The majority of chickens are mass produced intensively farmed. They are dire.

        You can still buy decent chickens but you have to pay £20 to £30 for one.

      2. My parents kept chickens like that; when one was killed, my father wrung its neck, I plucked it and my mother drew and cooked it. Division of labour.

      3. You looked like a very cute baby, and not wearing a hat for once ..

        Your grandma must have given you some nice cuddles , you were so fair haired , just like her.

    5. Chicken, like turkey, is utterly tasteless, and only good for getting tasty sauces into your mouth without using a spoon.

      1. It can be made more tasty with appropriate herbs, spices and garlic. On its own it's very bland.

        1. I stuff chicken breasts with Boursin cheese and wrap with streaky bacon then 15 min in air fryer

      2. Pipe softened garlic butter between the breast and the skin. Then a good sprinkling of sea salt. Then roast.

    1. Ffs. I would want to jump off the plane. What an utter prick. Why is he allowed in the cockpit anyway? Don’t the rules apply to him?

    2. If that's taken during flight, it not only is one of the stupidest things to do (there was a Russian passenger flight brought down by the pilot's son sitting in the right-hand seat), but almost certainly illegal

      1. The vid appears to show the plane on the ground. One of our pilots let a footballer in up front for a look around in flight. Someone shopped him and it gave the company the grounds to fire him, something they had been trying to do for a while. He was the Sun's go to RAF chappie in the Gulf war!

  18. Two years on from Oct 7, Labour would rather appease its Muslim voters than root out anti-Semitism
    Allison Pearson: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/two-years-on-labour-would-rather-appease-muslim-voters/

    BTL

    “Chaos umpire sits
    And by decision more embroils the fray by which he reigns."

    We need to heed John Milton's description of how Satan ran Hell in 'Paradise Lost' – but will our politicians ever take note of the fact that Islam is not compatible with civilised western societies whose laws and customs are based on Judeo-Christian ethics and philosophy?

    1. Nicely hidden away by the DT.
      This is the second time her articles have been denied headline position. I wonder if the DT is bowing to government control or new owners.

    2. Well said Allison, a rare voice of reason and truth in a sea of false journalism, the press in general and the hateful BBC in particular need to be expurgated and banished to some leftie paradise, such as North Korea, where their anti-Semitism and misguided talents will be much appreciated.

  19. Had to check out several hundred possible answers. The answer's in the answer:
    Wordle 1,572 4/6

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

  20. Ljubljana in Slovenia is a lovely city with fine buildings. However, over the course of the past nine years since I was last there, mindless graffiti has been daubed to outstretched arm height on many of the buildings in the side streets adjoining the city centre. Such a shame. A feature that the city authorities should be ashamed of. Here's a photo of part of the city centre mercifully free of graffiti.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9de702b18e5e601850410c71f8eb761a6511d81a3e1b44f1a7979b7ea6a4225b.jpg

    Does anyone have any idea as to why they should commemorate Alf Garnet?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/955f85955bea0eb1f3b45348ada297ec496cc5a841225b25446cc7c1c86270d5.jpg

    1. Graffiti is a scourge. Nearly all of it is talentless scrawl and daubs. It defaces almost all surfaces where it appears. Although it's as old as civilisation, it seems more ubiquitous than ever. Scrubbing surfaces clean offers only temporary relief as it begins to reappear within days. Like litter, it seems nothing much can be done to thwart it.

      1. It's so easy to do. Tin of spray paint, fat-nibbed marker, and Robert is your Father's brother.

      2. What is needed is a serious deterrent, Stig. If anyone caught painting graffiti were to be immediately executed, then eventually the message would get through that painting graffiti is not worth the risk.

      3. Did not see any when I was in SIngapore. But then they take law and order seriously.

    2. "It's yer bleedin' foreigners innit?" as Alf himself might have said, King Richard.

  21. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be6c79d16ad7f2f97e0742f92747ff45c111a9f1e219a07fc6f958540c227de0.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb860add8e1c91c411d125997c3a2a09ee547584995bfcd61800c8337b739382.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d1afe1dfb74f2582a9cbdcfd7e2ae1a2358def77fc88081c78c78eabcbbb7df.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/27c70440d00fa406ad938cd2745c2da6320225a05962aa6e50a15fec4534c0ab.jpg Standing in the bathroom, yesterday, looking through the clear-glass window, hoping for the re-emergence of the red squirrel was a fruitless exercise. He/she failed to show.

    I was, though, entertained by some of the birdlife present. First a scavenging great tit Parus major used the ancient lamp over the adjacent old house as a vantage point.

    A good number of chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collybita were present in the small copse and one obliged me by perching on the honeysuckle just 15 yards in front of me.

    Another decided to have a long refreshment in the bird bath, and it wasn't long before he was joined by a solitary goldcrest Regulus regulus who was also evidently feeing in need of a wash-and-brush-up.

    1. Great pictures. I think the first one is a coal tit, parus ater, Grizz. The back of the great tit's head is black and it has a black stripe down its breast.

      1. Thanks, Del.

        I can see your point, but we don't get coal tits here. Also, coal tits are much smaller and do not have any distinct green on them, and very little (and quite muted) yellowishness on its cheeks and breast. They also have an extensive white patch on the nape of their neck.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0c21417f9aaae185fab11f689ea47258df5f158c79cf0c8758f07c5fd1ca564.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b61c915fe92e6c09e85ee4254a85e882da3fdc19a46311469529610060b4c177.png
        Great tits are one of the commonest birds in my garden and I see them daily.

        Since I posted the photos I have photographed a Marsh tit Poecile palustris in my garden. I'll upload it later.

        1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f35d7d0efaf031c7ad079f7adca969d097fbcd5fc926dd577f6604d7f20dcd35.png Here is a view of the same great tit after it had dropped into the vegetation. This view shows its broad black chest stripe, clearly indicating that it is a male.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/abb2243185df7a1818fedac2d69ba0a6073b37d3dc90e00dee9a89271a5a199f.png As promised, here is the photo of the marsh tit that turned up a bit later. We get a good number of marsh tits but I've not yet had any of the similar willow tits Poecile montanus here.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0533f9b614c056458e1dea6a064b353fd6b5706e6f0078c0bd44d24ce16d9fe4.png This past week has also seen a good number of robins in the garden too.

          1. A lot of things blew my mind about birds’ plumage when I was a licensed bird-ringer in the 1990s, Del. I have ringed a good number of bird species, including blue, great, marsh, willow, coal and long-tailed tits.
            Examining birds in the hand is a strange experience at first especially as some species cannot be identified clearly until certain measurements are taken (the marsh/willow tit conundrum being notable).
            Sometimes, colours of plumage are not what you’d expect. For example, blackbirds from the continent are much more lacklustre than the British ones; their bills and eyes are much duller and the plumage is drab.
            We used to catch a lot of birds previously ringed elsewhere and the differences, in many cases, were marked. Bullfinches from Russia have a different call to British ones.

  22. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be6c79d16ad7f2f97e0742f92747ff45c111a9f1e219a07fc6f958540c227de0.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb860add8e1c91c411d125997c3a2a09ee547584995bfcd61800c8337b739382.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d1afe1dfb74f2582a9cbdcfd7e2ae1a2358def77fc88081c78c78eabcbbb7df.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/27c70440d00fa406ad938cd2745c2da6320225a05962aa6e50a15fec4534c0ab.jpg Standing in the bathroom, yesterday, looking through the clear-glass window, hoping for the re-emergence of the red squirrel was a fruitless exercise. He/she failed to show.

