Wednesday 9 October: Britain can no longer tolerate the ECHR’s interference in national life

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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645 thoughts on “Wednesday 9 October: Britain can no longer tolerate the ECHR’s interference in national life”

  2. Morning All, with apologies to Caroline Tracey and thanks to Geoff
    Today's Tales

    The Australian politician was attending his first United Nations function in New York. He approached a group of diplomats and, in an attempt to make small talk with them, said, “Excuse me, what is your opinion of the meat shortage?”
    The American frowned and said, “What’s a shortage?"
    The Bosnian slapped his forehead and said, “What’s meat?”
    The Russian shrugged and said, “What’s an opinion?”
    And the Dutchman asked, “What’s ‘Excuse me’?"

    All the regulars were sitting around the fire in the country pub when Roy walked in with his mangy dog. Roy bragged to all and sundry that Ralph was a very intelligent dog.
    “Never gets it wrong,” he said. “Reacts instantly.”
    All the farmers and drovers in the bar were sceptical.
    “I’m not just talking about simple commands like ‘sit’, ‘stay’ and ‘heel’,” said Roy. “I’m talking about six-word sentences and instant obedience.”
    So a bet was laid – $100 to prove that Ralph wasn’t capable of passing such a test. Ray matched it, picked up Ralph and threw him on the blazing fire and yelled, “Ralph! Get off that bloody fire!”

    1. I enjoyed the second joke, rc, but failed to get the first one. And why are you apologising to Caroline Tracey? (Good morning, btw.)

      1. It's insulting to the Dutch, and Caroline is Dutch.
        Like all Dutch, she speaks every language under the sun – I'm jealous, I struggle with English… 🙁

        1. Thanks, Herr Oberst, but why wouldn't the Dutch understand the phrase "Excuse me"?

          1. They have a reputation of not being the most polite race on earth – just straightforward and direct.
            I have worked with several Dutch companies in the offshore industry – and enjoyed them all. But they can come across a bit Yorkshire now and again – you understand the situation clearly, nobody fluffs around, they get straight to the point. A habit I try to emulate.

          3. I expect Norwegians are the same, but I've been here so long now, I cease to notice, in fact, likely join in.

          7. no, this was just barging down Dronigsgata. I am neither pushy nor rude. The rudeness seems one-sided here.

          8. I’ve walked along Drottninggatan many times and I’ve never seen any sign of rudeness.

          9. Elsie, I worked in Amsterdam from 1962-63, much later I worked for Royal Dutch Shell for 16 years. My elder son worked for Philips (another Dutch company). I speak reasonable Dutch myself and enjoy their company(ies), but as mentioned by Herr Oberst and other polyglots like myself, they can be a bit abrupt. My ex-Philips son calls them the 'Cloggy Mafia' (again, with apologies to the lovely Caroline T.).

          10. Caroline's father worked for Philips in Holland and then in India, then in Iran in the time of the Shah – where he was managing of a Philips subsidiary company. He finished his career in Madrid – where Caroline did her secondary schooling in an international school – and retired to the Almeria region.

            Caroline studied Modern Languages at Bath University and did her master's degree in linguistics in Rouen.

          11. I worked on a gas project with BP, Shell, Phillips, Agip, and Total. We all referred to the most vociferous and inflexible member of the executive committee as 'The Phd'. He never fathomed why we accorded him that accolade…. (=Pig Headed Dutchman)

          12. Too bloody right. They make the Germans look polite. However, i do admire them for it. None of this mucking about buying rounds for people. They buy themselves a drink and you can fend for yourself!

          14. Again I thank you for your explanation, Paul. However, my experience with Dutch friends is not at all that they are abrupt. I found them to be polite, warm and welcoming.

        3. She is quadrilingual to the extent that in Spain everybody thinks she is Spanish, in England people ask her whether she went to Roedean of Cheltenham Ladies' College, in France nobody can believe she is not French and, having only lived in Holland for four years as a child, she says that Dutch is her weakest language of the four. She can also communicate in German, Italian, Portuguese and, when we were on Mianda in Turkey, she learnt a fair amount of Turkish. However, like Shakespeare's Casca she never made much progress in Greek.

          By contrast I can get by fairly well but the moment I say anything the question is asked: "Vous êtes anglais?"

          She does not subscribe to the Polonius method of winkling things out – by indirections find directions out. She is direct and does not try to hind behind an arras.

      2. It's insulting to the Dutch, and Caroline is Dutch.
        Like all Dutch, she speaks every language under the sun – I'm jealous, I struggle with English… 🙁

      3. The Dutch are known for sounding abrasive.
        They are rather more direct than the English.

    2. Ha ha.
      I remember bumping into a local friend when out taking our dogs for a walk. And I had just thrown our Lab her ball, I knew her pattern, so to make a point I told her shit and she did.
      We both laughed as I bent down to pick it up. And later put it in the bin.

      1. Good morning, Herr Oberst. They are the four candidates to lead the Conservative Party after Rishi Sunak. The one at the back is Tom Tugenhat who has just been eliminated, and the large tortoise demonstrates how it is an incredibly slow process to produce a result. (Good morning, btw.)

        1. Ah… thanks!
          I wouldn't recognise any in the flesh, let alone as a caricature (or a tortoise). Maybe that's their problem – nobody recognisable from their politics and style so they stand out as a sketch.
          Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit stood out… just saying…

        1. Muppets. It is a sign of how pathetic the Tory party has become. If these are the best from 375 'Tory' MP's what chance have they of forming an experienced and knowledgeable government.
          Perhaps it is for the best, the Reform party can only gain from the selection of one of these and the TINOs fade into the background. Reform might not be exactly what we want and need but it has to be better than the left-wing dung that we are currently lumbered with.

      3. Candidates and Potential tory leaders. A good cartoon showing how pathetic they all really are.
        Can't even hang on to the back of a rodeo tortoise.
        Typical fence post turtles.

    2. Surely after all the years of mistakes the tories have dumped on this country they can do better than this four.

    1. Morning, Johnny.
      This is, and has just, happened in Norway: the rich are moving to Switzerland. Most have left already. It's beginning to really hurt financially, as they paid most local taxes, and as far as the papers report, the (Labour) Government is proposing and "exit tax" in the budget that will be presented later this month to try to prevent that flood of exiteers. The result will be, of course, that they leave even quicker.
      Dumbasses all.

      2. Exit tax, eh? Pretty sure that's been tried by autocratic regimes in the past…never ends well

    2. We, Johnny? I thought most of us didn't vote for Labour to replace the Conservatives. (Good morning, btw.)

    5. Certain areas of the UK are already of the third world.
      But our idiots can't see it.

  7. Good morning, chums. I slept well last night, but just couldn't complete today's Wordle. Drat and double drat those American spellings! But, I mustn't close without thanking you, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site. Like most NoTTLers, I am very grateful for your sterling efforts.

        1. Thanks, Jimmy. I tried this but was put off when I tried a perfectly good girl's name (I think it was Laura) but the screen said it did not recognise this word!!! I eventually got it in 6 so I didn't get a chance to see if I could continue with a seventh attempt. I'm grateful for your suggestion, but I think I'll stick to Wordle.

    1. Is Climate Denier a measure of the fineness of the mesh of ladies' tights?
      I'll get me Gannex… 🙁

    2. Funny how all these childish clichés have become trendy.
      It seems to me that what they are saying is, what they are saying is unchallengedable. FFS how did mankind, the human race arrive at this point without challenging the growing number of 'established experts' ?
      it's amazing how much more has been learnt by digging around.
      Ask Prof Alice Roberts.

  12. Tom Harris
    Labour is running the country purely for the benefit of the public sector
    The rest of us are only here to pay for their excellent pensions and hefty pay rises

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/10/08/TELEMMGLPICT000396685991_17283867138760_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqUSmZmLsmD-_ry3mzXl734CgfZtdw9bn87ybuvGDbvOQ.jpeg?imwidth=680

    It’s almost as if Labour hadn’t worked out what to do once it got into government.

    The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has reportedly backtracked on plans to cut pension tax relief for higher earnings to 30 per cent, a new flat rate that would apply to all earners. While this would go some way to plugging the alleged £22 billion annual funding gap Labour claim they inherited from the previous government, the Treasury has warned that the law of unintended consequences would mean that significant numbers of public sector workers would be impacted along with the intended targets, the undeserving “fat cats” that inhabit the fantasies of Labour Party members.

    The backtrack – if that is what it is – is informative of two separate but related aspects to Labour’s approach to government. The first is that ministers seem to have actually learned from their recent mistakes and injected a touch of political realism into their decision-making. The announcement of the scrapping of the winter heating allowance for all but the poorest pensioners has already had a devastating effect on the party’s – and Keir Starmer’s – popularity. No doubt the chancellor was not looking forward to the avalanche of criticism she would receive – not least from her own back benchers – if another tax-saving measure were to make “the wrong people” poorer.

    Which leads neatly to the second strand of this U-turn: Reeves changed her mind, not because the proposed measure would be unfair to all those who save up for their retirements, but because a large number of public sector workers would be affected as well. And in the minds of the modern Labour Party, that would be unconscionable.

    Less than a fifth of workers earn their living in the public sector, yet it remains, for the Left in general, the target of all its praise, respect and love. No one is more “deserving” of state largesse than those who toil away in local government, the health service and the civil service, despite the fact that their wages – and the services they provide – are funded exclusively by the productivity and efforts of those working in the private sector.

    As shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Left-wing MP John McDonnell was fond, in the run-up to Christmas, of wishing all “public sector” employees a Merry Christmas. Few challenged him on why private sector workers were so less deserving of enjoying the festive season. It does seem strange that those who enjoy harsher working conditions, are less securely employed and who have far less generous pension arrangements should be – but are decidedly not – the priority of the so-called workers’ party.

    But Labour knows which side its bread is buttered on: the private sector might pay the bills but it’s the public sector that comes out to vote Labour.

    Having just handed out inflation-busting pay deals to striking train drivers and doctors, any political advantage handed to the government might have been swept away with an announcement that a good proportion of the new award would have to be handed back to the Treasury in tax due on pension contributions. Perhaps if all those unhappy pensioners were members of a Labour-affiliated trade union, they might not be facing a harsher winter this year.

    Keir Starmer is not the first prime minister to have declared the importance of governing for the entire country and not just the section of people who voted for it. But so far he’s proving to be the prime minister most determined to renege on that promise.

    He and his chancellor are fond of telling us that things can only get worse, that the night is darkest just before the nuclear winter sets in – it’s their optimism that keeps them going. But on whose shoulders will the responsibility of digging the country out of the financial hole it’s in rest? Solely the private sector?

    If that is the philosophy of the government, then it is wholly at odds with its stated (admittedly pre-election) determination to encourage economic growth in order to pay the bills of the coming years. You cannot level extra taxes on only one sector and expect that sector to respond by increasing its size and efficiency. The so-called financial black hole that ministers are trying to deal with was not created by the private sector, nor does it rely on the government’s largesse to fund pay awards. Yet when the going gets tough, it is private employers and their employees, those not reliant on public funds for their secure employment and pensions, who are expected to make further sacrifices.

    If this Labour government is genuinely committed to governing for the whole country and not just the third of it that relies on public sector employment, it needs to match rhetoric with action. The extra pension tax raid was always a bad idea, not because it affected public sector workers but because it affected everyone. That’s a lesson Labour still needs to learn.

    *************************************

    Colin Linscott
    18 hrs ago
    The public sector don't earn anything just live off the rest of us.

    2. You vill not qvestion zer reasoning of zee Forth Reich. You vill do as zee Staat Kontrolleurs instruct – or else.

  13. Beer can artwork thrown in bin by gallery worker. 9 October 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/00bc0e51a79a89cb3468e61ca3fe79c3081051e5bd6d39ba67e3f2a8330463cb.png

    A Dutch museum had to fish an art exhibit out of the bin after a maintenance worker mistook a display of two beer cans for rubbish and disposed of them.

    The art display, All the Good Times We Spent Together, by Alexandre Lavet, a French artist, consists of two dented beer cans left on the floor of the lift of the LAM museum in the Netherlands.

    Sort of sums up the cultural decline of the West really.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/08/beer-can-artwork-thrown-in-the-bin-by-cleaner-netherlands/

    1. If that's a work of art you should see my Recycling box – it changes every week!

      Good morning Minty & all.

    2. So THAT's what the pupils from the local schools are doing; creating artworks.
      Why did nobody warn me? I've been destroying artworks by the ton. The litter bins round our area must be worth a fortune.

  14. 394394+ up ticks,

    I would also say the majority of English indigenous peoples would agree with the "stay British" sentiment.

    Dt,
    The Chagos islanders sold out by Starmer
    The Prime Minister says the UK-Mauritius agreement will ‘address the wrongs of the past’. Many Chagossians aren’t so sure

    1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/410d5537b92c1d89bddd5ae4feded810659e1d91bab4ce9358c6eae6c51d96b0.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f42d389a82b543f48a82b1840fa7120476cf245036eb07fd3ee6be1840bbc83.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb5890268d2190531f4ce515b16a7541ac9b1c44448fc0caab676f9f120b8991.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3a05347a17d571372fdef0b8e36cb6147f1de0a6752c3f19c652a8691bcab63.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/392ca2e830bbc35f1cf858a58ee08efcbb7ca7fc69033ba07b0908781e4330c8.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/068c2a2dafb145d28b409f84e9e20e76be22ebf755013a8a61004858ba83d8a2.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5d85f9902a7ad608badb1c5d76105763444057c7c24adb2a612c38fb8ea62c2.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89bebe53da74190de049a0758cf242968a7eb78e655cc616fda654fdbb7d908f.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b902b4732614548e0b9e3a183166cc48e050632b37e63640f39d98f4c52b74d6.png

      1. Diatribe against Priti Patel is firstly, too small and secondly, too wordy. I cannot wade through all that – makes my eyes and brain hurt,

        1. Let me help you out, in summary it would appear that there are no possible candidates capable of being a worthy leader of the party who could lead them back to power.

          1. I have been critical of him in the past but the only potential leader who could have taken the party in the right diection is Jacob Rees-Mogg.

            He has now lost his parliamentary seat and the only rational thing for him to do is to join the Reform Party as his ideas are far more in line with them than they are with the Conservatives.

            When the farcical leadership contest is over I wonder if there will be a mass exodus to Reform. Certain Conservative who lost their seats are probably already contemplating a move and I suspect that some of the few remaining Conservative MPs have this in mind – but what a shame they did not do it before the general election.

          2. At this stage I consider whoever is elected leader will merely be leading the funeral procession.
            14 years of betrayal is not easily forgotten or forgiven, I see no way back for them, certainly not in the short to medium term.
            I have mixed feelings regarding ex Conservative MPS moving over to reform, does that party want political journeymen, for that is what they now are. Best they stay where they are as far as I am concerned, political nonentities.

  18. 394394 + up ticks,

    The heart and soul of labour is seen clearly to be a vacant lot.

    Dt,
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    Money
    Explore Tax, Property, Banking…
    The ‘horrifying’ consequences of Labour’s winter fuel raid laid bare
    Poorest pensioners face ‘potential disaster’, finds damning impact assessment

    76

    Protesters hold placards while campaigning for the reversal of the winter fuel payment cuts to pensioners
    Age UK says its report rebuffs claims that low-income households still benefit from support TOLGA AKMEN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
    Tom Haynes
    Money Reporter
    09 October 2024 6:00am BST
    Tom Haynes
    Rachel Reeves’s decision to abolish winter fuel payments will leave Britain’s poorest pensioners “facing potential disaster”, a damning report has revealed…

    1. I thought the 'poorest' ones ie those who qualify for Pension Credit were still going to get their WFP.
      So they must mean those slightly higher up the poverty scale who don't qualify for either.
      Look out for increased pensioner deaths this winter then.

      1. 394394+ up ticks,

        Morning N,

        My view, “Look out for increased orchestrated pensioner deaths this winter “

  19. Good Moaning.
    Censorship or funk?
    The facility for posting under DT letters has not appeared.
    Maybe the bots are in a meeting and being told about new trigger words.

    1. DT Letters Today
      That's odd – the BTL responses were there at 04:40 this morning 'cos I was reading them in bed. There was the usual verbose Quadrumvirate (just made that word up from Triumvirate) of Anastasias Revenge, Steve E Jones, Crispin Caldicott and the constant-disagreer Edwin Pugh. Yesterday morning early (about 03:45), for interest, I made a little league table of these BTL responders-in-chief.

      Annastasias Revenge: 15 posts
      David Holloway. 7
      Isabella Maeer. 4
      Steve E Jones. 4
      D M Parry. 3
      Crispin Caldicott. 2
      Edwin Pugh. 1
      Jacqueline Block. 1
      Jane Lane. 1
      S A Coello. 1
      Simon Bell. 1

      I was tempted to reply to Anastasias Revenge by saying "Get a Life" or "Why don't you four set up a Whatsapp Group instead?" But then, you could say the same about me!

        1. Yes Anne, that's what I said in my post above: QUOTE: Yesterday morning early (about 03:45), for interest, I made a little league table of these BTL responders-in-chief.

      3. I was curious as Jonathan Yardley had a letter – preciously his address has been given as “Wolverhampton” and today it was “Staffordshire”. So either he has moved ( and the border isn’t far away) or he is making a point a out the 1974 border change.

    1. Re UNN's comment: these arrogant upstarts really believe that the people are too thick to see the conflict between the politician's/civil servant's words and their actions.

      They are disgusting beings.

  22. Labour Cave In to Extinction Rebellion’s Demands to Sack Lord Walney

    Starmer’s “anti-extremism” adviser, Lord Walney, has been booted unceremoniously from his post – just a day after the anniversary of the Hamas bombings. Bizarrely, the news broke through the hard left propaganda site Byline Times, with a Home Office spokesman confirming to the highly marginal site that Walney was no longer the Government’s ‘Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption.’ Guido hears Walney himself did not find out with much notice, having been under the impression that he’d stay on as Labour conducted a review of their extremism policies…

    Lord Walney’s been a thorn in the side of Extinction Rebellion and other extremists groups for a while, having written a report recommending the police be given more powers to curb disruptive, extreme protests. Extinction Rebellion held a protest at the end of last month demanding the government sacked him – which would have been a very good reason to keep him on. And now Labour has bent the knee to their green mob, casting aside a well-respected expert adviser in the (lack of) process…

    1. I hope Lord Walney with the help of his colleagues is already busy setting out to get his own back.

    3. Bent knee, weak-kneed and needing a knee in the b*****ks to bring home the point that they have been exposed as being beyond useless.

