The Coffee House Wall – 14th/20th

Posted on April 14, 2014

This is the Coffee House Wall for this week. I won’t say that it is your chance to communicate with us, as we are all in this together. It is, nevertheless, the Conservative Blog post that has no particular theme, and where everything is on topic. Let’s just remember that we want to avoid ad hominem attacks on others. We don’t want to engage with trolls. We want to moderate our language ourselves as responsible and mature adults, choosing to use fruity language only where it is necessary. This is our opportunity to show what the Spectator Coffee House Wall could have been like.

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206 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 14th/20th”

  4. I too add my heartfelt congratulations
    I recommend a rejuvenating holiday
    We went to Positano for our Silver

  5. In yesterday’s press much was being made regarding the pending yes/no referenda in Scotland, that is now showing that the yes campaign is gaining support and it could well be that the Scottish Nationalists will win the day.

    Would that be such a bad thing?

    My opinion is that it would be a dreadful mistake for the Scott’s, I think that they would quickly come to realise that they were much better off when they were subsidised and spending the English tax payers money.

    However I am convinced that it would be a very good thing for the English, we would no longer have the financial imbalance that we suffer today nor would we have the disequilibrium of Scotland sending proportionately more MPs to Westminster in particular the 41 Scottish-labour MPs.

    The 650 current MPs are made up of 303 Conservative, 257 Labour, 56 LibDem, 8 Democratic Unionist, 6 Scottish Nationalist, 5 Independent, 5 Sinn Féin, 5 Plaid Cymru, 3 Social Democratic Labour, 1 Alliance, 1 Green, 1 Respect, and the Speaker.

    If Scotland left the UK the Conservatives would lose 1 MP the Labour Party 41, the LibDems 11 and the Scottish Nationalist’s 6, if this were in effect today the numbers would be as follows.

    Conservative 302, Labour 216, LibDem 45, Democratic Unionist 8, Scottish Nat nil, the remainder would be the same as now, if these 14 (the Speaker doesn’t vote and Sinn Féin do not attend) were to support Labour then the balance would be Cons 302 + Dem Un 8 = 310, Labour 216 + LibDem 45 + 14 = 275.

    A Conservative Government with a majority of 35 however such a government would then bring in the boundary changes that would in fact favour them.

    And so I think that I will be delighted if Alec Salmond has his evil way, because a strong conservative government without doubt would be good for England.

  8. Congratulations, Peter! You young beginners deserve all the encouragement you can get! 🙂

  10. testing

    I must now conclude my lay
    By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
    That your central girders would not have given way,
    At least many sensible men do say,
    Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
    At least many sensible men confesses,
    For the stronger we our houses do build,
    The less chance we have of being killed.

  11. Much hysterical reporting on the situation in Ukraine, and I am sceptical. Reports by the Western media on these events invariably reflect the prejudices of the reporters, rather than what is happening on the ground. I was in Iran during the revolution and the reports posted back home exaggerated what was actually occurring. The demonstrations were not spontaneous, they were ruthlessly orchestrated, people were told, “Close your factory and have your workers on the streets or else” The Shah was not nearly as unpopular as supposed, except in Khuzestan, where the population is Arab and resentful of Persian domination. All this was ignored in the reporting of the revolution.

    The situation was similar in Baghdad at the height of the Iran/Iraq war. Back home, people were under the impression that we were all about to be murdered in our beds, nothing could be further from the truth.

    I would not be so absurd to suggest that what is happening in Ukraine is all sweetness and light, that is palpably not to, but, caveat emptor, do not swallow all you are being fed.

  12. stephen maybery 14th, – 15:41

    As a Belfast man, I wholly understand your point.

  14. Alexsandr April 14th, 2014 – 16:11

    In my opinion all Muslims are hard line and not to be trusted.

  16. Peter
    I can think of nothing better than an afternoon in Canterbury
    I went to a splendid play at the Christopher Marlowe last week called the Garden of England
    For all you Shakespearites, Marlowe, a direct contempory, has a fund of good plays including Massacre in Paris recently performed at Canterbury Cathedral and the dark Edward the Second
    This year is the 450th anniversary of Marlowe

  17. stephen maybery
    April 14th, 2014 – 15:41
    That bald-headed, closet poofter seems to be stirring up the hysteria like a frightened maiden! Does Willie Hague really think anybody gives a toss what he thinks or says?

  18. telemachus 14th, – 18:03

    ” 450th anniversary of Marlowe”

    450th anniversary of Marlowe – what? birth? death? published his first play/poem?

    Or is it all immaterial?

  19. Anne,
    The bald headed poofter does think everyone thinks more than a toss about what he says, which is why the fool is in politics and why he has been over promoted.

  20. David Ossitt,

    “…And so I think that I will be delighted if Alec Salmond has his evil way, because a strong conservative government without doubt would be good for England.”

    So you consider that the upside of the dissolution of the UK is that Cameron’s pink ‘Conservatives’ remain in perpetual power; a Loake Lounger, stamping forever on the face of England.

  21. telemachus @ 18:03
    Ostrich (occasionally) @ 18:30

    Before the puritans took over, it was indeed the golden time for English theatre (and more than theatre), arguably never to be repeated since. Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall, and Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (also other plays) were as popular if not more than Shakespeare’s. There were other notable playwrights, too.

    The guy Marlowe was hugely talented but also an excitable character, he was positively dangerous when provoked, twice he was involved in a fight where daggers were drawn, after the first incident in which his friend stabbed a innkeeper to death he spent time in jail, in the other it was his turn.

    It began as an investigation into a plot to assassinate the Queen, Kyd was among the arrested, may have accused his friend Marlowe of being a blasphemer and atheist, a serious charge then. Marlowe was questioned by the Privy Council, released on a bond to await further proceedings. Not a promising development as there were no acquittals in Tudor courts. One ay, Marlowe went for a drink with few unsavoury characters, a dispute arose about who should settle the bill, one of the drinking partners drew a dagger, tried to stab another who turned on Marlowe, stabbed him just above his right eye. Marlowe was dead at 29. If he survived it would be his 450th birthday. Some historians believe he was assassinated.

    A book called, unsurprisingly, the Death of Christopher Marlowe by Hotson is a fascinating read about the man and his times. There are other books on the man, but this tome written before the WW2 beats them all, even if only Baron says so.

    You may of course know it all, and have to forgive the barbarian for the rant, this period of English history (it also includes the Black Act of 1723) ranks, in Baron’s humble view, as the most exiting, stimulating, and above all, modern nation forming phase of the saga of the English race.

  22. And this:

    Well done, Peter, you have to add another near quarter century to beat the barbarian. Arghhh

  24. stephen maybery @ 15:41
    Ostrich (occasionally) @ 15:55

    The reporting is not unlike that from Prague when the Warsaw Pact countries invaded in 1968. The skirmishes happened in an area of Prague not bigger than teh Hyde Park, but from the TV reporting here one may have assumed the whole country was involved.

  28. A new Civitas publication

    The demise of the free state: Why British Democracy and the EU Don’t Mix
    By David G. Green Price: £5.00

    ‘The surrender of our sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats and a centralised legislative process has been justified solely in economic terms. But, as David Green points out in this powerful book, even if the economic arguments are good ones (which they are not), the question of EU membership is not primarily one of economics. It is about the happiness and cohesion of our nation, and the civilisation of which we have been, in Europe, the prominent guardians. The true argument is not that it is economically advisable to reclaim our sovereignty, but that it is our moral duty to do so.’ Roger Scruton ‘Amidst the technical jargon and diplomatic double-talk, the debate over Britain’s future relationship with the European Union is fundamentally about values. In this thoughtful new book, David Green serves a damning indictment on the EU, charging it with a wholesale attack on the principles of liberal democracy and self-determination, in the name of a progressive authoritarianism at odds with British moral and political values. This intellectual rearguard action is sure to strike a nerve in Brussels, and open a new front in the debate on Europe.’ Dominic Raab MP ‘David Green’s book is a timely and elegant new perspective on a problem which has been frustrating politicians ever since we entered the European Union. His analysis and conclusions should be read by every politician and citizen who wants to enhance their view on what is the best future for our country as we approach the crossroads of a decision in 2017.’ David Davis MP ‘Since the enlightenment progressives from across the political spectrum have believed their governments should be chosen by the people. The electorate should regularly have the opportunity to throw out the rascals. The creation of the EU removes that right. David Green is doing democracy a favour by writing this important book.’ Graham Stringer MP ‘This book, historically, politically and constitutionally, hits the nail on the head. This should be the subject of a widespread debate which has been deliberately driven underground by the Euro-cognoscenti, who know that otherwise they cannot win. Failure to have this debate in the light of the undemocratic Leviathan which has been created is simply an irresponsible defiance of the electorate in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe.’ Bill Cash MP

    http://civitas.org.uk/europe/TDOTFS.php

    Looks worth a fiver to me.

  29. Richard North on Ukraine: (he also rogers the Dr Green book above, but then, he doesn’t take prisoners)

    “…when Crimea broke away from the rest of Ukraine, you just had to look at a map to know that could become the new status quo only with the very greatest of difficulty, and only with huge efforts directed at improving stability in the region.

    That that was not to be became quickly evident, from the growing rhetoric of the “west”, with bellicose words and actions from NATO, the European Union slipping into its “headless chicken” mode, and the United States working with its usual competence in its foreign relations, for which it is justly famous.

    As a result, we have a mess, entirely predictable although, in this case, not predicted by me as I was too busy elsewhere – and it takes no skill to predict a train-wreck when the locomotive has already left the rails.

    Fortunately, the military impotence of the “west” precludes any serious direct military action – which underlines the stupidity of the US military despatching warships to the Black Sea, and makes the deployment of four British Eurofighters to points east almost comedic. I am sure the Russians are wetting themselves, if only from laughter.

