812 thoughts on “Wednesday 9 October: Britain can’t keep negotiating with an EU that refuses to compromise”

  1. Good morning, Geoff. Good morning, all. Red sky this morning.

    Am off shortly. Will tune in later.

    1. Good morning, Peddy and all NoTTLers. Peddy, is “Guten Morgen allerseits” German for “Mornin’ Biull”?

        1. Naturlich! I wuz bein’ funny, but forgot to add ” :-)) “. Must put the kettle on for my first cuppa of the day. See you and all NoTTLers later.

    1. Good morning, OLT. Have you ever thought of setting your Central Heating to rise to 21 degrees Centigrade some 30 minutes before your alarm clock goes off?

      1. Yo Elsie

        The Central Heating in the Tintent does not have a timer.

        A cold foot in SWMBO’s back has resulted in the cold shoulder

          1. Yo Peddy

            We passed all the stuff to the Red Cross

            We had a drive through some of the devastated areas. many house are still uninhabitable and in some places, cars that wer submerged have just been left in car parks

            Contents of shops nad houses have just been dumped in piles alongside the roads

            Animal sanctuaries have been hard hit as well

            It will take a long time to recover

  5. Late last night, I have sent this email to my MP, copied to the Turkish Embassy:

    “Dear Harriett Baldwin

    Would you please ask the Foreign Secretary to consider asking the Turkish Ambassador to leave the country and for the Embassy to be closed, should Erdogan go ahead with his plan to attack Kurdish forces in Syria, after what the Kurds have done in ridding the world (including the UK) of the threat posed by Islamic State. I am very anxious about the release of many thousands of IS fighters currently interred by the Kurds, who would be let loose should the Kurds have to divert to defending themselves against Turkish invaders. They might well find their way to the UK and radicalise our Pakistani communities, not to mention continuing the destabilisation of the whole of Europe as many more refugees migrate across the continent.

    Would you also please ask the Government to consider sanctions against Turkey for as long as they threaten Kurdish forces in Syria.

    With best regards
    Jeremy Morfey”

    1. I like that letter

      We should all use it to copy on to our own MP’s office .. this much we can all do at least. Will they think hard , I doubt it.

      On the other hand dear Lotl brought our attention to the ‘ Dunning-Kruger Effect’ yesterday evening .

      The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities.

      The term lends a scientific name and explanation to a problem that many people immediately recognize—that fools are blind to their own foolishness. As Charles Darwin wrote in his book The Descent of Man, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

      https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-the-dunning-kruger-effect-4160740

      The meaningless waffle from MPs seems to fit the bill.

      1. ‘Morning, Belle.

        Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence.

        Women drivers?

        I’ll fasten my seatbelt.

  6. Calling the EU negotiations, ‘negotiations’ must go against the trades description act

    1. These “negotiations” remind me of the pages of terms & conditions written in obscure legalese and required to be agreed before we can do anything with an American corporation online.

  7. ‘Morning All

    If we had a real MSM rather than just a propaganda machine perhaps they could ask a few Ecoloons “What’s a Maunder Minimum” I would lay a long bet all they would get would be blank looks.

    “Russia, China and India are mocking the way Western

    governments have been induced by “Green” thinking to promote their

    policies of abject self-harm at great national cost and to no

    perceptible benefit. This is supported by Western “useful idiots”

    (Lenin’s term). Lenin held them in utter contempt.

    The developing and Eastern worlds are certainly not going to be

    meekly following the deranged example of the “virtue signalling” West.”

    https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/there-is-no-man-made-climate-emergency/

    1. As you know, I am one who actually accepts the theory that humanity is catastrophically upsetting the natural balances of this planet, and therefore do not agree with the bile being expressed by those that deny anything amiss can happen with an an infestation of 7.7 billion aspiring and rapacious humans.

      However, you are quite right in pointing out that those most responsible for this state of affairs are the least willing to take responsibility. Not just Russia, China and India, but also Brazil, Congo, Indonesia and the United States need to be tackled by Extinction Rebellion if we are to get anywhere to preserve the habitability of much of the Earth within the lifetimes of many of the protesters today.

      Edit – and in case we get too self-righteous, just spare a thought for those citizens in Warwickshire attempting to save an ancient forest from “essential clearance work” in preparation for HS2, despite that ill-considered project being placed under Review by this Parliament-unfriendly Government.

      1. That ER doesn’t confront those countries shows it’s a political movement dedicated to abolishing Western nation states.

        In any case, who is funding it ?

        There’s plenty of evidence that GS is pouring in cash, and that supports the above.

        1. That as it may be. Not the first time a popular outcry has been exploited by those with an ulterior motive. For fear of bringing up Godwin, who was it who actually did something about the indefinite punitive sanctions placed on Germany at Versailles?

          1. The “outcry” has been bought, and it looks like the science has been bought too.

          4. There was a very recent precedent for Versailles. Those “Punitive Sanctions” were substantially less onerous than those placed on Russia by Germany herself in 1917 at Brest-Litovsk.

      3. About the only area I agree with you Jeremy is that unending population growth is a major problem
        But it’s not happening in the industrialised West is it??

        1. Indeed not, but these fast breeders are aspiring to the same living standards as the industrialised West. This will not end well.

      4. Climate change and environmental damage are two separate, different issues.
        The climate change lobby are either conflating or ignoring environmental damage.
        Listen to Michael Shellenberger’s account, especially the bit about relocating desert tortoises to make way for a solar panel farm:
        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w

  8. Meanwhile down under there is at least some common sense being put forward but when you hear universities are refusing to allow alternative views from “Deniers” on their websites we are in deep trouble.

    Anyone that says “The science is settled” ain’t no scientist

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KArS5ArSYY4

    1. If the only way to push your argument is to silence your opponents, then maybe your argument isn’t that strong….

    1. I always make a double strength coffee first thing – saves making a first & second cup.

  11. £52 million spent in the UK to stop Brexit in 2018, but nobody is interested……

    Keep looking the other way, folks !

      1. Course he can. Anti Brexit spending up 75% last year over 2017, and spending in 2019 might even hit £100 million.

        Yet the media and politicos are silent.

    2. Like women’s empowerment (aka “Equality”), electoral malpractice can only happen by those with the wrong opinions on Brexit.

  14. Funny old world,when we read a dystopian novel we identify with the survivors,of course most of us would be amid the pile of skulls at the side of the road
    Life without electricity??
    One Second After Newt Gingrich
    Dies the Fire S M Stirling
    Now about that asteroid shower??
    Lucifer’s Hammer Larry Niven

    1. We sat back and let people like Major & Blair get on with it and then we kept voting for them and not for parties that were telling the truth about the EU.

      1. Correct.
        And even when people were told the truth, it was ignored and they still continued with the same old tribal voting patterns.

        1. Morning Bob,
          As it has proven to be the self destruct
          keep in / keep out method, party before country regardless of consequences.

      3. We harboured the quaintly old-fashioned notion that British politicians could be trusted.
        I suspect voters have moved on from that belief.

          1. When I voted for Britain to stay in the Common Market in 1975 I had made the mistake of trusting the word of Heath about sovereignity.

            Recently I made the mistake of thinking that at least Judas Grease-Smogg had integrity. And then he voted for May’s surrender WA and I saw that he is not much better than the rest of the slimeballs. So of course did Boris which makes me think that any deal he strikes with the EU will be a capitulation and a disaster.

            I still have confidence in Steve Baker, John Redwood, Mark Francois, Norman Tebbitt, Bill Cash and Owen Paterson. I wonder if any of these will also shatter my trust?

      4. It wasn’t well publicised what they were getting up to after they were voted in.
        And not everyone voted for them. If I recall correctly, Blair only got around 30% of the vote in his last election, and only had a majority because of FPTP

        1. A KFC opened in Ashley Road, Parkstone, Poole while I was still at primary school. The distinctive cartons littered the pavement outside every morning. I doubt that it was the first in the country.

          6. I can’t remember the last time I drove along Ashley Road.

            Do you remember the the Regal cinema? My grandparents lived in their last bungalow behind there.

            Btw, on my recent holiday I met a lady about my age who was born & brought in Poole, & another one who was born & brought up in King’s Ripton which is the next village from here. Small world!

          7. Strange things happen like that..

            One of our neighbours did the ‘Great Wall of China’ thing .. they were away for about 6 weeks .. it was a very expensive holiday .

            When they returned home , they indignantly told me that they met up with a couple who lived elsewhere in our village , and wondered whether the travel agent they used had been mixing and matching .

        1. 🙂 It was a bungalow called ‘Lamorna’. (Have no idea whether it has the same name now.)
          Vague memories of pebble dash and it sitting on a slope above a road.
          I know my father put a dedicated seat in the churchyard, but as he died in 1994, I’m not sure it would have survived the ravages of time and vandalism.

      1. When I was a postie in Dorking in the early 1980s, there was the town cinema (now long demolished) converted into a Kingdom Hall for a while. Every Monday morning when clearing the pillar box between the hall and the KFC, I would find half-consumed meals from poor deluded JWs, who truly believed when parting with their money that they were to be nourished.

      2. I can remember most certainly having never eaten their product, although I did once, but only once, have a MacDonadld’s burger in the miiddle of a Sunday afternoon in 1998 in extreme circumstances when I’d had nothing to eat all day, we were out looking for a new carpet and I could see no alternative food outlets. It tasted of nothing.

        I’ve never succumbed to any of them since.

        1. I was dragged by my children to the first McDonald’s to open in South Africa. That was the first and last time I’ve ever set foot in the chain other than to use their loos when desperate.

  17. Oh Brave New World what hast thou wrought!

    The Chinese government continues its Orwellian practices with the announcement that citizens will have to use facial recognition technology to access the internet (which is already highly fire-walled.)

    This is all a part of China’s social credit system that will take effect on Dec. 1st. After the law is in effect, Chinese citizens who want to have the internet installed at their houses or on their smartphones will be required to undergo a facial recognition process by Chinese authority to prove their identities, according to the new regulation.

    This is significant because now the Chinese government will use the internet to rate citizens based on their daily behaviour online………..

    2. Combine that with a cashless society and Big Brother rules,say something we don’t approve of?? No shopping for you

      1. Morning M,
        Not mentioning any names but, don’t tell him your name dez
        up-marked the down voter.

  19. Posted this on John Redwood’s Diary this morning.

    It’s time for the Remainers to remove their blinkers and read the writing on the wall. The entity that is the EU is a rapacious imperial construct with one intent that overrides everything else, to grow by devouring other nations through its never satisfied gaping maw. That the UK, economically one of largest nations, wants to escape their control is anathema to them, it offends their overweening arrogance that they are the masters: ergo, the apostate must be punished.
    In May they had a willing ally and her Withdrawal Agreement was a punishment “deal” and nothing less. Everything follows from her agreement to have the UK placed into an economical and political straitjacket from which many suspected, and was confirmed this week, there was never any hope of escape. It is little wonder that the EU will not countenance any changes to their Backstop, it would give them a level of foreign control over these islands not seen since 1066.

    1. ‘Morning, Korky.

      You can sit a remainer down & repeat all that 10 times to them.

      It won’t make the slightest difference.