    4. Hard Left Byline Times Publishes Fake News on Lord Walney

      Guido—and likely John Woodcock himself—was shocked to read in the hard-left propaganda site Byline Times yesterday that Woodcock (now Lord Walney), the government’s anti-extremism adviser, had supposedly been sacked. What’s less surprising is that Byline Times journalists Josiah Mortimer and Adam Bienkov had written totally incorrect information. In reality, Lord Walney remains the government’s extremism adviser and is, in fact, giving evidence today to the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly. Byline published complete fake news, then…

      This wasn’t a case of a story being ‘too good to check.’ Byline Times actually received a response from Number 10, the background line confirming that Woodcock was still in post. The highly marginal site chose to ignore this critical detail and ran with their false claim anyway. Now, after being forced into a humiliating U-turn, they’ve had to correct the article’s headline to state that Lord Walney “Remains in Post.” Though The Times now reports that his position is “under review” following his warnings about far-left protests. Just another example of the left-wing media pushing their narrative before verifying the facts…

      9 October 2024 @ 08:26

  23. Good morning, all. Broken cloud with a fair amount of 'blue' visible. Forecast is for a mainly dry day with the possibility of a shower around lunchtime.

    Interesting viewpoint from this man, J D Sharp, on why Trump declined a second head-to-head with Harris. Trump is smart, smart enough to employ really smart strategists as J D Sharp explains.

    Instead of being protected and spoon-fed by the mediators in a debate, Harris has had to 'go on the road' and promote/defend herself. The media remains sympathetic to her but her shortcomings are more exposed in interviews than in a well rehearsed and biased debate scenario.

    Latest attack on Trump revolves around claims that he is hiding from the media. If hiding is returning to Butler Field, where three months previously he was close to death by shooting, to huge acclaim from a vast crowd of supporters, then his detractors really are struggling to find real issues with which to attack him.

    https://x.com/imjdsharp/status/1843754549254991948

  24. Morning all 🙂😊
    Wet again today, my word we had several torrential down pours late afternoon yesterday. I stepped out of the barbers and on the way back to the car, my new hair cut was soaked in seconds 😂.
    Please can somebody out there please help get rid of these awful people that call themselves in our government.
    I'm not particularly a gunboat tory they are bad enough, but i am already sick of the sight of any of this mob and everything they say and are doing.
    They are filled with hate for our traditions long established culture and social structure.
    But what they are doing doesn't effect their life styles and finances.

  25. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-the-gp-wont-see-you-now/

    Why the GP won’t see you now

    David CraigOctober 9, 2024

    "I RECENTLY had blood tests for four issues that I thought it worth checking – blood sugar levels, liver function, kidney function and PSA.

    After about a month I had heard nothing so I contacted the GP surgery asking about the results. Rather than offering an appointment for me to discuss the results with my GP, the surgery sent me a (completely incomprehensible to me) three-page print-out full of medical terms and measurements I had never heard of giving the results of 28 analyses the blood-testing lab had done.

    As I have no medical training, this was worse than useless to me. So I started to wonder why my GP had no desire to discuss the results with me either in person or in an on-line consultation. Yet, while my GP seemingly doesn’t want to engage with me about the results of my blood tests, I am constantly getting emails, SMS messages and even phone calls from the surgery encouraging me to have all sorts of wonderful vaccinations – covid booster, meningitis, shingles, pneumonia, flu and probably a couple of others I’ve forgotten about. In fact, the day after the surgery emailed me the blood-test results without offering me a GP appointment to discuss them, the surgery phoned me to encourage me to come in for a flu vaccine and a covid booster.

    So, aware of Cicero’s famous quote ‘cui bono’, I had a brief look at how GPs are paid.

    The average GP (not the surgery) had 2,294 patients as of April 2024. This is an increase of 7.2 per cent since 2019. I imagine this must be mainly due to our rulers’ (Tory, Labour and LibDem) admirable open-borders, bring-in-the-Third-World, give-them-all-free-healthcare immigration policies. After all, the UK fertility rate is around 1.56 children per woman – well below the replacement rate of about 2.1. So the increase in GP patient numbers can’t be ‘home-grown’.

    A Department of Health website suggests that GPs get on average £164.64 per patient per year. So that’s an average annual earnings of £377,684 per GP. Of course GPs have all sorts of expenses to pay with this money – premises, staff, IT systems and suchlike. So their take-home income will be considerably less. From the little I understand, this payment method means that GPs’ earnings won’t vary much whether they see ten or 100 patients a week. All that is important is how many patients are registered with that GP. So, there’s not much incentive for our GPs to work too much.

    However, as you probably know or have guessed, GPs can increase their earnings by, for example, administering all sorts of wonderful but questionably safe-and-effective vaccinations. I think GPs get £10.06 per dose administered for both shingles and flu. I haven’t been able to find the amounts for meningitis and pneumonia vaccinations, but suspect it is probably similar. I have the impression they get quite a bit more for covid vaccinations. And the excellent thing is that the vaccinations can be done by the probably modestly paid practice nurse or some individual with just two years’ training pretending to be a medic but who probably wouldn’t recognise a broken leg even if it kicked them in the arse. So to do the vaccinations, the real doctor doesn’t have to waste valuable time on unpleasant, possibly unhealthy patients.

    I haven’t done any further research. But I got the impression that there are all sorts of other ‘services’ GPs can offer to boost their bank accounts. I found one website which claimed GPs also get paid extra based on the number of prescriptions issued and another which stated that GPs could increase their income by prescribing statins as part of a government incentive scheme to improve the nation’s health or at least improve the financial health of the Big Pharma companies. But, as far as I can see, the number of consultations GPs have with patients doesn’t seem to make much difference to their wealth.

    Perhaps that’s why our GPs would rather offer you all the other stuff they are paid extra for rather than stooping so low as to squander their well-rewarded time on face-to-face appointments with us suckers whose taxes fund our (often part-time) GPs’ comfortable lifestyles.

    As for my blood-test results, I made an appointment costing £90 to see a private-sector GP to have the results explained to me. It turned out that one of the tests produced a slightly worrying result which has caused me to make some significant changes in my lifestyle. It’s a pity my GP didn’t have the time or inclination to inform me about this. I wonder what happened to all the taxes I’ve paid over many years to have our ‘free-at-the-point of-delivery’ NHS provide medical care should I need it? Oh yes, I remember now, they’ve been used to pay for generous pay rises for our health workers and for providing the millions of wonderful people, who enter the UK legally and illegally each year, with the healthcare they expect as their human right without ever having paid anything into the system."

    1. I don't know about the UK, but my pages and pages of blood tests also give anticipated ranges for each measure and highlight those that are outside the expected range.
      If I see something that looks slightly abnormal I ask the GP the next time I see them, although here I get a message from the GP if something looks particularly outside the range and further investigations are prescribed. The French, in my experience are extremely proactive.
      If everything is in the ranges I just file it.
      I also get the last readings so can see if things are changing. I don't think I need medical training to do so!

      1. I have CKD and should have a blood test to check my kidney function. At my old surgery I was tested regularly, but since I've been moved to this one it's erratic to say the least. I am also overdue for a review. Last year I struggled to make an appointment and in the end was told that the nurse would do the review as the doctors no longer did! I'd be better off with a witch doctor.

    2. One of my friends recently told me that he had a message from his GP practice on messenger saying that if he didn't download load his recent blood test results he would no longer be able order his repeat prescription.
      He was then sent to Bedford hospital and placed in a priority queue for examinations. But no result available until later this week ???? Sounds like some sort of do as we say regime.
      Ve haff vays und meenz.

    3. Multiple people on doctors’ lists who no longer live in the country. They are are still getting paid for them.

      1. They were also found recently to be very slow in updating their records when a patient dies.

          1. That too. I have moved around a bit over the years. I have then registered with a new doctor as well as being on the electoral roll and paying local taxes.

            When i paid for my medical records none of the places i had moved to came up.

    4. I found a complaint to the Practice Manager got me an appointment to discuss results with an eye to further treatments.

      GP's also get paid extra when you agree to join a smoking cessation course. Another thing they don't have to actually do any work for.

    5. I'm glad I live in rural Scotland where the medical practice is exactly what you'd expect it to be

      1. Yes, moving very slow. Apparently this means it will build up to an even more severe storm.

    3. The average height above sea level in Florida is 100 feet (if you want that in metres, go and look it up). Meteorologists are forecasting possible storm surges of 15 metres (just over 49 feet, for the young). If that comes to pass then lots of coastal Florida will be submerged. I do not envy them, especially the Kennedy Space Centre, near where some good friends of mine live.

        1. KP, I hope I mis-heard the news and that you're right that it's ONLY 15 feet. And that, if it happens, should only be on the Western Coast of Florida
          See my other post today about Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 – that was 12 feet of water from Lake Ponchartrain.

          1. Of extreme concern to forecasters is storm surge, which the Hurricane Center said could hit 10 to 15 feet along several areas on Florida's west coast, including Tampa Bay. Storm surge kills more people during hurricanes than wind.

    1. May as well apply this comment to voting for Sir Keir.

      Wow, people still queuing up to vote Labour.

      They know nothing of the dangers these Libtards present or just don't care.
      mass invasion of low IQ Africans & fighting age Muslim men.
      implementation of CRT DEI ESG religion.
      climate scare industrial suicide.
      two tier societal divide.

    1. Perhaps Hamas shouldn’t have broken the ceasefire on 7th October 2023 by invading Israel and brutally raping, murdering, desecrating and kidnapping over a thousand Israelis?

      Just a thought.

    2. Gotta love Ash Sarkar spouting her nonsense alongside Zarah Sultan.. Completely missing their own irony. "A repeat of violence that knows no borders.."
      Deary, wherever Palestinians go, trouble follows..

      Oh and btw, since July 5th guess how much time & energy Zarah spends on issues relating to Coventry.. then compare to her focus on Gaza. Do a tweet count. You'll get the picture.

    3. Gotta love Ash Sarkar spouting her nonsense alongside Zarah Sultan.. Completely missing their own irony. "A repeat of violence that knows no borders.."
      Deary, wherever Palestinians go, trouble follows..

      Oh and btw, since July 5th guess how much time & energy Zarah spends on issues relating to Coventry.. then compare to her focus on Gaza. Do a tweet count. You'll get the picture.

    4. Gotta love Ash Sarkar spouting her nonsense alongside Zarah Sultan.. Completely missing their own irony. "A repeat of violence that knows no borders.."
      Deary, wherever Palestinians go, trouble follows..

      Oh and btw, since July 5th guess how much time & energy Zarah spends on issues relating to Coventry.. then compare to her focus on Gaza. Do a tweet count. You'll get the picture.

  29. Good morning all , mild morning 12c.

    Moh away early playing golf , the course is very wet , but he hasn't played for a week so you can imagine his mood!

  30. Good morning! GBN Breakfast have just had on a video link guest talking about hurricane season in Florida. His manner was completely manic and his eyes unnaturally wide. I want to know what drugs he’s on before I decide whether to take his alarmist analysis seriously.

    I asked one of the ladies in church how her family in Florida are coping. She said they’re all alright except her sister whose house is in a location always likely to flood. Poor sister is up to her knees in water.

      1. Hurricane Milton
        In June 2005. I visited a young friend in New Orleans, Louisiana. She had just recently bought and redecorated a bungalow, in which we stayed. On August 29th, just 2 months later, Hurricane Katrina made landfall off the coast of Louisiana with 120 mph winds. Lake Ponchartrain, a mile or so to the north and about 15 feet higher, burst its banks and her bungalow was filled with 12 feet of muddy water. Fortunately she was well insured, but after that she moved to San Francisco.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e59e90b7700bfb614df986c4dc0033bf5f1eaba0e95b8e10f4b09c04704c7c75.jpg

        2. Out of the frying pan into the fire! San Francisco is now an utter disaster. A giant slum from which all business has fled. Downtown in a ghost town of empty stores an shops with drugged out Zombies wandering around.
          This is what happens in all Democratic controlled Cities. Same is going on in Oregen, etc.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QrZLNyYHVw

      2. Morning k,
        We were Ft Myers on holiday once when a Hurricane Cat 1 blew through.
        That was bad enough with the wind, rain and storm surge, Cat 5 I cannot imagine.
        Of course the accommodation was built on stilts mere meters from the edge of the beach which meant that the place rocked and swayed in the wind like a flag up a pole!

        1. I recall a North Sea storm, when I was in the Manager's office on the top of Beryl A (132 metres water depth and 60 000 tonnes approx. of concrete structure, standing on the seabed), and I suddenly swayed as if to faint. Took me a moment or two to realise that the concrete Behemoth was swaying in the seas & wind!

          4. Those that live by the sword perish by the sword – and Miliband, who wants our lives powered by the wind, will perish by the wind!

          5. Please could he be felled by a wind turbine.
            Rather like a bent cleric being struck by lightning.

    1. The problem is.. she believes Keir is a Tory. FFS.
      She wants nothing short of Leftie Momentum Labour.

      1. 394394+up ticks,

        Morning KB,

        I also believe he is FFS, the trio of
        overseeing political top rankers are interchangeable.

    2. The scouse lady is called Audrey White.
      Her entire extended family has never worked a day in their life. She was a full time shop steward standing for; grievance, agitation & mediocrity until her gammy leg & bad back has meant that she hasn't had a job since Maggie closed down every single hospital in 1990.

    3. Stupid loon, she seems unaware that Gordon Brown started the private finance initiatives in the NHS.

  32. Morning gentle Nottlers.

    To amend the title of todays column above, I would say that Britain can (or should) not tolerate rule by the Left Wing Globalist elitists currently trying to destroy it. All esle follows from that.

    Andhere's my plug for today, Free Speech's new article today is by James Gatehouse about the increasingly intrusive and bossy State, ironically asking why shouldn't it tell you what to do, as many of us seem all too happy to be told how to live our lives.

    As always please do read and leave a comment as they make a real contribution to the dynamics of our site. freespeechbacklash.com

    In gratitude.
    Tom

    1. I guess one can avoid responsibility for one's mess ups if the excuse "The State told me to do that" applies, and They must sort it out (only, "They" won't, and can't)

      1. I wonder if they themselves know? But if authority tacitly encourages you to push the boundaries, lots of teens will do so.
        How they will cringe in years to come!

  34. I had a very brief discussion yesterday with a bright elderly lady at our lunch time meeting .

    I had so many people to chat to, but the main conversation was about the new government , the toll the chancellor will be putting on top of us , the fear of the unknown , and the back of fag packet sketchy politics that we are already witnessing plus the changes in society .

    She asked me whether I had read William Goldings " Lord of the Flies ", I said yes , years ago . No , I haven't see the film .

    The lady , Anne , compared the contents of the book to the present, where we are now , since July , in the hands of an autocratic divisive insensitive political party , and the forecast for the next year or so doesn't read well .

    The book was very unsettling , so what did William Golding know , considering the book was written in 1953?

    When I arrived home after a very enjoyable afternoon , I googled Lord of the Flies , and quite clearly Anne must have been racking her brains to make sense of the unsettling leadership emanating from No 10..

    https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/plot-analysis/

      1. Hello J,
        Yes I read it , and wish I hadn't , and am glad I didn't watch the film .

        I just think it is funny how the lady at lunch yesterday brought up the subject .
        I suspect she, like me believes the new government is autocratic and unstable .

        1. Well, of course it is an allegory and the current government is hideous and one could imagine it will get much worse before things improve.

      2. I couldn't finish it. It was one of those horrible books that English teachers love to inflict upon teenagers. Research shows that conservatives tend to be far more sensitive to frightening things than those of a left wing disposition, and as most English teachers are left wing, I don't think they realise what they are doing to sensitive right wing teenagers – or they just don't care.

    2. One of my best and closest friends died this year. We came over to England and I gave an address at the funeral. He had been at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury and was taught by William Golding.

    3. Read it at school when I was 14. Loved it, a pity there weren't any girls on the island to 'civilise' us boys.

  35. OT – in about a month the famed EUSSR new border controls will start – fingerprints, eye scans etc etc.

    I understand that some 450 MILLION people visit the EU each year – roughly 1,300,000 every DAY.

    How soon after the start will the system collapse? Place your bets……

    1. Polling has reached peak fantasy, especially the ones coming out of the US that show Harris leading Trump?

      1. I fear that the election will be rigged to prevent Trump from winning. If he doesn't win then as, Elon Musk says, there will never be another election. What he meant by that is the Democrats are deliberately sending thousands of illegals to 'swing states' so that, when they vote they will vote Democrat. Essentially at that point, the USA becomes a one party state never for Republicans to win again. Trump must get in to deport millions of illegals otherwise democracy in America is finished.

  37. SIR – The trauma experienced by residents of care homes, as movingly described by Dr Steven R Hopkins (Letters, October 7), highlights the plight of those who were once independent, coherent and dignified. The inference is that these abandoned souls should not have to endure such an existence in the last phase of life.

    The problem with this argument, however, is that we are gradually talking ourselves into the idea that when life in a care home loses its dignity, then assisted death – rather than more care – is the solution.

    The tragedy is that, in many cases, elderly people have near relations who are too busy to attend to what, not so long ago, their forebears considered normal: looking after their own in a loving family home.

    William Molesworth
    Peterborough

    I need to say a couple of things about the above letter .

    Our own experience with a remaining elderly relative with dementia was exhausting .

    When poor Mil was finding life difficult , she was in her eighties , living in her own home in Southampton , she didn't want to leave her home, she started to have mobility issues , in and out of hospital . She stayed with us , but we have several difficult stairs to navigate , three in the hall , (downstairs bedroom ) and an awkward set of stairs upstairs .. two landings .

    I spent several years tooing and froing to see her in Southampton to assist her in her house . The financial toll was heavy for us .
    Eventually she needed 4 care visits a day , and then sadly her health deteriorated so badly she required residential care .. We sold her house and a care place was found for her in Swanage , where we could visit her frequently .

    Her home was sold in a slump , the care home fees were eye watering , and poor lady had a reasonable happy 3+years in a home that dealt with dementia ridden patients .

    She died when she was 91 years old , we were in our late sixties and the stress of dealing with poor Mil was terrible, dementia is cruel and unforgiving .

    Families who have to look after parents is exhausting, laundry , feeding , bathing , every day tasks and no lifting aids etc , and when you need eyes in the back of your head .

    Mil had had several falls / a DVT, urinary infections etc and a poor care package whilst at home .
    After she was discharged from hospital after another bad fall, we were not informed , and were shocked to receive a call from a neighbour where she lived that on arrival by ambulance to a cold house , she opened the front door walked into the porch to look at her plants and fell again , breaking porch glass, demolishing a wooden support and was badly hurt again .. She managed to press her panic button .. and after that the decision was made by the NHS , residential care was required asap.

    Lots of hurdles for us to navigate ..

    It is so crass for someone to say look after your elderly .. Yes it can be done , but circumstances of dementia vary , and are very trying and difficult.

    1. The quality of care homes varies as well. Some are terrible, others not so.

      The real question is, how many cases of dementia are caused by medications including vaccines?
      How many "lives not worth living due to incurable diseases" are the product of the medical industry?
      Aren't they just proposing a solution to a problem that they have themselves in a large part created?
      So part I was the carrot, "take this medication and you will live longer" and part II is the stick "now you have lived too long, so we will put you down"
      How many of us are unknowingly in this devil's pact?