    Nevertheless, the situation is very far from funny. As always, when politicians exercise their natural inclination to spread their incompetence as far as it will reach, people end up dying and things get broken. It is no different here. As we see the inevitable break-away of eastern Ukraine, there is a lot more misery to come.

    To an extent, one could almost take the line of “wake me up when it’s over”, so predictable is the outcome. For all its fine words, the “west” is not going to step up to the plate and help clean up the mess it has made. You will not find a Hygieia anywhere in the ranks of western statesmen.

    Thus will the people of the Ukraine suffer. But then, as we have already observed, it is always the people who suffer, which perhaps has lessons for us when we chose our own leaders. Those lessons, however, are rarely properly understood, so it is going to be a long, bloody time before the curtain finally falls on this particular tragedy.”

    http://www.eureferendum.com/

  31. Peter from Maidstone @ 21:21

    And the last time you’ve visited an optician was when, Peter?

  32. Noa @ 21:25

    It still looks worth a fiver to Baron, Noa, he likes books, and thanks for the suggestion.

    The guy’s right, the latest EU shenanigans in Kiev was what changed the barbarian’s take on the empire, before he favoured a renegotiation, a less disruptive, less costly solution. Now, after Kiev, he favours a total decoupling from the undemocratic construct, but fears the Europhiles will prevail.

  33. Noa April 14th, 2014 – 20:24

    “So you consider that the upside of the dissolution of the UK is that Cameron’s pink ‘Conservatives’ remain in perpetual power”

    No not at all, I look forward to never ever having another Labour Government.

  34. A single tank, pretty old, too, from the Ukrainian Army trying to break east to the town Slovianks presumably to quell the unrest there. The people are shouting ‘who do you want to shoot at here’?. Then ‘switch of the engine, let’s talk’.

    The tragedy is these people had little before, will have even less now with all the destruction going on. They lived under a corrupt ruling elite of one political orientation or another, but lived in peace, didn’t have to fear for their lives. It will never be the same again whoever wins. It beggars belief the EU should interfere on the doorsteps of Europe, help to create this mess.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s-KuNWM9Zqk

  35. Here’s something we haven’t yet encountered: Russian, Moscow based astrology guru named Lagunov who, so the piece says, accurately predicted the fate of Yanukovych, has read the future of Putin, too. Not promising at all. The dictator is likely to suffer a similar fate, according to Lagunov, both politically and as a human being. April is the month he’ll get hit. Rumours of Putin’s illness, cancer of the spine, (now here’s a goldmine for joke manufacturers) have resurfaced in Moscow in recent weeks backing the stargazer’s prediction. The astrologer also says Navalny, that’s another KGB man turned uman rites lawyer, currently under house arrest, will be prominent in the weeks ahead.

    Madness everywhere.

  36. Noa 20:24
    You make the assumption that the loss of the Scottish Labour seats and the SNP seats from the Westminster numbers will see the Tories ensconced in power for the foreseeable future. There is, however, a likely alternative that I’m surprised you, of all people, do not foresee.

    I think all can accept it as a given that UKIP are likely to do extremely well in the EU elections, possibly even winning but certainly decimating the Lib-Dems and embarrassing the Tories. In the event the Scots vote Yes, I think many of the English, whilst happy to see the back of the Nationalist tendency, will nevertheless regret and resent the break-up of the union and, rightly, bame the Westminster criminals. They will watch the uncoupling proceed and I absolutely guarantee the useless English political class, all those career politicians dangling on their EU puppet strings, will consistently yield England’s position on trade, border control, currency and a thousand and one other issues. The resultant anger, I predict, will see UKIP swept to power, with the Tories in opposition and Labour and the Lib-Dems sharing the minor places.

    Then the real fun can begin.

  38. And when I say the real fun can begin, how about this for a scenario?

    It is fair to say, in my opinion, that UKIP are nearer to true Conservatism and the aspirational Working Class than Cameron’s pale pink mob. The LibDems are now a busted flush – the sandal-and-beard brigade will be off en masse to waste their votes with the Watermelons.

    Labour has become a left-wing middle class elite, totally out of touch with their original working class roots. They will either atrophy completely into a tiny dinner-party mob destined to forever relive the ‘triumphs’ of Stalin, Mao, Chavez, Obama and all the other vile commies or become a disenfranchised mouthpiece for the Unions – basically, rabble-rousers a la Galloway.

    As an alternative, the unions might just look around for another party that mirrors their basic beliefs and speaks the language of the physically-labouring working man (as opposed to the workers that are active in the service sectors or are nearer managerial/supervisory roles). Step forward Nick Griffin – he has just the manifesto McCluskey could be looking for to ‘mobilise’ the workers. Tidy up the immigration bits and there’s nothing there the union’s couldn’t live with – and, more importantly, sell to their members.

    Perhaps, by persuading the Scots to arrogantly and voluntarily make themselves a third-world nation, Salmond has done the rest of the UK a massive service.

  39. I’ve just read this on a site called Newsmax.com –

    “Ukraine said on Saturday it would stop paying for Russian gas because the price was too high.

    Kiev is also talking with Slovakia — the main route for gas from Russia through Ukraine to Europe — about reversing pipes so that Ukraine can buy gas from the EU if Russia cuts it off.”

    So, the Ukraine is talking of “buying gas from the E.U. instead of from Russia”? That makes me wonder whether anybody believes that Ukraine will pay for it?

  40. There is a full eclipse of the moon to be seen over North America this morning which can be seen live on the i-net between 7am and Noon BST.I suppose the full eclipse will be about 9-30am BST.

    The moon remains visible but turns `red`as it passes into the Earth’s shadow.I remember seeing this from a back yard in central Sydney N.S.W. in 1967.

    For live coverage from North America

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7aXzE5ZNH8

  41. David Ossitt

    “No not at all, I look forward to never ever having another Labour Government.”

    If you vote for Cameronn’s ‘buggers’ you won’t be able to tell the difference.

  42. Baron 2104

    Indeed the sixteenth century was a golden period
    Sir Thomas More described Utopia, an imaginary republic in which all social conflict and distress has been overcome. This inspired the greats of our movement Charles Fourier and Robert Owen

    By describing how people would live if everyone adhered to the socialist ethic, utopian socialism does three things: it inspires the oppressed to struggle and sacrifice for a better life, it gives a clear meaning to the aim of socialism, and it demonstrates how socialism is ethical, that is, that the precepts of socialism can be applied without excluding or exploiting anyone

    I think you should, in respect of your fascination with the period, come on board to join us

    (I say this in your best interests and not to frighten Noa away again)

  43. “The gruesome discovery of a three-year-old’s head was made in the house of Mohammad Arif, 35, and his 30-year-old brother Mohammad Farman, pictured right after a previous arrest in 2011. The pair, from the small town of Darya Khan in central Pakistan, had previously served two years in jail for cannibalism and were only released last year” from today’s “Daily Mail”
    And we mildly grumble about Tower Hamlets, Newham and Bradford abnormalities from the British norm!

  44. Peter from Maidstone,

    Congratulations on yesterday’s anniversary. Early days, though. 🙂

  46. Comrade Telly -whilst I find you both deluded and contemptible in your mindless pursuit of a stalinist one party state in the UK, you don’t frighten me.

  47. I’m continuing with plans for An Evening with Alex Boot. Provisionally it will be at the Counting House in the City, and the ticket price will include entrance, a glass of alcohol and a finger buffet.

    More information in due course.

  48. Peter,
    Great stuff, this has cheered up no end as I have been having a rough two days. Been trying to order some coffee on line, but me eyesight is so bad I kept messing the card number up and now the bank is not authorising payments. Life was so much easier when we used cash.

  49. So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
    Until it was about midway,
    Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
    And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
    The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
    Because ninety lives had been taken away,
    On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
    Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

  50. ACP at 16-28.

    And Karl Marks and Frederick Engels chanced to get of the same train at the station before…….

  51. UKIP strikes back !!!

    The Times attacks Farage over his payments as a MEP [and Farage threatens a libel case];but more interestingly Melissa Kite[God Bless]gets of her horse long enough to report that Cameron makes £6,000 a month (£70,000 a year) renting out his London house while living rent free at No.10…….and billed the tax-payer for a 7p. bulldog clip.

    http://www.ukip.org/cracking_story_for_the_attention_of_the_intrepid_and_daring_times_investigative_team

  53. The bald-headed coot says “Britain is ready to make sacrifices for the Ukraine”. Let him make sacrifices, maybe sharing a hotel room with a man to save money, but keep us out of it!

  55. Anne Wotana Kaye 1, April 15th, 2014 – 17:21

    Wee Willie of Arabia should FO to the Ukraine pronto, and he should take Daniel Korski with him!

  57. Apropos the above: OK, so I’ve been away….

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10765014/Twenty-five-schools-to-be-investigated-over-extremist-Muslim-plot-fears.html
    Some apposite comments here:

    marknewdarkage • a day ago
    The politicians/authorities are up their necks in trouble, all caused by mass immigration. Serves them right! Trouble is that we, the people, have to suffer for their foul up. If ever we were in need of a change of narrative, we are today. Change it now! Islam is not a ‘religion of peace’ but a religion which brings with it only trouble and strife. Can’t the fools look around them and observe? In each and every country where Islam is strong, there is trouble and strife. Yet these fools keep on with the narrative of Islam being a ‘religion of peace’.
    237

    Pip => marknewdarkage • a day ago
    Once Blair and New Labour opened our borders to the Indian Sub Continent and later Eastern Europe they started a chain of events that will only end in either a complete change in the Political Landscape of the UK or large scale revolt and or civil conflict. The choice is ours, the time to vote the right way is now, there will always be about 30% of the Electorate who will always support Socialism and Cultural Marxism for various reasons, its pointless attempting to reason with such people, better to leave them be with their ignorance and delusion and hope at least some may grow wiser with time and open their eyes before it is too late for us all.
    95
    Austin Barry => marknewdarkage • a day ago
    Actually, the ‘Religion of Peace’ cliche is used much less frequently by our elites than it was even five years ago. They realise that it just evokes a hollow, ironic guffaw and a sad shake of the head.