      1. I do not doubt that there is a core, how large cannot be known without a second referendum (I’m not advocating for that, by the way), of people who are convinced that the EU is an institution for good, both economically and politically. I hear them debating with Ferrari, Farage and other LBC presenters everyday.

        Manners – Good morning to you.

  20. Good Moaning.

    Maybe I’m a less trusting type than yer average judge, but did this chap seriously not question anything on the piece of paper shoved under his nose? Is this a case of it is better to stay quiet and be thought a fool, rather than opening your mouth and confirming it.?
    “Mr Riddle was also critical of the Met’s failure to disclose “undermining factors” in their application.
    He said rather than fill in the section, the officers applying for the warrants had simply written N/A.”

    DT article:

    “I was misled, says judge who issued search warrants to police looking at paedophile ring claims of ‘Nick’

    The district judge who issued the controversial search warrants during the disastrous Operation Midland investigation, has suggested he was “misled” by police officers.

    Howard Riddle, the former senior district judge and chief magistrate, said he had complete confidence in Sir Richard Henriques’s damning report which concluded that the applications for the warrants had been “unlawful”.

    Scotland Yard detectives applied for six warrants in February 2015, allowing them to raid the homes of Lord Bramall, the late Lord Brittan and Harvey Proctor.

    Senior police officers had claimed the searches were necessary in order to investigate the extraordinary claims made by Carl Beech, who was known as ‘Nick’, who told them he had been raped and tortured by high profile figures in the 1970s and 1980s.

    The applications stated that Beech had been “consistent” throughout his dealings with officers and that they believed what was saying.

    But Beech was later exposed as a pathological liar and jailed for 18-years for perverting the course of justice and fraud.

    In a damning review of the investigation, Sir Richard, a retired High Court judge, said the detectives involved in the searches had acted unlawfully, had misled Mr Riddle and should be investigated for perverting the course of justice.

    Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Riddle, who retired in 2016, said he supported Sir Richard’s findings, adding that the police had also failed to follow standard disclosure proceedings when applying for the warrants.

    He wrote: “Sir Richard concludes that I was correct in granting the warrants having regard to the information put before me. However, he identifies a number of undermining factors that should have been drawn to my attention, but were not.

    “Had they been, the report states, “it is inconceivable…that any application for a warrant would have been granted”.

    “The conclusion is that the search warrants were obtained unlawfully. It is obvious to me that Sir Richard has considered all the evidence put before him with great care. I have complete confidence in his report and its conclusions.”

    Mr Riddle was also critical of the Met’s failure to disclose “undermining factors” in their application.

    He said rather than fill in the section, the officers applying for the warrants had simply written N/A.

    He wrote: “In an investigation such as Operation Midland, it is right to expect that undermining factors would be recorded in a log or similar document from the beginning of the investigation and available to the officer making the search warrant application, and to the court.”

    The dawn raids had a devastating impact on those falsely accused and their families.

    Lady Brittan was still grieving for her husband – who had died just weeks earlier – when 20 officers turned up at her two homes in London and North Yorkshire in March 2015.

    Police officers rooted through letters of condolence she had received and were described as acting as if they were “looking for body parts”.

    Lord Bramall, 95, a D-Day veteran and former head of the Army, was subjected to a ten hour search by 22 officers at a time when his wife was suffering from dementia.

    And Harvey Proctor, who was working for the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle, lost his home and his job as a result of the publicity surrounding the searches.

    In his report Sir Richard said: “These searches should not have taken place. The warrants were obtained unlawfully. Nick’s credibility was very much in question and he had not been consistent…I am satisfied the Senior Magistrate was misled.”

    An Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) report which was published on Monday and completely exonerated the officers involved, has been dismissed as a “whitewash.”

    1. ‘Morning Anne
      The whole affair stinks to high heaven Beech an obviously mentally disturbed fantacist gets banged up for 18 years a sentence not given to major drug dealers or prolific burglars and the rest of the corrupt establishment strolls off into the sunset to enjoy their pensions or promotions
      What a bad joke

      2. Our whole system of government – judiciary, executive and legislative – have failed to act properly as a result of the very low quality of people who now enter public life for the financial rewards and hubris rather than to help their country. When you add a cowardly, politically tainted and inefficient police force the disintegration seems almost complete.

        1. On the plus side, Mr. Piddle is a sure fire candidate for the Mandy Rice Davies Award 2019.

    3. Maybe the police officers should get 18 years for perverting the course of justice? Hmmm….no, wait. I didn’t mean that, not really.

  21. Caratacus writes:

    I was reading only yesterday of the days when the Roman Empire was starting to fail and came across this splendid little piece. Am I the only one to see some amazing parallels here with what is going on in the (equally fractious) EU empire as it seeks to destabilise its client states?

    `And let them, when besieging a fortress, strive to win over whomsoever possible of those inside the fortress and the city, in order to attain through them two things: one — the drawing out of their secrets, and the other — intimidating and frightening them through themselves. And [let] a man be sent by underhand means who should unsettle their minds, and deprive them of any hope for succour, and who should tell them, that their sly secret is unravelled, and that tales are told about their fortress, and that fingers are pointed at their fortified and weak places and at the places against which battering-rams will be directed, and at the places where mines will be conducted, and at the places where ladders will be placed, and at the places where the walls will be ascended, and at the places where fire will be set — in order that all these should fill them with terror…’

    — Fragment from the Sassanid Book of Ayin; translation James [2004], 31 Prologue (Summer AD238)

    1. There are not, unfortunately, enough print copies of ‘The Guardian’ in circulation to wipe away this looming crisis. Cheapskates will have to collect stray copies of ‘The Metro’.

    2. The Japanese use turbo jet washers, complete with elegant face-saving farting sounds.

      My father had to use one of these contraptions once in Kyoto, where all the buttons were in Japanese noodle-script and each one did something unspeakable to his nether regions. He was lucky to get out alive.

        1. What’s Japanese for “Warning – seated males and women with penises, do not press this button”?

      2. The Turkish lavatories have built in squirters and when aimed correctly these are very efficient and one can clean oneself thoroughly without the need for paper – far more hygenic than using a page from the Gurrniad if there is a shortage of loo rolls .

        .

    3. Our banks and utility companies requested that we go ‘paper-free’ some years ago, so we’re not affected.

      1. Morning R,
        Difference being with dock leaves you have mobility, they can be kept in the top pocket of a yachting blazer as a floral display
        even, until an emergency arises.

    5. We bulk order ours online, and have several month’s worth of supply.
      And no, I’m not telling you where I live, though I might have to kill Bill T and Hertslass…

      1. Morning Ims,
        Better bump off the dog to we can always backtrack when he takes off with the start of the roll.

      1. Morning Anne,
        This is all leading up to overpopulated globe / Teflon Green / tips, ie seven ways to eat your granny.

    7. toilet rolls are manufactured in the UK and nearly all use a good percentage of recycled paper. AS or the machines it is standard practice to hold spare parts

  23. Special sitting for MPs to decide Brexit future

    MPs will be called to Parliament for a special Saturday sitting in a decisive day for the future of Brexit.
    Parliament will meet on 19 October after a crunch EU summit – seen as the last chance for the UK and EU to agree a deal ahead of 31 October deadline.
    If a deal is agreed, Boris Johnson will ask MPs to approve it – but if not, a range of options could be presented.

  24. Operation Midland made mistakes, but the presumption of innocence must prevail. Michael Lockwood. Tue 8 Oct 2019.

    We have never claimed to be a perfect organisation – indeed we are still working through many legacy issues, including improving timeliness of investigations. A concerted effort has seen a 20% improvement in the past 12 months with 80% of investigations now complete in under a year.

    Am I satisfied this investigation took so long? Far from it. But this was not a cursory investigation, nor was it run by a sole investigator, as some would suggest. Investigators from police and civilian backgrounds worked on this, backed by a team of lawyers and policy experts. They More (sic) than 1,800 documents and 300 statements were examined. Some of those unhappy with the outcome of our investigation have chosen to single out a member of our investigation team. These personal attacks on their experience are not only inaccurate, but unwarranted and uncalled for.

    Morning everyone. The contents of this article has received excellent coverage by Allison Pearson which was posted by William last night, but I would like to say a few things about it. It is written in an offhand and indifferent manner while the very headline one suspects is a deliberate sneering insult to complainers since the “presumption of innocence” was not something extended to the victims of Operation Midland. This is the sort of thing you get in all decadent and dysfunctional state organisations, a bunker mentality of us against them! The Metropolitan Police has ceased to exist as a service to the public. It is a servant of the Elites and answers only to them!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/08/mistakes-operation-midland-iopc-investigation-carl-beech

    1. This was an investigation run by policemen who were decidedly short of intellect, common sense, and integrity. Taking up a line pointed out by Sue Edison, I reckon there was a strong institutional wish, coming from higher-uos in the Met and probably the Home Office (T. May, Home Sec) against the background of the escalating publicity given to muslim grooming gangs, to find some prominent white paedophile gangs.

    2. Talking of AP, here is her article. Apols if it has already been posted;

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/comes-police-failures-sorry-just-doesnt-cut-anymore/

      “When it comes to police failures, ‘sorry’ just doesn’t cut it anymore

      You know when you’ve reached a point where things are so mental that you think nothing can shock you any more? Then along comes a report from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on Scotland Yard’s investigation into an imaginary Westminster paedophile ring.

      The report not only clears five detectives of misconduct, it concludes brightly that the utter shambles, the monstrous trashing of reputations, the shameful lack of basic policing, the millions wasted, the preference for lies over truth, the trusting the word of a fantasist over that of one of our most distinguished soldiers, can be seen as “an opportunity for organisational learning”.

      Lunatics taking over the asylum we can just about live with, but self-satisfied, management-speak morons in the highest echelons of the police monitored by a toothless watchdog? That is truly frightening for each and every one of us.

      If an Army officer had tried to tell Field Marshal Lord Bramall, accused by Carl Beech of torturing children, that some catastrophic battlefield cock-up was an “opportunity for learning”, he’d have been court martialled.

      Compare the response of Dame Cressida Dick to the police watchdog’s “whitewash” of the disastrous Operation Midland. “I recognise our mistakes will have a lasting effect on those who endured intrusive inquiries,” the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police admitted. “This is a matter of great regret for me.”

      Alas, Dame Cressida is not so sorry that she understands why the fools who oversaw one of those most inept police operations in history need to be made an example of to restore confidence in her tarnished force. As is all-too common when public services look into their own failings, that well-known culprit “Nobody” is discovered to be at fault.

      Mistakes having been made” – the absolving ablative absolute is applied as a soothing balm to national disquiet – followed by our old friend “lessons will be learned”.

      While the IOPC does indeed acknowledge that “mistakes” were made when the Met followed their own policy and “believed” the “victim”, Carl Beech, when he said that Lord Bramall, former home secretary Leon Brittan and ex-MP Harvey Proctor, among other VIPs, had raped and murdered children, those errors had nothing to do with actual police officers working on the case. Dearie me, no. It was “gaps in processes and systems”.

      See what they did there? Detectives are no longer to be held accountable for appalling lapses in judgment, like the one that led to a 91-year-old D-Day hero Dwin Bramall being terrorised in his own home. It’s the system that failed them, apparently.