      1. I think it's very likely. I was reading online comments last night about the proposed removal of free prescriptions from people aged 60 – 65. Many of the comments from people of that age group stated they were on several medications and could not afford to pay, even though that age group is now not pensioners but could be still working.
        Why are they on so many drugs? what do they all do? Statins are pointless apart from generating money for the drug companies and surgeries.
        I'm 76 and in good health – I keep away from the surgery.
        In the past I've had medication for breast cancer but I did have to pay for those prescriptions as I was under 60 and working.
        I think far too many elderly people get put on medications which cause more problems than they solve.

      2. I think it's very likely. I was reading online comments last night about the proposed removal of free prescriptions from people aged 60 – 65. Many of the comments from people of that age group stated they were on several medications and could not afford to pay, even though that age group is now not pensioners but could be still working.
        Why are they on so many drugs? what do they all do? Statins are pointless apart from generating money for the drug companies and surgeries.
        I'm 76 and in good health – I keep away from the surgery.
        In the past I've had medication for breast cancer but I did have to pay for those prescriptions as I was under 60 and working.
        I think far too many elderly people get put on medications which cause more problems than they solve.

      3. My dad certainly worsened post-medication. Report today (poss Daily Sceptic) the amount your 'average' GP makes financially.

          2. Privatise the profits, socialise the losses. The bankers’ favourite game too. A win-win for the parasite class at the expense of the people. No wonder they hate and fear us so much.

      5. That is a very valid point.
        Poly pharmacy is probably behind a great many blighted lives.

    2. Caroline is spending a great deal of time running around for our friend Jim who is now in a very good nursing home but there is still much she has to do because Jim cannot communicate in French any more and cannot cope with the tortuous French admin system.

      You and Caroline seem very alike in the kindness and care you lavish on people who need these things.

    3. When my mother was widowed, her mother came to live with us. At first, it was good because she was there when I came home from school, although I'd had to give up my bedroom for her. As time went by, however, she became incontinent; in spite of my mother providing her with a commode. Later, she was having hallucinations – she was on several medications, including digitalis. One night she got up and smashed the sitting room window with a heavy poker, because there were three men coming in.
      At that stage, mum could cope no longer, she was working full time, and I was only six. She had grandma admitted to the local mental hospital, where she died. I'm not sure how long she was there, but she lived with us for less than two years. I don't think care homes were an option then. She was about the same age I am now.

    4. Well done both of you for trying. It really needs the whole family to be involved and provide assistance if it is going to work.

    5. That's hard reading, Belle. I applaud your resilience in the face of the relentless care and work.
      Mother is in a care home in Penarth, and they seem pretty good. Daily Facebook postings of activities, parties and the like, occasional outings – looks quite good, really, but the cost is fierce (approx. £5 000 a month). Still, we couldn't have got Mother to Norway without the use of ambulance flight, our house isn't rigged for frail elderly types at all, and Mother would have not had any funding from Helsevesen as she's never paid tax nor got a residency permit. It would be a disaster to try. Upshot is, we have little contact apart from a phone call periodically (during which she shows how little she remembers f me or SWMBO or the boys), but at least she is warm, fed, clean and attended.

      1. I feel the same about Elderly Chum. I'm not sure now that she recognises me, and on my last visit I was highly relieved to see her happily respond to one of the nursing staff.

    6. I get blood before my eyes when I see those virtue signalling posts.
      Like most of us, I have seen and dealt with old people who are not only helpless and incontinent, but also spiteful and often down right violent.
      I had more injuries on the psycho geriatric wards than I did on the locked ward. Partly because for obvious reasons, you have to get close and personal with the patients, but that doesn't make being kicked, punched, pinched or scratched any easier to take.
      I have seen children's lives being dominated by one senile old tyrant treating her entire family like dirt.
      These bloody patronising do-gooders need to cope with that for months – probably years – on end before they hold forth.

      1. Good girl, Anne , you took the words out of my mouth .

        I was clobbered heavily by a walking stick .. and much more , and had my hair pulled and have been sent flying .

        1. When my mother was in her final Care Home, she up-ended a wheelchair bound woman who drooled over dolls. The woman had to go to the hospital.

          on another occasion she had a punch-up with another who shared the name Flo. Florence, Florrie… Police were called to lecture the old lady.

          My sister recalls the date 14-09-17. She calls it the "Sort Code". It's a long tale, but neither my sister nor I have ever shed a tear …. indeed I was on a positive high for months after 14 Sept 2017.

    7. It isn't only elderly parents; caring for a spouse with dementia is also a drain on your own health.

  38. Far-right activists fundraising for people jailed over UK riots. 9 October 2024.

    Far-right activists are trying to raise funds for people jailed over their roles in the summer riots, describing them as “political prisoners”, in an attempt to generate support by giving money to their families.

    More than £14,000 has been raised by a leading group, which has been promoting the start of its “gifting” of funds to families of “political prisoners”.

    They are Political Prisoners, regardless of their individual offences, and although I don’t regard myself as far-Right, and I’m certainly not active, I would contribute.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/09/far-right-activists-fundraising-for-people-jailed-over-uk-riots

    1. I don't understand why they are not appealing against the disproportionate sentences.

      1. Perhaps they have been told that appeals won't be successful and would result in even harsher punishments?

        1. Maybe – but an impartial judge (I know, I know) might be persuaded that shouting at a dog is not a serious as throwing acid at a child.

          2. IIRC various commenters, here or elsewhere, have pointed out that the Dog Shouter carried out various acts of damage or violence and may have already had a criminal record. However, owners of springer spaniels are now nervous.

          3. IIRC various commenters, here or elsewhere, have pointed out that the Dog Shouter carried out various acts of damage or violence and may have already had a criminal record. However, owners of springer spaniels are now nervous.

      2. Morning Bill. I believe that the Free Speech Union (FSU) are appealing some of the sentences for those speaking out on Facebook.

    2. Today's Guardian in 1834;
      "The six men sentenced to transportation for their roles in the sedition are being referred to by far-right activists as the 'Tolpuddle Martyrs' in an attempt to generate support"

      1. Each made an oath never to reveal the contents of their first meeting.. their quest for charter.
        Gotcha! Secret oaths smacked of revolution, and they were duly charged under schedule seven of the Terrorism Act 2000.

          2. Ahem, we don't do secret oaths. We are a society with secrets, not a secret society (and you can find out all about it on the web!).

        2. I was just listening to Carl Benjamin. He asked the question: "When was the last time you heard of a non-white person going to jail for hate speech?" He is convinced, as am I, that the government is practicing discrimination against the native English.

    3. For "far-right read, native English worried about the destruction of their country and culture and how they are being marginalized by hostile forces with the collusion of a government that hates them. As the well known remark from Orwell goes and I paraphrase. Our government consists of people who would rather steal from the poor box than stand for the national anthem.

  39. Far-right activists fundraising for people jailed over UK riots. 9 October 2024.

    Far-right activists are trying to raise funds for people jailed over their roles in the summer riots, describing them as “political prisoners”, in an attempt to generate support by giving money to their families.

    More than £14,000 has been raised by a leading group, which has been promoting the start of its “gifting” of funds to families of “political prisoners”.

    They are Political Prisoners, regardless of their individual offences, and although I don’t regard myself as far Right, and I’m certainly not active, I would contribute.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/09/far-right-activists-fundraising-for-people-jailed-over-uk-riots

  40. That story didn't last long. It was hard-left Fake News

    Hard Left Byline Times Publishes Fake News on Lord Walney

    Guido—and likely John Woodcock himself—was shocked to read in the hard-left propaganda site Byline Times yesterday that Woodcock (now Lord Walney), the government’s anti-extremism adviser, had supposedly been sacked. What’s less surprising is that Byline Times journalists Josiah Mortimer and Adam Bienkov had written totally incorrect information. In reality, Lord Walney remains the government’s extremism adviser and is, in fact, giving evidence today to the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly. Byline published complete fake news, then…

    This wasn’t a case of a story being ‘too good to check.’ Byline Times actually received a response from Number 10, the background line confirming that Woodcock was still in post. The highly marginal site chose to ignore this critical detail and ran with their false claim anyway. Now, after being forced into a humiliating U-turn, they’ve had to correct the article’s headline to state that Lord Walney “Remains in Post.” Though The Times now reports that his position is “under review” following his warnings about far-left protests. Just another example of the left-wing media pushing their narrative before verifying the facts…

    9 October 2024 @ 08:26

  41. Good morning, my friends; I am rather late as I have only just got an internet connection that works.

    The MSM is trying to convince everyone that The Conservatives can only win if they stick to the centre or left of centre but the last Conservative PM to win substantial majorities was Margaret Thatcher. Cameron and May both failed miserably and each had to make a pact with either the Lib/Dems or the UDP to form a government. The Brexit issue gave Johnson a good majority which he squandered and Sunak led the party to its worst ever defeat.

    So it is no surprise that the Left leading MSM are urging the Conservatives not to move to the right because if they move to the right their meagre chances might improve. The odious Michael Crick is very much in favour of a left of centre Conservative Party because he know such a party will never win a decent majority.

    If Cleverley becomes leader Allison Pearson has declared that she will move to the Reform Party and I suspect that many others will do so too. The Conservative Party is getting weaker an inch at a time – why can't it just hurry up and die?

    1. Allison is on cracking form today – roasting Starmer, Labour's war on the old and Milioaf! She ends "I am indebted to Geoff [anyone we know??] for his inspired moniker for Ed: Thoroughly Mental Mili"

    2. Some of us think it already has, Rastus. Next leader projected to be Cleverly. (apart from that, Good Morning, btw..Kate)…

    3. Are you suffering the effects of Storm Kirk?
      I heard the UK dodged a bullet and France was in its crosshairs.

      1. Caroline has just got onto the Service Provider who says they are working on it and normal service should be resumed at 9 o'clock this evening.

    1. If you haven't read the article or didn't notice the following at the bottom of the page there's this, for health reasons, of course.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42d33ab78b68270d4dd0662028c814ce871c1f1ac42500914ef0a4e7cfb71c9d.png

      I believe that the Lotus Eaters' podcast was on to this a week or so ago. The rise of the new Puritans in the form of faux Labour control freaks and destroyers of what little pleasure remains for the 'little' people.

      1. For health reasons those pathetic twats will say anything to support those involved in the destruction of our culture and social structure.

      2. Far more drinking is done at home because it's cheaper. That's the greater health risk.

      3. They should try prohibition. Where's Al Capone when you need him. Yeah, I know. Fiddling his taxes.

        1. It was prohibition that enriched the Kennedy's so much they were able to buy the Whitehouse.

  43. Never seen that before. Got it eventually.
    Wordle 1,208 5/6

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    1. Me too. Should have got it in three (dummy). Posted early morning but no one about.

      Wordle 1,208 4/6

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    2. Me too. Should have got it in three. Posted early morning but no one about.

      Wordle 1,208 4/6

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    3. Better than me.

      Wordle 1,208 6/6

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    4. Bloody silly.

      Wordle 1,208 X/6

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    5. Well, it is the New York Times, I suppose, but still……. annoying.

      Wordle 1,208 5/6

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  44. 'Morning All
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5dbcc35fc3710163f91adbd8cea97e05ffc20d3e1961c35c1fbc5260c9760d1a.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e259cbdf90f723e13042ecedb240ef323c8f7aa4e78f227bbbaaa5a1301038fc.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93bdcce73f00788ffe7d79096813f4556e54d3a2f801c03e6ec07294da2c2500.jpg
    https://media.scored.co/post/miIw2plMlEkW.jpeg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/191609ebb38a3671ed48d1a5ba1b345833c548cb4c51fb0ff698728eccabe0c7.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1932c4a8bdf145d7eea44069c82a3f60cdd0b70085cfeeb8ef3798da7262f194.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94770d2560e4630c036841740ff1034d1ab1e9d3a9fcf09df245121ed4eb8037.jpg

  45. "Not fit to run a whelk stall"
    The "You couldn't make it up files" gets a double outing
    Announce "We're considering an exit tax to prevent the rich leaving without paying their dues"
    Result?? Mass exodus of people and capital
    Announce "We're considering cutting the pension tax free lump sum"
    Result?? Pension companies overwhelmed with withdrawel requests (Try ringing yours)
    Even Gordon Brown only did it once (gold)

    2. People who make good money knowing better than me insist that confiscating the fortunes of the rich in tax is the answer because they lack the imagination to think of an alternative, and will not listen to me because I do not matter.

      By all means, let them leave, but their money could be left on deposit here, and picked up when they return. That way, the country can benefit from wealth generated, and the wealth generators do not find their fortunes taken away, just held in safe keeping.

      This money can then be invested in British enterprise, rather than frittered way on yachts, high fashion and cocaine parties abroad, and profits so generated can then be taxed at the normal rate.

      1. Do you believe it is in the purview of the State to decide on how and what people spend their money on?

        1. Up to a point, yes. The nation provides the environment and infrastructure allowing its subjects and citizens to go about their affairs in peace and in good heart. This does not come free, especially when there are malign forces at large.

          The problem comes when the State gets into disrepute. This needs to be addressed urgently.

          1. Currently, the "malign forces at large" are either in the government, inspired by the government, aided and abetted by the government or encouraged by the government!

      2. Would you be happy to have the government impound your money and only give it back when you had satisfied it that you obeyed certain conditions it laid down? Why would you bother to make money at all under those tyrannical circumstances? Why is it that all socialist solutions are a mixture of jealousy, spite, and rage?

        1. Most globalists despise patriotism and regard it as a form of tyranny, which is perhaps why they are so free with their insults, be they aimed at “lefties” or the “extreme-right”. For my part, I feel I owe something to my country as I do to my village, since it is a far nicer place to be than many hell-holes in the global sphere, and not nearly as distasteful and horrid as the smug and spiritless gated estates that ape gloating Americans.

          It depends what these conditions were. I was introduced to National Savings when I was seven, and took great pride as I saw my account balance rise. The pay from my very first job, in 1970, went into that same account. I was proud to have the royal coat of arms on my pass book, and proud to have an effigy of the Queen on my money.

          It is important that the conditions upon which the money would be released are generous – and there are quite a number I could list: investment in British enterprise, charity, claimed when annual income dropped below a threshold set at, say, double the income of the Prime Minister, to provide a home for a son or daughter or a grandchild or a parent, and any number of things that are of benefit to the community or the nation.

          It would require a restoration of public confidence in national institutions, which has been trashed since at least the time of Thatcher. The only figurehead I can think of whose reputation has remained reasonably intact is the King (mostly because his position is assured; he does not need to be corrupt), so a Royal Commission would play a major part in setting up the quango that sets the conditions. I certainly would not trust politicians, and least of all “socialists” with their snouts in the trough.

          What has jealousy, spite and rage got to do with it, other than in the twisted minds of nasty people?

      3. I’d advise anybody leaving the U.K. to take their money with them while they can. All those who have worked enough townsave,or who merely have well paid jobs, have paid their taxes and all other statutory fees/dues/liabilities. HMG is being greedy, vindictive and vicious.

        A Country cannot be taxed into prosperity. Labour is a party of envy. The cons are nearly as bad – they never mentioned reducing expenditure. Roads are full of appalling potholes, local authorities and institutions are shirking from home, nothing works properly and the NHS is broken beyond a sticking plaster.

        1. I'm not leaving the UK but I'm spending my money (on things that will benefit me) before Starmer and his wrecking crew can get their hands on it.

    3. Scenario:
      Announce: "We're considering an exit tax for people who wish have assistance in dying"
      Result: Mass euthanasia and £22bn black hole sorted.

    1. What a ghastly piece of moral equivalence. It fails to discuss properly two very different matters: the specific one that is Israel and the murderous Islamic hatred directed towards it and the general one of mass immigration not just in this country but in Europe as a whole. Islam may be the most visible sign of that but the fracturing of UK society isn't caused only by Muslims; criminality is rife in some sections of the immigrant population, especially the more recent arrivals, whether African, Asian or European. Instead, it fixates on the idea of the 'far-right'.

      How October 7 unleashed an unstoppable wave of hate in Britain

      The boiling over of far-Right extremism in the form of violent rioting in August has exposed how divided our communities have become

      George Chesterton • 9th October 2024 • 9:00am

      The descent of far-Right mobs on asylum seekers and mosques in August presented a desperately needed opportunity for social cohesion. This flare of extremism, a reaction to false claims that the killer of three children in Southport was an asylum seeker and a Muslim, was a chance for anti-extremists and anti-racists everywhere to come together against a common enemy. But this didn't really happen, despite the swell of self-congratulation about how communities had united to fight fascism. Nothing reveals the maelstrom of competing extremisms in 2024 like the far-Right threatening Muslims over fake claims on social media, leading to counter protests at which Islamists spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

      "It was such a shame," says Dave Rich, head of policy at the Community Security Trust (CST) . "October 7 and the war since has divided communities and, to a certain extent, it has divided Muslim and Jewish communities. But the riots were something everyone could agree were a terrible thing. Some people from different parts of society did come together but a lot of Jewish people felt not welcome because of that conspiracy theory [that 'Zionists' were responsible]. And it's just another thing that made Jewish people feel 'you're not welcome here any more' and another sign of the impact of the last year."

      That such theories proliferated – and that those espousing them felt safe doing so – is a sign of how quickly tensions between communities and ideological opponents can fall into a kind of arms race of grievance and mistrust. The claim that "Zionists" were somehow behind Tommy Robinson and the other far-Right groups involved in the August disturbances was voiced in mosques in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Blackburn and Leicester (there are reports of preachers in mosques across Britain calling for support for Hamas – a crime under the Terrorism Act 2000). Some radical imams have been filmed calling for the killing of Jews, in sermons delivered since the Hamas attacks.

      The tragic irony that factions at anti-fascist rallies were spreading anti-Semitic hate was lost on many, though not on Jewish communities to whom it has become familiar. And around the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, we witnessed another weekend of anti-Israel protests at which some participants openly supported Hamas and Hezbollah. While 17 arrests were made, at times police appeared to look on at hateful behaviour. Amid the "I love Hamas" placards with the Star of David turned into a swastika, one of the most shared videos was of a young man shouting "Freedom fighters! They will finish you all off!" as his smiling family looked on. There was little ambiguity about who he meant by "you".

      Anti-Semitism is especially, though not uniquely, prone to normalisation. The shifting of the plates in that direction after October 7 reinforces the drift towards increasing extremism in the UK, especially among young people. A new survey from The Campaign Against Antisemitism found that 13 per cent of British 18- to 24-year-olds do not believe that Hamas killed around 1,200 Israelis on October 7, compared with 7 per cent of the wider public. Some 16 per cent of young British adults believe that the attacks carried out by Hamas were justified. It's this kind of data that continues to concern and confound the authorities – and the communities directly affected.