    I was, though, entertained by some of the birdlife present. First a scavenging great tit Parus major used the ancient lamp over the adjacent old house as a vantage point.

    A good number of chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collybita were present in the small copse and one obliged me by perching on the honeysuckle just 15 yards in front of me.

    Another decided to have a long refreshment in the bird bath, and it wasn't long before he was joined by a solitary goldcrest Regulus regulus who was also evidently feeing in need of a wash-and-brush-up.

  23. 413896+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Triple lock old cock,seems to be on the crest of a wave sailing into the scrapping dock.

    Dt
    Tom Tugendhat attacked the triple lock for propping up the old at the expense of the young in a Tory Party conference speech Credit: Ian Forsyth/Getty

    What youth would that be, those that want to deny granny
    heat and eat or those foreign youth turning up daily on the incoming tide of indigenous misfortune.

    Glaringly this anti Brit. lab/lib/con coalition who initially set up the odious invasion are now setting about giving the electorate
    the death dealing material needed in their political mindset to return them to power.

    No mention at the conference I suppose via the fact that todays indigenous youth is tomorrows pensioner.

    And as all the contents of the HP sauce factory continue to waffle, regurgitate, waffle old shite again & again the boats continue to come in.

      1. Two tier policing. But don't worry. Labour got themselves to say they were not, so there.

      2. Starmer has certainly earned his soubriquet TTK.

        It is one of the few things he has actually achieved!

    1. The sad thing is the top image is not satire, but truth. Starmer did fight against a father trying to keep his daughter away from pakistani muslim paedophile rapists.

      1. The top cartoon should be projected onto the walls of the Houses of Parliament and other government buildings just as the ant-Semitic slogan From the River to the Sea was projected onto Big Ben Tower.

        Have you a link for this:

        "Starmer did fight against a father trying to keep his daughter away from pakistani muslim paedophile rapists."

  24. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/kemi-no-iron-lady-politics-very-different/

    Lady T was brought down by her party who, I think, really hated her policies. Since her tenure we have seen a resurgent Left who have done incredible damage to this country: most of them supposed Conservatives. Hunt's assault on Landlords and private wealth generally. Cameron's endorsement of the nonsense climate change act. Massive debt, an abject refusal to do anything positive to unwind the damage done to this country by the Blair horror.

    Fanatic Europhilia amongst the Leftists, an utter indifference to reforming any destructive social policy. Leaving in place and increasing taxes at every turn. Hiking the min wage repeatedly. They were booted out of office because they were just the same destructive, abusive, damaging slime as the previous Labour government. Starmer got in not because people voted for him, but because decent people were so sick of the putrid stench of corruption, deceit, tax, waste and debt that they didn't bother to vote at all.

    Badenoch is talking a good talk, but her party is already fighting her.

    1. A really bold leader of the Conservative Party would expel all the leftists in the party and encourage them to join the Lib/Dems or Labour. If this did not work such a leader would lead those of traditional Conservative outlook to join either Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib or the Reform Party.

      Leftists within the Conservative Party are the cancer that has killed the party. Many people wanted a right of centre party which the Conservative Party under Sunak, Johnson, May and Cameron refused to give them. This is surely confirmed by the fact that Reform is now so far ahead in the polls.

      Remember that Brexit has been ruined by remainer MPs just as The Conservative Party has been destroyed by the leftists and remainers who are still there.

      1. Brexit was fought far more by Tories than Labour. Labour were in a complete mess under Corbyn who was himself sceptical of the EU. They were trying to get rid of Corbyn just as much as the Tories were trying to oust May.

        It was an utter farce.

    1. Opinions may differ.

      What percentage of the UK population identifies as being homosexual?

      It seems to me that proportionately more homosexuals enter politics than heterosexuals.

        1. Paul Johnson, the historian who used to write for The Spectator, said that he never called homosexuals gays because, in his opinion, they were more glum and gloomy than gay.

          I see that he died a couple of years ago aged 94.

    2. The obsession with diversity. This man is at the Conservative Party conference yeah? Tells you all you want to know about the dominant philosophy still running through the Conservative Party, Globalist Liberalism. "Diversity' is a magic spell word to shut up and be steamrolled by open borders. World EconomicZone 3b. Similar to cries of "racist", it's designed to shut objections down. Tell you what Mr Street why don't you go there wearing full on Orthodox Jew clothes. Let's see what happens. I wouldn't.

  25. Afternoon, all Y'all.
    Late on parade – busy start to the day, with screwups on the transport front followed by meetings and a need to close out some work. Now, it's a bit easier, lunch & NoTTL time.

    1. Delighted to hear that Small Cat has returned from its Safari in the Wild. Someone must have been feeding it?

      1. Little Cat has already sold the film rights of his adventures.

        Despite living with people, cats remain instinctively wild, self-reliant animals. LC will have fond a warm dry billet and a source of food – either wild or nicked from someone's doorstep. If we disappeared, G & P would survive quite happily.

        1. If you’d heard the shouting and moaning from our two when we got back, you’d never think that they’d had at least 2 visits a day from people to feed them, stroke them and brush them (well, Phoebe got brushed!) They were furious with us!

          1. I'm really lucky. Dolly and Harry go back to the breeder. They arrive and forget about me instantly and just pile in with a dozen of their relatives.

            She doesn't charge me either which saves a huge amount of money.

          2. When I got back this afternoon Winston had been so stressed he’d shifted his crate across the kitchen and his front paws were red where he’d scrabbled. I think I am going to have to sedate him in future. He seems to be getting worse rather than better given that the routine is the same every time I leave.

          3. I am so sorry to hear that. I have no idea what to suggest other than give him a huge meaty bone to keep him occupied while he is on his own.

        2. The dogs are better provisioned in our will than Junior is. There's a slush fund for short term and an insurance policy entry.

          They go back to Marion, the breeder with the request that they not be rehomed (separately, now there's three) if at all, with monies for their care and for the human.

      2. Yes, daughter's cat used to leave its food untouched (apart from the sideways sniff) and go to a neighbour's who had four cats, and also different food.

      3. He seems to be good at begging/stealing food from other places.
        Noticeable how Big Cat’s appetite is much improved now Little Cat is home. And Big needs food, he’s had dental problems and has diabetes, can’t afford to lose weight as he’s skin n bone. Basically stopped eating whilst Little was absent, but now he’s hungry for meat again!

  26. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…

    Oscar and Lucy curled up on my left, Mongo pedalling furiously on my right. Every so often I reach down to give him a pat to let him know he's ok. I think if a bomb went off they'd just whuff and go back to dozing.

    I admit I feel rather the same.

  27. Four dead after hotel collapses in Madrid
    Victims are three construction workers and architect behind office block renovation in popular tourist area

    from the Telegraph
    Fake news.
    it was an empty building being renovated to convert it into a hotel. That's why the people affected were all in construction.
    A very malicious headline designed to damage Spanish tourist industry. It's not uncommon to read this kind of thing in the British press.

    1. 4 people have lost their lives in an accident. Can that not be what we lead with rather than the political nonsense?

      1. It was on the TV news yesterday and today too. The Madrid president went to see the disaster yesterday.
        But an hotel collapsed in Madrid gives a horrible impression. It wasn't even an hotel. This is a future project. The building had never been an hotel.

      2. It was on the TV news yesterday and today too. The Madrid president went to see the disaster yesterday.
        But an hotel collapsed in Madrid gives a horrible impression. It wasn't even an hotel. This is a future project. The building had never been an hotel.