  58. Clear Memories April 15th, 2014 – 00:36

    Hi, you make some interesting points.

    “I think many of the English, whilst happy to see the back of the Nationalist tendency, will nevertheless regret and resent the break-up of the union and, rightly, blame the Westminster criminals.”

    I am not so sure that the majority will regret the breakup of the union, almost everyone I ask say good riddance or words to that effect some not so polite, they have been a drain on the English tax payer for many a year ‘The Barnett formula’ is self-evidently biased to favour the Scott’s and Northern Ireland but mainly the Scott’s and their vastly inflated public sector (similar to East Germany) is a burden we would be well rid of.

    Your comment “I predict, will see UKIP swept to power, with the Tories in opposition and Labour and the Lib-Dems sharing the minor places” is something to daydream on but the fact is that the pink-tinted Conservatives that we see in government would not be in anyway pink were we to be in a majority.

    Cameron for all his faults and he has many has done a remarkable job in holding the coalition together, we might all have wanted a Conservative government but we unfortunately did not have a majority.

    Back to my main point I am of the opinion that England and the English will benefit if the Scott’s are stupid enough to give Alec Salmond what he wants.

  59. EC April 15th, 2014 – 18:57

    “Actually, the ‘Religion of Peace’ cliché is used much less frequently by our elites than it was even five years ago. They realise that it just evokes a hollow, ironic guffaw and a sad shake of the head.”

    I would agree but I would go further, those who follow this barbaric sect are at the heart of much of the crime in this country, benefit fraud in all of its myriad guises, illegal immigration, false fraudulent passports and driving licences, driving without insurance, these people bring no benefit to our country.

  61. David Ossitt @ 19:43

    For an obvious reason, Baron cannot claim to have a view on the split of the United Kingdom based on personal experience, but he feels it would be a loss if the haggis eaters were to separate. The sum of the two has more to it that each of the two going it their own way, bean counting should not really enter into it, it can be sorted. There is strength in numbers, size does matter, common history binds. Poor, gay James may not like it up there if his brainchild ends up on a scrapheap, and for what?, a misguided insolence cum egomania of a politician here today, gone tomorrow.

    In a film ‘The Tea with Mussolini’ there is a scene in which the young Luca runs up a hill towards a wooded area with soldiers hiding behind the trees. He shouts:’Are you Americans? No answer. He shouts again: ‘Are you English?’ A macho soldier in a kilt steps up from the woods, smile on his face, shouts back: No, we are not English, we are bloody Scots’.

    Hard to explain it, but this short exchange never fails to hit the barbarian’s emotional buds.

  62. telemachus @ 09:15

    What? joining your lot, telemachus? Hmmm

    Shall Baron tell you what;s wrong with you lot? It’s that what you dream of is just that – Utopia, dream, an unattainable nirvana, it’s unsuitable for human beings. Life isn’t, never has been, never will be just a joy, happiness, indulgence, it’s also pain, suffering, death, that’s the Full Monty of it. The humans accomplish great things when the latter rather than the former conditions prevail.

    More to the point, from Plato, Thomas More, Bacon and the other dreamers you never chart the way there, and when you do get the chance to hit the road, it’s worse that what the conservative lot has to offer, just look at the French Revolution, or even the more restrained, in goal terms, utopian world of the Bolsheviks.

    Baron’s happy where he is, you’ll join him at some point, too, when you wise up.

  63. EC @ 18:29

    Gove must be doing it with a full approval of no 10, the appointment of the anti-terror guy is intended to send a signal, perhaps the boy and the rest of the ruling elite are beginning to see it more our way.

  64. Baron knows the bad feelings towards the worshippers of Allah are running high, still, it would be helpful if we could at least try to differentiate between the creed, its teachings, and those who have been saddled with it.

    Are you aware the alarm in Birmingham was raised not by the indigenous parents but by Muslims? A similar pattern here as what had happened with the grooming gangs, it was a Muslim head of the CPS who forced the police to open the ‘dormant” cases, asked to broadened the investigation, secured convictions.

    We got the Muslims to bat for us before, we should be able to do it again.

  66. Another epochal change he missed, that from the age of Pisces to that of Aquarius.

    ‘The last Aquarian age (around 28,000 BC) marked the end of the Neanderthal and the birth of Cro Magnon man. Will our species be similarly transformed over the next 2500 years?’

    Does anyone know?

  67. DO – 19:43

    I still believe that, given the predicted result in the EU elections and a Yes in the Scots referendum, UKIP have a good chance of taking power in the subsequent General Election.

    As an ex-Party member, I disagree that the Tories would be any different without the red influence of the sandal-and-beard mob. They are all career politicians, seeing life through that bubble and infected to their cores with PC bollocks after brainwashing by Common Purpose. Remember, by the GE, (in the event of a Yes Scottish vote), much of the negotiation for the separation will be at an advanced stage and soft Cameron, with Clegg jerking him one way and the EU the other, will have yielded on every point to the disbenefit of the English.

    No doubt the haggis-munchers will get to keep the pound, a way will be found to replace the Barnett formula (perhaps rental for the submarine base), they’ll be allowed to join the EU (and forget Spains protestations – all the EU care about is enlargement) and there will be no border between England and Scotland. So the economic migrants of the world will Schengen into Scotland where that nice Mr Salmond will surely lay on buses to Hadrians Wall so they can walk into England!

    No, the Tories have fought the other two for the political middle ground and, having arrived, have found its to the left of the majority of the UK population but Cameron especially, is so frightened of the MSM calling him a fascist that he can’t move to the right where everybody outside the Westminster bubble sits and enjoys Nigel’s rhetoric.

  68. Noa
    April 15th, 2014 – 11:20
    In truth that was a back handed welcome back from your flounce
    Your defence of Farage on Speccie is long overdue
    The stand ins do not cut the mustard

  69. Commrade
    I left your care in the community in the safe hands of Colonel Mustard. He has not been neglectful of you.

  70. Pity, you cannot get to it. The great Steyn’s at it again at the Spectator, better than ever. Things really must be changing when Fraser risks it again, so soon after Mark’s first stab at it few months ago after an almost a decade absence from this cursedly blessed island.

    Here is a taster:

    “The examples above are ever-shrinking Dantean circles of Tolerance: At Galway, the dissenting opinion was silenced by grunting thugs screaming four-letter words. At Mozilla, the chairwoman is far more housetrained: she issued a nice press release all about (per Miss Alcorn) striking a balance between freedom of speech and ‘equality’, and how the best way to ‘support’ a ‘culture’ of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusiveness’ is by firing anyone who dissents from the mandatory groupthink. At the House of Commons they’re moving to the next stage: in an ‘inclusive culture’ ever more comfortable with narrower bounds of public discourse, it seems entirely natural that the next step should be for dissenting voices to require state permission to speak.

    ……. Miss Hirsi Ali’s blackness washes off her like a bad dye job on a telly news anchor. White feminist Germaine Greer can speak at Brandeis because, in one of the more whimsical ideological evolutions even by dear old Germaine’s standards, Ms Greer feels that clitoridectomies add to the rich tapestry of ‘cultural identity’: ‘One man’s beautification is another man’s mutilation,’ as she puts it. But black feminist Hirsi Ali, who was on the receiving end of ‘one man’s mutilation’ and lives under death threats because she was boorish enough to complain about it, is too ‘hateful’ to be permitted to speak. In the internal contradictions of multiculturalism, Islam trumps all: race, gender, secularism, everything. So, in the interests of multiculti sensitivity, pampered upper-middle-class trusty-fundy children of entitlement are pronouncing a Somali refugee beyond the pale and signing up to Islamic strictures on the role of women.

    That’s another reason why Gay Alcorn’s fretting over ‘striking the balance’ is so irrelevant. No matter where you strike it, the last unread nonagenarian white supremacist Xeroxing flyers in a shack off the Tanami Track will be way over the line, while, say, Sheikh Sharif Hussein’s lively sermon to an enthusiastic crowd at the Islamic Da’wah Centre of South Australia, calling on Allah to kill every last Buddhist and Hindu, will be safely inside it. One man’s decapitation is another man’s cultural validation, as Germaine would say.

    Even for the most hard up amongst us, buying a copy of this week’s Spectator should be a must. It’s Steyn as his best – just note the quip of what Greer would say ‘one man’s decapitation ….’, calm, balanced as so far hitting it pains even the barbarian, and he is of the same phylum as the top columnist of the world.

  71. A defence of Farage? From what? The, now debunked, lies in The Times?
    The more MSM run knocking pieces on UKIP, the more UKIP’s membership and support in the polls goes up. The Speccie? Frasier et al are nothing more than a fart in a colander.

  72. Clear Memories 16th, – 01:30

    “UKIP have a good chance of taking power in the subsequent General Election.”

    Nurse! NURSE! He’s out of bed again!

  74. After discovering a version of Linux that works very well indeed – and unlike Windows is free – I now keep an eye open for news about it.