      The riots in August emerged in a fever of extremism, presenting a shop window for the problems facing the authorities and on the ground among communities, schools and universities. The great challenge from extremism, aside from the damage it does day to day, is that its increasing prevalence means it becomes something to be managed or lived with, rather than tackled head-on. The riots proved that no community is immune from the threat.

      "I see people experiencing alarming levels of Islamophobia," says Imam Qari Asim, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board. "In the last few months, the elderly find themselves looking over their shoulders when they go to a mosque for fear of attack. Women are more vigilant, especially if they are on public transport. The riots were traumatic and painful for the whole Muslim community. Lots of mosques have had to get extra security. It's a visible reminder that the threat still exists."

      In the 11 months after the Hamas attack on Israel, 2,170 anti-Semitic crimes were recorded by the Metropolitan Police, compared to 1,568 Islamophobic hate crimes. This represented more than a fourfold increase in anti-Semitic crime. Earlier this year, the Muslim charity Tell Mama documented 2,010 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 7 February, a steep rise from the 600 it recorded for the same period in 2023. Similarly, CST reported 1,978 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded across the UK in the first six months of this year, the highest January-to-June total ever reported to CST. It is a 105 per cent rise from the first half of 2023.

      There are a range of expressions used in pro-Palestine marches, drawing on ideas and language from the far-Left and Islamists that many would regard as extremist – but that are not criminal. Chants calling for a global "intifada" (Arabic for "uprising") or "from the river to the sea", for example, are considered genocidal in intent by most Jews but do not currently meet the criminal threshold, and have become normalised.

      "Official reactions to extremism depend on where you are and who you are," suggests Rich. "If you carry an anti-Semitic placard or express support for a proscribed terrorist group on a march in central London then you are more likely to be arrested for that now than you would have been in the immediate weeks after October 7."

      The chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Gideon Falter is more sceptical: "What has defined this period has been a policy of appeasement. They have policed the marches as if they were benign, but we see precious little activity against the support of terrorist organisations and incitement to racial hatred. In the days after October 7, Islamists and far-Left extremists decided to test the waters to see how far they could go in their support for terrorist organisations and Jew hatred. Once they realised they could go very far they continued to push those borders. What we need to see is a change in attitude among law enforcement.

      "October 7 unleashed the wave of anti-Semitism that we're seeing now. Against the backdrop of mass support for Hamas terrorists, disguised as support for a foreign cause, we've seen violence against the police – but also ineffective policing and prosecution. Over the summer we saw an extremely fierce response to far-Right arsonists and thugs but we have yet to see that applied to terrorist sympathisers and racists in our streets or our campuses."

      An incident at Labour's annual conference in Liverpool last month caused particular consternation. Two men freely held up a sign that read "Zionists control the Labour Party", along with a Star of David dripping with blood. It's hard to argue the banner isn't overtly anti-Semitic, both by use of a classic conspiracy trope and as reference to Jews and the blood libel. But there's a body of extremist language and ideas that can be expressed in public that either isn't criminal or could be criminal but isn't being treated as such. That means it continues to become more permissible and tolerated.

      Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, has defended police against criticism of its approach to the pro-Palestine marches, saying: "At the moment, one side of the debate seems to say that we are guilty of two-tier policing and the other side says that we are oppressive and clamping down on the right to freedom of speech.

      "In this context of polarised public debate, I do think sometimes that we're the first people who are able to be labelled, simultaneously, woke and fascists."

      Lord Walney, the Government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption, says: "I'm convinced the police are trying to do their best in difficult circumstances and I think the idea of two-tier policing is unhelpful. But, inevitably, there can be inconsistencies in the way the public order measures are applied and how hate speech is policed."

      Successive governments have sought to define "extremism" as a guide for public institutions and authorities, sometimes as part of the anti-radicalisation Prevent programme, or, as a means to identify groups that could be stripped of public funding or charitable status.

      But the quest for an enforceable statutory definition of extremism is like the search for Shangri-La. Terrorism already has a broad sweep of criminal thresholds and incitement to violence and racial hatred are existing public order offences. Extremism is always just over the horizon, not least because each attempt to pin it down raises fresh (and valid) questions over freedom of speech and expression that may impinge on debates about issues such as trans rights and climate change.

      "The definition of extremism will inevitably and unavoidably be highly problematic to a constitutional lawyer, especially if it is required to perform legal purposes such as banning associations or convicting persons of crimes," says Prof Clive Walker, professor rmeritus of criminal justice studies at Leeds University. "Current laws already include many provisions which address those who wish to prompt extremism. The law is not powerless at present."

      Despite the latest definition being only five months old, the Government has announced another review of official guidance. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said in August: "For too long governments have failed to address the rise in extremism, both online and on our streets, and we've seen the number of young people radicalised online grow. Hateful incitement of all kinds fractures and frays the very fabric of our communities and our democracy." That this announcement came after the summer riots suggests the timing was a not-coincidental political response to urgent public concern.

      There is a sharp contrast between the swift and rigorous application of the law over the far-Right and what can seem a slow or reluctant response to tackling expressions of other forms of racism at street level (and by public figures such as extremist Imams). For those who feel threatened by such rhetoric and intimidation, this is hard to stomach. And then, of course, there is the torrential nature of online extremism.

      "What's happened to X has completely transformed the prevalence and visibility of really extreme ideas and language in public space," says Rich. "Extremist ideas can come in the form of a very engaging meme on social media that catches your eye. You think it might make sense and you share it with your friends, and you think you and your friends aren't extremist but the ideas and the language and the messaging can be really extreme and harmful. That's where the border between extremism and mainstream is really breaking down."

      "We should be very worried about what young people in this country believe," says Falter. "We've found many hold extreme views not just on anti-Semitism or events in the Middle East, but on what they want to see happen here in Britain. I'm concerned this will be 'generation hate' and they are being radicalised on a scale never before seen. That threatens the nature of our country and democracy. Young people who get their politics from social media are vastly more likely to be anti-Semitic and extremist."

      This cuts across all forms of extremism. "There has been a concerted effort to link the idea of immigrants and refugees with Muslims in the UK," says Imam Asim. "Legitimate concerns about immigration and refugees have not been addressed by successive governments and that anger and frustration has been channelled against Muslims."

      The main reasons authorities were able to apply the law so vigorously to the far-Right were that the public order offence threshold was reached time and again, which gave them scope to act decisively. Prosecution on the grounds of ideology – in most cases imbued with racism – is much more difficult unless a legal line is crossed, such as incitement to violence, and those lines at least appear to be applied differently in different contexts.

      But, says Rich, "The more we attack the police the less emphasis there is on the organisers of the marches and protests. If someone is walking along shouting "I love October 7" through a megaphone, why aren't the people next to him telling him to stop or taking the megaphone away from him? Why are they not telling him not to come back? We've seen this all year. After October 7, the organisers of the protests could have put out a strong message saying 'If you support Hamas, do not come – we do not want supporters of terrorists on these marches.' But they never did."

      Public perception of extremism as something about which the authorities are unable or unwilling to act is as dangerous to democracy and civil society in the long term as the toxic ideologies themselves. There is a danger that the number of people who believe either that society does not protect them (the victims) or that society in its current state is not worth protecting (the perpetrators), will grow.

      "It's clear the trends of extremism we are talking about are damaging to society and politics as a whole," says Rich. "That's the deeper reason why they need to be dealt with – misinformation, conspiracy theories, extremism, social media that all interconnect. They damage democracy – not just the democratic processes but the shared values of a democratic society."

      A YouGov poll in April found 76 per cent of Britons considered Islamic extremists to be a "big threat" or a "moderate threat". This compares with 59 per cent for Right-wing extremists and 45 per cent for Left-wing extremists. Awareness of the problem is not the problem, but we appear no closer to addressing it.

      "Questions of extremism are bound up with questions of what our shared values are as a community," says Woodcock. "The challenge for all of us in public life is to approach this without prejudice but also without fear. We shouldn't be deterred from discourse on sensitive issues about what is acceptable in a democratic country."

    2. What a ghastly piece of moral equivalence. It fails to discuss properly two very different matters: the specific one that is Israel and the murderous Islamic hatred directed towards it and the general one of mass immigration not just in this country but in Europe as whole. Islam may be the most visible sign of that but the fracturing of UK society isn't caused only by Muslims; criminality is rife in some sections of the immigrant population, especially the more recent arrivals, whether African, Asian or European. Instead, it fixates on the idea of the 'far-right'.

      How October 7 unleashed an unstoppable wave of hate in Britain

      The boiling over of far-Right extremism in the form of violent rioting in August has exposed how divided our communities have become

      George Chesterton • 9th October 2024 • 9:00am

      The descent of far-Right mobs on asylum seekers and mosques in August presented a desperately needed opportunity for social cohesion. This flare of extremism, a reaction to false claims that the killer of three children in Southport was an asylum seeker and a Muslim, was a chance for anti-extremists and anti-racists everywhere to come together against a common enemy. But this didn't really happen, despite the swell of self-congratulation about how communities had united to fight fascism. Nothing reveals the maelstrom of competing extremisms in 2024 like the far-Right threatening Muslims over fake claims on social media, leading to counter protests at which Islamists spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

      "It was such a shame," says Dave Rich, head of policy at the Community Security Trust (CST) . "October 7 and the war since has divided communities and, to a certain extent, it has divided Muslim and Jewish communities. But the riots were something everyone could agree were a terrible thing. Some people from different parts of society did come together but a lot of Jewish people felt not welcome because of that conspiracy theory [that 'Zionists' were responsible]. And it's just another thing that made Jewish people feel 'you're not welcome here any more' and another sign of the impact of the last year."

      That such theories proliferated – and that those espousing them felt safe doing so – is a sign of how quickly tensions between communities and ideological opponents can fall into a kind of arms race of grievance and mistrust. The claim that "Zionists" were somehow behind Tommy Robinson and the other far-Right groups involved in the August disturbances was voiced in mosques in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Blackburn and Leicester (there are reports of preachers in mosques across Britain calling for support for Hamas – a crime under the Terrorism Act 2000). Some radical imams have been filmed calling for the killing of Jews, in sermons delivered since the Hamas attacks.

      The tragic irony that factions at anti-fascist rallies were spreading anti-Semitic hate was lost on many, though not on Jewish communities to whom it has become familiar. And around the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, we witnessed another weekend of anti-Israel protests at which some participants openly supported Hamas and Hezbollah. While 17 arrests were made, at times police appeared to look on at hateful behaviour. Amid the "I love Hamas" placards with the Star of David turned into a swastika, one of the most shared videos was of a young man shouting "Freedom fighters! They will finish you all off!" as his smiling family looked on. There was little ambiguity about who he meant by "you".

      Anti-Semitism is especially, though not uniquely, prone to normalisation. The shifting of the plates in that direction after October 7 reinforces the drift towards increasing extremism in the UK, especially among young people. A new survey from The Campaign Against Antisemitism found that 13 per cent of British 18- to 24-year-olds do not believe that Hamas killed around 1,200 Israelis on October 7, compared with 7 per cent of the wider public. Some 16 per cent of young British adults believe that the attacks carried out by Hamas were justified. It's this kind of data that continues to concern and confound the authorities – and the communities directly affected.

      The riots in August emerged in a fever of extremism, presenting a shop window for the problems facing the authorities and on the ground among communities, schools and universities. The great challenge from extremism, aside from the damage it does day to day, is that its increasing prevalence means it becomes something to be managed or lived with, rather than tackled head-on. The riots proved that no community is immune from the threat.

      "I see people experiencing alarming levels of Islamophobia," says Imam Qari Asim, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board. "In the last few months, the elderly find themselves looking over their shoulders when they go to a mosque for fear of attack. Women are more vigilant, especially if they are on public transport. The riots were traumatic and painful for the whole Muslim community. Lots of mosques have had to get extra security. It's a visible reminder that the threat still exists."

      In the 11 months after the Hamas attack on Israel, 2,170 anti-Semitic crimes were recorded by the Metropolitan Police, compared to 1,568 Islamophobic hate crimes. This represented more than a fourfold increase in anti-Semitic crime. Earlier this year, the Muslim charity Tell Mama documented 2,010 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 7 February, a steep rise from the 600 it recorded for the same period in 2023. Similarly, CST reported 1,978 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded across the UK in the first six months of this year, the highest January-to-June total ever reported to CST. It is a 105 per cent rise from the first half of 2023.

      There are a range of expressions used in pro-Palestine marches, drawing on ideas and language from the far-Left and Islamists that many would regard as extremist – but that are not criminal. Chants calling for a global "intifada" (Arabic for "uprising") or "from the river to the sea", for example, are considered genocidal in intent by most Jews but do not currently meet the criminal threshold, and have become normalised.

      "Official reactions to extremism depend on where you are and who you are," suggests Rich. "If you carry an anti-Semitic placard or express support for a proscribed terrorist group on a march in central London then you are more likely to be arrested for that now than you would have been in the immediate weeks after October 7."

      The chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Gideon Falter is more sceptical: "What has defined this period has been a policy of appeasement. They have policed the marches as if they were benign, but we see precious little activity against the support of terrorist organisations and incitement to racial hatred. In the days after October 7, Islamists and far-Left extremists decided to test the waters to see how far they could go in their support for terrorist organisations and Jew hatred. Once they realised they could go very far they continued to push those borders. What we need to see is a change in attitude among law enforcement.

      "October 7 unleashed the wave of anti-Semitism that we're seeing now. Against the backdrop of mass support for Hamas terrorists, disguised as support for a foreign cause, we've seen violence against the police – but also ineffective policing and prosecution. Over the summer we saw an extremely fierce response to far-Right arsonists and thugs but we have yet to see that applied to terrorist sympathisers and racists in our streets or our campuses."

      An incident at Labour's annual conference in Liverpool last month caused particular consternation. Two men freely held up a sign that read "Zionists control the Labour Party", along with a Star of David dripping with blood. It's hard to argue the banner isn't overtly anti-Semitic, both by use of a classic conspiracy trope and as reference to Jews and the blood libel. But there's a body of extremist language and ideas that can be expressed in public that either isn't criminal or could be criminal but isn't being treated as such. That means it continues to become more permissible and tolerated.

      Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, has defended police against criticism of its approach to the pro-Palestine marches, saying: "At the moment, one side of the debate seems to say that we are guilty of two-tier policing and the other side says that we are oppressive and clamping down on the right to freedom of speech.

      "In this context of polarised public debate, I do think sometimes that we're the first people who are able to be labelled, simultaneously, woke and fascists."

      Lord Walney, the Government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption, says: "I'm convinced the police are trying to do their best in difficult circumstances and I think the idea of two-tier policing is unhelpful. But, inevitably, there can be inconsistencies in the way the public order measures are applied and how hate speech is policed."

      Successive governments have sought to define "extremism" as a guide for public institutions and authorities, sometimes as part of the anti-radicalisation Prevent programme, or, as a means to identify groups that could be stripped of public funding or charitable status.

      But the quest for an enforceable statutory definition of extremism is like the search for Shangri-La. Terrorism already has a broad sweep of criminal thresholds and incitement to violence and racial hatred are existing public order offences. Extremism is always just over the horizon, not least because each attempt to pin it down raises fresh (and valid) questions over freedom of speech and expression that may impinge on debates about issues such as trans rights and climate change.

      "The definition of extremism will inevitably and unavoidably be highly problematic to a constitutional lawyer, especially if it is required to perform legal purposes such as banning associations or convicting persons of crimes," says Prof Clive Walker, professor rmeritus of criminal justice studies at Leeds University. "Current laws already include many provisions which address those who wish to prompt extremism. The law is not powerless at present."

      Despite the latest definition being only five months old, the Government has announced another review of official guidance. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said in August: "For too long governments have failed to address the rise in extremism, both online and on our streets, and we've seen the number of young people radicalised online grow. Hateful incitement of all kinds fractures and frays the very fabric of our communities and our democracy." That this announcement came after the summer riots suggests the timing was a not-coincidental political response to urgent public concern.

      There is a sharp contrast between the swift and rigorous application of the law over the far-Right and what can seem a slow or reluctant response to tackling expressions of other forms of racism at street level (and by public figures such as extremist Imams). For those who feel threatened by such rhetoric and intimidation, this is hard to stomach. And then, of course, there is the torrential nature of online extremism.

      "What's happened to X has completely transformed the prevalence and visibility of really extreme ideas and language in public space," says Rich. "Extremist ideas can come in the form of a very engaging meme on social media that catches your eye. You think it might make sense and you share it with your friends, and you think you and your friends aren't extremist but the ideas and the language and the messaging can be really extreme and harmful. That's where the border between extremism and mainstream is really breaking down."

      "We should be very worried about what young people in this country believe," says Falter. "We've found many hold extreme views not just on anti-Semitism or events in the Middle East, but on what they want to see happen here in Britain. I'm concerned this will be 'generation hate' and they are being radicalised on a scale never before seen. That threatens the nature of our country and democracy. Young people who get their politics from social media are vastly more likely to be anti-Semitic and extremist."

      This cuts across all forms of extremism. "There has been a concerted effort to link the idea of immigrants and refugees with Muslims in the UK," says Imam Asim. "Legitimate concerns about immigration and refugees have not been addressed by successive governments and that anger and frustration has been channelled against Muslims."

      The main reasons authorities were able to apply the law so vigorously to the far-Right were that the public order offence threshold was reached time and again, which gave them scope to act decisively. Prosecution on the grounds of ideology – in most cases imbued with racism – is much more difficult unless a legal line is crossed, such as incitement to violence, and those lines at least appear to be applied differently in different contexts.

      But, says Rich, "The more we attack the police the less emphasis there is on the organisers of the marches and protests. If someone is walking along shouting "I love October 7" through a megaphone, why aren't the people next to him telling him to stop or taking the megaphone away from him? Why are they not telling him not to come back? We've seen this all year. After October 7, the organisers of the protests could have put out a strong message saying 'If you support Hamas, do not come – we do not want supporters of terrorists on these marches.' But they never did."

      Public perception of extremism as something about which the authorities are unable or unwilling to act is as dangerous to democracy and civil society in the long term as the toxic ideologies themselves. There is a danger that the number of people who believe either that society does not protect them (the victims) or that society in its current state is not worth protecting (the perpetrators), will grow.

      "It's clear the trends of extremism we are talking about are damaging to society and politics as a whole," says Rich. "That's the deeper reason why they need to be dealt with – misinformation, conspiracy theories, extremism, social media that all interconnect. They damage democracy – not just the democratic processes but the shared values of a democratic society."

      A YouGov poll in April found 76 per cent of Britons considered Islamic extremists to be a "big threat" or a "moderate threat". This compares with 59 per cent for Right-wing extremists and 45 per cent for Left-wing extremists. Awareness of the problem is not the problem, but we appear no closer to addressing it.