  28. Mrs Bad Enough promising the earth. As she was part of the problem that the last administration caused, why should we believe a word she (or any of them) say?

    1. She's stuffed in that she can't do anything except say it.

      What would be better is, following the announcement releasing a workable white paper, detailing every step needed, addressing concerns and which bodies would need to change.

      You know, proving the actual research has been done, the benefits – and costs – considered and it's not a soundbite.

    2. TBF, KB and other Conservatives cannot win.
      If they have past experience of dealing with the Blob, they are tarred with being part of the 14 year failure.
      If they are absolute newbies, then they are accused of being inexperienced.
      I am really beginning to find the constant carping rather wearing.
      To go back 50 years, Margaret Thatcher had been a (not particularly successful) Education Secretary in the Heath shambles. I don't remember all this constant sniping because she had been a member of that government.
      The Cameron/May/Johnson regimes were a huge disappointment (litotes with knobs on), but it is time to move on. The country is in grave danger and constant negativity is not helpful.

      1. Move on – by all means. But, honestly, one cannot really have any faith in current politicians whose hands are stained with the blood of the governments of which they were part.

        1. As I explained; which is better?
          Experience and repentance or inexperience and being bamboozled – especially when dealing with the Blob.

          1. O!ne thing that is rarely mentioned is that the action that really infuriated the blob and led to the defenestration of Liz and Kwarti was that their very first action was to sack Tom Scholar so as to change the toxic culture within the Treasury. They sacked a senior Civil Servant! All hell broke loose and that is why they had to go.

      2. The Conservative Party died when they decided that the voters could get stuffed because they wanted Sunak.

        A really bold leader of the Conservative Party would expel all the leftists in the party and encourage them to join the Lib/Dems or Labour. If this did not work such a leader would lead those of traditional Conservative outlook to join either Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib or the Reform Party.

        Leftists within the Conservative Party are the cancer that has killed the party. Many people wanted a right of centre party which the Conservative Party under Sunak, Johnson, May and Cameron refused to give them. This is surely confirmed by the fact that Reform is now so far ahead in the polls.

        Remember that Brexit has been ruined by remainer MPs just as The Conservative Party has been destroyed by the leftists and remainers who are still there.

      3. Absolute agreement here, Anne. Plus – I have always liked Kemi and she does ring true for me, If the CP were strong, she would be a huge asset. But it is so weak that I doubt anyone could rescue it. Half of the buggers don't even realise what they did wrong, and still bang the LibDem gong. Sheesh! That is what happens when you lie to, betray and trash your loyal voters. Why would anyone be so stupid as to ever trust them again?

  29. After a dull, wet morning, the sun has come out and we are going out to sort out more of the garden

    Back later. Play nicely.

  30. Been to Hammersmith Hospital today for x-ray and follow-up with the surgical team. The x-ray looks good. The lungs are clear and I could see the wires in the breast bone but it’s healing nicely. I can stop taking Furosemide and stay off the Ramipril and fine to see how I get on in the office. Care advised as even a carton of milk can be heavy and I do seem to have pulled something in the left wrist. Seeing the rehab exercise people tomorrow so hoping they can advise and will also mention it when I get a GP call later today.

      1. I think we all were rather worried, Herr Oberst, so Sue Ed's post is wonderful news.

    1. Sue, I haven't been here much lately, so I've no idea what happened, but it sounds like you are, thankfully, on the right tracks. I hope your recovery proceeds well.

      1. Our Sweet Sue has has some VERY serious heart surgery and we're all VERY relieved that she is recovering.

        1. Oh, my goodness. Poor Sue, but it sounds as though the surgery was successful.
          Let's all hope she makes a very good recovery.

  31. Afternoon all,

    I tested my heating system's valve actuator this morning and it passed valve opening and microswitch continuity tests again like yesterday.
    It's like the HW: one on the right in this picture;
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b6c6f7dbf96e784ac93632e1be1aa6d96280a9266b7086783a3db7bb3e06e1f.jpg The technician replaced it with a different one (on the left) but I kept the old one to put it under continous test (CT) and discover what was wrong with it. After continous testing and finally reaching a serviceable state I had to conclude that, while the microswitch was showing continuity, it was possible that its condition was consistent with not displaying the correct status of valve open to the boiler – so it did need to be replaced to prove that it was the cause of the original boiler fault that I reported – or was it?

    So the valve actuator whilst being tested continuously was FUCT – Failed Under Continuous Test – as F_Alec calls it.

  32. You can get odds of 11/2 on the PM quitting this year. The favourite to replace Sir Keir is Andy Burnham, with odds of 3/1 that he will be the next Labour leader.

    As if he will resign.. he loves it.
    Any how The Blob in Whitehall run the show, and they need a plan to cancel elections.. to save democracy.

    1. Burnham is not an MP.
      Currently, even if they booted some lickspittle into the Lords, there's no guarantee that Burnham would win the seat.

  33. The Tories are still in thrall to the Iron Lady but she never faced Farage
    The Conservatives’ best hope for recovery is a real economic crisis – then voters are unlikely to trust in untested Reform

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/kemi-no-iron-lady-politics-very-different/

    BTL

    Do not forget that Nigel Farage used to be a Conservative Party member when Margaret Thatcher was the party leader.

    It was only when the likes of Heseltine and his fellow traitors stabbed her in the back that Farage left.

      1. The two events are inextricably linked: Margaret Thatcher resigned in November 1990. She described the Maastricht Treaty as a 'treaty too far' which she would never have signed – But Major signed up to it in February 1992 only 15 months after Thatcher's resignation,

  34. From the Daily Mail

    Kemi Badenoch vowed to abolish stamp duty today as she delivered a barnstorming rallying cry to Tories – insisting only they can 'save Britain'.

    Closing the Conservative conference in Manchester, the leader dropped the bombshell as she gave an impassioned response to fears the party is finished.

    interesting but I fear it is too little and too late. They had so many years and threw it all away

    1. LOL.
      What about;
      Islam..?
      two tier law..?
      Islam..?
      Dinghy men..?
      Islam..?
      Freedom of speech..?
      Islam..?

      1. Laffer curve. More people moving. More VAT on transactions and doing up the properties. More employment.

  35. On an earlier post today, where I spoke about the chooky-fowls and their chooky-eggs from my infancy. I was reminded about similar quaint descriptions of other farmyard animals, etc, from days of yore.

    The area I originated from — North-East Derbyshire/South Yorkshire — had a load of strange appellations for things that I've not heard used elsewhere (or since).

    For example, while many people called horses "gee-gees"; we called them "bobboes". Pigs were called "piggy-jacks", cattle were referred to as "moo-cows", and mice, weirdly, were called "moggie-mouse" (possibly a reference to them being a favourite prey of cats).

    One expression, I only ever heard used by a childhood friend, was "checky-pig" in reference to pigs. Ever curious I have just sought to look this up.

    https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-herald-report-on-the-english-folk/128658299/

    According to this old article, "checky-pig" appears to be the name of a traditional Leicestershire dish of small pigs made out of dough and filled with mincemeat.

    I'm just wondering if any of the other NoTTLers — of my age or more senior — have ever come across this delicacy, or its curious name?

    1. I remember moo-cows and baa-lambs but no, not checky-pigs. (Which is difficult to type because predictive text wants it to be cheeky, as in cheeky monkey.)

          1. By choosing "pylon" before "nylon" yesterday I ended up with a Par instead of a Birdie.

        1. Maybe when you are 2 or 3 or even 4 years old.

          Anyone saying it after that needs a good slap around the head.