    However, now and again I notice descriptions of other versions of Linux that go way over my head – or round it or under it or that just zig zag arouind in the sky – or something. A few minutes ago for example I read this –

    “Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1.1, a CentOS-based distribution for building real and virtual clusters: “The latest update of Rocks, code name ‘Sand Boa’, is now released. Sand Boa is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 6.5. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of April 14, 2014. This includes updates for the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability. Support for ZFS has been updated to version 0.6.2. Condor is now the HTCondor roll is at release 8.0.6. Also included is a new roll called fingerprint that dynamically determines dependencies of compiled code on both Rocks and non-Rocks systems. Enhancements and bug fixes: rocks add host verifies hostname is not an appliance name; fix reverse path filtering on centos 6.x….”

    Try as I will, I can’t understand what any of it means. Is it perhaps a coded description of whatever disorder it is that afflicts Telemachus?

  75. I attended a civil marriage service this morning, in legal preparation for the religious service which will take place in due course, and was dismayed when then pleasant Registrar announced that marriage was the union of two people, having already eliminated the idea of normal marriage being between a man and a woman from her ceremony.

  76. Peter from Maidstone
    April 16th, 2014 – 12:47
    Peter, Cameron’s government is called “Pink” because it is not truly Conservative i.e. Blue. I suggest that Cameron and his crew are also definitely Pink or better yet Lavender in their sexual orientation. So my sympathies, for you having to endure the blasphēmus behaviour of the Registrar.

  77. Oo – of course I am, I’m 9 hours ahead of you. That means I get to see things first.

  79. With apologies to William Wordsworth. “Oh to be in England, now that P.C’s here….”
    There is “no credible evidence of criminality” in files from an east London borough to suspect fraud, the Metropolitan (Met) Police has said.

  80. AWK1 16th, – 12:23

    “We Can Dream, Can’t We?”

    Of course you can, but I guess it’d pay to wake up now and again. in case somebody mistakook it for a coma… 🙂

    “Then I awake, and look around me,
    At four grey walls that surround me
    and I realise, yeah, I was only dreaming.”

    (Tom Jones, TGGGoH)

  81. Herbert Thornton April 16th, 2014 – 12:35

    “Is it perhaps a coded description of whatever disorder it is that afflicts Telemachus?”

    Hebert how perspicacious of you to spot this, mind you have always shown an aptitude at deciphering difficult prose

  82. Baron – 15 April 22:22 –

    You wrote –

    “‘The last Aquarian age (around 28,000 BC) marked the end of the Neanderthal and the birth of Cro Magnon man. Will our species be similarly transformed over the next 2500 years?’
    Does anyone know?”

    I don’t of course know, but here are my guesses about the factors at work on the next 2500 years transformation-

    1. So long as nothing is done to interfere with ordinary, slow Darwinian evolution, it will continue to tend to guarantee that the descendants of those of our sprecies who have the most children will form a bigger and bigger proportion of the population as a whole. Consequently, Darwinian evolution will not favour either intelligence or rationality but will (thanks to medicine and notions about ‘Human Rights’ ) instead favour simple-mindedness, instinct, superstition and even stupidity – a reverse transformantion as it were towards the earliest Neanderthals.

    2. However, many transformations will be genetically enginered to produce people who have greater intelligence, more rationality, better health, more stamina, and so on. This will cause the Politically Correct to go into paroxysms of hysterical protest. Islamic clerics will be equally outraged and will issue fatwas declaring that the part of the world population that has the advantage of being been improved by genetic engineered must be exterminated.

    3. (Wild guess) – World War 3 – the Great Extermination War.

    P.S. – I thought that Cro-Magnon man mysteriously went extinct – either before or during the time of the Neanderthals?

  83. Baron –

    After checking on the Internet, my PS comment about Cro-Magnon man appears to be mistaken – I was out of date as it were!

  88. Peter from Maidstone
    April 16th, 2014 – 22:08

    Lord Justice Maurice Kay is probably bent too!

  89. EC @ 20.16

    My entries for your title competition are:

    “A Conservative MP entertains a new researcher in the Strangers Bar”.

    “Pest controller tests new product to combat giant rat threat to UK”.

  91. Noa
    April 17th, 2014 – 01:46

    After close shave, Nigel Evans reduces risk profile.

  92. EC – April 15th, 2014 – 10:35

    Thank you for that, no doubt where the Finns lead those of our leaders, who learned how to fag in the in the Prefects dormitories of Eton, will follow.

    For the Lib Dems a crossed coffee table motif should perhaps be added just above the quean’s head.

    Just one question remains, on which side does the poster lick his stamp?

  93. Enough!
    I must away to my holiday project, which is the building of a new garden lean-to against my garage. it will enable me to store even more stuff that I have not thrown away because it might be useful in the future.
    I suspect that when, eventually, I clear away the rubbish at the back of the potting shed I will find that a smelly little telemachus has created a lair there, out of ripped newspapers and carpet felt, where it accesses my WiFi link through an old council jobsworth’s laptop…

  95. Teachers call for Muslim pupils to be allowed to use Ramadan as grounds of appeal against poor exam results
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2606333/Teachers-call-GSCEs-A-level-exams-scheduled-morning-make-easier-Muslim-pupils-fasting-Ramadan.html

    Would they be Muslim teachers by any chance, or are there some dim witted allies in the teachers’ common room?

    Would it be only for those who just failed, or would it be to those who didn’t get the marks they expected? Would it be all of them? And would there be checks for secret energy bars, hidden under their veils?

    If fasting is detrimental to performance, it would follow that there would be beneficial effects for the rest of the year; otherwise why would it be done? It would then follow that, for anyone taking exams outside the period of fasting, their results should be reduced accordingly. We wouldn’t want anyone to have an unfair advantage, would we? Has this happened? I haven’t seen it reported!

    When these children, who apparently, do not need to fast because they are children, start work, will they expect the same allowances for poor results?

    I think the opinion of the teachers will show how intelligent, or is it how stupid, the profession really are!

  96. Orthodox Christians also fast, and we do not have a large breakfast to set us up for the day, but it has always been understood that children and students will not follow the strict fasting rules, especially if they are facing exams.

  99. EC @ 10:46

    It is always worth spending half an hour listening to Hitchens, and not only on the subject of Islam, EC. The guy was one of a small group of truly distinguished thinkers, but also one with far above average communication skills. One can follow his argument easily, feel it has meat on it, and very little room for demolishing it. Pity he had to go so early.

  100. EC @ 12:12

    Not unlike the ‘hand in his friend’s trousers’ Evans and others of whatever political colour, the boy, too, has no capacity for shame, embarrassment. He will say virtually anything to anyone if his advisors tell him there are votes in it. Shame on them all.

  101. Yall still here
    So I see your new tele evangelist David Cameron has been preaching the Easter Message
    He should do more of that.
    We are mighty impressed by that back home.
    Most of my Southern Baptist friends are in vigil just now.
    Our good friends Mike Huckabee and Pat Robinson would approve of taking Jesus out into politics.
    How is my old mucker Andy Car Park.
    I am only over for a flying visit to Cornwall. I drive down to Clovelly to see my cousin tonight in my hire Fiat if it gets there.
    Happy Easter to yall.

  102. Schools in Bolton will be urged to fly the union flag and sing the national anthem in assemblies to help foster patriotism in the young, it has emerged.

    The council motion to encourage national pride was proposed by Conservative councillor Mudasir Dean and attracted overwhelming support, passing by 34 votes in favour with 11 abstentions and four against….

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10772325/Bolton-council-votes-for-schools-to-sing-the-national-anthem-and-fly-the-union-flag.html

  103. Old Andy Car Park fine, JJB. How you?
    Hope all y’all enjoy all y’all stay in our quaint li’l ol’ Cornshire
    and get a chance to visit the quaint li’l ol’ ‘Tower of London’
    where they serve quaint li’l ol’ Cornshire Cream Teas
    ‘neath the starry skies above, yessiree.

    And while we’re shootin’ the breeze, please accept a cyber present from li’l ol’ England: Crap Taxidermy. It swings like a pendulum do, JJB. That it does.

    https://twitter.com/CrapTaxidermy

  105. stephen maybery (17 April 04:58)

    Please be quiet about it. I live in Canada where imagined gender specificity that either ignores women or fails to give them proper respect is punishable by death.

    The proper expression in Canada is not ‘Cro-Magnon Person’ but Cro-Magnon’ – as with Letter Carrier, Fisher, Garbage Collector, Chair and so on.

    To mention that you employ a female as your ‘Charwoman’ or even ‘Charperson’ makes you even worse than being a racist and also carries the death penalty. The proper Canadian usage is ‘Cleaning Lady’.

  106. It’s the wife’s 25th anniversary and I am celebrating by going out on the piss not arf.

  107. An excellent piece by Peter Oborne writing in the Telegraph:-
    “…People here see their country as being threatened by foreign powers (above all Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all backed by the West) who are sponsoring the jihadist groups that make up the opposition. I was struck by the fact that this argument is not made only by the Alawite coterie around the president. I also heard it from Sunni Muslims, Christians and members of the various other cultural and religious groups that abound in Syria.

    How can this square with the Western narrative that President Assad’s government, with the aid of a handful of tribal followers, is hell-bent on the destruction of the rest of the country? Consider the facts. Only a handful of members of Assad’s 30-strong cabinet (I was told two) are Alawite. The prime minister is Sunni, as are the interior minister, the justice minister, the foreign minister, even the defence minister. The delegation that travelled to Geneva for the failed peace talks several months ago was also almost entirely composed of Sunni Muslims (though they would probably reject sectarian terms, and prefer to think of themselves just as Syrians)…”
    Why are Hague and Cameron supporting Wahhabi islamists in seeking to impose a Saudi theocracy on Syria? Answers please on a post card, (if you can find any, to ‘the queans of araby’ C/O the FCO…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10770311/Syria-As-the-bombs-fall-the-people-of-Damascus-rally-round-Bashar-al-Assad.html

  108. Is this a Damascus Moment, “Britons should be “more confident about our status as a Christian country”, Prime Minister David Cameron has said”. or more sadly, is Cameron just joining Saint Blair in hypocrisy? It would indeed be an Easter miracle, if Cameron was sincere.