      "Questions of extremism are bound up with questions of what our shared values are as a community," says Woodcock. "The challenge for all of us in public life is to approach this without prejudice but also without fear. We shouldn't be deterred from discourse on sensitive issues about what is acceptable in a democratic country."

    3. BTL:

      Michael Souris
      2 hrs ago
      The vast majority of anti-semitic hatred comes from Muslims, aided and abetted by their useful idiots on the far-left

      Steven McFarland
      1 hr ago
      Reply to Michael Souris – view message
      Last post deleted without trace, so I must have hit a nerve. Anyway, to summarise, the author is creating a false equivalence between right wing extremists and islamic terrorism. The truth is that muslims were never wanted here, they breed like flies, demand endless concessions, covet our females, hate us as christians, and will eventually overwhelm us. "Right wing extremists" are our only defenders, so more power to them.

      Andrew Murray
      3 hrs ago
      The country has been subjected to a year of FAR LEFT and islamist extremism and you choose to open this article by referencing the fictious 'far right'
      Absolutely pathetic attempt to re-write the narrative of what is taking place on our streets
      Propaganda article

  48. 394394+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    19h

    Edited
    I thought it was the British Govnt & political establishment that wanted that, in order to usher in their version of totalitarianism.

    Let me repeat my position so its clear: Putin is a political gangster; Iran is ruled by a vile islamic dictatoship. I don’t like either.

    However, the real mortal danger to Britain are the very people supposed to be protecting it – our Govnt, civil service, establishment, etc.

    And we have no reason to trust our security services & police, since they appear to serve the interests of the Globalist Elites.

    We are being steered into WWW III & Russia & Iran will be blamed – if they succeed.

    1. I agree with you on everything except for the idea that, Putin is a political gangster. The size and incredible diversity of his country and thus its almost insurmountable demands, dictate that he be a realist and a great deal wiser than his Western counterparts who are political pygmies compared with him.
      And you also have to ask the question. Precisely why are we involved in what is essentially a civil war? Further, in peace time, Putin kept every deal he made with the West. He was not, in practice, an enemy. And why are we not told that Zelenskyy is so corrupt that the Americans actually had to take him aside and tell him to cool it. Miraculously he is now a billionaire!!!

      1. 394394 + up ticks,

        Afternoon JR,

        Yes I do agree with you in regards to Putin.
        The peoples of the United Kingdom are really suffering from a very large dose of deflection material.

  49. Islamist Extremist Plots Still Biggest Counter-Terror Concern, Although You Wouldn’t Know it From Legacy Media

    Of the counter-terrorism work performed by Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, three-quarters are “Islamic extremist”, the agency director said in a public threat briefing.

    The UK Security Service, best known as MI5, has worked with police to foil 43 “late-stage attack plots” since 2017, agency director Ken McCallum said on Tuesday. Making a rare public address, the top spy headlined his comments with remarks about counterterrorism work, but this important facet of intelligence work was roundly ignored by UK news headlines overnight, which focussed heavily instead on his comments on the “fevered imagination of Putin’s regime” and its efforts to “generate mayhem” in Britain in revenge for its interventions on behalf of Ukraine.

    Of the 43 advanced terror plots intercepted in the past seven years, McCallum said, some were “were trying to get hold of firearms and explosives, in the final days of planning mass murder”. MI5 and the police had “saved numerous lives” by beating these plotters, he said.

    The “headline split” of counter-terror work by MI5 was “75-per-cent Islamist Extremist, 25-per-cent extreme right-wing terrorism”, he said, confirming it remains the case Islamism is the overwhelming majority of violent extremism cases known in the United Kingdom.

    Despite emphasising the non-political nature of the work his agency does, McCallum nevertheless made a speech thoroughly grounded in the political zeitgeist and recent news cycles. He also articulated government talking points — assuming they weren’t the intelligence communities’ in the first place — making a special interest pleading the case for government-sanctioned access to encrypted private communication, threatening unfettered paedophiles and terrorism if the now years-long digital privacy debate doesn’t go his way.

    On that zeitgeist of “disinformation”, the top spy was particularly disdainful, stating it has an “insidious effect” and “played into… the public disorder that has followed the sickening attack in Southport”.

    McCallum also attempted to establish some cover for frequently-heard criticism of the police in the wake of suspected terror attacks, asserting that in what he said is a new era of terrorism distinct from what had gone before, it is now less clear when attackers are actually extremists, and not just mentally unwell. He said:

    …compared to my years combatting Al-Qaeda, it is harder these days for my investigators and their police counterparts to quickly and definitively determine whether an act of violence is ideologically motivated, or driven by another factor like mental health. Today, an attacker may have no connection to other terrorists, and they might not be on our records.

    MI5 and the police follow the evidence to the conclusion, or lack of conclusion, they support. To be explicit, politics plays no role in these decisions.

    Curiously, despite the abundant evidence and experience from Europe where its influence is more widely discussed McCallum did not mention the issue of left-wing, or anarchist extremism at all. It is not as if MI5 isn’t aware of that risk, and such groups have been considerably more active lately in performing acts of industrial sabotage against the UK’s defence infrastructure, but judging by previous such speeches by McCallum, talking about it simply doesn’t seem to be his style.

    In past years, these MI5 director’s speeches have generally seen the establishment media laser-focus on any mentions of right-wing extremism, even where McCallum made abundantly clear the actual lion’s share of plots faced were Islamist. His mention of Russia and Iran this year, however, gave the newspapers something else to panic about, and it was Russia’s efforts to target Britain that got the attention.

    This part of his speech was relatively light on detail, but the top spy did make reference to cases of a Russian intimidation campaign in Britain already in the public domain, for instance, the arson of a Ukraine-connected business in London allegedly by a Russia-paid criminal. McCallum said:

    …Putin’s henchmen seeking to strike elsewhere, in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve… the more eye-catching shift this year has been Russian state actors turning to proxies for their dirty work including private intelligence operatives and criminals from both the UK and third countries…

    …the UK’s leading role in supporting Ukraine means we loom large in the fevered imagination of Putin’s regime, and we should expect continued acts of aggression here at home. The GRU [Russian main directorate of military intelligence] in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets. We’ve seen arson, sabotage, and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness.”

    Lurid as they are, McCallum’s warnings on this subject have already been expressed in greater detail by his intelligence community colleague, the director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spy agency Anne Keast-Butler, in May. Assuming British and continental intelligence agencies are satisfied to go public with their successes in foiling Russian plots, so far it seems to be the case this attention of Moscow has been more focussed on Europe so far, particularly in Germany and Poland, with several alleged plots have been prevented, from the very serious to the almost bizarrely petty.

    Less discussed were his circumspect remarks on China, which the intelligence chief said — due to China’s massive influence on the well-being of Britain’s economy — has to be handled differently. While McCallum strayed away from specifics, he did at least tacitly acknowledge there is a major issue with industrial espionage, urging British businesses to avail themselves of government-produced advice on how to harden themselves against external threats.

    1. It's admitted that 75% of the terrorist threat comes from the RoP, either via ideologically or mental health issues(?).

      Therefore, it would make sense immediately to stop ALL moslem immigration. Instead we have increasing numbers of these people being imported, all of whom have the blessing and financial support of the government. How can one make any sense of that situation?

      And there's silly old me believing that the government's first imperative is the safety of the realm and its people.

      1. Good afternoon Dandy Front-Pager!

        "…. it would make sense" – of course it would but the PTB have no common sense.

      2. Only, that sensible suggestion is hate speech and cannot be countenanced as a reasonable idea.

      3. Only, that sensible suggestion is hate speech and cannot be countenanced as a reasonable idea.

  50. From the Substack of Jonathan Roguski, bad news about the WHO one-world-government power grab, aka Pandemic Treaty:

    The latest version of the WHO’s “Pandemic Agreement” now proposes two ADDITIONAL international “instruments.”
    Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) “instrument” (Article 12.2, page 19)

    Pandemic prevention and surveillance “instrument.” (Article 4.3 Alt. Bureau proposal – with revisions, pages 11-12)

    If we allow the “powers that be” to get what they want, the details of these international “instruments” will be determined AFTER the “Pandemic Agreement” has been adopted.

    They are trying to rush it through by 11th December:

    SCHEDULE
    October 21-24, 2024: Informal meetings
    November 4-15, 2024: 12th meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB)
    November 11, 2024: Deadline for calling for a special session of the World Health Assembly by the Executive Board.
    December 2024: Possible signing of the “Pandemic Agreement.”

    "In my humble opinion, there is no way that all of the details will be worked out in the next month. Given this reality, the “powers that be” are attempting to extend the negotiations on two very contentious topics by pushing them into separate “instruments” that would be AGREED TO NOW, BUT DETAILED LATER."

    "…many nations (The African Group and the Group For Equity) have clearly stated their opposition to the development of a separate “PABS INSTRUMENT” because they want the details to be included in the “Pandemic Agreement",” not postponed off into the future"

    "I encourage everyone to read the sections of the latest document that are highlighted in green in order to see what the negotiators have already agreed upon.The latest (unofficial) version is available HERE. https://healthpolicy-watch.news/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Draft-WHO-Pandemic-Agreement_19-Sept_17.30.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    (BB2) African nations are no longer prepared to sit back and be the testing ground for all manner of hideous pharmaceutical products that have killed so many people on their continent. The trust in western medicine is not what it was. Several African leaders who pushed back against covid are no longer with us, but we have the African nations to thank in part for the defeat of the pandemic treaty in the first round.
    There's not a lot we as private citizens can do apart from spreading the word as much as possible.

  51. Sunak Swipes at Starmer for Sacking Sue Gray

    Sunak wasted no time at taking a jab at the turmoil in Number 10. Attacking Labour’s changes on employment law, Sunak took a swing at Sue Gray’s sacking:

    “When did the Prime Minister first become a convert to fire and rehire?”

    Cue much roaring of laughter and cheers from the Commons…

    9 October 2024 @ 12:13

    1. One has to ask if he did actually fire and rehire her particularly as she resigned and became the PM's envoy to the devolved constitutiions – it's a bit of a Gray area.

  52. Someone more rational than the Warqueen and I tell me why the only thing we argue about are her boobs?

    We had an absolute raging barny this morning when she said she wanted to reduce them and I said 'If that'll make you more comfortable or happier.' As what should I say? It was obviously wrong as that launched into a screaming match from her as to what am I supposed to say? It's her blasted body. Why is she even asking me? I'll support whatever she does, whatever she wants.

    Does she want me to say no, they're perfect – because I don't want her to change them, I like them, but I'm not the one with backache and getting the attention or the sniping. I just want her to be happy. The only thing I've said I don't like is tattoos and she's not got herself any more – she has roses on her hip and a butterfly on her shoulder.

    2 hours later she's bellowed herself hoarse through the gamut of I don't care about her, I objectify her to I only married because of these… and so on and I ran out of go and just took it because it's not true. I don't think it's about me. I think it's about her image of herself and there is nothing I can do or say to change that. Aside from pinning her down and forcibly telling her I adore everything about her, her mind, her wit, the sheer whole of her, the way she makes tea, the things she knows how she folds a towel how she puts her slippers on: the last time this came up I did just that but it's simply not enough.

    Bloody woman.

    1. My late wife had that problem. Your wife should go out and get good advice from someone who knows about such things. A good bra is essential and helps a great deal. Not sure who you would go to in the UK, my wife had a discussion with the doctor who sent her to the relevant authority about that. She will also find there are exercises to help her back. But yes it's a problem that does seem to be tied up with women's self esteem and there is little you can do about that other than ask her to talk to a therapist, woman of course. She might not want to complain to much in consideration that when she gets older, they will shrivel away into prunes 😁

      1. Should that happen then she will still be – wrinkly, grumpy, grey haired, wonder that I drove into a hedge for 50 years ago.

        I want us to have zimmerframe races – although I'll get there first, the damage I've done to my knees.

    2. This area is very difficult for men to comment on. These things mean far more to most women than most men can understand. I hope it can be resolved.

    3. Many years ago I knew a nice young woman at church who spent what was then considered an absolute forturne having her breasts reduced. Our then vicar tried to scare her out of it by exagerating the risks. She responded to that by making a will and went ahead with the operation. Just a few years later she married and had a baby. Back to square one. She admitted as much but the marriage (when I last saw her anyway) was happy and she was thrilled to be a mother.

    4. She obviously feels she has too much to support yet you believe she should find them adequately suspended.

    5. I used to shout at my husband for whatever reason, although the reason was never the reason. Just a bit of feeling low, fed up, tired, pissed off with my boss, with the weather, with the traffic, with the state of the nation etc. it was hard when the kids were younger. I’m much happier now the children have left home, the mortgage is paid off and there’s light at the end of the work tunnel.

      (although of course now the issue is the fact that I’m getting old).

      1. Might be. Could simply be raging anger for no good reason about something else. Although we try to be straight with one another because if X is the problem then X is what we should address.

    6. I used to shout at my husband for whatever reason, although the reason was never the reason. Just a bit of feeling low, fed up, tired, pissed off with my boss, with the weather, with the traffic, with the state of the nation etc. it was hard when the kids were younger. I’m much happier now the children have left home, the mortgage is paid off and there’s light at the end of the work tunnel.

      (although of course now the issue is the fact that I’m getting old).

    7. Wibbling , tell her the truth , she should be proud of her breasts, they give her a comely shape.

      I expect she has reached the age now where she is called into have mammograms by the NHS .

      If she has had her first mammogram and found the xray uncomfortable , because the examination is similar to squashing breasts down flat between to xray plates .. Whether she has large breasts or small . the procedure can still be rather uncomfortable .

      Tinkering around with breasts is not a good idea .. one should be fearful that maybe the next breast examination isn't successful , and the fright will be a mastectomy and being left with one breast or no breasts at all .

      Your wife needs to be spoilt and fitted with a good bra and breast support .. and given confidence that she has been so blessed with a womanly shape .

      My Moh said early on in our marriage that he preferred a flatter chested woman .. I have had 2 children since, but my confidence was shattered , splintered and still is ..thus resulting in yoyo weight issues .

      (I didn't tell him that I rather liked men with nice round bottoms and not saggy flat ones )

      2. Tits'n'bums are all very well but the most important thing for a woman is to have a lovely, happy, intelligent and sensitive face.

        Imagine a woman with a body like Raquel Welch and a face like Miriam Margolyes!

      3. A very good point I hadn't even thought about. I'll ask her. I thought it was just the back pain.

      4. My neighbour had a double mastectomy (breast cancer); you'd never know if she hadn't mentioned it. She had reconstruction.

    8. If you're asking for advice then I'd need to see the scale of the issue, as it were. Just a couple of photos.

      1. Yep. She gets backache and discomfort. We're both getting older and what in your twenties is nothing is now considerable.

    10. IIRC you did mention that one of the things you like about the Warqueen was her boobs, recently. You may have meant it as a compliment but at the time i thought you were treading on dangerous ground.

      The lady may have an amazing bod but if she sees that as your focus then i'm afraid you are in trouble.

      I know in a long term relationship small things done freely which eases the burdens of your better half are appreciated more than compliments.

      Hope i am not being too forward with my opinions.

      1. You could be right, but the rest of her is amazing as well. Having a conversation with someone 5 or 6 arguments ahead is surreal.

          1. I think she knows she's the centre of my universe, let alone world. She's an astonishing person.

    11. Rigby & Peller costs a fortune, but they are said to have fantastic results. Tailor-made underwear.

  53. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9bf6bb569f5862a14fa98df0f3f6296d5d7bdf64/0_0_3500_1969/master/3500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=cefab5e84ee61f9d4a6b6207da2f9aeb A mother and baby beaver eating bark together at Ewhurst Park, near Basingstoke, Hampshire.

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/945de3fbb9b68ad2585e8f32050ff8f51a6d677c/0_450_1500_900/master/1500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=e7f256d628c8743ad9c3c34338f3138c A young male koala goes walkabout in the aisle of a grocery store in Victoria, Australia.

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/83501db6f75b192496bbf13bae93d4d51ea85ae7/0_0_1256_1076/master/1256.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=f47835b5552fc386fe41210e438dc11a In more runaway news, Suffolk police were called when two emus appeared on the high street in Hadleigh, UK

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/db811937b188fd38cb070a68d283f9e46e36b346/0_0_8311_5540/master/8311.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=22d6ac7845b8567278b88dcd8daa55e4 A gosling snuggles up under its mother’s plumage in a meadow in Frankfurt, Germany

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/945ed8cc6f083d1298c288cd1145193a7b03e596/0_0_7449_4966/master/7449.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=916081516a8d0b3d4e86a3075a9b33bb Confused geese perch on a picnic table in a flooded neighbourhood in Ostrava, Czech Republic.

  54. Authored by Ron Paul

    'Over the weekend, the Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel to "coordinate" with the Israeli military and plan a military strike against Iran. Think about that for a moment: one of the highest-ranking officers in the US military is planning a war in a foreign country against another foreign country which will be fueled by American weapons, American intelligence, and American tax dollars.

    Did that foreign country – Iran – attack the United States or threaten Americans? No, it did not. What did Iran do to warrant a CENTCOM commander bringing the weight of the US military into play to plan a war – possibly WWIII? It retaliated against Israeli airstrikes including the assignation of a Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.'

    1. Back just after the turn of the century, Iran was one of the countries named by the Bush government that they wanted to attack. They've attacked all the others since then afaik, only Iran left to go. So of course, the mythical weapons of mass destruction are now located in Iran.

          2. General Wesley Clark is not a credible source for you?
            Dr Paul Roberts is not a credible source for you?
            Ron Paul is not a credible source for you?

            This is the problem with so many people who dismiss the truth as “conspiracy theories” – they simply don’t understand the depths of their own lack of knowledge.

          3. Simply giving a few names is meaningless – when, where and how did they say what you claim and what were their exact words?

          4. If you had watched the linked video, you would have seen exactly what General Clarke said. If you had read the linked articles, you would have seen a description of when he said it.
            If you knew the first thing about US politics, you would know who these people are.
            Perhaps inform yourself first?

          5. You claimed that “the Bush government” wanted to attack a number of countries. General Clark states that he “was told” that some figures in the Pentagon were planning to attack those countries. He was not in the Bush government and his evidence is hearsay. The US has plans to attack many countries but they are contingency plans and not intentions.

            Do you think that, if the Bush government was intending to attack those countries, it would not be a carefully protected secret and, if it was openly stated, that there would not be a constant stream of ambassadors and heads of state from all over the world demanding an explanation?

            Part of the psychology of conspiracy theorists is to convince themselves that they have information that others do not have or refuse to accept. It adds excitement and satisfaction to their lives and gives them a sense of self-importance. Any challenges to their view simply confirms in their inadequate minds that there is indeed a conspiracy.

            Ron Paul and Paul Roberts are quoting General Clark, neither of them were in the Bush government or were in any place to have independent access to the sort of information you are claiming.