      After BBC News’s lengthy apologia this week for perpetrators of knife crime, I’m surprised that Dame Cressida didn’t deploy the fashionable excuse and claim that her poor coppers suffered from inadequate parenting and a lack of youth clubs.

      When former High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques accused the IOPC of a “lamentable and inadequate” inquiry, as well as pinpointing 43 separate mistakes made during Operation Midland, you would have thought it was a safe bet that, in its report, the watchdog would severely censure all concerned. Sir Richard had been aghast when the IOPC’s lead investigator belatedly got in touch with him and admitted she had no legal training and didn’t even understand how police applied for a search warrant. (Sir Richard’s concern that search warrants had been applied for illegally was central to his case against Midland.)

      Five officers were supposed to be under investigation by the IOPC, but four were never even questioned. The one who was got promotion and retired before she was officially cleared. At least if they ever make Carry On Police Watchdog, no one will have to invent any jokes.

      Behind this grotesque farce lies a serious flaw in the criminal justice system. A curious nine-year-old would have rumbled Carl Beech faster than five adult detectives. Why? Because the child would realise that a story which seemed so far-fetched was probably made up.

      According to the IOPC, officers were “under immense pressure to do the right thing”. They would not have gone to the lengths they did, “had it not been with the intention of maintaining public confidence, particularly in view of the damaging impact of the Jimmy Savile and other high-profile cases”.

      To put it less flatteringly, after Savile got away with mass sexual abuse, police were eager to believe self-styled “victims” like Beech because, in that way, they could restore their own battered reputation. Even if it meant failing to properly investigate pleas of innocence from distinguished old men. Even if it meant not bothering to look at Beech’s computer where they would, rather inconveniently, have found child pornography.

      Dame Cressida said something which was more revealing than she knew. She’d been listening to the radio in December 2014 when she heard Det Supt Kenny McDonald say: “We believe what ‘Nick’ (Beech) is saying is credible and true.” It was “a mistake”, she recalled thinking.

      Notice that the Met Commissioner didn’t say it was “wrong” for an officer to state, quite disgracefully, that Operation Midland had effectively abandoned a cornerstone of our legal system, which is that a suspect is innocent until proven guilty. It was just a mistake to reveal their new “we believe the victim, so we won’t try too hard to to prove the guilty are innocent” policy in public.

      Priti Patel simply cannot allow this appalling whitewash to go unchallenged. I met her at the Conservative Party Conference last week and was struck by how, for once, a Home Secretary’s attitude to crime and punishment actually coincides with that of the voters. (It’s so refreshing, they’re bound to make it illegal.)

      I know that Priti wants to give the police everything they need to do their job of protecting the public. But the public won’t feel safe if officers aren’t disciplined for a shockingly bad investigation which hounded the innocent and cushioned the guilty.

      A good start would be to replace the feeble IOPC with a watchdog that knows what it’s doing; Sir Richard Henriques would be an excellent person to set that up. The complacent mantra of “believe the victim” needs to be replaced by “treat the accuser with respect”. And Operation Midland should not be regarded as an “opportunity for organisational learning”, but as a shameful low point in British policing whose mistakes must never be repeated.

      As for Dame Cressida, the Home Secretary might usefully inquire how she came to be running a Metropolitan Police that, during Operation Midland, owed more to Benny Hill than Robert Peel.”

      1. The “a mistake has been made” line was tried on me by a subordinate who had fallen down on the job. It failed.

    3. Lots of investigators, none of them ever questioning the veracity of so many complaints coming from a single source?
      Is it really the case that all the smart, inquisitive, harassing investigators are out on the streets looking for people who have parked badly so that can intimidate them?

    1. The poor whale has died , probably of starvation , thanks to the greedy EU hoovering up all the fish.

      Heaven forfend .. what on earth are these Remainers playing at!

    2. Any shrieks from whale worshippers, Greenpiss etc…..?
      No, don’t tell me …. let me work it out for myself.

  26. I thought I’d seen all the horrors possible here in Idlib – until now. Tue 8 Oct 2019 .

    Since 26 April, the Syrian regime and Russia have pounded Idlib with a ferocity we have rarely seen before. Almost 1,000 civilians have been killed and many more severely injured. As with previous major escalations in the conflict, the war planes target our rescue workers, medical personnel and humanitarian facilities as a tactic to prevent help reaching the population.

    The word Jihadist does not appear in this article. Were you a Martian come to pore over a destroyed Earths history a couple of centuries hence, you could well be forgiven for thinking that this particular war was one waged between a heavily equipped Central Power and the White Helmets a tribe of peace loving unarmed rebels Though you might be baffled as to how they managed to hold out for so long! I suspect that they will receive much shorter shrift from the Turks!

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/08/horrors-idlib-white-helmets-syria

    1. coughMoselcough
      ‘Morning Minty,you have to give them credit for persistance,no matter how often their lies about Syria and Assad are debunked like a demented kangaroo they keep bouncing back
      Joseph would be proud of them

        1. It’s a real horror show over there,only this morning the Millipead was on Toadie to tell us ANOTHER 500 hospitals have been bombed in Idlib
          We ought to be hiring these hospital builders,the NHS sorted at a stroke

      1. So they blame Trump for getting out as well as blaming him for getting in, all the while ignoring what has really been happening.
        The news has been very thin on the ground lately, as though it were all over now.

        1. The Americans are just sulking. They haven’t given up yet but the writing is on the wall!

  29. A pretty young gypsy girl knocked on my door and asked if I had any old clothing.
    I said, “Yes”, but asked what I would get in return. She said I could play with her breasts.
    I thought, that s fair, tit for tat.
    ———————————————–
    I’m in trouble with the wife. We were in bednnaked and she asked what I would like to do most with her body.
    Apparently “Identify it.” wasn’t the right answer.
    —————————————————
    Just said to the missus, “Hey fat gut, what do you want for Valentine’s Day?”
    She said Don t get f***ing lippy
    I said Mascara it is then!
    ——————————————-
    An Englishman, a Scotsman, a Norwegian, a Latvian, a Turk, an Aussie, a Yank, an Egyptian, a Jap, a Mexican, a Spaniard, a Greek, a Russian, an Estonian, a German, an Italian, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Swede, a Finn, an Israeli, a Romanian, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Czech, a Brazilian, a Canadian, an Argentinian, a Korean and a Swiss walked into a pub. The bouncer says, “Sorry, I can’t let you in without a Thai.”
    ————————————————————–
    You won’t hear from me for a while mate. Being investigated for stealing swimming pool inflatables. I gotta lilo.
    —————————————————————-
    News just in. There’s a female ref for the United v City match. The kick-off has been put back an hour so she can park her car.
    ———————————————–
    Paddy got a letter in the post this morning. It landed on the floor, says on the envelope DO NOT BEND.
    He’s still wondering how to pick it up!

      1. She did well out of that song.
        It was actually a good belter and was the basis for her career.
        I can’t even remember any of her other hits.

    2. We value your call… if you did, you’d answer it.

      Press 1 for …. press 10 for… you now have 7 options…. you now have 5 options.

      No. I have no options. The state refuses them to me. Answer the telephone you witless cretins.

      1. Not voice activated, unfortunately.
        I find that with that sort of system a couple of utterances of “Urble burble” suffices.

      1. My follow up in Chesterfield is 3 weeks time, but I’d like one with my own surgery before then.

    5. ‘Morning, Bob.

      I hope you had a restful night.

      Calm down; it’s not worth getting worked up.

  31. All 555 Thomas Cook stores to be bought by rival Hays Travel in a move that could save up to 2,500 jobs

    This
    breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published
    shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version ”

    Gluttons for punishment ?

  32. Top Secret Russian Unit Seeks to Destabilize Europe, Security Officials Say. Michael Schwirtz. Oct. 8, 2019.

    First came a destabilization campaign in Moldova, followed by the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria and then a thwarted coup in Montenegro. Last year, there was an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. Though the operations bore the fingerprints of Russia’s intelligence services, the authorities initially saw them as isolated, unconnected attacks.

    Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe, executed by an elite unit inside the Russian intelligence system skilled in subversion, sabotage and assassination.

    The group, known as Unit 29155, has operated for at least a decade, yet Western officials only recently discovered it. Intelligence officials in four Western countries say it is unclear how often the unit is mobilized and warn that it is impossible to know when and where its operatives will strike.

    This article is to espionage as the Chariots of the Gods is to history. A long list of fatuous assertions with no basis in fact!

    The unit is so Top Secret that it’s in the New York Times? Destabilise Moldova? Even I don’t know where it is and the Bulgarian arms dealer (a Mr Gebrev who on his own admission has nothing to do with Russia) was “poisoned” at a wedding along with one of his directors and son, while the less said about the Skripals the better! How are these incidents linked to the Russians destabilising Europe? Not at all so far as I can see and anyway the EU is doing a much better job.

    What is interesting in the content is the level of detail though it is sometimes contradictory and occasionally ridiculous. Unit 29155 is a danger to Europe and yet it is cash strapped? The Director (there’s even a picture) of this Elite Unit drives an old banger! Its old HQ was photographed by a Russian blogger! What?

    Mr Schwirtz was based in Moscow for five years so my guess is that he’s a low level CIA agent who has loaned his name to this piece of third rate disinformation and received a bonus for doing so.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/world/europe/unit-29155-russia-gru.html

    1. Moldova has an unique history,on independence the gang of kleptocrats that took over were so bad that for the first time in history a people democratically elected a communist government to replace them.
      Getting rid of them again is another story……………….

    2. That is so funny. If security services ever hired someone with a sense of humour (they don’t) this tosh would never have seen the light of day.
      Russia has secretly rounded up a bunch of truly incompetent “agents” to destabilise Europe. The secret “agents” have publicly failed to bump off some has-beens and neverwasses who have never had any influence or power over anything and whom no one has ever heard of?
      Meanwhile, millions of young men of military age have been drafted into Europe by a foreign power that hates white Christian civilisation.
      Are we sure that our security services are looking in the right direction?

        1. This is how good they were. Half a century later, you see the name and the music pours into your head.

      2. Mine is mono. Bought at the special stand Lewis’s in Liverpool used to set up in the basement to catch commuter traffic. (There was an entrance directly from the underground in those days)

  35. Turkey risks being scapegoated over the West’s lethal complacency in Syria. HAMISH DE BRETTON-GORDON. 9 OCTOBER 2019.

    The Kurdish race encompasses some 250 million people, spread across Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. For decades, they have endured the most challenging existence imaginable, subordinated by dictator after dictator, and only occasionally supported by the free world.

    Between 2015 and 2017, I had the great honour of working with the Iraqi Kurds as the Peshmerga’s chemical weapons adviser in the fight against Isil in Northern Iraq. The Iraqi and Syrian Kurds have done the heavy lifting in defeating these barbarians, and now, with the US no longer willing to perform the NATO heavy lifting in the region, we surely must.

    Here’s our Hamish, the White Helmets technical adviser on how to murder people with chemical weapons and make it look like the Syrian Air Force did it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/09/turkey-risks-scapegoated-wests-lethal-complacency-syria/

        1. Killing all the badgers in an infected sett, not the entire country…

          Anyway, they’re hedgehog murderers. They’re asking for it.