    2. "Chucky egg" is a British colloquial term for a soft-boiled or mashed egg, often served with toast soldiers for dipping, and can also be a term of endearment. Additionally, it is the title of a classic 80s video game developed for BBC Micro and other platforms, where the player controls Hen House Harry to collect eggs.

      1. My aunt – a farmer and farmer's wife and mother of three farmers – called them "Coopies' eggs" – derived from chicken "coop"

          1. I bet as a child you had all those toys didn't you? Meccanno, Lego, colouring books, choo choo sets and Mousetrap and boggle.
            I bet you even had Scalextric.

          2. Meccano; Tri-ang 00-H0 gauge, electric railway set (shared with a brother).

            Another brother had a Scalextric.

          1. I always associated with the one on the right (Waldorf) with Geoffrey Woollard.

            If I were a muppet I would be Link Hogthrob.

          2. Waldorf and Stadler (not sure which is which) but Grizzly used to say they reminded him of Johnny Norfolk and ??? (Grizzly can no doubt tell us). Another interesting fact is that Miss Piggy was to be called Miss Piggy Lee, because chubby Peggy Lee looked just like her; they shortened it to Miss Piggy, probably because of fear of litigation. (And in any case, it would have been very cruel to the inimitable singer.)

        1. As a child my father insisted that we always called "planes" aeroplanes and "cars" motor cars. I suspect he considered the more popular words to be "common".

    3. I was in my high chair at the dinner table and so the story relates, I asked for more goggy. I am pretty sure it was not dog.

    1. Some Swedish village has lost its idiot. If the inhabitants have any sense, they won't want her back.

      1. Wasn't there a petition in Sweden asking the Israelis not to send her back? Or was that just a spoof???

  36. Once passed into Law.. Starmer will follow.. obv. And Farage will not repeal.
    .
    Ruben Rupp, the digital policy spokesperson for the AfD parliamentary group, warned against “total surveillance under the guise of child protection.”

    One of the major countries long opposed to such a measure has been Germany. What the law would actually do would allow automated searches of all private messages across the entire EU, including messages, photos, and videos, in order for the EU to look for child abuse or child pornography materials. Most importantly, these messages would be accessible to the EU even if they were encrypted. https://x.com/signalapp/status/1974145892363202718

    1. Since when has EU, Labour, any politico, wet Tory, Trans-tifa cared about children?

    2. Since when has EU, Labour, any politico, wet Tory, Trans-tifa cared about children?

  37. Afternoon all. Had a dry, if not particularly sunny, morning on the gallops. Should be having some jumps runners soon. There are a couple running on the flat tonight.
    This country has gone rapidly downhill over the last couple of decades.

  38. Good grief.
    The newly elected Mayor of Herdecke in western Germany, Iris Stalzer, has been savagely attacked in a stabbing incident.
    The Politzei seem to suspect her adopted son and daughter may be responsible!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/853622f3b558a197ff054f99b2b416f486ee8200c2301c04feceb382d2c08bbb.png German mayor in critical condition after being stabbed multiple times in ‘abhorrent attack’
    Chancellor Friedrich Merz has condemned the attack, which happened just days after the mayor was elected

          1. I am able to access it for free bar some paywalled articles. Anyway, here is the gist of it… She was discovered inside her apartment by her 15-year-old adopted son, according to German outlet Bild, with life-threatening injuries and several stabbing wounds on her stomach and back.
            Police have reportedly arrested the boy, who told officers that his mother was attacked outside their home by ‘several men on the street’, the outlet said.
            It added that he was taken away from the scene in handcuffs for questioning, wearing an evidence-preserving overall.
            The teenager reportedly called emergency services alongside his 17-year-old adopted sister at 12.40pm, who was present in the apartment when authorities arrived, the newspaper said.
            She was also questioned in the hours following the attack, according to Der Spiegel, which reported that she had been involved in a previous case of domestic violence in the Stalzer household in the summer of this year.
            The politician’s daughter had used a knife against the 57-year-old, the report said.

          2. An updated report… The evidence was found in her son’s bedroom. Investigators also found that large blood stains appeared to have been removed before emergency services were called, though these were visible upon a deep inspection, according to Bild.
            When questioned on Tuesday evening, Ms Stalzer pointed to her daughter as the suspect, police investigator Jens Rautenberg said.

      1. Some people like to bite the hand that feeds them it is in their nature.

        The the scorpion stung the frog who had helped him cross the river so they would both die – the frog from the scorpion bite, the scorpion by drowning. The scorpion did it because it was in his nature to do so.

    1. She sustained 13 stab wounds on her back and stomach, according to German outlet Westfalenpost, which quoted the police saying the 'crime scene is located at the politician's home'.

      She was discovered there where her adopted children – her daughter and 15-year-old son – were both present, reported Bild.

      The pair called 911 and the boy told police that his mother had been attacked by 'several men on the street', the outlet added.

      But neighbours told the publication that they overheard a row take place at the house.

      1. As a sensible Liberal Stop laughing! this intelligent lady set boundaries. Initially her adoptees were happy with those boundaries.

        They were fed and clothed, feted even, then they got bored.

        They demanded more. Of course their Liberal liberator tried to reason with them. Compromise even.

        Not nearly enough. So they stabbed her with her Sabatier knives, hit her over the head with her le Creuset pans……………….I am making it up…sort of…

    2. Oh dear. Newly adopted. Can't imagine why they would act in such a way.

      Perhaps they were looking to stock their meat larder.

      Winter is coming.

  39. OT – a funny story at my expense! We have had two night storage heaters for 36 years. They run at night (geddaway) on the lower night-rate. When the central timer thingy was switched off on 1 July, I assumed that the night-rate would no longer apply – we would have just one day—rate 24/7.

    I enquired from our very experienced electrical engineer neighbour. He said we should bite the bullet and ask for a smart meter (which would include a timer) but insist that it was set in "dumb" mode – so that no info was fed back to the supplier. I duly ordered one – to be fitted today.

    On Monday I had the bill for the month of September and notice that there was a small item of the cost of night-rate supply. A glimmer of light shone. The MR suggested that I turned on one of the heaters to see what happened. This morning, the heater was nicely warm – and at 8.30, there was a "clunk" and the meter window showed the day-rate instead of the night-rate.

    So there WAS a timer in the meter all along! I had no idea – and assumed that the change was determined by the BBC signal and nothing else.

    I cancelled the smart meter.

          1. {:¬))
            To be accurate, the MR and I have been together for33 years – which is longer than both my earlier marriages put together!

  40. A quite morning of pottering.
    Got a couple of jobs done on the van, including finally changing the 4-way flasher switch that went bugger-up on my Hampshire trip at the end of August. I was only able to stop it flashing by jamming it with a sliver of a wooden toothpick, a tiny bit up the "garden" and have done faggots in gravy with potatoes, turnip and steamed cabbage which I think will be ready to eat very soon.

  41. Two alleged Islamic State-inspired terrorists plotted to massacre Jews in the North West, a court has heard.

    Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, planned to “kill as many members of the Jewish community as they could” with assault rifles similar to those used in the 2015 Paris terror attacks, Preston Crown Court was told.

    Jurors were told the pair hoped to become “martyrs” after causing “untold harm” by planning “mass fatalities”.

    Seems a shame to deprive them of that ambition. So move quickly and make sure they get their 72 virgins without putting themselves through all that hard work beforehand.

        1. Yes. Supplied by all the East Euro's we have allowed to flood in to our country.

          I just cannot believe our government and security services are so naive as to allow people from these countries free travel in to the UK unless this chaos has been planned.

          I long for the days of the Krays when they kept order.