          6. If you dismiss witness statements as "hearsay" then of course everything that is not proven in court or reported on the BBC will be a "conspiracy theory" for you.

            The Bush government was nominally in charge of the Pentagon at the time when General Clark learned the information that he talks about, therefore they were officially responsible for what came out of the Pentagon.

            Of the seven countries involved – without doing a detailed check, iirc all of them have had the benefit of military involvement by the US or one of its satellite states except Iran. Now the US plans to attack Iran. So it turns out that the plans were intentions, doesn't it.

            In fact there have been many protests at the UN over the actions of the US over the years, which rather negates your second paragraph.

            Ron Paul and Paul Roberts are both well established and reputable figures who would be damaged by repeating things that are wild fantasies, therefore their support for General Clarke's statement lends weight to it.

            As for your aggressive and insulting third paragraph, there is nothing secret about this information, it's been publicly available for years, and widely known. It's also never been denied, and most of it has already happened. So trying to pretend it's not true at this stage looks like grasping at straws. I genuinely don't understand why you are coming out with silly insults and aggression to try and deny a signal of intent that is so well known and the greater part of which has already been fulfilled. Only Iran remains, and that country is now being attacked.

            Your arguments have little merit, and you appear to be going for maximum scorn and belittling in the hope of "winning" an argument over something that isn't even controversial to start with which is frankly bonkers. It has been no secret for the past quarter century that the US wanted to attack Iran.

          7. Let, me take your first and penultimate sentences as examples of flawed thinking.

            First sentence: General Clark never claimed that he had personally seen any evidence (for example, a memo, report or being present at a meeting where an intention to attack the countries in question had been agreed) but had been told about it. No court of law would accept that as evidence particularly as known one else has come forward to corroborate it authoritatively and independently. Contingency plans are not intentions.

            Penultimate sentence: If the supposed intentions are not even controversial (your words), why has no-one in any of the US administrations since then, agreed that there were such intentions? Once again, contingency plans are not intentions.

            I’ll let you have the last word, if you want to.

          8. this is a very strange exchange on this forum.
            I don’t know you at all.
            You jumped in very aggressively, over an issue that isn’t even controversial (why would the US government even comment on it? makes no sense), although I broadly contradicted the government line about Iran being the Most Evil Country On The Planet (assuming the govt supports the US which they always do)
            You have very sophisticated and contemptuous opinions about “conspiracy theorists”

            are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell us? 🙂

    4. Actually the Iranian regime has killed Americans by proxy. It's payback time and it couldn't happen to a nicer regime. Attacking Iran will not cause WWIII. The regime is isolated and the people will not fight for it. When Israel attacked Hezbollah the reaction of the Iranians was to celebrate because they are pro-Israeli and only to happy to have the regime fall. Mahyar Tossie refers to it as the 'occupying Islamic regime' and that the Iranian people do not have a government because of the Islamic usurpers.

    5. Iran is a threat not only to the US but to just about every country in the western world. It is a fanatical, hate-ridden, aggressive theocracy that wants to export by the sword its medieval values to any country that does not share them. It is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and, such is its joy about causing death and destruction, it might well use them without regard to the consequences.

  56. BBC Radio 4 currently celebrating the Brighton bombing. Just one of about twenty recent celebrations of terrorist attacks freedom battles against the despotic Far-Right oppressors governing the UK.

    1. Flicking through the TV guide last night (in the vain hope of something watchable) there was an entry which was for a programme in a series of jail breaks I believe. This particular episode was about the break out from HMP Maze by 'people who had undertaken activities in support of the IRA'. Or, as we used to call them, terrorists.

      1. It’s funny how Newspeak involves getting rid of one word and replacing it with three, four or more words.

      2. I had forgotten about those – Another eleven programmes celebrating IRA escapes from HM Prison Maze. Inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.. The 'inside ' bit means they got the story direct from their IRA friends.

    2. I think he just doesn't know the difference between the various types of missiles that were used during the Falklands war. A torpedo is a specific type, as is an Exocet. He's ignorant and doesn't think anyone will notice.

      3. Actually, the Belgrano was sunk by good old fashioned 'point and shoot' torpedoes (2 x Mk VIIIs – a 50 year old design at the time) so not 'missiles' as missiles can be controlled after launch (as opposed to rockets which are 'free-flight'). Conqueror did have Tigerfish torpedoes (which are controllable after launch) but they were deemed unreliable.

        1. In fifty years of working with missiles and their techonology, I have never heard your definition of a missile. Many missiles, perhaps most these days, are “fire and forget” – their guidance is autonomous and they cannot be controlled after launch. Some smaller, tactical short-range missiles are still controlled after launch but they render the firer in danger of counter-fire. With longer-range missiles, controlling them after they have flown beyond the horizon could be just a bit tricky although not impossible depending on its guidance system. “Rockets” are simply propulsion systems, missiles often have them, ejection seats have them, distress flares have them and anything that needs a good push to get it moving might have one.

          1. No, what you're describing as rockets are rocket motors or some other propulsive element that form part of a munition. Examples of rockets that are complete munitions are the 2.75 inch rockets the US used in Vietnam or the 66mm Rocket we used before NLAW and Javelin. Distress flares like the Rocket (!) Hand Fired Smoke Illuminating L series is an example of a munition called a rocket which is a pyrotechnic. My definition was meant to be a basic differentiation. I could have said missiles still have control after firing – whether autonomous or other means e.g. wire guided. It was just meant to show that rockets, like 'normal' artillery & tank munitions are not under any control after firing. Re over the horizon, I was involved in the first test firings of BVRAAM.

          2. The weapons that are colloquially termed as “rockets” are properly called “rocket projectiles (RP)”, such as the 3-inch RP used on a variety of aircraft from WW2 until at the earliest the late 1960s. Take a look at any British official technical publication to see this. If you still need convincing, I can post some extracts from Air Publication 3196 which old RAF plumbers will recall as the armourer’s bible. I’m not sure what point you are making about BVRAAM but at anything like typical air combat altitude, the horizon would be well beyond the maximum range of the missile. Missiles launched from the ground, a ship or at low altitude have a horizon that can easily be well within their maximum ranges. If the user wants to exploit the full range capability of many missiles, post-launch control poses problems other than very soon after launch.

          3. No Mick. 'rocket projectiles' is old terminology. Rather than old Air Publications, I base my posts on 47 years in munitions. 23 years as an ammunition technician in the Army, which included Advanced Guided Weapons, Biological and Chemical Munitions Disposal and the full suite of EOD/IEDD qualifications and operational tours as a High Risk IEDD Operator. Later posting on exchange to Canada and responsible for the munitions technical training to the Canadian Forces. I used to teach all this stuff. Post-Army, senior role in Defence Munitions then 17 years as Head of OME in a defence company (in both Land and Air domains). I won't bore you with the rest of it. I respect your opinion, and I recognise the Air side of the house has always been a little different, but we simply have different reference points.

          4. I am impressed with the courtesy of your reply and accept that our different backgrounds give differing perspectives about rockets. However, I remain of the view that your definition of a missile was not a good one. Nevertheless, in many ways, our two experiences of weapons seems remarkably similar other than the colour of our uniforms. We even share some EOD background so let’s amuse ourselves by positing whether or not a rocket wrench is a rocket, missile, projectile or simply a dramatic way of opening a screw-top wine bottle.

      4. Actually, the Belgrano was sunk by good old fashioned 'point and shoot' torpedoes (2 x Mk VIIIs – a 50 year old design at the time) so not 'missiles' as missiles can be controlled after launch (as opposed to rockets which are 'free-flight'). Conqueror did have Tigerfish torpedoes (which are controllable after launch) but they were deemed unreliable.

    3. Not everything has to be a personal anecdote, Starmer. Your Dad achieved something, your uncle achieved something. You've just cost tax payers a lot of money. If you feel guilty, dissolve parliament and give us all a break.

      1. the Royal Navy that participated in the Falklands War and was sunk by Argentine aircraft.

        Aircraft and missiles supplied by the French.

    5. But, but – surely Lammy will explain that Falkland Islanders are either colonial oppressors or descended from enslaved people or that they ARE slaves.

          1. But even more Spanish, Italian and German ones. The whole country is populated by descendants of European colonists.

      2. Didn't he arrange for coal to be taken back to the brewery to give a darker colour to the town's ale?

    7. Every kid in 1982 followed that war minute by minute, and devoured every morsel of detail and every crumb of news.
      And I betcha everyone in the country.. patriots & Lefties alike are scratching their head at that schoolboy howler.

      How could Sir Keir have not known or remembered?.. Oh wait, of course he was at the Troty KGB training camp in the Czech Republic.

      1. Sir Keir's full name, date and place of birth, passport number and family home address are listed among other International Work Camp participants in a dossier discovered by the Mail in the 'Foreign Intelligence Main Directorate – Operative Files' section of the Czechoslovakian secret police archives.

    8. Every kid in 1982 followed that war minute by minute, and devoured every morsel of detail and every crumb of news.
      And I betcha everyone in the country.. patriots & Lefties alike are scratching their head at that schoolboy howler.

      How could Sir Keir have not known or remembered?.. Oh wait, of course he was at the Troty KGB training camp in the Czech Republic.

    9. Kier can't recognise the truth when it bites him on the nose. There were ships hit by Exocets perhaps he thinks that will be close enough to get away with.

  61. Madeline Grant in today's DT writes about the nastiness – to the point of evil – of Bridget Phillipson. She goes on to comment about the sheer malice of virtually all the Labour ministers who seem to have a sadistic lust to inflict pain and misery.

    There is, however, one minister whom she thinks is less nasty than the others:

    "David Lammy may not be long for the Cabinet, having apparently misled Parliament about meeting the Chagossians, but to his credit he is one of the people who might genuinely be incompetent enough to do this by mistake, too clueless to be truly malign."

  62. Madeline Grant in today's DT writes about the nastiness – to the point of evil – of Bridget Phillipson. She goes on to comment about the sheer malice of virtually all the Labour ministers who seem to have a sadistic lust to inflict pain and misery.

    There is, however, one minister whom she thinks is less nasty than the others:

    "David Lammy may not be long for the Cabinet, having apparently misled Parliament about meeting the Chagossians, but to his credit he is one of the people who might genuinely be incompetent enough to do this by mistake, too clueless to be truly malign."

  63. Madeline Grant
    Is Bridget Phillipson the nastiest woman in politics?
    Imposing VAT on fees in the middle of the school year will upend children’s lives for no public benefit

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/10/09/TELEMMGLPICT000395452732_17284714530990_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq4GoSUj5tx–cOXjJHDSbw_4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680

    Have you heard, readers? Finally, the grown-ups are back in charge. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

    Alongside many breathless editorials and fawning tweets, we recently heard from that living embodiment of impartiality, Andrew Marr, barely hours after Sir Keir Starmer had moved the first vanload of his favourite freebies from Lord Alli’s flat into Downing Street.

    In the spirit of Michael Fish predicting a quiet night before the great storm of 1987, Mr Marr welcomed the arrival of the “ordinary, down-to-earth and serious people” running the country. “For the first time in many of our lives”, he added, “Britain looks like a little haven of peace and stability”.

    The very use of this sort of gushing, faintly-aroused language should ring alarm bells, especially when it just takes a look at the Labour frontbench to see that this is manifestly not the case. David Lammy may not be long for the Cabinet, having apparently misled Parliament about meeting the Chagossians, but to his credit he is one of the people who might genuinely be incompetent enough to do this by mistake, too clueless to be truly malign.

    No, I’d argue there is a more obvious candidate to disprove the “grownups in the room” theory; Bridget Phillipson. Ironically, she is the person in charge of children’s education. Perhaps even more ironically, she doesn’t behave like an adult at all. She has rammed through her flagship policy not in the manner of a grown-up, but of a playground bully.

    It is possible to make a reasonable, civil argument for levying VAT on private school fees, but Phillipson’s language, timing and general demeanour suggest that her motivation is pure spite. In particular, levying VAT midway through the academic year seems calculated to cause maximum disruption to pupils, some of whom must now change schools during their GCSE or A-level year.

    Phillipson often brags about earmarking some of the money (supposedly) raised by this policy for mental health support in state schools. Yet being removed from school mid-year is an inherently anxiety-inducing experience for any child. Some Year 13s might not be accepted to another school so soon before their departure. Where is the concern for these pupils and their mental health?

    In interviews, when asked about how parents will cope with the additional fees, an irrepressible smirk sometimes appears on her lips. For all the rhetoric of “difficult decisions”, this looks like one she’s actually enjoying very much.
    Like many school bullies, she deals exclusively in caricature – in this case, that all private schools are places of tailcoats and astroturf pitches.

    Phillipson posted a particularly unedifying tweet over the weekend. “Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery”, she crowed. “Our children need mental health support more than private schools need new pools.”

    The use of “our children” is telling; you sense that she can’t quite view those who will suffer as a result of her policy as real people. Like all bullies, she seems motivated by her own psychoses; in this case, the idea that a six-year-old in a prep school blazer is some sort of monstrous enemy.

    And, like all bullies, reasoning with her is a waste of time. Her team refuses to answer legitimate questions from those who emphatically don’t fit this caricature; concerns about the incoming SEND school crisis, about the future of music and arts schools, from military families who rely on boarding schools for stability.

    Nor have they much to say about local authorities where large proportions of pupils are educated privately and state places are in short supply. Instead, they are moving as quickly and pig-headedly as possible. Treasury officials were in such haste to define “private schools” in legislation that their definition accidentally may have included every university in the UK, while their consultation seems barely to have been publicised at all. The reluctance to engage is striking.

    Phillipson has even ordered private schools not to attempt to make savings by scaling back bursaries. Putting aside the laughable idea that a woman who took a £14,000 Lord Alli cheque, helping to pay for her birthday party, is in any position to lecture schools or parents on financial probity, the brass neck is extraordinary. She is having a go at independent schools for doing the very thing that everyone told her would happen.

    For all the talk of fairness, this is a policy which essentially punches down, while doing nothing for the disadvantaged children it purports to help. Schools like Eton will mostly carry on as normal; reclaiming some of their VAT increases back through big capital projects. When it comes to private schools this is a government which, to paraphrase Tony Blair, is intensely relaxed about people who can afford Eton, but is absolutely livid that a middle-class British kid might get a leg-up from a provincial private school. There seems to be an almost perverse delight in the idea of parents being punished twice; first, for being wicked enough to educate their child privately, then for being too poor to afford the increased prices.

    A good test of whether the grown-ups are really back in charge is who they think is worth punishing. That Bridget Phillipson seems to believe the answer to that is children tells you all you need to know.

    ***********************************************************

    Stephen Follows
    7 hrs ago
    I remember teaching Andrew Marr's daughter at her extremely expensive and exclusive independent girls' school twenty years ago. No state comprehensive for his kids! Staggering hypocrisy from him if he really does support this government.

    1. My state school had its own swimming pool. The reason state schools need teachers nowadays is that it's a nightmare to teach there!

  64. I've just noticed the post code for Telegraph Media Group Ltd is SW1W 0DT. Coincidence or is it possible to ask for that, like customised number plates?

  65. Why do the MSM listen to her?

    Greta Thunberg Accuses Germany of Genocide Complicity over Israel Support

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/10/GettyImages-2176512551-2-640×480.jpg

    Kurt Zindulka 9 Oct 2024 2:44
    The former darling of the apocalyptic climate change movement, Greta Thunberg joined a Berlin protest against Israel on the anniversary of the October 7th terror attacks on the Jewish state.

    In a tacit admission that there are other issues in the world, and that perhaps the end of the world is not nigh, Thunberg has increasingly begun to associate herself with the Palestinian cause.

    Speaking from a “Solidarity with Palestine” rally on Monday in Berlin, the keffiyeh scarf-clad 21-year-old Swedish activist accused the German government of being complicit in a “genocide” in Gaza by supporting the Israeli effort to eradicate the Hamas terrorists responsible for the October 7th attacks and who still have dozens of hostages held captive.

    “The German government is complicit in this genocide. It finances and legitimises Israel’s apartheid-state occupation and genocide,” Thunberg said.

    “It is absolutely… I can’t even find the words to tell you how upset it makes me to see how Germany and how the German police are treating peaceful protesters for saying no to genocide,” she added.
    *
    *

    1. Oh dear, upset, is she? How sad. Time she got her O Levels and then a job stacking shelves somewhere.

        1. Will the red liquid socialism being poured from that bottle mix well with the diarrhoea already in her cranium?

    4. Should have spent more time at school, learning history! Brain dead moron. Oh, and did she walk to Berlin???

      3. Back before it became an issue, her mother wrote a book stating that Greta went to a special school for children with learning difficulties and that attendance there was not compulsory. That is now officially denied.

        1. Good afternoon, Sue

          Apparently she is autistic – but did she play truant from her special school? Have you a link for this?

          2. Well, Sue Ed, this is the link to the mother's book claiming that school attendance was not compulsory. What I was seeking was a link to the official denial.

          3. My understanding is that it wasn’t playing truant because attendance was voluntary.

        2. I remember at the time reading about her not having to attend lessons at the school she was at. What I had not known is that this has subsequently been officially denied. Any links?

    5. Did she join a protest a year ago against the Hamas taking hostages and breaking the peace agreement? No? Then she can fuck right off.

      1. Now look here, Paul, How Very Dare You?!?!? Don't you know that in her younger days she used to get the world's Top Politicians to listen to her? Lol.

      1. She thinks she won't be recognised in it – like the Known Stranger and Pronto with his Indian Silver..

        1. Reading your post referring to Tonto as Pronto, made me remember that Tonto is the Spanish for Stupid (or Silly). So in Spain and the Spanish speaking countries of South America, The Lone Ranger's sidekick is called Toro (the Bull).

    3. It looks like an effort by Stupidly's people people to keep out Worserthanbad backfired.

      Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch will battle it out to become the next Tory leader after frontrunner James Cleverly was sensationally knocked out of the election by MPs.

      Former home secretary Mr Cleverly took a surprise lead in a vote yesterday, but slumped to third in a fourth and final round of Westminster voting this afternoon.

      He had been expected to pick up most of the moderate votes of supporters of Tom Tugendhat, who was knocked out yesterday.

      But he actually lost votes, which will fuel suspicions that his backers loaned too many votes to Mr Jenrick in order to keep Ms Badenoch out the final two today.

      One veteran Tory aide said: 'Some must have left James to try and stop the right winger they liked least… the Cleverly whips have lost control of the numbers.'

      1. The fact that so many Conservative MPs want to stop the party moving to the right shows just how finished the party is.

        This result is not a good one for The Reform Party. I am sure that a leader more to the left than the remaining pair would have sparked a quicker exodus to Reform.

        Allison Pearson said she would move to Reform if Cleverly won – will she now stay with the Conservatives/?