          1. They are killed indiscriminately to a quota. Very few are actually infected and only a percentage are tested.

            They do predate hedgehogs, due to the fact they compete for the same food source, and when times are hard, hedgehogs becone their food. The main cause of the lack of food is pesticides and habitat loss.

          2. “They are killed indiscriminately to a quota.”

            Almost as though the idea of the cull were to be discredited.

            “The main cause of the lack of food is pesticides and habitat loss.”

            There’s plenty of food and habitat, given that their numbers have increased by 75% in the last 30 years. They’re very adaptable. Hedgehogs have suffered more from habitat loss.

          3. Yes – the balance between hedgehogs and badgers has shifted greatly in the last 25 years or so. Hedgehogs have suffered greatly from habitat losss and psticides, but they now have a refuge in people’s gardens, where they are welcome, mainly, unlike badgers.

          4. Even gardens are less of a refuge. The older and more mature (those which haven’t been built on, concreted or ‘decked’) are being cut off from the countryside by newer housing developments in which the tiny gardens are sterile and sealed off from one another and the outside.

          5. That’s why “Hedgehog Street”, a campaign run by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) aims to get people to cut a small hole in their fences so that a Hedgehog Highway can be used to move from one garden to another.

          6. Yes, I know of the campaign; it’s why I wrote what I did. However, a big problem is that so many gardens are increasingly sterile.

  40. Thomas Cook’s 555 shops to be bought by rival

    A strange move in my view. A good part of the downfall of Thomas Cook was it was very much high street based and the market was moving to the Internet so for this company to take on all these branches in addition to its own seems to be a high risk approach

    All 555 Thomas Cook shops are to be bought by rival Hays Travel in a move that could save up to 2,500 jobs.
    The independent travel agent is buying the shops from the Official Receiver, which was appointed when Thomas Cook collapsed last month.
    Sunderland-based Hays said it planned to reopen all the shops with immediate effect.
    Hays has already offered jobs to 600 Thomas Cook staff and it plans to hire more as part of its rapid expansion.
    The move is a significant step for Hays, which currently has 190 shops across the UK.
    John Hays, who set up the the company 40 years ago, said: “It is a game-changer for us, almost trebling the number of shops we have and doubling our workforce – and for the industry, which will get to keep some of its most talented people”.
    He and his wife Irene own the business which has 1,900 staff and last year had sales of £1bn.
    Irene Hays, chair of Sunderland-based Hays, said: “Thomas Cook was a much-loved brand and a pillar of the UK and the global travel industry.

    1. If having the shops brought Cooks down, because of interenet competition, as you say,where is the logic of Hays buying them ? They should just be licking their chops at the downfall of Cooks. Something fishy about this.

      1. I could understand them buying a handful of branches in the South as they seem to be very much Norther based but 555 of them. It makes no sense and some must surely overlap with their existing branches

        Either they are daft or they have some plan for the branches but what who knows . I cannot work out what they want them for

        1. Buying small shops just when they are going out of fashion is not clever.
          By the pricking of my thumbs
          Something fishy this way comes
          (after WS)

          1. The chances Thomas Cook branches being profitable is slim and a lot of the customer base has probably been lost whilst they were closed as well certainly some of the business will have been lost

            I can only guess they picked them up cheap from the liquidators but thats largely a one off saving

          2. Well, at least we can now relax and let the market decide whether Hays is genius or dolt (Hayek, Schumpeter).

      3. Well, a forensic audit of T Cook’s accounts and cash flow over the last five years is required. How much money did the owners suck out? If that included working capital then they killed Cooks. the commonest cause of businesses ceasing to trade, is, I think, insufficient working capital

        2. There was a young girl from Madras
          Who had a most beautiful ass
          Not rounded and pink
          As you pribably think
          But was grey with long ears and ate grass.

        1. I thought Sauerkraut must be a sausage. So many German words here today that I get confused …:-)

    1. The EU is full of extremely dependent nations …. Poland get £3.30 for every pound (euros I presume) they put in (and there are several East European countries which get more) …. the UK gets 38p. Go figure …

      1. WE may do but on the last figures I looked at we paid in a great deal more than we got back

        1. Bill, if you send me a cheque for £1000 I promise to send you by return post a cheque for £380.

    2. Just like Cologne the story has been out there for a week T_B the Al-Beeb are eventually forced to cover it

    1. Sir John Soane’s Museum is tiny (in his former home) but well worth a visit. The Rake’s Progress is part of the permanent exhibits.

  49. Christian parents appeal to Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan for their kidnapped daughter. 8 October 2019.

    Christian parents of a kidnapped young Christian woman in Pakistan have called on Prime Minister Imran Khan to intervene to help find their daughter who went missing on 4 July.

    The 20-year-old is thought to have been kidnapped on her way home from visiting a friend in hospital. Her whereabouts are presently unknown.

    Non-Muslim girls and young women in Pakistan are frequently kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam before marrying a Muslim, but the authorities rarely intervene. It has been estimated that every year several hundred Christian girls, as well as a smaller number of Hindu girls, suffer such abuse.

    It’s in their very genes!

    https://barnabasfund.org/en/news/christian-parents-appeal-to-pakistans-pm-imran-khan-for-their-kidnapped-daughter

    3. We have many Turkish friends whom I describe as CofE Muslims. Like many Anglicans who profess to be Christians they do not take their religion too seriously. Indeed, one of my Turkish friends loves a bacon sandwich and a gin and tonic as long as one does not go too heavy on the tonic.

      Virtually no young Turkish women wear bin bags and many of them wear bikinis on the beach and even sunbathe ‘topless’.

      Erdogan is consumed with jealousy about Ataturk whom he resents and despises. To borrow from Bill the Bard he is not a heart’s ease when he beholds one who was so much greater than he will ever be.

      1. My dog groomer is a lovely young Turkish lady. Her heart is broken over what is happening at home and she fears for her family.

    4. And now they have Erdogan The lover of Islam. Soon to let loose 100,000 jihadi into Europe.

    5. And Turkey has been sinking into the monster sh1tpile for at least the last 20 years … another case of demography determining destiny.

          1. Many think this was a scam engineered by Erdogan himself to give him the excuse to take more and more control.

  54. Pop star Tulisa Contostavlos has been ordered to pay more than £70,000 in compensation over claims she “trashed” a rented £1 million penthouse apartment.
    The former X Factor judge was accused of leaving the Enfield property in an “appalling unlettable condition” when she moved out in 2016, and faced legal action from landlord Andrew Charalambous.

    He said the three-bedroom flat had been “pristine” and “in tip-top condition” when first rented to the N-Dubz singer in September 2014, but told Central London county court that “when he took it back it was trashed”.

  55. Four of the six patients given a trial drug never before used in humans to treat a rare brain disease have died, it can be revealed today.
    The world-first treatment for sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) was first administered to a married father last October after University College London Hospitals NHS Trust won permission from the High Court.

    Researchers had to apply to the Court of Protection because the man, whose family backed the move, did not have the mental capacity to give consent.

      1. t was very experimental I think and a last resort. The NHS have no plans to carry out any more trials. I think the conclusions are the drug does not work

        1. Someone will make a fuss about experimenting on him. Mind you, the fuss would be bigger had he been a mouse.

  56. Carbon Brief analysis shows the UK’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels fell by 2.6% in 2017, driven by a 19% decline in coal use.

    This follows on the heels of a larger 5.8% drop in CO2 in 2016, which saw a record 52% drop in coal use. The UK’s total CO2 emissions are currently 38% below 1990 levels and are now as low as emissions were back in 1890 – the year the Forth Bridge opened in Scotland and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was published.

    1. I think this is the right place to ask.
      Is it true that the NHS are escalating attempts to remove old fossils ?

    2. So what happens when all the coal fired power stations have gone and we have a severe winter with little wind or sun?

      1. Coal is insignificant for power generation in the UK. There are only one or two coal fired power stations left and they are only used in the Winter and not normally at full capacity. For example today coal is accounting for 2% of our needs

      3. One of the extinction loons came on to LBC a couple of days ago and was waiting for the day when all fossil fuel power stations had been closed and all generation was by panels on roofs and windmills. These people really do not understand what the implications of their madcap schemes will be.

        1. None of them can count to ten on their fingers. Reality is beyond them. They live in dreams.

    3. Funny thing you should mention “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

      I’ve a picture of me, painted when I was twenty-five years old. But here’s the strange thing – unlike Dorian Gray’s picture, mine still shows a fine, handsome young man, whereas I have grown old and grey.

      Shome mishtake, shurely?
      :¬(

    1. Many dissolute young men used to rate the attractiveness and desirability of girls on a scale of 1 – 10.

      I wonder what score this young lady would get?

        1. I never thought I could agree with Greta on anything.
          She did however say “I should not be here(New York) I should be at school in Sweden.”

  62. The musicians helping to revive the Cornish language

    Given the language has died out and there was little recorded of it much of it is just made up

    The Cornish language has been dismissed as dying, or even dead, but musicians are giving it a new lease of life.
    There’s been a revival in singer-songwriters from across the county and further afield – such as the singer Gwenno – performing in Cornish.

    1. I remember getting a paper-back book while on holiday down there years ago.
      I believe they do pasties as well.

  63. Good game Wales-Fiji.

    Odd thing – with only a few minutes to go and having to score twice, why did Fiji take an age to get to scrum/lineout?

  64. Extinction Rebellion’s London protest has entered its third day after police warned those demonstrating they “must” go to Trafalgar Square or risk arrest.
    Nearly 600 people were arrested in the capital on the first two days of the environmental group’s two-week protest, with activists attaching themselves to buildings and blocking roads.

    1. Trafalgar Square is good. Sisi and Erdogan know what to do with protesters in squares. I think the Chinese have previous also.
      Us being soft, water cannon will have to do.

    2. “…or risk arrest.”
      If that is a quote from a police statement it does seem to suggest that the police are taking a rather pansified approach to demonstrators who are destroying property and livelihoods?

      1. The XR don’t contain Tory politicians or retired generals.
        Therefore they have to be treated gently.

    3. I’d line a few bulldozers or rubber-tyred front end loaders across the road on any bridges they occupy, get a loud-hailer and tell them they have five minutes to evacuate their tents, stalls and other shit-holes. After 4 minutes I’d start the engines. Then I’d get all the fly-tipped trash shoved into a heap for further disposal.

      Regarding arrests, rather than occupying the efforts of 8 policemen to carry each of the delicate tossers into custody as reported yesterday, I’d adopt the more robust approach favoured by the Spanish Guardia Civil. One officer per protester maximum, with frequent use of a baton, and if a bone or two gets broken, no harm done.

      If the protestors can’t take a joke, they shouldn’t have joined.

  67. Two million EU citizens apply to remain in Britain. Guardian 9 October 2019.

    Two million people have asked to stay in the UK after Brexit under the government’s EU settlement scheme, latest figures show.
    The number of applications received by 30 September is equivalent to one in six EU citizens in Britain and included nationals and relatives from the EU, the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, Home Office data published on Wednesday said.

    Obviously political Lemmings like the indigenous Brexiteers!