    1. It's looking more and more as though islam ought to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

    2. Darn.
      Timing is everything for a good massacre.
      About twelve months before an election.
      Before that the narrative needs upping a few notches;
      currently Reform is bidding 650k deportations.
      Advance UK must up this to 1,5 million.. then 2 million.

      Then ban halal meat processing..
      Ban cousin marriages..
      Reintroduce Sedition Law..
      Ban Sharia Law..
      Then ban Islam from any office..
      Finally propose executions for treason & enabling Islamists such as Home Secretary.

  42. 35,000 migrants have now crossed the Channel illegally this year alone.
    "GB News can exclusively reveal that at least 750 migrants made the crossing from France so far on Wednesday.

    The record stands at 45,755.
    Silence from The Dud at her conference.

  43. Wordle No. 1,572 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 8 Oct 2025

    Bother for Birdie Three?

    1. Amazed today. No clues, nothing, honest!

      Wordle 1,572 2/6

      🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Well I had more fun watching the divots fly

      Wordle 1,572 4/6

      ⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
      ⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
      🟩⬛🟨🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Should have gone to Specsavers….. Bogey!

      Wordle 1,572 5/6

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

    4. Birdie here. Late on Parade having endured a trip into Cambridge.

      Wordle 1,572 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Good one, me too.

      Wordle 1,572 3/6

      🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  44. Yo All from a warm and Sunny Costa del Sol

    We have had great day out, on an escorted his trip to Gib.

    It has changed a lot since I was there "working" 40+ years ago

    1. I do hope that one's legit, it does look it!

      Edit: just done a Google search – it is, in fact, legit!!

    1. My so-called "Tory" MP (in reality an eco-freak limp dumb) would not take the slightest notice.

        1. Funnily enough, he HAS been to the market and to our church. I just look the other way – or, reversing the action of the Good Samaritan, cross the road to get away from him.

  45. Man charged with attempted arson at Kettering mosque appears in court.. LOL
    A muslim plant.
    Arif Ali Rafiq of Harlestone Road,

  46. Jihad Al-Shamie cover up.. as GB News say Jihad Al-Shamie called Police pledging allegiance to ISIS mocking claiming responsibility.
    Authorities still investigating motive. LOL
    Three wives. One an NHS nurse.
    Neighbours warn authorities over his antics.

    1. Featured on here a couple of weeks ago. Plenty more messages like that.

      NHS doctor who 'denied Holocaust' keeps job

      Medic free to practise despite alleged social media posts refusing to condemn Oct 7 attacks and describing Palestinian gunmen as 'martyrs'

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/26/nhs-doctor-who-denied-holocaust-keeps-job

      https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1917193377839460456 https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1911019555146629224 https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1950483334225682566 https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1942549942205382683

      1. 31 months for each tweet – to run consecutively. Seems only fair – because there is NO two-tier justice, is there?

          1. ———– At the mill with slaves
            (John Milton: Samson Agonistes)

            The island to the north of Malta is called Gozo which has the reputation of attracting many English people who drink too much. Sadly my little joke about being Legless in Gozo was not appreciated by the sort of people who go to that island as they have never heard of John Milton.

        1. Just like our dear Home Secretary Shabanna .

          Does she not understand her own culture?

          I know they put women like her up front to get elected. She must know she is being used.

          Once in power she will be back to preparing food for the fighters. Scrubbing pans all day and breast feeding the non-stop birthings.

          If she complains in her educated accent they will cut out her tongue, slice her breasts off and stick a knife up her cunt.

          And that is only the beginning.

          1. Did you see? Did you read? Did you watch the Hamas vidcam slaughters?

            They reveled in their bestiality.

            Usual thing for me at this time of night…But if Greta appeared at my door tonight wearing her stupid scarf i would use one of the weapons i keep in my foyer.

            The Golf Umbrella. The Boot scraper. And the Axe.

          2. Quite.
            Even if she did, I doubt she would believe it.
            Creatures like her make me despair of the way we are moving.
            It is a great pity that she, and everyone of the others like her, can't be deported to a Muslim country.

          3. She is trying. This is the second flotilla. I believe even Susan Sarandon the actress was aboard. Perhaps the IDF should just let them land. The ships seem to have more activists than food.
            I would be very interested in how they would be received.

          4. I have a slightly different view. The Israelis should allow them free movement into Gaza. But not be obliged to provide anything for them when they arrive.
            Nothing.
            Just as we should be doing with our daily arrivals.

  47. That's me gone for today. Though the sun did come out after lunch, it didn't linger. Still, all the trimmings from the chestnut branch have been reduced to bite-sized pieces ready for the BONFIRE which we hope to be able to have on Monday. Three days of gentle north winds are forecast.

    Have a splendid evening.

    A demain.

  48. Good evening all,

    Well I had a great afternoon , had a dental appointment in Poole , cleanup and polish and examination ..

    One of the newer dentists saw me , a fantastic tall good looking Greek , with a wonderful manner .. who listened to me and examined my mouth , post molar extraction in May , took my stitches out 3 weeks after the extraction, and told me how low long a molar hole takes to repair and heal ..

    My poor jaw has ached for months .. he told me it was TEMPOROMANDIBULAR JOINT dysfunction and gave me some exercises to do .. he even massaged my jaw for me , it was an amazing experience , I felt so much better , and still do , and am very grateful for his kindness patience and humour .. laughter is the best medicine, isn't it !

    https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/media/qcxidm43/69966tmj.pdf

    1. Now I am in my mid sixties, I'm getting a bit forgetful in the mornings.
      In the past, I have gone out without my wallet, glasses, mobile phone, taken my wife's set of keys with me as well as my own.
      But recently I hit a new low,
      After having a couple of bottom front teeth out a few months ago, through being long in the tooth.
      I went out without my teeth in

          1. I did have a particularly nice set.

            Wear and tear plus booze and drugs have had an effect.

            Engorged and pendulous now i need specialist underwear which costs a great deal.

            Lucky for me i can pay for it all from pervs like you on OnlyFans paying their subscriptions.

          2. I'm led to believe that Sue M looked at your OnlyFans.

            She was VERY disappointed.

            Her cats are better endowed.

            AND they use the cat litter

    2. …and gave me some exercises to do…

      But does your husband like the additional nagging?
      };-))

      1. Dear Sos ,

        Me, nagging never ever .. true , never .

        Do you nag your beloved when she is driving , or making coffee , or cooking ?

        If you don't, I expect she is a lucky woman.

      1. He hasn't asked me how I got on , yet ..

        He told me about his brilliant golf match, sunny day, shorts nice and warm for him , and I just listened ..

        My jaw exercises will be done in private.

        How are you today, and the pooches?

    3. I had a dental appointment yesterday (I've moaned about this one before) – she took out a couple of buggered-up teeth as she is making me a small denture to replace a tooth (next to my front teeth) I lost biting into a ridiculously hard crunchy bread roll.

      The whole lot is costing over £2,800 – the appointment yesterday cost £538, I was in there for 45 minutes tops.

      Dentistry is a bloody scandal – and nobody seems to be bothering……..

      It's a national disgrace – try getting an NHS appointment anywhere!!!

        1. I lost a couple early on in fights but later I had a proper dentist-fitted gumshield which prevented further damage!

          1. Only a couple of teeth lost – I got the gumshield when I started boxing seriously but it helped massively with the Rugby, although they're quite comical to talk when you're wearing them – you sound like a retard! (although some unkind types might say it would be difficult to tell the difference….)