  110. Noa – 17:31
    “…People here see their country as being threatened by foreign powers (above all Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all backed by the West) who are sponsoring the jihadist groups that make up the opposition. ”

    For more than a moment, I thought you were talking about Britain. What a laugh!

  112. Herbert Thornton,
    Herbert I promise you that my lips are sealed, but, as a matter of curiosity, what do they call “A hairy arsed lesbian in Canada?” And don’t they have any shirt lifters over there? If not we could always send you some of our MPs, except that if we were to do that, it would empty the House of Commons.

  113. Fox News is reporting that President Putin has said that Russia might cut off gas supplies if Kiev fails to pay its debts for gas already supplied to Ukraine – and that the EU has warned Russia that interfering with gas deliveries to Ukraine to apply political pressure would backfire ‘by damaging its reputation as a reliable supplier’.

    It says that Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has written a letter saying that Russia’s “contractual reliability as a supplier of gas is at stake”, and that stable deliveries are ‘in both sides’ interest’. He even refers loftily to ‘honoring contractual obligations’.

    In Barroso’s mind it seems, contractual obligations, include delivering goods, but do not include paying for them. What next, I wonder? Quite apart from not wanting to buy a used car from such a man, I wouldn’t sell my used car to him either.

  114. For those loving statistical data here’s something to ponder.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2602613/The-welfare-state-How-average-workers-MONTHS-wages-taken-tax-fund-Britains-benefits-bill.html

    About half of the welfare spending is on pensions today. The State pension was brought in in 1908 for those earning some £30 pa or less, over 70 years old with 20 years of residence, no criminal record. It stood at 5 shillings per week, 7/6 for married couples. Some 600,000 pension were granted.
    Whatever people say

  115. Herbert Thornton @ 19:59

    One can only guess what Putin will do on gas supplies to rebelling neighbour. Contrary to what the pundits here say gas isn’t the big earner for the Russians. It brings in some £19bn pa compared to $190bn pa the country earns selling oil. It would, however, dent the Russian finances noticeably if the West cut off its purchases fully.

    Putin’s unlikely to do much before the election in Ukraine, Baron reckons, he doesn’t want to infuriate those who may vote for the former Party of the Regions, these deputies were friendly towards Russia. In the longer term, Gazprom will likely get tougher what with one of the initial candidates for the Ukrainian presidency Timoshenko saying her ‘only desire is to burn Russia’s lands to cinders’. Why give her or someone like her who’s likely to get the top job the key tool to do it with.

    Tomoshenko withdrew her candidacy yesterday. And why not, as the former president the blond beauty managed to open 17 offshore bank accounts in her and her relatives names amounting to just bellow $2bn. Not bad, but then being president of a poor country must be a hard job.

    On the radio bulletin today (Classic FM), a reporter said Gazprom hiked the price of gas it supplies to Ukraine by over 80% recently. What he didn’t say, the price agreed before the Kiev putsch was around a third of the average of Russia’s European clients. The Germans pay the lowest price most likely because they buy the most, the Ukrainians paid a lower one still, now they are just around the average.

  116. Another titbit of interest on things Ukrainian.

    You may recall that in many of the reports here, it was alleged the east of the country was full of young men in para, other uniforms uncannily like those the Russian fighters wear, no insignia though. Well, it turns out one may buy the current range of uniforms the Russian Armed Services use, the guy who sells them is planning to open a new chain in Crimea, except he doesn’t sell any insignia. Perhaps there’s a market in those trinkets, too.

  117. Anne Wotana Kaye 1 @ 17:38

    Anne, get real, please. We have an election coming, there will be more of the same, and sadly, many will fall for it.

  118. Noa @ 17:31

    Good piece, some excellent comments below, too.

    Baron very much agrees with him when he says we are hoping to bring democracy into the country siding with the Saudis, the most undemocratic set-up in the region, and not very far from the North Korean nightmare. Also, he’s deadly right we should stay out of the conflict.

  119. Andy, another link to a taxidermy site and Baron screams.

    Enjoy the evening out, and be good, not only to yourself, but your wife, too. You never know, one day you may need her more than she needs you, now.

  120. What has happened to Frank. Baron very much hopes he remembers the barbarian’s secret of longevity. It’s to keep breathing. If he does that he’ll be fine, should enlighten us again, and soon.

  121. So, while “… the mainstream position evoked by most politicians maintains that all U.S. sacrifices in the Muslim world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) will pay off once Muslims discover how wonderful Western ways are, and happily slough off their “Islamist” veneer, which, as the theory goes, is a product of – you guessed it – a lack of democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression.

    Yet here are American and European Muslims, immersed in the bounties of the West, and still do they turn to violent jihad. Why [do we] think their counterparts, who are born and raised in the Muslim world, where Islam permeates every aspect of life, will respond differently?”
    http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/04/why_westernized_muslims_become_radicalized.html

    Makes you think!

    It’s a pity that it doesn’t make our own leaders think!

  122. Baron
    April 17th, 2014 – 20:51
    The old saying goes, You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln …
    Unfortunately people have got dumber and dumber, just consider the rubbish that’s ruling the world!

  123. RobertC @ 21:52

    It’s not unlike when the financial insanity was in full swing before it imploded in 2007, only on a bigger scale. Baron reckons those in charge were then, are now fully aware what (was) is going on, they just (couldn’t) cannot do much about, (hoped) hope it (would) will sort itself out. It didn’t in the things financial, it won’t on the bigger scale on things societal either.

    They cannot do much about it, their hands are tied by their subscribing to the progressive thinking for decades, encasing in law many of the shibboleths the left leaning fruitcakes have been lobbying for. It was the market that brought the financial accesses back to some sanity, it will also be the masses of people (the equivalent of the market), who will perform the same when the time is ripe.

    Farage and his lot represents one of the avenues the unwashed may explore. The EU election will send a powerful signal, the next year national count may inflict more damage still. Not that Ukip will gain any seats, it will gather plenty of the popular vote, however. What Farage should do then is take the elected Government to court, argue that the votes are unequal, more than a sin in a society that worships on the altar of equality. The legislation enacted under the pressure of the left leaning progressives may bury them. What a joy would that be.

    We shall see, we don’t have that much to wait.

  124. He’s done it again, it’s ‘excess’ rather than ‘access’, the barbarian must learn how to speak, sorry.

  125. Peter’s friend, and the guru of many of you is at it again, making a plausible explanation of the Ukrainian turmoil. Baron humbly disagrees with his take on things.

    The big mistake the winning powers did after WW1 was they kicked the Germans for the killing spree rather than the militaristic ideology that underpinned the society prior to it. This caused, quite rightly, resentment amongst the German unwashed, which the Austrian corporal exploited to the full, presiding over even greater killing fields.

    It was thanks to the wisdom of the Allied winners after WW2 that we avoided the same mistake. Having picked, hanged few of the top bearers of Nazism, some of its keener executioners lower down the hierarchy, the winning powers quite rightly blamed Nazism, not the German hoi polloi for the atrocities that left 60mn dead, more than 100mn displaced. The dividend of this wise decision is still with us.

    When the USSR collapsed, sadly, it was the same mistake we did 100 years ago. We assumed it wasn’t communism that subjected tens of millions both in Russia and its satellites underlings to live in Gulags, but the Russians. Hurriedly, we co-opted into NATO, a military set-up aimed at communism, every country but Russia, surrounded the land of the Russians even tighter than it was when the evil of communism ruled her.

    What was Ivan supposed to do? Celebrate? Be happy about it? Dance to the tune of the messiah?

    If it were not Putin, any leader of Russia couldn’t have responded in a way that much different from what he did when armed thugs helped to depose the Ukrainian elected President (corrupted, granted, but then others before him were corrupted, too).

    He couldn’t have lost Crimea because of his KGB past, but because he is Russian. It was his duty to secure the one naval base this side of the Ural mountains that doesn’t freeze, it is his duty to ensure than Ukraine with millions of Russians living there doesn’t become the launching pad for an EU sponsored expansion to God knows where. Russia is a sovereign country, the Western leaders may not like the way it’s governed, but it’s up to the Russians not the Brussels apparatchiks to sort things out.

    The shortsightedness of the decision is in that Russia is never likely to depose the Republic from its primary position, whatever Mr. Boot or others may claim, the Mandarin speakers may. They have the manpower, they seem to have hit on a model that has so far quite successfully coupled central control with aggressive mercantile capitalism. They keep it going for another couple of generations, and the world is their oyster. It will be then we’ll regret treating the Russians as an enemy, but who knows, they may again save the Old Europe as they did last century, and the century before.

  126. EC & Stephen Mayberry –

    Neither of you would be thought socially acceptable in Canada. For a start, Mrs. Mop is incorrect. It should be either Ms. or Mz. Mop.

    In Canada, the expresssions ‘hairy arsed lesbian’ and ‘shirt lifters’ constitute ‘Hate Speech’. If used, the various Human Rights Tribunals would order whoever uttered them to pay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars to complainants for the distress naturally caused to them by hearing such things said about entirely innocent, normal people.

  127. Baron, 01-04,
    Perceptive. A tragedy our puerile rulers do not have your understanding of history. The tragedy that was the Treaty of Versailles lay in the refusal of the allies to curb the French thirst for revenge for its defeat in the war of 1870. The French exacted brutal terms from Germany while conveniently forgetting what Napoleon did to Europe and the French, largely due to the diplomatic talents of Talleyrand, virtually got off scot free, and the Louvre is still stuffed with the treasures the little corporal looted.