    No comments allowed!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/09/two-million-eu-citizens-apply-to-remain-in-britain-brexit

    1. If Britain is going to be so foul after Brexit then why would anyone want to stay in Britain?

      1. In spite of the media stories of a mass exit of EU nationals it simply has not happened

  68. Gosh that will learn me not to skim a headline!
    “John Bercow accuses Brexiteers of ‘blaming the referee because they’re losing the match’ in parting shot”
    Somehow I read just the first two words and the last.

  69. European parliament magazine ‘filled with pro-Russia content’. Wed 9 Oct 2019.

    An EU taskforce responsible for tackling disinformation has revealed a self-styled news magazine for the European parliament is copying half of its articles directly from the Kremlin-funded news channel RT.

    EP Today, whose readers include senior MEPs, the European commissioner for digital economy and society, Mariya Gabriel, and European ambassadors to the EU, is said to be dominated by articles from the Russian outlet.

    You don’t think they read their own propaganda do you? They want reliable stuff. Lol!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/09/european-parliament-magazine-filled-with-pro-russia-content

  70. Daughter-in-law of Bernie Sanders dies at 46, two days after cancer diagnosis

    The daughter-in-law of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders has died at age 46, days after being diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer.

    Dr. Rainè Riggs was the wife of the Vermont senator’s son Levi Sanders and mother to three children, Sunnee, Ryleigh, and Grayson. She was an accomplished neuropsychologist known for her volunteer work and social advocacy.

    Riggs complained of feeling ill weeks ago and was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer following a battery of tests just last week.

    Services for Riggs will be held in private with requests that contributions in her memory be made to Love Without Boundaries, a charity for orphaned and impoverished children.

  72. What wil happen if another EU member wants to leave the Union ? Will they be
    permanently trapped because they use the Euro ?

    1. If the UK were to remain in the EU, you can bet your bottom dollar that we would be forced to adopt the Euro in double-quick time, to lock us firmly in forever.

    2. It is a lot more difficult to leave if you use the Euro and certainly more complex

      1. Stating the obvious.
        The others are more trapped than we are.
        Come back the franc, the guilder, the peseta. Go away the Reichmark.

  73. Mum burned by hot water bottle that exploded after she put it down her trousers

    A pretty daft thing to do. First dont put boiling water in a hot water bottle. Second do not over fill it and third dont put it inside your clothing. Check hot water bottles regularly as they are normally made from rubber and over time deteriorate and can split

  74. On LBC, both Iain Dale and Nick Ferrari have responded like delicate Victorian females with an attack of the “vapours” to the incredibly shocking word: KRAUT. Hopefully, everyone will later find a safe space where they can go and sit and stroke one of those nice soft white dogs or rabbits for half an hour.

      1. Yes, I was wondering why Kraut made me think of food (actually I focused on Cauliflower rather than Cabbage).

  75. Gunmen kill two people near German synagogue on Yom Kippur and wound several others before throwing a grenade at Jewish cemetery – as one is arrested and hunt for other continues. 9 October 2019.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/926fe8e88238bf5e2f1d3917624cc387a503cc00d503f02e9731d81540bc3be6.jpg

    At least two people have been killed after gunmen opened fire outside a synagogue in Germany on Yom Kippur – the holiest day in Judaism.

    One woman died after two attackers, believed to be wearing a military-style uniforms, opened fire with a submachine gun in the city of Halle, eastern Germany, on Wednesday morning.

    A grenade was also thrown into the Jewish cemetery before the attackers fled, Bild reported. Several others were wounded and rushed to hospital.

    The obvious deductions may be drawn here but we shall only know the truth when we are told the gunman shown in the picture is a far-right Methodist!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7554173/Gunman-shoots-dead-woman-outside-German-synagogue-goes-run.html

      1. That was yesterday, I think.

        Are the two events being linked?

        I’d be looking for a white far-right sort of chap for today’s murders.

  76. Just as we are about to escape from the European Union, the page is filling up with foreign words that nobody understands.
    Part of Merkel’s invasion plan ?

    1. After I’ve shampooed my hair, I’m off to the restaurant to ponder; in my pyjamas, natch.
      I could choose lasagne for my lunch.

        1. We went to the Bell at Kersey with my cousins yesterday.
          They had invited us to their house for a meal; totally forgot the lekky people were turning off the power so nearby trees could be trimmed.
          They’d had one of those helpful cards warning them, had efficiently pinned it to the kitchen noticeboard ….. and then ….
          Still, we had a v.nice lunch.

      2. They are hoping that the great unwashed will think that is what they are and that the Levers are extremist. It is telling you what to think.

          1. Oops, sorry, I know…. fingers are twinkling away on the ipad and not always each one hits home. I should have proof-checked. Life is sometimes too short.

      3. Bob3 – If they openly called themselves Liberals, which is what they are, then some of the Conservatives voters might smell a rat and vote for somebody else. By pretending to be Conservatives they can stop real ones from getting into Parliament and actually taking us out of the European Union.

        “One Nation Conservative” = EU employee.

  78. update: Just as President Erdogan formally announced Wednesday that military operations have begun in Syria, Turkish F-16s began bombing targets in northeast Syria’s Ras al-Ayn and Sarekaniye minutes ago in what Ankara has dubbed ‘Operation Peace Spring’.

    1. They all have these daft names now. It’s an American affectation The invasion of Europe would be called Operation Peace and Harmony instead of Overlord if it were carried out nowadays!

        1. Same with women. A fluffy but intelligent (or at least crafty) woman can get round many men.

  79. This is the ONLY reference on the BBC site to the synagogue shooting in German –

    “At least two people have been killed in a shooting in the eastern German city of Halle, police say.

    One person was arrested, police said, but other suspects are believed to have fled the Paulus area in a vehicle.

    One gunman was wearing military camouflage and carrying several weapons, witnesses say.

    Reports
    suggest there was also an attack on a synagogue in Halle and a shooting
    in Landsberg, some 15km (9 miles) east of the city.”

    There is something very, very, badly wrong with the BBC. They think a shooting in a kebab shop is more important than a shooting in a synagogue on the holiest day of the year.

    1. I was surprised at how much information there was on the Daily Mail report when I read it!

      2. The headline ‘Yom Kippur gunman’ though did rather give the impression to those who pay scant attention, or those who are not particularly well-informed, that it might be the adherents of Yom Kippur that were doing the shooting and hurling grenades. I did think it was a naughty headline designed to give the wrong impression to some (I am thinking millenials here).

        Edit: oops, not shooting, but gunman – but makes no difference to the message

        1. It almost looks designed to make a subliminal connection with the Yom Kippur War, except that the target audience is unlikely to understand that on any level?

        2. What about this from the Guardian ?

          ” a man dressed like a police officer had taken aim and shot a young girl with an automatic rifle outside the synagogue ”

          Why did the young girl have an automatic rifle ?

  80. Back from my walk up to the village and lunch in the Fountain Tea Rooms.
    Met Mike there who’d had a heart scare himself a few months back. He was very encouraging, but his other half, Liz, is still VERY worried about him.

      1. A rather nice beef stew!
        About the same as I was getting in Hospital and I actually lost 1½lb during my stay, 14st 8lb first thing this morning.
        I hope I can keep it to that and drop a bit more.

    2. Afternoon Bob – Good to hear you are recovering well. Stents are a “popular” treatment these days. Take care.

  81. Latest:-

    ” A Scottish court has delayed a
    decision on whether to sign a letter requesting a Brexit extension if
    the prime minister refuses to do so himself.

    This breaking news
    story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.”

    If they decide that they can, the logical next thing is to merge the Parliament and the Courts, under the control of an African dictator.

  84. Daily Telegraph reporting that Bercow had a secret meeting with his EU counterpart, David Sassoli, EU parliament President, when Sassoli was in London yesterday to meet Boris.Addressing the EU Parliament Sassoli said he had “fruitful discussions” with Bercow, confirming that they had agreed to work to prevent a “Clean Break” Brexit.
    Nigel Farage is furious as am I.

    2. So, conspiring with a foreign power to prevent a democratic decision made by the British people being implemented – didn’t that used to be treason??

      1. He should at least be made to stand down as Speaker forthwith pending an investigation into his activities as Speaker.

        1. It seems that nobody can impeach a sitting Speaker. We observed this dwarf was a bad man when he eschewed the full garb with stockings and wig and boasted those bloody awful ties from Tie Rack, presumably bought for him by his daft bint of a wife.

          Bercow was and remains the worst Speaker in modern history. A more execrable, partisan lout would be hard to find.

  85. Brexit latest news: Fury as Speaker John Bercow meets with EU and agrees to prevent a clean break exit
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2019/09/24/TELEMMGLPICT000210726754_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqYWNJspVvOUVBAuV2D2wK5tXshSCEjiFHc5qxWUFxtts.jpeg?imwidth=1240
    Brexiteers have been left furious after it was revealed the Speaker John Bercow held secret talks with the EU and agreed to prevent a clean break Brexit.

    Addressing the European Parliament David Sassoli, its president, revealed that he had “a fruitful discussion” with Mr Bercow yesterday, while he was in London to meet with Boris Johnson.

    Mr Sassoli, whose job is the equivalent of the Speaker in the House of Commons, said he “set out my view that any request for an extension should allow the British people to give its views in a referendum or an election”.

    “Speaker Bercow and I were very much on the same wavelength on the importance of the respective roles of our parliaments in managing Brexit,” he said.

    News of the meeting sparked outrage from Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, who questioned “what right” Mr Bercow had to meet with Mr Sassoli.

    “Here in Brussels, new Euro parl President David Sassoli confirms a meeting with John Bercow in which they agreed to work to prevent a clean break Brexit,” Mr Farage tweeted.

    “What right does the Speaker have to do this? Disgraceful!”

    Richard Tice, chairman of the Brexit party, said he was “gobsmacked” by the revelations.

    “Here in Brussels new President Sassoli admits in chamber that he has bypassed the UK PM and Govt and is now in direct discussions with Bercow about Brexit negotiations,” he tweeted.

    “He refused to take my urgent question on what authority they had to have these discussions.”

    It comes as the EU are said to be prepared to make a major concession on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal by paving the way for the Northern Ireland assembly to leave a new Irish backstop after an unspecified number of years.

    Diplomatic sources said the EU would concede unilateral revocation of the withdrawal treaty by Stormont after a period of time, as long as both communities agree to it, according to The Times.

    However Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader, said the offer looked like “tokenism” from the EU.

    “This looks suspiciously like EU, realising they are about to look like the bad guys, making a tokenistic offer,” he said.

    “This is about shifting blame to Boris Johnson.”

    4. He should be removed from office./ It is an essential part of he Speakers role to be impartial and he is clearly not. He is more biased than the BBC

    5. ” Speaker Bercow and I were very much on the same wavelength”
      The traitors are putting their heads above the water with more and more frequency.

  86. Links of London Goes into Administration

    They have 28 stand alone stores and 7 concessions I think they also sold on QVC

    1. “Links of London, which has around 28 stores and seven concessions in the
      UK and Ireland, is owned by troubled Greek company Folli Follie, which
      was plunged into crisis over a fraud related to overstating sales.”
      Don’t blame this one on Brexit. They are all bent. Every one of them. Bent as a three bob note.