      1. Wow! I am having 2 crowns for a couple of back teeth, because I not only eat with my back teeth, but because I grind my teeth. On Monday the dentist, who’d obviously been thinking about my case , decided to remove the 2 amalgam fillings and replace them with glue and white fillings as a base for the expensive crowns. I was in at least 30 mins and I heard her say to the receptionist that it wasn’t to be charged for, as it’s part of the quote she gave me. The crowns are £540 each, which although is a lot, isn’t as bad as yours!

        1. Still over a grand though – how many people have a grand or two lying around? No wonder you see so many gap-toothed people wandering around!
          A lot of them are making £4-500k per annum (and some a lot more than this) – this is after their subsidised training and gold-plated Public Sector pensions.
          Somebody needs to sort this out pronto – but I wont hold my breath……

          Edit: This is a BUPA dentist in Grange-over-Sands – I'm not in BUPA so maybe they're picking on me??

          1. I admit I was fortunate to be a beneficiary of a couple of wills this year, but I think dental work is something I’d do for myself.

          2. Seriously? There is a 'Tom' there but it was Isabelle who did mine….she's delightful btw but it still costs a friggin' bomb!!

          3. Is she Spanish…possibly the Missus…or the whole thing changed hands, used to be BUPA.

        2. Still over a grand though – how many people have a grand or two lying around? No wonder you see so many gap-toothed people wandering around!
          A lot of them are making £4-500k per annum (and some a lot more than this) – this is after their subsidised training and gold-plated Public Sector pensions.
          Somebody needs to sort this out pronto – but I wont hold my breath……

          Edit: This is a BUPA dentist in Grange-over-Sands – I'm not in BUPA so maybe they're picking on me??

        3. Had an odd experience when my implants done..I bruise really easily, so I looked like I'd been in a fist fight. Some people who knew me looked shocked, looked away, didn't stop to speak as usual. Surreal.

      2. It is a scandal, Vlad. Chap I know needed full mouth transplants. NHS dentist said he'd have to wait years but quoted him I think £20k to do the work out of hours, he said no he couldn't afford. When he saw him later in the supermarket dentist offered him a deal of £10k cash in hand. Ended up going to Spain £4k full mouth transplants all in with fortnight holiday, never had a problem. And our GP surgery is now a Limited Company, with GPs as Directors, they own the property, Senior GP is the MD and charges his electric Jaguar at work using the charger meant for prescription delivery guys. Anyhow, I've had implants for years, no further treatment necessary – make sure you follow the cleaning regime, floss and all that jazz…K x

  49. Well that got a bit active.
    I'd gone to bed last night and was getting settled down when Graduate son came into the room. He'd just been phoned by Welder Son who needed picking up because the battery on his (or rather t'Lad's) Honda 400-4 had just died so I had to go and pick him up from Heanor, leaving the bike in the garden of a kind local person.

    So tonight I took him, complete with his motorcycle kit, newly charged battery and pack of biscuits for the person looking after his bike to pick it up. As we needed some bread, I took a £20 note and diverted to Belper on the way back for a bit of shopping.
    Got to the checkout and realised my £20 note was missing.
    After having a quick scout round the store to see if I could see it, I apologised to the checkout lass and went to the Van sans shopping.
    Whereupon I found the lost £20 on the floor of the van!!
    So the shopping was paid for!

    1. Wow, and I hope you catch up on your precious lost sleep Bob .

      You do run around helping out , well done, and I am glad you found your lost £20 ..

      Hiding a little bit of spare cash in the car is useful , a £10/£20 hidden in a book /brochure or sunglasses case or even top visor by the mirror brings peace of mind sometimes !

      1. Phew, at least we've got over £30k worth – that should keep the economy going for a few months in extremis….

        1. And Russia, Vlad? ….more than USD2billion? do supermarkets accept gold bullion…discuss….x

          1. I dont really understand gold, Katya, but it does say on the banknotes 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £x in gold' (or something like that) so it must be important…..

      2. Ah! But is that increase due to the actual amount of the metal we have or simply the value of whatever reserves we hold increasing as the Pound loses value?

        1. A pair of charts suggesting it's the gold price and that physical reserves haven't moved that much
          https://www.macrotrends.net/2549/pound-dollar-exchange-rate-historical-chart
          https://www.gold.co.uk/gold-price/10-year-gold-price/
          From 1980 until the late 1990s, UK gold reserves were kept steady at around 650 tonnes before what would become the infamous sale of UK gold reserves by then Chancellor of the Exchequer – and eventual Prime Minister – Gordon Brown. During this time UK gold reserves were halved to the current levels of 310 tonnes .

  50. This is the scandal that could bring down Keir Starmer

    From the Chagos deal to the proposed new super embassy, Labour is kowtowing to China – the West's civilisational enemy

    ALLISTER HEATH
    08 October 2025 6:38pm BST

    There is an acrid, almost unbearable stench emanating from Downing Street, the unmistakable pong of scandal, sanctimony and perfidy.

    What is it about Sir Keir Starmer, human rights lawyer extraordinaire, and China, a country that cannot see a human right it doesn't want to stamp out? Why is our PM so keen to kowtow to a country that spies on us and our allies, steals commercial and military secrets, that is Western civilisation's principal rival, supports Putin's Russia and Islamist Iran, instigated a genocide against Uighurs, concealed the Wuhan Covid virus lab leak, and is the home of social credit and the surveillance state?

    His two-tier Keir moniker doesn't even begin to describe the scale of the double-standards: Starmer appears determined for Britain to be submissive, to ingratiate itself with China at any cost, throwing away the last vestiges of any moral authority he may once have possessed.

    Labour's love-in with China started with its Chagos betrayal, handing over billions on spurious "international law" grounds to an ally of Beijing. Now the Government has collapsed an embarrassing spying trial that could have trashed China's reputation, led Beijing to lose face, blown-up Sino-British relations and triggered public fury.

    This would have been a disaster for Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband: they are rebuilding relations with China for economic reasons. Thanks to Labour's proto-socialist tax and regulatory policy and its incessant class warfare, Britain is chasing away entrepreneurs, the latest being the billionaire co-founder of Revolut. Labour is desperate for alternative sources of investment, and China is an obvious candidate.

    Miliband also needs the People's Republic, the world's greatest polluter and emitter of CO2, a country that keeps building more coal plants, to help Britain reach net zero. Labour's ban on the sale of new petrol cars is approaching, and we require cheap imports of Chinese electric vehicles. We also depend on Chinese turbine components, solar panels and critical minerals.

    To demonstrate its willingness to sup with the devil, the Government is about to approve a new Chinese super-embassy, even though it is close to sensitive City of London fibre-optic cables and despite the Chinese outpost containing strange basement rooms the purpose of which Beijing refuses to disclose.

    It was fortuitous, therefore, that a potentially explosive trial suddenly collapsed, rescuing Starmer's strategy. The two men accused of spying on an MP and of passing on sensitive information (both say they are innocent) won't face justice.

    The tale is almost fantastical. To show the Official Secrets Act had been breached, the prosecution would have had to start off by convincing a jury that China was an enemy at the time, representing a threat to the UK's national security. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) expected the Government to provide witnesses to support this case.

    Yet in an astonishing development, Labour didn't deliver, to the CPS's fury. Starmer's legalistic excuse smacks of verbiage, and doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Implying he understands the law better than the CPS, he claims the only opinion that matters was that of the government at the time the alleged spying took place, that the Tories (then in power) didn't formally classify China as a threat, and as such there was no point Labour providing a witness.