  129. Worth seeing this from Reuters:

    “Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken a gamble on Ukraine and is betting that U.S. President Barack Obama will blink first.

    Wounded by a personal political defeat in a battle for influence over Russia’s Slavic neighbor, Putin is fighting back, and presenting the crisis as a question of symmetry.

    In his view, the West “stood by” and allowed armed men to direct events in the capital Kiev – now he is “standing by” as armed men extend their control.

    The former KGB spy blames the West for stirring passions in Kiev, encouraging an opposition to break agreements to restore peace and allowing what Moscow calls “extremists” and “fascists” to dictate political developments in Ukraine.

    Now authorized by parliament to deploy Russia’s military in Ukraine to protect national interests and those of Russian citizens, Putin is taking on a West he feels has cut Moscow out of talks on the future of Russia’s Orthodox Christian brothers.

    How far he will go is the big question.

    While Moscow has put 150,000 troops on high alert near Ukraine’s border, it has shown no signs, yet, of sending them and denies Ukrainian allegations it sent the protesters who have hoisted Russian flags in some eastern towns.

    Putin is saying nothing in public on Ukraine – and has not done so since Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich was deposed.

    At the center of attention as one Western leader after another calls to urge him not to use force, he is betting the West’s response will be weak.

    His calculation is that Obama has few levers at his disposal and no appetite for war.

    RECLAIMING “LOST” TERRITORY

    Putin is banking on salvaging something out of a battle over Ukraine that he appeared to have won when Yanukovich spurned trade and political deals with the European Union in November, but then seemed to lose when Yanukovich was ousted after three months of protests.

    “The West told Putin to get lost over Ukraine,” said Sergei Markov, a pro-Putin political analyst and director of the Institute for Political Studies in Moscow, underlining the depth of hurt Putin felt over Ukraine.

    Accusing Western powers and international organizations of trying to ignore Moscow in talks on financial assistance for Kiev, Markov said: “What we are saying is that if there are any U.N., IMF, G8 agreements without consultations with us, then we will see them as illegitimate.”

    Reclaiming Crimea, a former Russian territory handed to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, has won Putin kudos among core voters and especially nationalists.

    While he has been busy defending national interests, his lieutenants have been lambasting the West over Ukraine, accusing it of manipulating events and working with a government chosen by gun-toting “extremists”.

    Combined with an orchestrated wave of nationalist indignation over attempts to limit use of the Russian language and persecute Russians in a country many consider an extension of their own, Putin’s stance plays well at home.

    His insistence that Ukraine’s new leaders stick to the terms of a European Union-brokered political agreement last month with Yanukovich goes down well.

    This month, his popularity ratings have bounced back to almost 70 percent, according to an opinion poll by independent pollster Levada.

    “Putin has not forgiven the fact that the agreement was not fulfilled and that is one of his greatest motivations. He considers he is acting in a symmetrical way,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin spin doctor.

    “I think that the authorities think it’s very helpful that people are getting themselves worked up about this… And the majority feel in a patriotic mood about Crimea and Ukraine. I think it’s positive for the Kremlin. They won’t refuse action.”

    ACTION?

    Whether he takes action may still depend on the West.

    Military intervention in Ukraine has higher stakes than the war Russia fought with Georgia in 2008 – invading Ukraine’s southeast could transform Putin, a man who wanted the Sochi Winter Olympics to show Russia’s modern face, into a pariah.

    If Western powers decide to try to punish Russia with sanctions, Putin will be likely again to pursue a “symmetrical” policy and hit back with similar moves.

    This would go down well with core supporters, but might risk unsettling the wealthy businessmen whose support helps cement Putin’s grip on power.

    The decision to seek authorization to send in troops looked less like a prelude to war and more like a threat aimed at getting Kiev and the West to cut a deal, Professor Mark Galeotti from the Center of Global Affairs at New York University wrote on his blog.

    “As the language toughens and the troops roll, though, it’s getting harder to believe that common sense is going to prevail in the Kremlin.”

    In broadcasts with Cold War overtones, state television has many times repeated footage of parliament accusing Washington of crossing a red line by warning that Moscow will face “costs” if it intervenes in Ukraine.

    It has run image after image of pro-Russian protesters raising the Russian flag above administrative buildings in several eastern regions, including the industrial centers of Donetsk and Kharkiv.

    The patriotic mood has caught on. For every dissenter wondering whether this is the worst thing Russia could do since it crushed opposition in Czechoslovakia in 1968, there are dozens more who say the West is fomenting violence.

    Near Red Square and the Defense Ministry in Moscow on Sunday, a few hundred protesters waved banners calling for “No War”. Dozens were detained.

    But their numbers could not match the thousands who turned out for a demonstration for the “defense of the Ukrainian people” in central Moscow.”

  130. As an addendum
    We should see Putin as a great strong Russian leader following
    Ivan the 4th
    Peter the 1st
    Catherine the 2nd
    Lenin
    Stalin
    Europe is always better when Russia has a strong leader

  131. telemachus,

    Have you ever considered taking up a new hobby? For example, cycling on the busy roads around the metropolis….

  132. I accidentally watched BBC2 Newsnight last night.

    The BBC had invited Marine Le Pen on to the program, ostensibly, to discuss the Euro elections in May. However the line of questioning revealed that the true purpose of the interview was a thinly veiled attempt to smear UKIP by associating them with the more extreme elements of the FN.

    Laura Kuenssberg’s latest attempt at a UKIP hatchet job fell flat on its face as Marine Le Pen wiped the floor with her. The slant featured Scotch Krusty Squawk wannabe was sent “away hame to think again.”

    It was a pleasure to watch the very impressive Marine Le Pen tackle the lightweight lefty beeboid.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0418z2z/Newsnight_17_04_2014/

    Interview is at 28min in. Not to be missed!

  134. Malfleur, April 18th, 2014 – 03:59

    The Federal Government is tightening its grip on the throat of America.
    “We” know that, but what can you or I do about it?

    The PJTV Trifecta crew have covered the Clive Bundy issue here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-xEO3uYsyI

    The defaulting Bundy was in the wrong, but the use of paramilitary Feds was heinous!

  136. “Tests taken by foreign doctors who want to work in the NHS should be made harder to pass to bring them in line with UK standards, a study has said”.

    Goodness, gracious me, they must be bad!

  137. EC 18th, – 09:55

    “It was a pleasure to watch the very impressive Marine Le Pen tackle the lightweight lefty beeboid.”

    Indeed it was. Methinks if the wee lassie doesn’t up her game considerably and quickly, she’ll be shown the door at NN. Here’s hopin’

    🙂

  138. Anne Wotana Kaye 1@April 18th, 2014 – 10:58

    sadly this will only be non Eu doctors. Quacks form the EU cant be stopped from working here because of EU rules. FFS we cant even protect our people from rubbish medics.

  139. Alexsandr
    April 18th, 2014 – 12:44
    The best doctors I have found are mainly Indian, Iranian and other non-EU doctors. The EU quacks are as mostly as rubbishy as the home-grown ones. Lord preserve me from the feminists, but the women so-called doctors are more concerned in walking on ten-inch high heels and taking maternity leave!

  141. I am a bit late it being 5.54pm but never too late to wish you all a very happy Easter.

  143. Is anybody else as sick as I am, of hearing bald-headed Willie of Arabia droning on about the 18=year old man killed in Syria? About time these so-called British Nationals were kicked out of here, or just refuse them entry back when they return.

  145. Noa – 17:21 ‘jellyfish’

    Thanks for the information, but I had already heard that the ‘Tory’ ‘Leader’ had had an encounter with a jelly fish and that while spineless creature had been injured the jelly fish had suffered no harm. 🙂

  146. A lighthearted look at the saboteurs of one of England’s cultural pillars, by Dellers:
    On Good Friday: Six Reasons Why Christianity Is Dying InBritainhttp://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/04/18/On-Good-Friday-Six-Reasons-Why-Christianity-Is-Dying-In-Britain

    And an encouraging clip, found in one of the postings of the same article:
    Underground Chinese Church Goes Public
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umUmwcKdbQo

  148. EC
    April 18th, 2014 – 10:25

    “The defaulting Bundy was in the wrong”

    This is untrue.

  151. Ostrich (occasionally) @ 09:33

    If youcan believe Macaulay ‘he was made up of two men – a witty, well read scholar who wrote, disputed and harangued, and a nervous, drivelling idiot who acted’.

    Still, a genuine eccentric, apart from the Bible work, the granting of certain rights to the Shakespeare troupe, he didn’t wash, had to be told how to use a fork, had seven children yet was kissing his gay lovers in public, wrote lewd letter to the Duke of Buckingham, the provider of his favorite orifice, one must presume ….. The one thing he shouldn’t have done is execute Raleigh to appease Spain.

    One of his daughters, named Elizabeth, married a German prince Frederick, the Elector Palatine (one of the then small Protestant German kingdoms), who ruled Bohemia for just about a year, then got beaten in 1620 in the battle of the White Mountain near Prague by the Roman Catholic Habsburgs who ruled the lands of the Bohemians until the end of WW1 (that’s the reason Baron knows this stuff, in case you are wondering)

    The more interesting bit is that the daughter of Frederick and Elizabeth, also called Elizabeth, they seeemed to be keen on that name i the 17th century, corresponded with René Descartes, the one of the ‘how do you know your mind isn’t run by demons’ fame, and he said of her she was amongst the few cleverest people in Europe. Go figure why our royal rulers today find it hard to pass GCSE.

    Btw, the guy Descartes fought at the battle of White Mountain, got nearly killed.

    Scotland should stay with the rest of the UK, who knows, we may one day get a Scot who’ll rule the kingdom again, be as clever and as eccentric as James.