          1. They are Greek. They are bound to confuse pounds and guineas. You know, a pound is a weight.

      2. Overstating profits is widespread in fact it seems to be pretty much the norm which is why so many get into trouble as soon as there is a small dip in sales

  87. It’s beginning to look like ‘Pizza Express’ has run out of dough.

    Sorry – pinched from ‘The Telegraph’.

  88. Police are dismantling hundreds of tents and gazebos belonging to Extinction Rebellion protesters which have been erected outside of the designated site at ­Trafalgar Square.
    Officers marched through Westminster this afternoon, removing structures from the roads and arresting those who refused to move. They have seized so much equipment that it would fill eight 10-tonne lorries.

    Now in its third day, the protests – which activists plan to continue for two weeks – have seen more than 600 people arrested.

    Police have attempted to restrict the sprawling protest by warning that anyone failing to join those in Trafalgar Square will be arrested.

      1. Although the weather is still quite mild it will get pretty chilly sleeping in the open with no tent and or sleeping bag

        What is need as well is not a water Canon but an large vehicle mounted sprinkler. Sprinkle cold water on them t night and most will not hang about

  89. Waitrose has discontinued selling off goods cheaply when close to sell/use by date.

    1. Well goes past Best Before Date(That’s the official designation can be sold but it is sensible to discount them or they get left on the shelves- The other statuary designation is Use By. Those cannot be Legally sold past their use by date. Provided you properly store them though they can be safely used up to 3 or 4 day past that dater so no need to throw them out at home . The date allows for that

      1. I often wonder why Supermarkets don’t sell off unsold Newspapers cheaply from late afternoon onwards rather than bundle them up and send them off for recycling.

    2. I don’t take much notice of that unless it’s meat, fish or some dairy.
      Best before dates on some cheeses and certainly fruit are not taken
      notice of.

  91. CO2 Reduction

    As we have a Climate change emergency all Extinction Rebellion Female protesters will be compulsorily sterilised on the NHS. Such is the CO2 crisis I am sure they will understand the need for this measure.

    1. Thanks for the link. For those readers here who think we hear too much about anti-semitism, please to remember the Yom Kippur War that was also
      started on this very serious day. The disease is by no means dead, and not just alive in Germany.
      I am waiting for Jeremy Corbyn’s apologia.Ou potential future Prime Minister.

      1. “The early hours of Monday turned out to be very restless for the residents of the area, as they were woken up by at least two loud bangs which triggered a massive police and firefighter response.”

        It would have needed to be a “massive response” because it is now too dangerous for the forces of Law & Order to enter these areas in small groups. Those parts are not Swedish anymore, they are islamic.

  93. The EU is looking at requiring under 27’s to do 12 month military service in the EU armed forces

    2. That will be our children if we stay. There will also be special immigrant divisions. They’ll get arms training with Kalashnikovs in case they missed out before they left their homelands.

      1. Read Beevor’s “Berlin, the downfall 1945”, some of the hardest fighting SS units at the fall of Berlin were French and other volunteers/conscripts fighting for the merk-a-like.

        1. The Dutch have form also,an interesting contrast,the highest % by population involved with the resistance and the highest % by population volunteering for the SS

    4. If true, that’s excellent news.

      It’ll give some of our snowflakes pause for thought in their enthusiasm for all things EU.

        1. Making them line up and stand to attention would be too much for most of them.

          They’d need to retreat to a quiet space.

  94. IMF boss Kristalina Georgieva warns of ‘painful’ Brexit

    She has warned it will hit Germany and other EU countries hard as well as other countries will close trade links with the EU

      1. They may be able to opt out of Military service by doing 2 years community service. It may be a temporary measure as well to build up the required number of troops

  95. That’s me for the day.

    Half an hour a go, a neighbour knocked at the door. Was the house still for sale? A bloke with her wants to buy a large house in Laure which is less than €200,000.

    Came and looked it over – took our details and said he’d be in touch. Don’t suppose we’ll hear another word – but was a pleasant surprise!

    A demain. For your homework, you can meet your opposite numbers in Euroland and discuss how to do down 17.4 million people.

      1. Au contraire – chaps runs a very popular resto in Carcassonne. And our neighbour is a chum.

          2. Probably not then.
            We only ate within the old town, I know it is a tourist trap, but we ate well.

          3. When we stayed in Carcassonne a few years ago we found a brilliant restaurant near the centre and frequented by theatre folk. I forget the name but it was a five minute walk from our hotel.

            The hotel was a lovely old pile adjacent to the central underground car park where we left the car for two weeks. It was near to the Canal locks but I have forgotten its name. In the early evenings we would watch a large murder of crows (or rooks) flying past our fifth floor balcony. This occurred every day at about the same time. It remains a mystery to me.

          5. It could well have been. The hotel overlooked the public square over the underground car park and our corner room gave a view down the Main Street towards the Citadel.

            Curiously we live near and frequently visit Ickworth House in Horringer near Bury St Edmunds. This was the home of the Earls of Bristol, evidently a family ultimately of nasty drug taking wasters. Alexander Pope in his Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot described the 2nd Earl as ‘Sporus, that milk white curd of asses milk’.

            Apparently, or so I have read, the hotels named Bristol derive their name from visits of the Earls of Bristol as they plundered the art works of Europe.

            Ickworth is now a National Trust Property. They are presently renewing the Cumbrian slated roof to the enormous rotunda, its Central feature. Ickworth retains its fabulous collection of silver. This is second only to that held by the Duke of Rutland in Belvoir Castle but that is my own personal opinion. The Queen has better I assume.

            The last Earl who occupied a wing of the building was evicted after he attempted to run over visitors using his Range Rover. The family name is Hervey and a number of them are still around in the worlds of fashion and high society.

            An estate formerly of 33,000 acres is now barely a tenth of that previously owned.

          7. I take great pleasure from such episodes in life and the memories linger and get recalled by other events.

            We’ve just returned from Beaune, via the canal road. I don’t think I have ever seen so many herons on a joiurney. Flying, landing, stalking, wading.
            Wonderful.

  97. British fishing will thrive outside of the disastrous Common Fisheries Policy
    OWEN PATERSON = 9 OCTOBER 2019 • 6:00AM
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2019/10/04/TELEMMGLPICT000211825637_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqaRL1kC4G7DT9ZsZm6Pe3PehAFAI_f6ud569StXyOKH0.jpeg?imwidth=1240
    The FV Margiris, a monster 6,200-tonne Lithuanian-registered trawler, which has been plundering Britain’s fish stocks
    *
    *
    When asked to comment, the company responsible said, “We fish until Brexit has happened.”
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/09/british-fishing-will-thrive-outside-disastrous-common-fisheries/

    BTL:

    Bianca Mitchell 9 Oct 2019 7:03AM

    I live near several now defunct Scottish fishing villages and once thriving harbour towns. The EU has been arrogantly overt in their asset stripping of the UK and never more so than what they’ve done to British fishing.

    Will we leave on the 31st, God only knows but I know I will be burning my recently constructed Guy on Bonfire Night with undisguised glee no matter if we leave or no – a seven headed Hydra, one body clad in an EU rag with representations of Hammond, May, Juncker, Tusk, Gina Miller, Nicola Sturgeon, and Jo Swinson as the seven heads.

  99. John Bercow accuses Brexiteers of ‘blaming the referee because they’re losing the match’ in parting shot
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/09/john-bercow-accuses-brexiteers-blaming-referee-losing-match/

    In a wide ranging interview with CNN the Speaker dismissed claims of bias from hardline Brexiteer MPs.
    “If you are losing the match, it’s quite bad form to blame the referee,” he said.

    Anyone who has been to a football match will have heard the chant:-
    “The referee’s a w@nker!
    The referee’s a w@nker!”

    3. One doesn’t expect the referee to actually play for the other side at the same time…..

    4. I reckon it’s quite legitimate to blame the referee, when that referee is blatantly partisan for the other side.

    5. Just when I think that repulsive, unflushable turd Bercow can’t sink any lower in my estimation, he achieves it!

    6. The referendum result – adjudged by numerous referees who said it was the final result which must be accepted – was clear in 2016.

      It is only the odious likes of Mr Bercow and his remainer friends who ressembe the dirty mess that rises to the top of a rancid puddle who have refused to accept the referee’s decision.

      (Is there a more succinct synonym for the word ‘scum’ which conveys both the literal and metaphorical meanings of the word?)

    2. Shows how powerful and deceitful our media happens to
      be. They can rattle away about Boris and whatever woman,
      blowing it all out of proportion. And yet utter treachery and
      they don’t blink an eye

    3. Are you equating Bercow with Islamic State fighters looking forward to their release by the invading Turks?

  101. How can individual politicians take up the mantle, go freelance and assume the role of government negotiator like this?
    Then not expect any censure.?

  102. NoTTLers have known this for ages. The underrlined sentence is not true; de facto the Remainers now run the show.

    The EU’s antagonism proves the backstop was a trap all along
    DOUGLAS CARSWELL – 9 OCTOBER 2019 • 4:00PM

    Recent behaviour proves they were never going to negotiate in good faith

    It was all about the peace process, apparently. When Dublin and the European Union Brexit negotiators insisted on there being a separate Northern Ireland protocol in the Withdrawal Agreement, it was to serve as an insurance policy, they said.

    This “‘backstop”, they proposed, would ensure there was no return of a physical border between north and south – and thereby, they hinted darkly, no risk that we might see a return of the “men of violence”, who’d surely kick off without such guarantees.

    When you put it like that, who could disagree?

    Certainly not Theresa May. Despite the fact that it has never been UK government policy to impose any kind of physical border, she signed up to the idea that there needed to be this backstop.

    What was clear at the time to Dominic Cummings and others – and is now evident to almost everyone – is that in doing so Mrs May made an epic blunder. She and her officials showed a Suez-level of stupidity, agreeing like Anthony Eden to embark on a course of action that suited the national interest of others, but not ourselves.

    The backstop, you see, was never about the peace process. Its purpose is to trap us in a permanent Customs Union with the EU. It was not intended by the other side to be an insurance policy, but an end state.

    Yesterday’s phone call between Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, made this crystal clear. Never, Mrs Merkel said, would Northern Ireland be allowed to leave the Customs Union, unless Dublin allowed it to. Which, of course, is not something that would ever happen.

    It is precisely because the EU never intended to allow Northern Ireland to leave the Customs Union that they have just rejected Boris’s latest practical proposals on how to manage the smooth flow of trade between north and south.

    It also explains why they have remained adamant that there can never be any kind of time limit on the backstop. It’d be an odd kind of insurance policy that was as open-ended as the protocol Theresa May almost signed us up to.

    But it also means bad faith. When all those UK officials and earnest MPs, like Greg Hands, worked away to devise so-called “alternative arrangements” that might ensure the backstop was only transitory, they were pitching to people that never had any intention of making such arrangements work.

    Dublin has never had any intention of securing new arrangements to enable the smooth flow of trade between two jurisdictions since their goal all along has been to secure a single jurisdiction across the whole island of Ireland.