    This appears to be an attempt at gaslighting the public. In 2023, Ken McCallum, head of MI5, described a "sustained campaign" of Chinese espionage on a "pretty epic scale". In 2024, Tom Tugendhat, Tory security minister, told Parliament of China's "hostile activity" posing a "serious threat to the security and well-being of the British people".

    Even if Starmer's claims about the Tories are true for technical reasons, why didn't Labour say that it has a different view, that China poses a threat today and also, crucially, that it posed a threat at the time of the alleged spying offence? How could this have no validity, as Starmer claims? Mark Elliott, professor of law at Cambridge, argues that he "can see no basis for that view in the Act or in the case law."

    The CPS must believe the present Government confirming that China was and remains a threat would have been sufficient, or else it would not have tried so hard to obtain the testimony. In any case, it isn't the Government's job to decide whether evidence may or may not convince a jury or be relevant: that is for the independent CPS.

    The same Government that allows the prosecution of SAS veterans who battled the IRA to go ahead and under whose watch people are routinely jailed for the "wrong" online speech cannot find it in itself to help bring a prosecution against alleged Chinese spies.

    As somebody who is meant to be a stickler for technocratic norms and procedures, the PM's hypocrisy is breathtaking: Starmer, former director of public prosecutions (DPP), is clashing with Stephen Parkinson, the current DPP. The Blob is at war with itself.

    Kemi Badenoch's view is that "Starmer lied" about the collapse of the spy trail, something the Government denies. Yet if it wants to properly refute this incendiary claim, the Government must, in the public interest, prove it didn't torpedo the trial to ingratiate itself with China.

    We need to hear detailed explanations from all concerned, including the National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, and the PM himself. Parliament must be able to scrutinise them. We need to see emails and minutes of meetings. We need to understand what was discussed during trips to China. We need to make sure Parliament wasn't misled at any point. What are Powell's views on China? What advice is he giving?

    David Lammy, when Foreign Secretary, commissioned a "China audit" but never published its findings. Lammy described it as a "cross-government approach." He claimed "hundreds" contributed to it: MPs, "experts, businesses, diaspora communities, devolved governments, and close allies." So where is this audit? Merely including a few whitewashed paragraphs in the National Security Strategy, itself a scandalously lame document, isn't enough.

    Governments and Prime Ministers have fallen for less. This has all of the makings of a sensational scandal.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/08/china-spy-ring-scandal-could-bring-down-keir-starmer

    1. The only people that with bring down Starmer will be the globalists, to replace him with someone they made earlier

  51. The status of Islamic women emanates from the Quran (according to the current interpretation, which for Islamists is radical and literal). The key lies in the subordination of women, which, in Western law, could be equivalent to an unemancipated minor. According to Sharia law, women are deprived of legal capacity. Their presence is not required during the marriage ceremony, expressing themselves through the imposition of a guardian. They are subject to the threat of unilateral repudiation by the man, a decision that the man can make even if he is traveling and far from her, resulting in the immediate severance of the marriage bond.
    In their absence, women are subject to negotiation to determine their value in a dowry that the future husband agrees to provide. Furthermore, a husband is imposed on them without their consent and to whom they owe perfect obedience, vesting all power in them according to the radical patriarchal model. Polygamy is legalized under Sharia law. In the event of disobedience or disagreement on the part of a woman, Islamists invoke a precept from the Koran (no longer included in any Arab-Muslim legislation) that reads as follows: "As for those whose misconduct you fear, warn them and confine them to their bedrooms and beat them, but if they obey you, do not seek any other way against them (do not repudiate them). Indeed, Allah is Exalted; Allah is Great." (Sura IV, 38).

      1. I upticked it because that's the way it is. Women's testimony is only worth a quarter of a man's; they are, in effect, goods and chattels.

        1. Nah, it's a nutcase troll – you can spot them a mile off…… upticks from newly created profiles, there was a lot of this shite on the Speccie site.

          Edit: Mods keep an eye on this.

  52. According to the Quran, women cannot marry a non-Muslim. This rule applies in all Arab-Muslim countries, as does the absence of civil marriage. No Arab-Muslim, in principle, even if they declare themselves secular, has the right to abandon the Islamic faith. There is even an express prohibition against renouncing their religion. Children are the direct heirs of their father's religion, not their mother's. Therefore, a Muslim man is permitted to marry a non-Muslim. There is no legal age at which a woman can marry. Islamic law does not contemplate the community of property regime, and what a woman brings to a marriage is not governed by this law. In terms of inheritance, inequality is also reflected.
    In succession, the rule is that one share goes to the woman and two to the man. Sharia law leaves no room for equality between women and men. Muslim women are placed in a position of permanent subordination and obedience to men, who exercise sexual control over them (a destructive power) to prevent them from distracting him from their duties. Everything described here is sacred and constitutes a constant demand of Islamists. Most of these "norms" are in force and applied in Arab-Muslim states. They are the very source of "legalized" inequality.

  53. Segregated Birmingham is everything migration critics warned us about

    The facts are on Robert Jenrick's side

    SAM ASHWORTH-HAYES
    08 October 2025 7:07pm BST

    As is his wont, Robert Jenrick has been stirring up trouble. This time, the spiritual leader of the Conservative Party touched a nerve by describing Handsworth in Birmingham as "one of the worst integrated places I've been to", "as close as I've come to a slum in this country", and observing that he "didn't see another white face".

    These comments didn't cause a fuss because they were inaccurate. They touched a nerve because they were correct. At least from the perspective of government data, Handsworth looks like every warning critics of mass migration ever came out with.

    Roughly 23 per cent of the area's population doesn't identify as British in any way, shape or form. More than one in ten either can't speak English well, or don't speak it at all. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are serious economic issues, with roughly 40 per cent of those aged 16-64 on out of work benefits of one form or another.

    And as Jenrick directly observed, the sheer scale and pace of migration-induced demographic in the area has resulted in near complete population turnover. There are approximately 600 White British people in Handsworth out of a total population of roughly 12,000.

    Attempts to defend Handsworth's honour did not exactly improve its image. Former mayor Andy Street offered the observation that it's been "40 years since the last civil disturbances there", neatly skating over the ethnic rioting in 2005 and the looting in 2011 in his haste to emphasise progress since 1985.

    Local MP Ayoub Khan insisted that Jenrick had "misrepresented a storied and diverse community", but failed to note that his own electoral success as a pro-Gaza independent could be read as evidence in its own right that something is out of line with the rest of the country.

    Local defensiveness is one thing. The broader reaction from beyond Birmingham, however, is more a matter of principle. By pointing to an area where migration has unquestionably failed, Jenrick has invited others to do the same. They are unlikely to be short of examples.

    Earlier in the year I calculated a set of segregation indices for England and Wales as a whole. Birmingham ranked sixth out of every local authority area, and was home to five of the ten least relatively diverse streets in the country. The city as a whole is diverse: pick two random people, and the probability they'd belong to the same ethnic group is just 23 per cent. Look at two people from a local neighbourhood, however, and it jumps to almost 38 per cent, a difference of 15 percentage points.

    Measure in terms of religion, and it's even more startling. The probability that two randomly chosen religious people across Birmingham would share the same faith is around 42 per cent. On a given set of streets, it's closer to 62 per cent.

    Then again, you don't need mathematical analysis to tell you this. A simple glance at a map – and the "ring" of white areas around non-white central Birmingham – is probably enough to give you the general impression.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4778ac9dec75b947afff3a2a7b3f6fb0d4fd3596d7c5fa7035e81cc04d5b0fa.png
    Just as telling is the behaviour of local residents. Chart internal migration (people moving in and out of a city from within the UK) and external migration (international movements), and Birmingham is a clear outlier. More people have moved into the area from outside Britain since 2021 than any other local authority: more people have left for other parts of England, too.