  152. You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, but it seems Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury would like to achieve this ‘miracle’.
    http://www.dailynewsen.com/…/justin-welby-the-anguish-i-face-over-gay-marr…‎
    “1 hour ago – The Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested he is powerless to supply blessings for gay marriages simply because to do so would split the …”
    Sadly, it seems true believers are more prevalent in Africa, than here, where PC attitudes allow personal selfishness and decadence to pervert moral values.

  154. Anne Wotana Kaye 1 – 10:39

    “On Friday, one bishop dismissed his, [the Archbishop of Canterbury’s], comments as “simply wrong” and said the Church was now being held together simply by people having to “pretend to be what they are not”. The Bishop of Buckingham, the Rt Rev Alan Wilson, said: “I think that relating gay marriage in the West to the activities of warlords and people who practise genocide in central Africa is simply wrong. I don’t think it makes sense at all.
    “If it is true that the cost of keeping the Anglican Communion together is that people keep getting murdered in nasty ways around the world, I say, what do you mean by keeping the Anglican Communion together?”
    The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, who was born in Pakistan, said: “Christians are being persecuted for their faith, not particularly because of what western Christians may or may not say about homosexuality.””

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10775722/Justin-Welby-the-anguish-I-face-over-gay-marriage.html

    The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, now, that IS a leader, and a Christian!

  155. Baron at 10-15.

    Prince Charles got perfectly good exam passes for those days [c.5 passes?]:inspite of being sent to some weird schools.Prince William got 14 passes at Eaton.This is the absolute proof that standards have declined.There is not world enough and time for a boy to study 14 subjects in depth.So either the next heir to the Throne but one is an intellectual genius or exam standards have collapsed.

    In the past it was normal for grammar school pupils to sit for six subjects.So these passes are worth getting on for two-and-a-half modern passes.Children are learning less and less about more and more.

    So all Gove’s reforms and free schools and academies are not much use when they are working to a wrong agenda;nor is Farage’s grammar school policy.

  156. RobertC at 10-53.

    The `Liberal` Independent tends to be a repository for liberal free comment;along with a weekly column from Nigel Farage.

  157. RobertC
    April 19th, 2014 – 11:01
    The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, now, that IS a leader, and a Christian!
    Yes, Robert, all that you say, and a brave man too.
    A good and very happy Easter to all.

  158. Anne Wotana Kaye 1 @ 10:39

    He cannot bless same sex couple because ‘it would split ….’. Bollocks, he should have said he cannot do it because the Holy Scripture says it cannot be done.

    That’s a typical excuse only someone like him can make, someone like people of his faith would accept with a straight face.

  160. Radford NG @ 11:02

    That shows you what Baron’s memory has turned into, Radford, he was under the impression the two Princes struggled in their GCSE studies.

  162. Radford NG
    April 19th, 2014 – 12:52
    I was always rather partial to the Vikings. at least one knows who they were……..

  164. Enoch Powell:”……we were invaded by the Danes”.
    Marganita Laski:”Didn’t they add to us in the end”.
    Powell:”Only because we fought them……and Christianized them”.(applause).

    Any Questions;29 Nov. 1968.

  165. Peter from Maidstone
    April 19th, 2014 – 13:00
    Dear Peter,
    I certainly meant no malice in my dopey posting of 12.57. There was no disrespect for either the Cathedral nor past Martyrs. I was simply showing my distain for that hypocrite and phoney Welby.

  166. Anne,
    If Welby had not been a phoney, he would not have been appointed Archbishop, never forget who does the appointing. There were only two viable candidates, John Sentanu and Nazir Ali. They stood no chance as they both believe in God. As for Cameron going all religious on us, it is a measure of his stupidity that he thinks we would swallow such a line.

  167. Baron,
    Yes Baron, you loused upon the education achievements of Prince William and Prince Charles, but as 85% of the population can reliably be certified as thick why should you expect royalty to be any different?

  168. I agree with Stephen. Welby was appointed for a reason. He will preside over the final and formal feminisation of the Anglican Church.I am fortunate to belong to a communion where this will not be happening.

  169. stephen maybery @ 12:07

    The same to you, stephen, and the rest of the crew here.

    Baron must confessed he is peeved off abit, he was told by the Met Office East Anglia would be sunny and warm till Sunday evening, got ready for the first barbecue of the year. It has been overcast throughout, sunshine is as spare as common sense of those in charge, and the wind is bloody cold.

    But there’s a consolation coming, and the rare occasion the barbarian allows himself to watch the BBC. At five, a transmission from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. It will broadcast as a part of the Easter service Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere Mei, Deus, one of the barbarian’s favorite ‘tunes’ to borrow the expression of the ones who’re ‘with it’.

    If ever pushed to defend Christianity, Baron never fails to mention the obvious, if Christianity didn’t happen, we would be without gems such as this oen, and others, too, of course. He will never accept that something as sublime, ever lasting, transcending anything a man has been capable of (so far anyway) in the domain of vocal arts would get created without the love of the spiritual He.

    There exists a recording of the masterpiece, by the choir from the same college, the singer of the high C is Roy Goodman, a boy from Hull, the u-tube recording doesn’t do it justice though. An eye moisturising performance, if one listens to the record.

  170. stephen maybery
    April 19th, 2014 – 13:40
    I agree with you, stephen, but I fear for the future, as the voters actually vote for such as Cameron, and in his time, Blair.

  171. stephen maybery at 13:40

    Spot on, stephen, it’s window dressing, and so far they’ve been getting away with it. It won’t last, it cannot last, this make belief edifice is inimical to human nature, something will bring it down at some point.

    Here’s a clip by Mark Steyn on the rainbow nonsense, which neither Sentanu nor Ali fit in because they’re genuine, and in which Mark also touches on your other point you’ve made, many of the young knowing BA, but subscribe to the all embracing creed.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEGJb5W5ks

  172. Appointment of the higher clergy was in the hands of the Prime Minister.In the mid-term this maintained a balance between Whigs and Torys;although it would be unfair to clergy on the wrong side,such as Dean Swift in Dublin:and it is portrayed in the novels of Anthony Trollope.

    In recent decades the cry went up that it was wrong for politicians to appoint clergy;and a system of CoE committees was created to advise the P.M.,giving him two names to forward to the Queen. This was at the time the `liberals`dominated the Church.The trick developed that they chose one up-front liberal and another liberal who had kept quiet;so they got who they wanted:and the Church was unbalanced.

    In the case of the Archbishop of Canterbury a special committee was formed.There is supposed to be a representative of the World-Wide Anglican Commune.In the present case this is not a representative of The Global South–from Africa and Asia–but from Wales (!!)one of the most `liberal`parts of the Church:the foreign place from which came Rowen Williams.It was this which promoted Welby.

  173. It’s not the right time to re-dust it, you don’t have to watch it now, keep it for next week.

    The clip doesn’t say that much new, the reason Baron would like you to see it is that it furnished convincing evidence of the Americans putting together the currently acting government in Kiev, amongst whom is a man that not that long ago many regarded as vile.

    http://scgnews.com/the-ukraine-crisis-what-youre-not-being-told

    Btw, the investigation as to who was it killing both the demonstrators and the police on Feb 20-21 in Kiev has been shelved. No need to ask why, ha?

  174. Anne Wotana Kaye 1 April 18th, 2014 – 19:33

    “Is anybody else as sick as I am, of hearing bald-headed Willie of Arabia droning on about the 18=year old man killed in Syria? About time these so-called British Nationals were kicked out of here, or just refuse them entry back when they return.”

    Hello Anne yes my beloved and I are sick and tired of every Tom Dick and Mohamed being referred to as a Briton or else as British, they are no such thing they are the offspring of fathers who speak broken English and mothers who can’t speak English at all.

    I think that I might have offended Baron recently when I said that I do not believe there are bad and good Muslims, I would not trust any of them.

  175. David Ossitt @ 16:47

    What? Baron doesn’t recall being offended by you, David. More t the point, the barbarian gets offended only by the phylum you and he, the rest of us appose.

    The poorly educated Slav holds that it isn’t people per se who are genetically predisposed to do anything, either good or bad. What drives them is what’s fed into them. Look at the Germans, few generations ago they, or quite a large majority of them, went on a killing spree. Today, they send down a police officer who, when questioning a murderer says to the villain: ‘Men like you should have their arse kicked, and I may kick it if you don’t tell me the truth’.

    There may be reasons one would not be keen to have a pint with a follower of Allah, but provided the worshipper doesn’t want to kill Baron, respects for the laws of the land, behaves, Baron would give him a chance. The pulling attraction of the British way of life (for many of them it was the reason for leaving the lands of sharia) is such that given time he, too, may embrace it in preference to the scribbling cobbled up by a man very likely imbibing some poisonous mushrooms when he penned it.

  177. Mr. Boot did a piece on the anti-semitic leaflets distributed in the Donetsk region (that’s the one where the pro-Russian mob took over buildings demanding a split from Kiev). He must have done so before even the BBC denounced the flyers as a provocation. The US State Department said they would look into it, but if the case of the Maidan’s shooting is anything to go by, this investigation will be shelved, too.

    If the agitprop leaflets were issued by the leaders of the Donetsk protestors they are brainless, Russia should make sure they never form either a separate entity within Ukraine or join Russia, their place is a high security asylum. Baron reckons the culprits may be found closer to Kiev than Donetsk.