    Berlin, now the real centre of power in the EU, had no intention of seeing Northern Ireland escape the backstop because from its perspective the backstop was about keeping the UK closely aligned to the EU. Since, they calculated, no UK government would want to separate itself from Northern Ireland, keeping Northern Ireland to all intents and purposes inside the EU would keep the rest of the country tethered.

    But why, you might wonder, shouldn’t Dublin and Berlin pursue what they believe is in their interest? If EU leaders can find a British Prime Minister as witless and foolish as Theresa May, why not get London to sign itself into submission?

    But of course, Theresa May – mercifully – is not in charge anymore.

    For too long the other side – Berlin, Brussels, Dublin – have been listening to the people who lost the referendum. They might not have yet noticed that Vote Leave now runs the show. They are dealing with people as prepared to pursue the British national interest as they are to further their national interests.

    EU strategy has been to seek the de facto annexation of UK territory. They have done so in order to bind us into a Customs Union. Even more provocatively, EU officials have colluded with Remain campaigners to try to overturn a democratic decision made by the British people. These are the actions you might expect from hostile states, not allies.

    Perhaps Merkel, Varadkar and co know all this, but believe that its still worth antagonising Boris. There is, they assume, a reasonable chance that the government might fall, and be replaced by one a little more accommodating.

    Even if Boris were to win an election, they have calculated, they can always come back and accept what is currently on offer.

    I’m not so sure. You see this is no longer just about what various factions in Westminster think. Like so many Remainers, the EU side is overlooking the views of the voters in all this. Even if things might in time be patched up with Team Boris, I’m not so sure that the long term effects of these antics will be overlooked by the electorate. Folk memory is being formed, and it does not change with the twists and turns of ever EU negotiation.

    It’s not only 17.4 million Leave voters that have now noticed the hostile actions from supposed allies. The antagonistic behaviour of Brussels, Berlin and Dublin make it far harder for any UK politician to argue that the EU is a club we should be part of. More than that, it makes it less likely that having left, there will be popular support for continued close ties.

    1. I think it’s simpler than that. The EU faces several existential crises, one of which is Brexit and another the disastrous Euro. They are fighting to maintain their places at the Brussels feeding trough. Take that as your starting point and every one of their actions to date becomes clear.

      1. Their banking system will destroy them and the beauty of them forcing us to remain (BRINO) is that we might take them down with us too.

        1. Yeah, but I liked her before the other one turned up. Something about her spontaneous and seemingly genuine smiles.

    1. When the law favours the criminals over the victims, naturally the criminals make maximum use of the law.

    2. “You act outside the law, you cannot later use it to suit your own ends”
      Oh, yes you can! Welcome to the pantomime.

    2. Eat less, a lot less, and exercise more, a lot more,and surprise, surprise you will lose weight.

      That isn’t racist, it’s fact.

    4. Hey you big fat ugly blubberwallies, go and live in the African bush for 18 months, you might lose weight and regain some self-respect.

      Either that or you might feed a village for a year.

      1. I can’t help but associate “crusties” with smallpox scabs. Mind bleach needed.

    3. I would be just about able to buy Northbridge Services Group ( private “military ” contractors) and just as a starter get some of their less sensitive souls to solve the pikey problem with extreme prejudice thence to move on with “momentum” .

      1. She looks like I used to look. I think she’s thinking “Why does a silver spider trump a golden feather?” :-))

    9. ” Euromillions £170m jackpot won by UK ticket holder ”
      It’s too much. I don’t need all that money.
      I’m giving a substantial amount to the Cats’ Protection League.
      I’m making an offer to buy that terrific Delacroix painting in the National Gallery – you know –
      ” The Execution of Lady Jane May “.
      I’m financing a production at the ROH of Moussorgsky’s opera Boris Notgudenov.
      I’m giving some money to Liverpool Town Hall to pay for getting the beetles out of the woodwork.
      That still leaves a lot. Any suggestions ?
      (From after midnight last night – yuo missed it)

    11. Many remainers are for sale – they would sell themselves, their grandchildren, their grandmothers and their country for money.

      But what do you do with the foul purchase you have made? Can it be slaughtered in the halal style?

  109. Robber bought cheeseburger during ‘bizarre’ McDonald’s raid as staff couldn’t open till without food order

    The server told him it wouldn’t open unless a customer ordered food, so he promptly agreed to buy a 99p cheeseburger, obligingly handing over

    a £5 note. Staff then gave him £136 from the till and he fled.

    It is a Mad, Mad World

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/09/robber-bought-cheeseburger-bizarre-mcdonalds-raid-staff-couldnt/

    4. The robber bought a 99p cheeseburger and tendered £5. He was then given £136 in change by a member of staff? I didn’t realise that the Abbotopotamus worked at McDonald’s!

      :-))

  111. I was just wondering if before England’s world cup quarter final match that the referee should have a Berkowesque clandestine meeting with Eddie Jones to discus match the tactics. Seems fair enough to me.

      1. Now that we’re through, I would love yer frogs to play at their blistering best, and then meet them in the fianl when they revert to their worst.

          4. I can’t understand why that player did not get a red card for hitting Biggar. (snigger.)

  112. Katie Price is ‘hiding’ her £75k pink Range Rover from bailiffs ahead of new bankruptcy case

    Quite why she is hiding the pink range rover who knows she makes up so many stories you cannot tell the truth from fiction. If her story of it being loaned to her is true the Bailiffs could not touch it

    KATIE Price is “hiding” her £75,000 Range Rover to stop bailiffs snatching it.

    Their source said: “She’s told a few of her close friends that her car was going to be repossessed a few weeks ago so she hid it from the creditors to ensure it would go back to the garage that loaned it to her.

    1. What a load of rubbish. If she has the loan documents to show that it is not hers, they can’t touch it (depending on the terms).

    2. Who’s Katie Price and what does she do? I have heard the name, but otherwise I could bump into her (?) and not have a clue.

      1. Her speciality is marrying and divorcing multiple husbands. I think she is trying to set a new world record. I think she is trying to find one that is a multimillionaire but is failing on that mission

          1. Or a whoring drawing

            Or a retching etching

            Or a bawd’s daub

            Tart’s art on a slut’s butt

  114. Evening, all. The EU intends to split Norn Ireland off from the UK. It has no intention of negotiating in good faith. The sooner we are out, the better.

    1. We already fly the Loyalist flag in our Canadian enclave.
      Northern Ireland wasn’t around when our ancestors started flying the flag and the locals are far too cheap to buy new flags.

      Maybe we are ahead of our time.

    2. “It has no intention of negotiating in good faith.”
      Honestly, did any of us here ever think otherwise?

  115. I fear that – for Presidential electoral reasons – Trump has made a disastrous, strategic mistake.

    The Kurds are a powerful ally in the war against ISIS; Erdogan’s Turkey is no longer trustworthy – and should be kicked out of NATO.

    1. He doesn’t want to get suckered into a war before the election I expect. The Democrats would love that.

      1. I think he is looking at the overall situation in Syria. Letting someone else do the dirty work is fine (up to a point ).
        The world hates American interference. They can’t love American money and hate Americans otherwise.
        Pity about the Kurds, but I think mass slaughter of them is unlikely, and you don’t have to be iSIS to be an Islamic nut case.
        One of you more literate than I am may be able to put it better.

    3. For reasons unknown, Trump decided to throw the Kurds under the proverbial bus. The US military brass are horrified, even his ardent supporters in the Senate have objected. And most US voters have the Kurds labelled as “good guys”. Trouble is, he is incapable of ever admitting he is wrong, so now a lot of people will die as a result – the Turks have been wanting to “do an Armenia” on the Kurds for a very long time, and now Trump has given them the green light.

    4. BBC
      “In a statement, Mr Trump – who had threatened to “obliterate” Turkey’s economy if it went “off limits” in the incursion – said the US did not “endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea”.”
      Maybe he’s beguiling them?

    1. ” It takes £7 million a year to keep this cunt safe. A complete waste of money. Can’t wait to piss on his grave.” ( Bad form)

      “It takes £7 million a year to keep this revolting creature safe.Can’t wait for an invitation to his funeral”
      Or: ” May his 72 virgins all look the same as Cherie “.

    2. Dont you just hate Blair. He has caused more damage to our country more than any other politician. He is a liar and a quisling.

    3. Why don’t the MSM pursue Blair and Major in the way they pursue Johnson?

      Blair for his antics with Mrs Murdock and Major for the caterer with whom he fornicated as well as his more widely known adultery with Ms Currie?

    5. What a piece of excrement this man Blair is.

      Put him in the lavatory but be sure you have plenty of Harpic handy to clean up after the flush.

      Has everybody forgotten that Blair was an ardent campaigner for leaving the EU at the election that Kinnock lost?

  117. It’s not just regional TV but national. When BBC news broadcasts features drinking and health, it’s common to see a bar with handpumps in a packed pub – and some of the footage suspiciously 80s or 90s…

    CAMRA asks BBC to stop using images of real ale to illustrate stories about binge drinking

    The Campaign for Real Ale has asked the BBC to stop using images of cask ales to illustrate stories about binge drinking.

    In a package on the rising costs associated with alcohol abuse broadcast on BBC East Midlands’ Today programme, a shot of Harvest Pale being poured was shown alongside unconscious people being treated by paramedics, the group say.

    The programme is no longer available to view online, but Castle Rock Brewery, who make the pale ale hit out at the organisation saying it was an “ill-considered choice of library shot” and that “pubs, bars and ‘beer’ are all tarred with the same brush and demonised via association with binge drinking.”

    CAMRA has backed up the Nottingham brewery, saying there “should be more focus on the more prevalent causes of binge drinking – such as the availability of cheap supermarket booze.”

    The group’s national chairman, Nik Antona, said: “It is completely right for Castle Rock Brewery to call on the BBC and other media outlets to stop misrepresenting cask ale and traditional pubs by tarring them with the brush of irresponsible drinking.

    “Traditional pubs are the home of responsible drinking, providing a safe, supervised and social environment to enjoy a drink. Cask ale itself has a lower ABV than wine or spirits, and represents a moderate drink of choice.”

    The BBC are understood to have spoken to the brewery privately, but declined to issue a public statement.

    The latest figures show that almost one in four adults in the UK now chooses not to drink alcohol, according to a Lancet study.

    The investigation found that since 1990, per capita consumption has dropped by almost 10 per cent in the UK, from 12.6 to 11.4 litres of pure alcohol per year.

    The current figure equates to an average of 22 units a week per person – far beyond the recommended limit of 14 units per week.

    However, much of this is consumed by the most hardened drinkers, with almost a third of all alcohol sold in England consumed by just 4 per cent of the population, separate statistics show.

    Just one in seven women and one in four men in the UK drink more than 14 units weekly.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/09/camra-asks-bbc-stop-using-images-real-ale-illustrate-stories/

  119. If one can convert carbon into diamond, converting shít into Tony Blair is a piece of cake.

    2. I’m wondering how long it will be before Russian SAMs take out a couple of Turkish jets?

      1. Why bother?
        I’m sure those camel jockeys will contrive to crash into each other soon enough.

          1. Probably.

            Let’s sell loads to Johnny Turk and lots to filthy Faisal and watch them create an even bigger market!