    1. Both 150% supporters of the previous regime and its mad plans for net-zero and unlimited immigration.

      1. The only Leadership 'run-off' you'd find acceptable would be Gus vs Pickles and you still wouldn't be able to decide.

    2. I'm surprised the MPs left both the far-Right fascist white supremacists moderate right candidates in the race. Scared of Reform?

    3. Hello anne, I got an alert you'd sent me a message but couldn't read it, got the crazy cartoon instead. Sorry if you were waiting for a reply. I think Jenrick's the only one to say he'd leave ECHR, that'd get my vote. I'm not sure either of the remaining two (and also Cleverly) are sufficiently tough.

      1. I loathe the ECHR. It was Blair who made it supreme over British law. And his ghastly missus grabbed all she could from hubby's treacherous legislation.
        However, it is noticeable that EU countries like Denmark, Hungary and Italy are getting tough on immigration.
        I suspect an unwillingness to repeal the Blair act and its enthusiastic application by our judiciary rather than the direct interference by the ECHR is at the root of the problem.
        As ever, Blighty is keener on playing Goody-Two-Shoes rather than putting this country's interests first.

        1. Agree, it’s a stone around our necks. Blair again, and the fragrant Cherie. Yes, and so is Republic of Ireland, witness Mallochy speaking to Chopper this evening. Numbers building now, progress will be made (as I’m sure Jenrick knows, why he mentioned it).

  69. We have no idea how many people are living in Britain. 9 October 2024..

    A few years ago, a conspiracy theory was born, based on the idea that the population of Britain was far larger than the government claimed. This was known to be true because receipts from Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket, gave an indication of how many people were buying everyday necessities, and these sales were too high to be explained by the official figures.

    This article is about the true population of the UK rather than the official (64 million) count. It is certainly much larger than this and part of the reason for this coyness is that any answer would inevitably lead to the next question which is how many immigrants? The government dare not even address this. It fears the response from the voters. My own view is that it vastly exceeds even the unofficial estimates.

    Europe is at the moment suffering something akin to the barbarian invasions of the late Roman Empire. As then these incomers have nothing in common with the indigenous populations. Not in language, health, Social customs or education. The EU and European National Governments think that they will harness this raw influx and turn it to productive ends. Oddly enough the Romans thought the same thing. Like then, this response will fail. First there will be a general degradation of life and then anarchy and the disintegration of all forms of representative government and then arbitrary tyranny. Thank goodness that I am 78.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-have-no-idea-how-many-people-are-living-in-britain/

    1. I suspect that Ed West's article could be defined as "hate speech"

      Let us see what the Courts think of him.

  70. I wont't bore you with the gory details but there is an article on the DT website about painfully thin fashion Models.

    They are not so much the Nelson Touch more yer Belsen Touch.…

    1. Belsen was probably the most provocative place I've visited. The claim that you never saw birds flying there seemed to be true. Closely followed by the Plötzensee Memorial in Berlin where, amongst many others, they executed the July 1944 plotters. When we lived in Berlin, I always took visitors there.

      1. Went to Auschwitz. Not fun, but I'm glad I went. Got a bit emotional over the display cases of poor, broken shoes and named suitcases. That was hard.

        1. As was Dachau. Visited en route for home after Oktoberfest.

          4 guys never sobered up so fast!

        2. I went to the Airborne Forces museum at Oosterbeek about 10 years ago. There was an introductory film which showed current youngsters laying flowers on the graves of the fallen every year. It brought tears to my eyes, I don't mind saying.

      2. Went to Auschwitz. Not fun, but I'm glad I went. Got a bit emotional over the display cases of poor, broken shoes and named suitcases. That was hard.

      3. I was also at Celle and the surrounding moorland was so quiet. Not a bird sang and no wild-life. Right next-door to Bergen-Belsen – spooky.

        1. I think it is the type of woodland that causes the lack of birds and birdsong. As you know it is almost all pine wood.

      4. It isn't true' As a soldier, I have slept in the grounds of Belsen amongst the Russian graves several times and seen birds fly overhead. Not many though. I have often walked round the mounds and memorials with no other person in the area, A strange eerie silence.

        1. I was based locally twice. Living in Fallingbostel, working in Walsrode. Necessitating a lot of time on the Bergen-Hohne and Munsterlager ranges

        2. I visited Belsen in the 70s – I was stationed in Verden. True, I heard or saw no evidence of birds, however, over many years, I spent many days and nights on exercises in German woods. I noticed birdsong was absent from most places. I put the Belsen thing down to Urban Myths – Military Division.

    2. Ugh.
      A beautiful woman has a womanly shape, signs of good nutrition, and a fine smile. Somewhat like SWMBO, in fact.
      Belsen victims look ill, at best, and not attractive.

    3. There is a btl disparaging comment about them walking cross legged. This is done to create an image of curves around the hip. If they used size 10-14 models, they wouldn’t need to walk that way.

  71. One of my uncles, my father's elder brother and many thousands like him were actually killed defending the British Islands from attack.
    Now look at what has happened in their memory more current evets suggest they should never have bothered. The invasion has now been made under the administration of our own useless political idiots.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/keir-starmer-says-his-uncle-nearly-died-defending-falklands-it-s-personal-to-me/ar-AA1rXaUt?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=71402910183c4f109a177bfeacd71f95&ei=50

      2. My father was in the Royal Air Force from 1938 to 1958….
        My elder brother was in the Royal Engineers from 1948 to 1995 – Korea, Suez, Cyprus, Malaya….
        My other brother served in the Royal Navy for 16 years.
        I was a sergeant in the CCF.

        1. My great grandfather fought the Boers in the Boer War, grandfather fought the Turks in the First World War, elder uncles the Germans in the Second World War, uncles fought Arabs later in Palestine and Aden.
          Our family has never got on with anybody………….

          2. And both very under-rewarded for the contribution made.
            Few medals, few citations, few acknowledgements.
            Without their efforts and all those in factories we would have lost.

          3. My father worked in the steel industry. Again, a reserved occupation. That's why we are a Thankful Family (nobody was lost in either World War).

          5. Mine spent it working for de Havilland’s on the mosquito. He had previously been invalided out of the RN so the forces wouldn’t take him.

          7. Indeed.I have visited Salisbury Hall , the secret location where they built them, and which has now become a museum. I felt very emotional to think I was in the place where my (long dead) father had spent much of the war.

          8. Attended the memorial service of an ex-Mosquito pilot this afternoon. Much respect (70 missions on Wellingtons and later Mosquitoes in the Pathfinders).

          11. Father's father was a mine worker; Mothers father worked in clothing manufacture and was a AFS member in the evenings.

          12. One Grandfather was a cavalryman in the Boer war, the other was and RASC horse driver in a field ambulance unit in Salonika. Dad was in the artillery in WW2, uncles in the RN and Army. Brother in the royal Marines, two sisters in the QAs. Me Royal Signals, 22 years. Two nephews serving Royal Signals officers, one an ex-ranker, his brother ex Sandhurst. One uncle, Army in the desert, another in Egypt -RAF national service. Both routinely referred to Arabs as "wogs".

      3. Which restaurant was it ? 😄😊

        My father was a sergeant in the RAF in Yorkshire, Algeria, Egypt and Sicily he really enjoyed the latter.

  74. I told my wife I was going to buy a Mediterranean island. She said 'don't be so silly'

    I'll get me passport………………

  78. A progenitorial Par Four!

    Wordle 1,208 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Crappy six today.

      Wordle 1,208 6/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. I'm grumpy, not happy, today.

      Wordle 1,208 X/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩

    3. Not exactly a star

      Wordle 1,208 5/6

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

        1. It was down to I couldn't come up with another possibl word but that word still seemed wrong.

  79. I was a 'Corps Shag' at school – i.e. somebody who was not interested in playing soldiers and looked scruffy on parade but I finished with two red stripes on my blue uniform after joining the naval section.

    Traceys do not serve in the forces during peacetime but did their bit during the war. Uncle Geoffrey died at the age of 19 as a subaltern aged 19 in WW1; his younger brother, Leonard, was awarded the MC and became a farmer in Rhodesia after the war; my father served as a gunner officer and broke his leg playing rugby which saved his life as his unit was wiped out while his leg was being reset after a drunken doctor bodged the first operation. After Cambridge he went into the foreign office and served in the Sudan.

  80. They are British and they will remain British..

    The big problemo I have with this strong statement of intent is..
    he does exactly 180 degrees different from what he touts.

  81. What is that threshold? What would it take?

    For goodness sake stop driveling on as though Progressive Liberals engage in debate and reasoning. That ended about seven years ago. So the question, Dr Phil, should be..
    When will you (and indeed wet Tories) realise you are actually in a fight to the death.. right now?

      1. Not at all, Katy. I don’t hold a candle for ANY politician, of any sex, any party, in any country. They are all something I need to wipe off my shoe!

  83. That was good.
    Trying to trim right eyebrow, was a klutz and stabbed myslf in the eyeball with the scissor.
    Can barely see for watering, and it hurts!
    Clumsy git!

      1. Watering now stopped; no punctures that I can see. I'll reassess in the morning.
        What a dumbass, eh?

        1. You have to be careful with your sight. Don't ignore problems and think everything will be okay.

  84. Who would have thought that the Conservatives would use, er, vote rigging?

    Astonishing.

  85. Bridget Phillipson accused of hypocrisy after playing hockey on private school pitch

    Education Secretary claimed students don’t ‘need’ AstroTurf
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/money/2024/10/09/TELEMMGLPICT000397295142_17284848703370_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqDGzgDyQhQusxl972-IFqFfUJhikvKyMIPuzJtdmv8Z8.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Bridget Phillipson pictured at the hockey match on October 5, hours before posting a tweet about private school facilities
    Pieter Snepvangers Money Writer
    09 October 2024 11:25am BST

    Bridget Phillipson played hockey on a private school’s AstroTurf hours before suggesting independent institutions didn’t “need” the pitches, The Telegraph can reveal.

    The Education Secretary made a viral social media post on Saturday mocking cost-cutting measures schools are making ahead of the Government’s VAT raid. She wrote that state school pupils “need careers advice more than private schools need AstroTurf pitches”.

    However, Ms Phillipson has been accused of hypocrisy for posting the comments after she spent the afternoon playing on the artificial grass pitch of a prominent private school, where fees are upwards of £25,000 per year.

    https://twitter.com/bphillipsonMP/status/1842606051344151014?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1842606051344151014%7Ctwgr%5E024cbc211ef9638cd7c406cac0d2b2cbda1805d8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmoney%2Ftax%2Fbridget-phillipson-hockey-private-school-no-need-astroturf%2F

    The MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, who was voted player of the year by her teammates in 2023, is understood to have scored a goal during the match. The game took place at 12.15pm – around five hours before she posted the tweet, which was viewed 5.8m times, at 5.41pm.

    The revelation comes after private school leaders pointed out they allowed their facilities such as their swimming pools to be used by the local community including nearby state-school students, free of charge. Teachers have warned this may have to be reviewed if Labour’s planned tax grab goes ahead.

    Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former cabinet minister, described Ms Phillipson’s actions as “classic socialism”.

    He added: “It is ‘do as I say not as I do’ while levelling down for everyone else.

    “Stopping private schools from having AstroTurf pitches will not add a single careers adviser to a state school because pupils are already being taken out of private education so the Government will not raise the money it anticipates.”

    The Government hopes to raise £1.5bn from its policy to levy 20pc VAT on school fees from January 1 and has committed to spending 5pc of this on “work experience and careers advice”.

    Ms Phillipson has often spoken about her love of hockey and described herself as taking the sport “very seriously”.

    She has repeatedly used the sports facilities at a number of private schools for the past three years after she joined her local hockey club in 2021.

    In an interview with The Telegraph last year, she said she had not visited any private schools in her official capacity. When she was asked for clarification, she explained this was because her hockey team played matches at private schools’ grounds.

    There are approximately 1,050 hockey pitches in England with private schools and universities being the “main providers” of pitches, according to England Hockey. But, it is understood her team does not hold its regular practices at a fee-paying school.

    Last weekend, she shared an article by the i newspaper to X which suggested schools were cutting back on embossed stationery, new pools and AstroTurf pitches to cope with Labour’s VAT raid.

    She wrote: “Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery.

    “Our children need mental health support more than private schools need new pools.

    “Our students need careers advice more than private schools need AstroTurf pitches.”

    The attack on sports facilities comes as private schools weigh up whether they can afford to keep offering free swimming pool access to local state schools. More than 1,000 publicly accessible pools have closed since 2010, with many local authorities reliant on private schools to offer their pool facilities to nearby state schools.

    While lots of schools offer these facilities free of charge, it could become a bargaining chip used by the independent sector who have been told to “cut their cloth” by Ms Phillipson.

    In a letter sent to the Treasury in August, private school leaders from around 50 schools reminded the Government how much it relied on these facilities to meet its commitment as part of the national curriculum.

    It read: “Almost a third of children leaving primary school cannot swim, despite this being part of the national curriculum. This is largely down to access to pools and the rate [at] which they are closing.

    “We can continue to support the Government to plug the gap by providing these services, among the many other charitable services that so many independent schools offer.

    “We have no doubt that the Government will want every child to have access to a swimming pool and meet this part of the national curriculum.”

    A spokesman for Ms Phillipson said: “Bridget has made clear that her hockey club fulfil away fixtures against opposing teams who rent the facilities of private schools, often because of the lack of community hockey facilities.”

    ************************************
    Steve Jones
    5 hrs ago
    Look, all this Liebore government are parodies of Animal Farm characters, more equal than others with snouts firmly in the trough
    Morally corrupt every single one

    Al Green
    3 hrs ago
    Reply to Steve Jones
    To be fair, working class icon Angela Rayner gave a £3,000 suit as a gift to her MP boyfriend.

    Phil Franklin
    3 hrs ago
    Reply to Al Green
    I think he was disappointed when he found it did up on the left and the trouser zip was at the back. Plus, it was right green.

    Chris Riding
    5 hrs ago
    In other words her hockey team only exists because of private schools.
    Another resignation to be called for.

    Phil Franklin
    3 hrs ago
    Reply to Chris Riding
    It would be poetic if the private school whose pitch her team used decided to increase their charges to non-school teams for use of their pitch.

    Not Only But Also
    5 hrs ago
    Scratch a socialist and you'll find a hypocrite, every single time.

    Amarone Classico
    5 hrs ago
    She could have added :-
    Our pensioners need their winter fuel payments more than our Cabinet Ministers need their freebies.

    Joe Lynam-Smith
    5 hrs ago
    Its not about raising standards in state schools its about dragging the middle class down to their level. Always has been always will be

    1. I'm simply astonished that her tweet had accumulated 5.8 million views in that time. Are their no snail races to watch or growing cactuses to keep them entertained?

      1. Have you heard from Peta, KJ? I've heard nothing and remain devastated by her news. If you do manage to contact her please send her my love, and tell her I miss her dreadfully.

        1. Thanks for asking G..very sorry to say no I haven’t. I think if Tom had he would have told me. She’s in my thoughts and my heart every day, I miss her very much. If she contacts me at all I’ll be sure to tell her, Kate x

      3. We play there. I play there. Pitch is ok, wasted on the pupils who treat it disrespectfully, but what can you expect? It is a bog-standard comp these days.

  87. That's me for today. A chilly one though an hour of useful garden clearance done. I am hoping for a small bonfire tomorrow as the wind will be from the north.

    Have a spiffing evening planning your vote-rigging for the final round between two no-hope candidates to "lead" the Tory party posing as Limp Dumbs. They'll never get my vote again.

    A demain – prolly.

    1. I really cannot imagine a scenario where the Cons get my vote again either. Sic transit Toria party. Ah well.

    2. The Cons haven't had my vote since before 1997. I don't see that changing any time soon.

  88. 'Night All
    I note BBC4 is showing "Threads" tonight I bloody hope Lammy will be watching…………..

  91. Evening, all. Been another wet, dismal, dreich day here in the Marches. I did manage to get some work done in the garden (cutting off branches), but I got wet and cold and called it a day before I finished. One of my neighbours buttonholed me to tell me to be on my guard as there had been suspicious characters driving around apparently casing the joints. From there it developed into a rant about the state of the country. I told him there was nothing we could do unless we got out on the streets with pitchforks. Anything less would be ignored like the anti-Hunting Bill demos and the anti-Iraq war protests.

    Britain should never have tolerated foreign interference, but unfortunately, those in office (and maybe in power) have never been keen on autonomy and independence – as we found out to our cost when we had the temerity to vote for freedom.

    1. Heyup!
      Not been much better here. Beyond an hour's trip to Matlock and doing a concoction of my own devising with rice for dinner, (tasted very nice and it also got rid of some kidney and liver that had been in the freezer for years) I've done virtually nowt today.

      1. Heyup, Bob! I could have done with you and your chainsaw! I do have a chainsaw to chop up the branches/trunks once they've been felled. I shall anchor it to a saw horse to cut them into lengths to use on the fire. I don't feel steady enough to use it "freehand" so to speak, to take the branches down. Safety first! I have until next Wednesday to take the last one down, so I hope next Monday and Tuesday (my only free days) won't be as wet and cold (not looking good on the weather app, though).

        1. If the weather was better I'd sling my camping gear & chainsaw into the van and head over to give you a hand!

          1. Thanks, but I should manage to accomplish it in time. Weather here is definitely NOT fit for camping! I do have a friend with a chainsaw who lives a couple of miles away, but I'm a stubborn so-and-so and don't want to admit defeat.

    2. "suspicious characters driving around apparently casing the joints.!

      A police car then.

  93. Metoo, but I'd just put it all away & saw this idiot hair sticking out like a unicorn's horn… one quick snip, and… OW!

      1. Argh! Would have likely stabbed myself anyway, as well as pulled half my face off…

  98. A mixed bag, especially the last one.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e20a2a5228156e4c8d624265af243c7d7d3aa6625c62ddb6e03071b2bb894bb.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89b86f78ca273c03b64122113cd0400c989debdd3bef713c46aa125ed7cf5328.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cbc602ccd46530786e7b9df0ce376c37540cc461560ac56ca890b73acad186e8.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e3725430d23aad3a37f0a59b34888a0444132e94a4856798cb5d8d0547edd4cb.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c8066b04d5b90156609ba0036bd740e59b4aabb88c985032709dd6263980cadb.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea2526f0c81fe52a423ae4590593f86d7c0ebf8a7cfd467d97164d990dcec652.png

      1. Me too, every time.
        My Facebook feed is being bombarded by videos of US servicemen surprising their loved ones by suddenly turning up at home, and the sight of slamm children running to Daddy (sometime mummy) and jumping into their arms in ecstasy brings forth tears in me.