  178. And Simon Heffer in the DM says we should hit Russia, grab them by their rubles, pull, even if it causes us pain.

    The intriguing part of this blog of his is the postings. Not one the posters agrees with him (when Baron scanned it anyway), some are saying they’d prefer the one who loves to strip, to ride horses rather than the boy, which is pushing it too far. With Putin we would have to suffer another six years or so, the boy will be gone by the late summer next year, the Tories will have another leader who may, just may listen to the country rather than say ‘the international community demands, thinks, condemns …..’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2608144/SIMON-HEFFER-Its-time-grab-Putin-roubles.html

  179. 1647
    1725
    By implication I perceive conflict over an evident truth
    Of course there are bad Muslims who equate to the so called Christian fundamentalists of the American Right
    The vast majority are just like you and I who write CofE on official forms and in truth simply want get on with their jobs and their families
    Just walk around Wolverhampton and see

  182. Radford NG @ 20:31

    Before it’s over, it will get dirtier, Radford.

    It’s a tragedy for the ordinary people, who are going to be the ones who suffer.

  183. Yevgeny Yevtushenko reads “Babi Yar”;in English.

    https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJEGrgdGzPE

  185. Radford NG @ 21:36

    Fantastic link, Radford, many thanks for it. The guy was a war correspondent for the Red Army, wrote ‘Life and Fate’, in Baron’s humble view a masterpiece on par with Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The Grossman’s tome was read by Suslov (the chief Kremlin ideologue) who ordered it to be kept in a safe for a century. It’s a hard read to stomach, but it’s available in English.

  186. Radford NG – 11:02
    “Children are learning less and less about more and more.”

    And at University, they learn more and more about less and less!

    The clever ones manage to learn everything about absolutely nothing.

    They get a degree in PPE which gives them the power to enter the Westminster bubble.

  187. “EC
    April 19th, 2014 – 10:06

    Malfeur, April 19th, 2014 – 07:34

    An unsustainable position, but, as we’ve seen before, you’re no stranger to them.”

    You are a master of the snide, but not of the law nor of the facts of this case.

    You have opined that “The defaulting Bundy was in the wrong”

    I have said that this is untrue.

    You say my position is “unsustainable”; but as you accuse an innocent person, it is for you, under English principles, to show the ground for your allegation.

    Invoking Judge Andrew Napolitanao does not do your job for you. He is simply arguing that the militarised Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an arm of the federal government only needed to settle the matter in court.

    That the BLM did NOT choose to try to settle the matter in court, but rather by armed intimidation, should give you a clue to whether your irresponsible allegation is well-grounded or not. Take a look at United States v. Estate of Hage.

    Behind this question of course lurks the larger matter of the Senate Majority Leader in the USA, Mr. Harry Reid, representing Nevada, who with the assistance of family and political cronies, including one who recently was appointed to head the BLM, entered into a transaction with a company fronting for the Chinese communist government which, as earlier documents attest, required for its implementation the forcing of ranchers off the land and which documents include the name of Mr. Bundy.

  189. Umm. just posted a link to buzzfeed and its in moderation. didnt know this site did that 🙁

  191. ….oh, and the bonus is that the ignorant, illogical, marxist bigot purveying himself as telemachus once again sacrifices himself on the altar of reason; the informed and analytic scalpel of Colonel Mustard and the logic of Baron), for our amusement and edification.

  192. Here we are, three quarters through the month of April. The rain is coming down, the temperature is freezing and I have all the fires going full blast. What is happening? I ask myself. Silly me, it’s all this bleedin’ global warming innit.

  193. As the monarchy no longer provides, indeed the next monarch now habitually infringes upon the constitutional protections which emerged from the Glorious Revolution, two questions emerge; does it now serve any democratic purpose whatsoever and what steps are now required to restore Parliamentary democracy in Britain?

  194. If you’re unfamiliar with Steven Wright, he’s the famous erudite (comic) scientist who once said: “I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates.” … He sees things differently than most of us. Here are some of his gems:
    1 – I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
    2 – Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.
    3 – Half the people you know are below average.
    4 – 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
    6 – A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
    7 – A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
    8 – If you want the rainbow, you have got to put up with the rain.
    9 – All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
    10 – The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
    11 – I almost had a psychic girlfriend, …… But she left me before we met.
    12 – OK, so what’s the speed of dark?
    13 – How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?
    14 – If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
    15 – Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
    16 – When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
    17 – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
    18 -Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
    19 – I intend to live forever… So far, so good.
    21 – Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
    22 – What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
    23 – My mechanic told me, “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”
    24 – Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
    25 – If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
    26 – A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
    27 – Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
    28 – The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
    29 – To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
    30 – The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard
    31 – The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
    32 – The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
    33 – Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have film.
    34 – If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
    And the all-time favourite –
    35 – If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

  196. Thanks Peter
    my ISP must be doing strange things. Yahoo thinks I am in the US today too.
    strange.

  197. stephen maybery @ 15:03

    Stephen, even if you, the rest of us were to freeze in the middle of Summer, the AGW nutters will continue to tell us it is because of the climate change, and we are to blame.

    It’s the politicians who are running it now, just think of the scope for further taxes under the banner ‘if you don’t want your children, your grandchildren to die … we have no choice but to tax you more, spend it on projects that will save them’. (Well, it will be most likely a shorter banner, the gist will be the same).

    For billions of years the earth has been self-regulating come what may. Life, higher order life, too, has also been around for a while, well certainly from the Cumbrian times going back 600mn years, come what may. Why should the self-controling ability of this small blob in the universe we inhabit come to an end because we burn hydrocarbons that contribute a mere 4% to the total discharge of CO2? No reason at all, the fruitcakes are getting it wrong.

  198. Noa @ 15:34

    Witty stuff, Baron has already copied some of it, will definitely make a use of it. His favorite: I intend to live forever – so far, so good.

  199. Noa @ 15:07

    In 1641, one Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland said: “If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change”.

    What would necessitate the change?

    It does no harm, it’s enjoyed by a big majority of the unwashed (not all, but then ina democracy it’s never everyone), it links us with the past, it makes us different, almost unique amongst countries that only have elected, but more often than not corrupt politicians, it’s a favorite fodder for the tabloids, it even earns us money, many visit this rain sodden island because of it.

    Nothing there that would call for a change, Noa. When it’s broke, well, then we can talk again.

  200. Baron my friend,

    As a privileged member of the aristocracy, beholden to a monarch who considered himself absolute monarch by Divine right, he would, wouldn’t he?
    I’ve visited the Falkland memorial at Newbury several times, where he was killed in 1643, at the first battle of Newbury. He was, like the King whom he supported, a man who was unable to recognise the necessity for change, or even compromise, and both paid the ultimate penalty, one on the day due to (the King’s poor generalship), the King himself on the block.
    When the present monarchical institution fails to maintain and exercise the constitutional balance between an over-weening single chamber legislature, a subordinated judiciary and a disenfranchised electorate it no longer has any purpose. It has become part of the problem, rather than the solution.

    Doing nothing will no longer suffice, I fear. Britain’s poor old constitutional monarchy is so bent out of shape that it’s no longer fit for purpose.

    And regrettably my two questions remain unanswered.

  201. “…The lead signatory Prof Jim Al-Khalili, the Iraqi born physicist and author – who is the current president of the British Humanist Association – said Mr Cameron’s intervention was just part of a “disturbing trend”.
    To prove my point Baron, the ‘Great and Good’ write to Cameron:
    “We respect the Prime Minister’s right to his religious beliefs and the fact that they affect his own life as a politician. They argued that, apart from a “narrow constitutional sense”, there is no evidence to justify describing Britain as Christian.
    “To constantly claim otherwise fosters alienation and division in our society,” they wrote.
    “However, we wish to object to his repeated mischaracterising of our country as a ‘Christian country’ and the negative consequences for our politics and society that this view engenders…”

    So there you go. As Adnam Choudray has said previously, ‘What makes [you Christians] think this is your country?”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10777270/David-Cameron-fuelling-sectarian-division-by-bringing-God-into-politics.html

    What indeed?

  203. The scum Choudray, the Humanists and the right-on PC leftie mob just don’t get it. The Country has to be run in a morally acceptable manner. Even as an atheist, I can see no better moral underpinning than Christianity.

    The only reason I could imagine to want to live in a society broadly guided by Islamic tendencies would be the (possible) right to slaughter those you disagree with ie Muslims.

  204. What makes me think this this is my country? Simple, the history of this nation and the history of my family. This country is the only one in the entire World where specimens such as Choudray and al-Khalil can come waltzing in and allowed, nay, encouraged to believe they have a divine right to re-order society to suite their prejudices. Unless these undesirables are stamped on hard and fast there is going to be trouble for the British people have had a bellyful of being trampled on by incomers who should never have been admitted here in the first place, they should be thrown out. Do not say this cannot be done, it can. At the end of WWII the Russians expelled six hundred thousand Japanese from Sakhalin, it took them 6 days to achieve this. Folk will say we can not do such a ting, but unless we stop being British for a brief period, we will not be allowed to enjoy our nationality. Want some evidence of all this? Tower Hamlets.

  205. stephen maybery
    April 21st, 2014 – 06:55
    Great! And if they resist going, shoot the buggers!

  206. Noa @ 22:39; Radford NG @ 02:28

    You may have noticed, boys, that one of those who’ve signed the letter was Prof Steve Jones, a geneticist, but a heretically obsessive defender of AGW. In the Guardian column that commented on the letter, he is quoted as saying: ‘I don’t understand what has made him (Cameron) to do it now’.

    One of the supposedly ‘men with the brain’, and he cannot figure why a desperate, transparently hypocritical politician who very recently angered millions of Christians by hoisting the gay phylum into the institution of marriage would say to them ‘do be Christians, I also am,” few months before a national count he fears losing.

    One doesn’t know whether to despair of the boy – his advisors must be telling him he’s really in a shite – or the quality of our scientific layer. It also hints as to why so many are so reluctant to ‘join in’, and why others are waging jihad on us. Would anyone like to join a club which denies its origins, its past, the achievements of its past so vehemently?

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