    Politicians can talk up the benefits of migration all they want: revealed preference would appear to be that people are not wholly keen on its consequences, moving away from high migration areas, and segregating within cities.

    Handsworth – which continues in its current form thanks in part to £27 million in Universal Credit payments each year – is a microcosm of this experience. Weigh the full effect of taxes and benefits on household incomes, and white households are the only major group (black, white, Asian, other, mixed) in England and Wales to come out as net contributors. Drill down below the surface level, and many nominally diverse areas are deeply segregated.

    Small wonder that those responsible for the current state of affairs are furious at having this pointed out. The semi-official line from Britain's establishment is that diversity is an immense economic benefit (so self-evidently so that we need to be reminded on a regular basis), and that the country's institutions are "hideously white", or that the homogeneity of the countryside is a "psychological burden" for non-white visitors. Representation is so important that we require schemes across the public and private sector to ensure minorities can see people who look like them.

    In this environment, looking at the economic costs of diversity, or concluding that white people might also like seeing similar faces, is little short of nailing a set of dissident theses to the cathedral's door. The facts, however, are on Jenrick's side. On this matter, and only this matter, here I stand: I can do no other.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/08/segregated-birmingham-is-everything-migrations-critics-warn

  54. Segregated Birmingham is everything migration critics warned us about

    The facts are on Robert Jenrick's side

    SAM ASHWORTH-HAYES
    08 October 2025 7:07pm BST

    As is his wont, Robert Jenrick has been stirring up trouble. This time, the spiritual leader of the Conservative Party touched a nerve by describing Handsworth in Birmingham as "one of the worst integrated places I've been to", "as close as I've come to a slum in this country", and observing that he "didn't see another white face".

    These comments didn't cause a fuss because they were inaccurate. They touched a nerve because they were correct. At least from the perspective of government data, Handsworth looks like every warning critics of mass migration ever came out with.

    Roughly 23 per cent of the area's population doesn't identify as British in any way, shape or form. More than one in ten either can't speak English well, or don't speak it at all. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are serious economic issues, with roughly 40 per cent of those aged 16-64 on out of work benefits of one form or another.

    And as Jenrick directly observed, the sheer scale and pace of migration-induced demographic in the area has resulted in near complete population turnover. There are approximately 600 White British people in Handsworth out of a total population of roughly 12,000.

    Attempts to defend Handsworth's honour did not exactly improve its image. Former mayor Andy Street offered the observation that it's been "40 years since the last civil disturbances there", neatly skating over the ethnic rioting in 2005 and the looting in 2011 in his haste to emphasise progress since 1985.

    Local MP Ayoub Khan insisted that Jenrick had "misrepresented a storied and diverse community", but failed to note that his own electoral success as a pro-Gaza independent could be read as evidence in its own right that something is out of line with the rest of the country.

    Local defensiveness is one thing. The broader reaction from beyond Birmingham, however, is more a matter of principle. By pointing to an area where migration has unquestionably failed, Jenrick has invited others to do the same. They are unlikely to be short of examples.

    Earlier in the year I calculated a set of segregation indices for England and Wales as a whole. Birmingham ranked sixth out of every local authority area, and was home to five of the ten least relatively diverse streets in the country. The city as a whole is diverse: pick two random people, and the probability they'd belong to the same ethnic group is just 23 per cent. Look at two people from a local neighbourhood, however, and it jumps to almost 38 per cent, a difference of 15 percentage points.

    Measure in terms of religion, and it's even more startling. The probability that two randomly chosen religious people across Birmingham would share the same faith is around 42 per cent. On a given set of streets, it's closer to 62 per cent.

    Then again, you don't need mathematical analysis to tell you this. A simple glance at a map – and the "ring" of white areas around non-white central Birmingham – is probably enough to give you the general impression.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4778ac9dec75b947afff3a2a7b3f6fb0d4fd3596d7c5fa7035e81cc04d5b0fa.png
    Just as telling is the behaviour of local residents. Chart internal migration (people moving in and out of a city from within the UK) and external migration (international movements), and Birmingham is a clear outlier. More people have moved into the area from outside Britain since 2021 than any other local authority: more people have left for other parts of England, too.

    Politicians can talk up the benefits of migration all they want: revealed preference would appear to be that people are not wholly keen on its consequences, moving away from high migration areas, and segregating within cities.

    Handsworth – which continues in its current form thanks in part to £27 million in Universal Credit payments each year – is a microcosm of this experience. Weigh the full effect of taxes and benefits on household incomes, and white households are the only major group (black, white, Asian, other, mixed) in England and Wales to come out as net contributors. Drill down below the surface level, and many nominally diverse areas are deeply segregated.

    Small wonder that those responsible for the current state of affairs are furious at having this pointed out. The semi-official line from Britain's establishment is that diversity is an immense economic benefit (so self-evidently so that we need to be reminded on a regular basis), and that the country's institutions are "hideously white", or that the homogeneity of the countryside is a "psychological burden" for non-white visitors. Representation is so important that we require schemes across the public and private sector to ensure minorities can see people who look like them.

    In this environment, looking at the economic costs of diversity, or concluding that white people might also like seeing similar faces, is little short of nailing a set of dissident theses to the cathedral's door. The facts, however, are on Jenrick's side. On this matter, and only this matter, here I stand: I can do no other.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/08/segregated-birmingham-is-everything-migrations-critics-warn

  55. We often here about politicians and their golden rules, but can anyone name one government golden rule that hasn't turned out to be fools gold?

        1. I think it would have been better off without the ! as in Fuck Dystopia now – or face the consequences!!

    1. Nothing will bring him down. He is protected. Must be. The number of scandals since 4 July 2024 is incredible. But Boris gone for cske.

  56. Wel, chums, I'm off to bed now. Sleep well and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.

    1. I made one last try to post my comment this morning (I mean yesterday) because my WiFi connection Failed Under ContinuousTesting – it was truly FUCT.

      1. Yo Sue, Great.

        We are having a quiet day, today, after our Coach trip to Gibraltar yesterday

          1. We had a minibus trip around the Rock.

            The bus went round, through, up, down places & roads that I would not even walk along

      1. Hi Maggie. I’m very well thanks. Hope you are too. Just attended the eye clinic, which confirmed things are improving. Back in two months.

        While I’m retired from the Diretor of Music duties (they can no longer afford me), I still have the printer, and have recently added four toner cartridges, which the Parish paid for.

        I’m happy to cotinue, gratis, for the time being. THe Rector has 2.5 years left before compulsory retirement. Whereupon, everything will change. He won’t be replaced, and all four churches will be forcibly made to merge with others.

        1. Dear Geoff

          I am so relieved and happy to hear your sight is improving . but saddened to know that your musical position is no longer viable .

          Will you still be able to twiddle the stops and ivories , by practising on other organs ?

          Our churches are in a really bad position , do Roman Catholic establishments and chapels have the same problems as the C of E.

          The thing is , parish church organisers can be divisive in the community .. however our little churches are precious and need to be supported and protected .

          I don’t know what the answer is .. our church pathway is dark and a trip hazard ..
          I was asked whether I would like to bell ring , but hauling the the bell pulls was hard work and not easy ! So I responded to the clarion call, gave it a go, but then said , thankyou , well done but not for me !

    1. 'morning Geoff (although I see it's now afternoon)…hope your day good so far and continues to be so xx

Comments are closed.