    1. GS invariably correct, Sue, Trudeau's days are numbered. Canadians are voting for Poilievre.

    2. They know they are done if a vote of any kind happens, they are hanging on to power and enjoying the taxpayer funded good life for as long as possible.
      Liberal MPs are under no illusion about losing their seats in an election so they just do and vote as they are told.
      Unfortunately it would take an unprecedented intervention by the Governor General to bring the government to account and that won't happen while she enjoys the same high flying life style that Trudeau does.

      at the moment parliament is frozen, the prime ministers office is refusing to release documents from a recent corruption investigation and repeated points of order about these documents are taking precedence over normal house business.

      Or to be brief – we are trudeaud!

    1. I wasn't being silly, I wondered whether there was a military expression I didn't know.
      When shown, now I feel the fool.

      1. I saw it after posting, but as I'd posted from notifications, there's no edit possible. It's me that's the idiot… 🙁

  104. I hate to say this, but given the choice, bring back Sunak, hi risk anus though he is/was

    1. It seems to me the Party has died and all that's left are some relations haggling over what's left of the inheritance…..

      1. Part of me says bury the corpse, another part fears that it will be left-wing governments until we greet the third world.

  111. From Coffee House, the spectator

    How bad will Hurricane Milton be?
    Ross Clark9 October 2024, 3:51pm
    ‘Astronomical’; the ‘strongest storm in a century’; ‘nearing the mathematical limit for a storm’ – the increasingly fraught descriptions of Hurricane Milton are coming through thick and fast even before it has struck Florida. But how strong is Milton really? The hurricane has been recorded as a category five hurricane – the highest classification – with maximum wind speeds of 180 mph. But it is still out to sea. By the time it makes landfall at the end of the week it is forecast to fall to category three. As for the ‘strongest storm in a century’, it may turn out to be the strongest hurricane to hit Tampa Bay in Florida in 100 years, but not elsewhere. Tampa Bay is not usually struck by hurricanes, which tend to hit the east coast of Florida, rather than the west.

    There are different ways of measuring the strength of a hurricane. On maximum measured wind speed Milton in the strongest since Hurricane Rita in 2005. On atmospheric pressure it is the fifth deepest recorded. On the speed of intensification it is the strongest since Wilma in 2005 and Felix in 2007. Much has been made of Milton being the second storm to reach category five this year, but this is not unprecedented. There have been five years which had at least two such storms: 1961, 2005 (which had four), 2007, 2017 and 2019.

    All these records need to be read in conjunction with the fact that it is only relatively recently that we started to get detailed data on hurricanes, especially offshore. While we have records on hurricanes dating back 200 years, scientists only started using satellites to measure speed of offshore hurricanes in the 1970s. Therefore, when we read that Milton has been recorded as developing into a category five storm over the Gulf of Mexico, that is something we have only been able to do in the past 50 years. Before that, data on offshore hurricanes is extremely sparse.

    Some, including Al Gore, have tried to frighten us with graphs showing a rise in the cost of hurricane damage, but this is pretty meaningless given that property prices have risen considerably over time, as has the area of vulnerable coastline that is developed. What about deaths? The most fatal year was 1900, when there were between 8,000 and 12,000 deaths from hurricanes, followed by 1893 (3,000 deaths) and 1928 (2,500 deaths). The only year this century which makes it into the top ten is 2005, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, killing 2,067 people. Improved warning systems, together with stronger-built homes, have a lot to do with this – although there are now far more people living in hurricane-prone areas.

    Milton is definitely a strong storm and will cause widespread devastation, but that is what happens when a hurricane hits land. As for climate change, the underlying fact is that there has been no increase in the number of landfalling hurricanes in the US in 200 years.

    While a higher proportion of hurricanes now seem to make it to categories four and five, we now have much more ability to measure wind speed. While more hurricanes are now recorded across the whole Atlantic basin than 100 years ago, this has a lot to do with better data collection. A century ago a storm which stayed at sea might not have been recorded at all.

  112. Oh joy…..

    "Volodymyr Zelensky will fly to London on Thursday for a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer.
    Mr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, will meet the Prime Minister and Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, for talks. It is Mr Rutte’s first visit to the UK in the role.
    Downing Street said Sir Keir would underline Britain’s “iron-clad” support for Ukraine as it battles against the Russian invasion.
    A spokesman for the Prime Minister would not say if the issue of whether Storm Shadow missiles could be fired into Russia would be discussed.
    Mr Zelensky is understood to be using his visit to present his “victory plan” to Sir Keir."

    Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your Keir …..

      1. I think you'll find the UK has underwritten loans to Ukraine worth over £3 Billion….

      2. But, but, but ……we have a huge black hole.
        It's commonly known as a labour government.

  113. "A new 999 emergency services communication network is a decade late and has gone a further £3.1 billion over budget, the Home Office has admitted.
    The proposed emergency services network (ESN), first announced in 2015, was supposed to have replaced the existing “walkie-talkie” style Airwave system for police, fire and ambulance services in England, Scotland and Wales by 2020.
    However, in a statement to Parliament, Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, has now admitted it will not now be delivered until December 2029. The extra delays will add £3.1 billion to the cost, with the total already at more than £11 billion.
    The “evaluation period” for the new ESN system has also been extended by seven years to 2044, which would add £2 billion to the costs. Sir Matthew also admitted that it would cost £1.1 billion to run the current system for another three years."

    1. I was part of the team that did the drive testing for the Airwave-Tetra system before it was introduced.
      Two years of driving up the highways and byways of the UK.

  114. Time for bed now, chums. So Good Night to you all, sleep well and I hope to see you all tomorrow.

  116. Earlier on this 'ere blog a NoTTLer in good standing (I can't remember whom) posed the rhetorical question of who might replace the Rt Hon David Lammy as Foreign Secretary representing our nation's interests on the world stage.

    What better, thicker, and more racist candidate than Dawn Butler?

  117. I'm off as well. Had a very frustrating day today with our Internet PC It kept cutting out.
    I think I might buy a laptop and dump virgin media.
    Good night all.

      1. Not something that happens often these days Conners, but I'll give it a go. Goodnight. 😴

          2. I did. I've always been upfront about being a Freemason, but I don't normally volunteer the information in the wider world unless I'm asked or required (it's on my list of interests as I'm a Parish Councillor) or it's relevant to what's being discussed. We're one big family here on Nottl, though.

          3. Like you, I have alays been open about membership without volunteering any information. But my membership is a matter of public record on busness media due to my former positions in the Admin of two Masonic Orders.

  118. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    We have no idea how many people are living in Britain
    Ed West9 October 2024, 10:16am
    A few years ago, a conspiracy theory was born, based on the idea that the population of Britain was far larger than the government claimed. This was known to be true because receipts from Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket, gave an indication of how many people were buying everyday necessities, and these sales were too high to be explained by the official figures.

    This supermarket conspiracy of Tesco truthers was mostly covered as entertainment, and Buzzfeed even did a de-bunking, lamenting ‘Rather than trusting the official stats which place the UK population at 64 million, this band of Ukip-ers, conspiracy theorists, and other assorted migration obsessives are adamant that you can really tell the UK population from the amount of food bought – and the amount of sewage which goes out the other end.’

    Britain is a surveillance state, but one where the authorities are clueless about who comes in and out, and where they end up
    Twenty million extra people clearly sounds implausible but, as with many conspiracy theories, there is a hard version and a soft version, and the idea that the real population is much higher than stated is not only plausible, but likely – and with significant consequences for most public services.

    When Britain broke with the EU after the 2016 vote, one of the most pressing issues that arose was the status of the three million EU citizens living here without settled status. A pressure group, the3million, was set up, presumably choosing the figure to show how many people’s lives would be turned upside down.

    Except that there weren’t three million unsettled EU citizens here – the figure was actually 5.7 million, of whom 3.8 million now have settled status and another 1.9 million are in the process. It’s welcome news that, for most at least, the hassle and drama is over, yet it does pose the worrying question: how could the government’s population estimate be out by literally millions of people?

    Then, during the vaccine roll-out, the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) estimated that the adult population of England was 49.7 million, rather than the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figure of 44.5 million. It’s hard to exactly know which figure is more accurate, because younger people tend to be quite mobile, less likely to be vaccinated, and unlikely to suffer hospitalisation from Covid, but the variation is huge at any rate.

    More recently, NHS records found there to be 63 million registered GP patients in England as of September 2024. Yet the population of England was 59.6 million in the 2021 census, and only 57 million in 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics. Even if you factor in net migration since then – 764,000 in 2022 and 685,000 in 2023 for the whole of the UK – that doesn’t add up.

    With GPs dealing with six million more patients than there are people, fraud is suspected, since doctors may be claiming extra money for non-existent patients. However, a formal investigation by the NHS fraud regulator was abandoned during Covid, as there were obviously more pressing issues, so we don’t know.

    It could be fraud, but perhaps not. This week, for example, it was revealed that more one in a hundred people in Britain is an illegal immigrant, a higher proportion than in any European other country, with an estimated 745,000 living here illegally.

    Illegal migrants do not have to declare their status while registering with GPs, although the government encourages foreign nationals to do so, so that they might be charged. Although I would rather that all non-citizens be required to take out health insurance while resident here, I agree that healthcare professionals should not look into the status of patients, since the fear of deportation would lead some people to avoid treatment, resulting in avoidable deaths.

    But if you had to take a headcount, based on whether people were likely to honestly fill out a census, or register with a doctor free of charge, I would imagine that the latter gave a more accurate picture.

    But the truth is – we just don’t know. In fact, everything is a mystery. In November last year, for example, ‘the Home Office admitted it does not know the whereabouts of more than 17,000 asylum seekers whose claims have been discontinued.’

    When Lee Anderson asked Home Office officials how many people arriving on small boats had been returned, they didn’t know either. ‘The big boss hasn’t got a clue’, he concluded.

    Tory MP Neil O’Brien found that even the Migration Advisory Committee was ‘unable to estimate how many graduate visa holders leave the country before their visa expires, and the Home Office is currently unable to supply this data. O’Brien has been pushing for greater transparency on immigration data, which the authorities seem reluctant to give.

    If this all seems odd, then consider how Britain actually records people who come in and out of the country. Until the pandemic, we did so by hiring people to stand around asking random travellers, as the BBC explained.

    For 362 days a year, IPS staff leap in front of travellers at 19 airports, eight ports and the Channel Tunnel rail link. They ask them for a bit of their life story: where they’re from, why they’re in the UK and how long they might be staying.

    Up to 800,000 people a year take part and about 250,000 of those results are put through the statistical mixer to come up with an estimate for the number of people either arriving to live in the UK, or leaving the UK for at least a year – the internationally-agreed definition of a long-term migrant.

    But the IPS doesn’t cover all the ports, all of the time. In Dover there are up to 51 ferry arrivals a day – and the IPS only covers four days’ worth of them over an entire year. The nationwide sample works out at just over 1 per cent of Heathrow’s annual traffic of 78 million people.

    According to the Sea Venture Substack, ‘between 2015 and 2017 at least 601,000 people expected to subsequently leave never had an exit recorded. The government simply couldn’t say whether they went home or not. You might imagine (we have a hostile environment policy, after all) that this would trigger vans of burly immigration officers banging on doors. In fact, no attempt at all was made to even contact them.

    ‘Ignore whatever Home Secretaries and NGOs say about deportations: not only do we not look for overstayers, we often don’t know they exist. In the same time period 201,000 different people were picked up on exit checks who we didn’t know were actually here until they flew out.’

    As one of the smartest Twitter accounts explains, Britain is unusual in:

    ‘not having an ID system. There is no central register of residents or citizens. People prove their identity through random documents (driving licences, utility bills), and businesses check against incomplete databases (especially credit rating agencies). The UK does not systematically collect data on people entering and leaving the country. Many regular border crossings aren’t centrally recorded. To be clear: unless you fly in, it’s perfectly possible to cross the British border undetected. This is particularly true of sea and rail. A Blair-era attempt to fix this (eBorders) was abandoned in 2014. The British government is simply uninterested in the problem.

    On a statistical level, there is even more confusion. The Office for National Statistics uses an incredibly dated methodology to estimate net immigration: standing at the airport asking random travellers if they plan to stay in the UK… The ONS write at length defending their methods, but underlying it is the assumption that people will reply accurately to a letter from the government asking them to list everyone living at an address. Which in modern Britain just isn’t plausible. Housing and immigration policy give many people in the UK a strong incentive to misrepresent their residency, in a way that can only be picked up on anecdotally, or when forced into the open by a freak event.’

    He concludes by asking ‘what would a country that undercounted its population look like? You’d see higher than expected pressure on public services, housing, and infrastructure. It would seem to be inexplicably poorer than its GDP per capita.’

    You would, for example, have a large problem with Dickensian slums, with landlords packing up to 40 people into four-bedroom houses. You would have scenes of overcrowded squalor becoming common. You would have people living in sheds and garages along the back streets of suburban London.

    You’d have a shadow world of which the authorities, and the middle class, were largely unaware of until unexpected events brought them to their attention. This became apparent after the Grenfell tragedy, in which dozens of people died while living in unsafe social housing within a short walk from some of the most luxurious streets in Europe. The state had little idea of who actually lived in Grenfell, because subletting is so common. Since that awful event, no fewer than 14 people have been convicted of fraudulently claiming to have lived in the block of flats, with just a few examples found here, here, here, here and here.

    Britain is a surveillance state, but one where the authorities are clueless about who comes in and out, and where they end up. Conspiracy theories are clearly not healthy, but they tend to grow in the absence of clear and honest information.

    Tony Blair was right: ID cards are clearly needed
    Census-taking is one of the older functions of a government, after tax-raising, law and order and border enforcement. Even the Roman Empire, far less sophisticated than modern states, had a rough idea of who lived inside its borders. We often hear Christian leaders telling us that we should welcome illegal immigrants because the Holy Family, too, were refugees, but at least Joseph and Mary took part in the census.

    Britain’s population is growing very quickly, and this is now almost entirely down to immigration. Last year, half a century after the country entered sub-replacement fertility, deaths exceeded births for the first time in Britain, and that process will only accelerate.

    According to some estimates, about 3.6 per cent of the entire population of Britain have only arrived in the past two years. To put that in context, our history books often cite the Huguenots as an example of Britain’s history of immigration, and they accounted for about 1 per cent of the population.

    But it’s also a problem that we simply don’t know who is coming in and out, which means that we are unable to prevent criminals sneaking back into the country or even getting jobs with the NHS.

    This was recognised as a problem by Tony Blair, who tried to introduce ID cards, an idea abandoned by the Conservatives in the face of civil liberty objections both from the right and left, as well as cost issues.

    I used to be against ID cards, mainly for irrationally reactionary vibes reasons – we didn’t have them in 1913 when, as AJP Taylor put it, an Englishman’s only contact with the state would be the Post Office and local policeman. Plus, Tony Blair was in favour – what other arguments do you need? But Blair was right, and ID cards are clearly now needed.

    The new e-visa system should mean that we have a better idea of who has entered and exited the country, but as with so many aspects of anarcho-tyranny, it will only work in recording those who play by the rules.

    Back in 2010, the Balanced Migration group warned that the population would hit 70 million around 2030, a projection based on the belief that the Tory party would reduce net migration. The official figure for the entire United Kingdom from the 2021 census was 67 million, but I would be very surprised if it wasn’t over 70 million already. What is the actual population? We clearly don’t know. Indeed we almost certainly have less idea than authorities taking the first census back in 1841, when Dickens’s accounts of slum overcrowding first began to prick middle-class consciences.

    This article first appeared in Ed West’s Wrong Side of History Substack.

    1. No, Tony Blair was clearly NOT right. We do not need an ID system we need to stop the boats, start actually looking for illegals and deporting them. We do NOT need an amnesty, either. We need to stop translating everything into myriads of languages (especially benefits literature and NHS information) and we need to crack down on people using the NHS who have never paid into the system.

  119. Today's letters included this:

    SIR – John Thompson (Letters, October 5), discussing Boris Johnson's call for a referendum on British membership of the ECHR (report, October 4), suggests that he "appears to be committed to destroying the legacies of Conservative politicians to whom he often claims to be an heir". Mr Thompson mentions Winston Churchill, who was involved in the development of the ECHR, and Margaret Thatcher, a "key architect" of the EU single market.

    However, this misses the point: by the time Britain left the EU it was no longer just a single market, having grown into an undemocratic, bureaucratic and dysfunctional entity. Had it still been just a single market, I imagine many of us would not have voted to leave it. Does anyone really believe the ECHR is the same as it was when we signed up to it?

    Jon Moss
    Horsham, West Sussex

    The letter to which Jon Moss refers to is this:

    SIR – Boris Johnson appears to be committed to destroying the legacies of Conservative politicians to whom he often claims to be an heir.

    Having removed Britain from the EU single market – of which Margaret Thatcher was a key architect – he now wants to remove it from the ECHR, which Winston Churchill was instrumental in developing.

    John Thompson
    York

    While Mr Moss is correct that the EEC of the Single European Act of 1986 grew into something quite else, both he, Mr Thompson and other writers on the subject miss two important points: (i) Churchill's view and that of the British authors of the ECHR was that it was for Europe, not the UK which already had its protections; (ii) Mrs Thatcher was misled over the SEA as her Bruges speech demonstrated, a reaction which effectively ended her prime ministership.

    1. The European Parliament is so completely disconnected with the voters in member countries that it is about to loose its albeit illegitimate authority.

      Everyone with a few brain cells has worked out that the EU is an elite club and that the rest of us are not members. I merely state the bloody obvious. These European elites hate us and would rather that we did not exist.

      The Ursula ‘thing’ and the morons holding her coat tails are the worst of humanity. These persons are pure evil, self interested morons with no empathy whatever with the plight of the rest of us. To them we are the little people of no consequence and simply annoying flies to be swatted at their will.

      We require a complete and total clear out of the EU commission and EU Parliament. To this we might add the WHO and WEF and their brothers in NATO, the UN and the entire bloc of agencies funded by these people.

    2. The European Parliament is so completely disconnected with the voters in member countries that it is about to loose its albeit illegitimate authority.

      Everyone with a few brain cells has worked out that the EU is an elite club and that the rest of us are not members. I merely state the bloody obvious. These European elites hate us and would rather that we did not exist.

      The Ursula ‘thing’ and the morons holding her coat tails are the worst of humanity. These persons are pure evil, self interested morons with no empathy whatever with the plight of the rest of us. To them we are the little people of no consequence and simply annoying flies to be swatted at their will.

      We require a complete and total clear out of the EU commission and EU Parliament. To this we might add the WHO and WEF and their brothers in NATO, the UN and the entire bloc of agencies funded by these people.

  120. Remember Cliff Richard's song Please Don't Tease?

    We all laughed at his attempt to sound American with the line:

    You love me like a hurry cane

    when we had always called this strong wind a hurrycun.

    But America seems to have won – even the news readers on the UK TV and Radio stations are pronouncing the word as American do.

    4. Well I am late, but I have hung out the washing, scrubbed the freezer shelves and boxes, harvested the oregano and laid it on trays to dry, ordered some books, and am now about to start work….

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