  121. From my 2018 Log:

    “A little later at midday as I was passing a moored boat at tick over speed, I glanced into the open side hatch and was somewhat taken aback by what I saw. A woman was crouching down at the waist of a chap undoing his trousers’ belt buckle. I don’t know what possessed me to exclaim out aloud: “It’s a bit early for that sort of thing!”
    Quick as a flash the chap thrust his head out of the hatch and said: “It’s not what you think. I’ve got paint on my trousers ——–I should be so lucky!” with that we both convulsed with tears of laughter. Shortly after I came alongside Sovereign whose owner was polishing her. Greeting him, I said: “I expect your Sovereign likes a good rub down now and again”. “Yes”, he said “I can’t keep the smile off her face – the Duke of Edinburgh knows nothing about it!”

    Travelling towards Fenny Compton I spotted a hare in a field of stubble about 50 feet from the towpath. Hare and me travelled together for about 100 yards before it hared off into the distance following a track made by a tractor. I could just see the black tips of its ears as it sped away like a diminutive Mo Farrah approaching the finishing line.

    I hailed the couple on the stern of the approaching narrow boat “Just the one or both?” “All three” they replied – the boat’s name: Basket case…”

    2. Back in the day I set up and sold “Canaltime” the fastest growing timeshare fleet ever,the parties were epic
      The laff was Mandlescum imported the European Timeshare act while at the DTI and didn’t check the translation,the EU definition is ” property immobiliare”
      Canal boats move take that sucker,outside the act

  122. There was a young lady called Greta
    Who tried saving the world with a meter
    The meter got stuck
    So she said WTF
    I’ll just jump the queue to St Peter.

    1. This stupid gap toothed gorgon and little shit has got the shits. The thought of losing our billions, of being unable to plunder our fish stocks, of losing our ability to attract investment, our unparalleled financial services and brokerages, our influence around the globe and the rest is the price this twat will pay for the utterly abominable and disrespectful treatment meted out to the UK over decades.

      If I were a supplicant such as Guy Verhofstadt, I would keep my bloody trap shut, not goad the Lion.

      This silly little shit will shortly be a thing of the past as we leave the heaving dung heap of the EU. We may never have to observe his like again. Praise be to God.

        1. I judge the man by his pronouncements. He is a wicked little man who hates the UK.

          Yup, I not only dislike him but despise him and his ilk.

          1. He habitually refers to those opposing him as “fascists” without realising how fascist his own pronouncements are.

      2. Mmmmmm. Please do not hold back. I agree with every word, by the way. I do not want there to be any doubt of that.

        1. I thought I had held back. Given the ability I would have Guy Verhofstadt horse-whipped, placed in the Old Stocks in Stow on the Wold and pelted by rotten cabbages.

          That might at least teach the useless fucker a bit of humility assuming he survives the discipline I prescribe.

          1. I agree beyond words, I detest unutterably this…. His face is made for stocks, a village villain on the rampage through europe. With your rotten cabbages and my squishy tomatoes and bad eggs….

    2. #meto Sparkytus

      I think, that Conway has shown respect at many of these sad events

  126. Looks like all those highly skilled Rumanian-gypsy Big Issue sellers will still be around after long after Brexit:

    Only two of the 1.5 million applicants to the Government’s EU settlement scheme have so far been rejected as unsuitable, according to the Home Office.

    Some two million have applied including 520,000 in September alone, of which 1.5 million have processed and approved. The two rejected as unsuitable are understood to have been persistent serious criminals.

    Of the 1,524,500 approved as of September 30, 61 per cent had been granted settled status and 38 per cent granted pre-settled status.

    Almost 350,000 are Polish, followed by Romanians (280,600), Italians (200,700), Portuguese (162,500), Spanish (115,700), Bulgarians (96,100), Lithuanians (92,100) and French (70,700).

    It is estimated there are still as many as two million more EU citizens thought to be entitled to settled or pre-settled status with just a month to go until Britain is due to leave the EU. The deadline for applying in the event of a deal will be June 30, 2021 or December 31 2020 if no deal.

    ……

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/09/two-15-million-applicants-eu-settlement-scheme-rejected-unsuitable/

    1. Look selling the big issue is a multi skilled task tasking years of training. It would be a disaster for the UK id we lost these skilled people

  129. Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0e3979651b239a48e7893db36f187d200320c1d565ebeb76331baa249c1e278.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bdf2b570340fff08b37fdb707bdf973c1bd45fe8ac28bfe81399f02e7c2d0e2f.gif

    http://forgifs.com/gallery/d/325408-2/Dog-sneaks-up-on-cat.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80fc170176d9ba557bc82965b28e89132b26a8d9ea733d67dad2545703c30892.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/96b0a8cf1ede27d13f2b57e5c0bd6474d181e8d0bccb856c492d299dc8672784.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d7843b6c37f306509bcc497b94b48ec4371c259937b1d526c685f55dbf36c7d9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7315fd5e940aa43a39495dc497f26cf6549f48135ba841ebcddaacb6fa6788fd.png

    Finally

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfefc0f89a712be77ad4b384c7d98828bb4530a019469be4b5ecb4feabeaf197.jpg

    1. I never cease to laugh out loud at your animal posts every evening, Rik. Thank you so much!

      PS – Is tonight’s bottom photo of Peddy reading his latest German thriller on the Internet before switching off the light and going to sleep? :-))

  130. LAST POST (supper on the way)

    A few years back, none of us would have believed this possible. But we underestimated the permanently offended.

    Less than a week after “Knife-geek gate” – yer slammers wanted to have a march in Paris IN SUPPORT of the murderer

    Yer French Home Sec (Castanet – a very unpleasant person) has banned it (no doubt because his job, because of that, is on the line).

    Yer French snowflakes now say that the ban is an attack on “freedom of speech”.

    Coming to a town near you VERY soon.

    Bon appetit and bonne soirée

    1. Yo T_B

      Do not worry, the perlice are busy acting as waiters etc to the Extiction lot

      A lot safer than stopping real crime

      They have role models: being incompentent is not a ‘crime’ if you belong to the Met

      All Senior Dicksons of Coock Green are given Italian/French Staff cars

      One forward gear Seven Reverse

      1. The police have requested that Costa Coffee remains open all night so that the protesters can have a hot drink and make use of the toilets

      2. Yeah, OLT

        The luvvies and police aren’t worried about black extinction / the occasional damaged and dead whitey/ blood bank famine , are they?

        I mean , the old expression about going in under the knife takes on a different meaning ..

        In my minds eye , association is everything .. Machete , chop chop , pidgin English , knives and mobs .. seen it all. elsewhere . but it’s here for good now .. and so are they..

        1. I understand your abhorrence at what is happening daily on the streets of England.

          There will be a reckoning and this will arrive as soon as we have a convincing government determined to preserve our way of life.

          Please listen, Boris and take note.

          We are sick of excuses from the supposed Religion of Peace from whom a million or more who would seek to harm us. We do not accept Mosques on every street in our beloved country.

          We object to Barbaric and primitive rituals inflicted upon our wild stock and we object to folk wandering our streets wearing black and brown clothing, headscarves and face masks.

          What else do you political wankers need to know at the present time?

  133. Fury as EU Parliament chief reveals he met Commons Speaker John Bercow to discuss their ‘shared’ desire to to avoid No Deal Brexit
    EU Parliament president David Sassoli revealed he met John Bercow for talks
    The MEP said they ‘shared an awareness’ that a No Deal Brexit would be bad
    Nigel Farage accused Speaker of working with the EU to ‘prevent a clean break’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7554999/EU-Parliament-chief-met-John-Bercow-discuss-shared-desire-avoid-No-Deal.html

    2. Anything but soppy, T-B. The perfect nightcap as I head for the Land of Nod myself. See you all tomorrow (which is, incidentally, three weeks away from Brexit.)

        1. My father played clarinet in a 1930s and 1940s dance band. He also taught me, although I no longer play the instrument. In my opinion Artie was the greatest ever exponent of the clarinet, with a superbly limpid tone. He beat Benny Goodman hands down. His autobiography “The Trouble With Cinderella” is an excellent read.

          1. I will search the book out , thanks Elsie.

            Hope you enjoy your hol.

            Currently in the middle of a gale here, noisy and very wet .. bit like March /April weather!

  137. I don’t listen to R4’s ‘Moral Maze’ as much as I used because it’s become like any other discussion show on radio or TV: noisy and undisciplined. Tonight’s, on academic freedom, was awful. Four female academics, one relatively quietly spoken, the other three strident and at times downright rude. Naturally, the noisy three had very particular views about what should be discussed and what shouldn’t (no further explanation required by me). None of them were from the sciences. I only stuck with it because the creator of Titania McGrath was one of the panellists.

    So why did I go back to last week’s edition? A link from the DT comments to Spiked! and then to Brendan O’Neill, who appeared on it. The subject was ‘The Morality of Anger’ and O’Neill made a better case for his call for a riot than he did on TV. It was a rather better discussion when Melanie Phillips and Tim Stanley were asking the questions but Matthew Taylor and Moany Siddiqi demonstrated their usual overweening moral conceit and their utter inability to understand why anyone would regard the post-referendum activities of the Establishment as a reason to be absolutely ****ing furious!

    Academic Freedom: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00094jx
    The Morality of Anger: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008wpr

  138. Who is a G S agent ?

    By their actions do we know them ?

    My latest theory is that G S, through his agents, is attempting, in effect, to become UK PM to call another referendum, repeal A50 and to institute any other legislation he desires.

      1. I sent this to Mr Redwood on Monday………….

        The Beaconsfield Coincidence.

        Is it possible that the influence of G S is coming from two different directions in this constituency ?

        1) From this 2018 Daily Telegraph story………..

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/06/14/tory-rebel-dominic-grieve-criticised-private-meeting-prominent/

        2) From the LibDems who have agreed not to stand at the next election. Allegedly there might be a connection between Jo Swinson and G S via her partner which Katie Hopkins covers in colorful language, with link to a Unity News Network report attached. Please click on her tweet to view the attachment……

        https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1180596329044512768

        If the above is true, could it mean that G S, through his agents, is the organizer and funder of the Remain Alliance?

        Assuming the Peter Schweizer reports are true, it looks like his pattern of behavior is to deal at the highest level… please scroll down………..

        https://politicalarena.org/2012/01/14/democrats-sugar-daddy-george-soros-helped-craft-stimulus-then-invested-in-companies-benefiting/

        As well as more than weekly meetings with the European Commission and perhaps daily phone calls.

        It almost looks as if G S, in effect, might be planning to be UK Prime Minister via his agents with the intention of repealing Article 50.

        I don’t think it’s impossible.

        Polly

  140. British television shows must meet a range of racial and gender targets in order to win awards at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) ceremony, the Radio Times reported on Tuesday.

    Under the new changes, entries will be assessed against the British Film Institute’s Diversity Standards to ensure they meet a range of new eligibility rules. and we though Communist China was crazy and controlling

    These people are totally mad. So if the have a program based around a maternity hospital half the cast have to be men? How does that work?

    There good be a program about a boys football team but have the team will have to girls?

    Then a program about the COE where have the cast will have be Muslims or Catholics etc

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