The Coffee House Wall – 8th/14th February

Posted on February 9, 2016

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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240 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 8th/14th February”

  4. Vichy Dave’s ridiculous EU ‘In’ scaremongering about the Calais camp has now been refuted by the French. Will this embarrassing rebuttal make motor-mouth more circumspect in his announcements and spare us his incessant uber-punditry? Probably not.

    Besides, if the migrants were on the British side of the tunnel they would not be in ‘jungle’ camps but no doubt put up in five star hotels or emergency provision ‘council’ houses courtesy of the largesse of those who presume to rule over us and the long suffering British taxpayer. The lefties infesting the agencies responsible would be falling over themselves in rival virtue signalling.

  5. Newsnight last night, which I caught accidentally like a nasty virus, did a puke making puff piece on the communist Democrat latest invented hopey-changey “Dear Leader” Bernie Sanders featuring dozens of silly American girls (I use the term loosely) getting tattoos to show their support of him. Then a Maitland interview of two Sanders groupie loonies with the feminist parroting that the ishoo of equality was paramount (zzzzzzzz) and the near hysterical mangina squeaking that women were superior (oblivious to the irony that he was bigging up Sanders against Hillary). Without blinking the feminist agreed that women were superior. Humility there was none and it sounded more like female supremacy than female equality.

    It was vile, even for the BBC and a measure of just how far Newsnight has descended into becoming a cynical vehicle for blatant left wing agitprop. What is apparent is that the USA now has its own Corbyn and its own Corbynistas as the transatlantic left succumbs to a form of mass hysteria. Sanders himself is another re-heated commie has been from the “radical” 1960s with all the tired old right on baggage that comes with that. Newsnight was in seventh heaven at the prospect of a never ending wankfest over two old commies making a come back.

  6. Lest we forget…….
    “I was a moron to nominate Jeremy Corbyn”
    Margaret Beckett
    Lord, is she ugly as well as daft!

  7. Colonel Mustard – 08:29

    “Newsnight last night, which I caught accidentally like a nasty virus…”

    I know just what you mean!
    I’ve recently returned to the UK after a fair few weeks away in the southern hemisphere, “on parole” so to speak. On the two occasions since returning that I’ve carelessly got sprayed with some BBC News & Current Affairs output I’ve felt the urgent desire to take a long hot shower with a scrubbing brush and a bar of carbolic soap!

  8. Peter from Maidstone, February 9th, 2016 – 03:31

    “Bear with me. I am out of the country for a month and have just got reliable internet for the rest of my time away.”

    Go safely, Peter.
    It’s a terrible shock to the system when you get back – and I’m not talking about the temperature/weather!

  9. Frank P. (above):

    Reports on Cameron’s claim that the UK outside of the EU could be flooded by immigrants are to be found at Breitbart-

    http://www.bit.ly/20ExBBi

    And in the Daily Mail;which points out why he is wrong:
    The agreement is between the UK and France,not the EU;
    Britain is giving money to France to deal with the issue;
    If the border was eased it would provoke more immigrants to enter France;
    It would work both ways and allow terrorists to enter France via Britain.

    http://dailym.ai/23S307h

  10. Does ANYONE have any understanding as what is going on between the ears of our Prime Minister?

    His declarations are shown to be ludicrous on a regular basis, by the facts 🙂 , our papers are full of alien atrocities committed here and within the EU, but there is no acknowledgement that we, and Europe, are being increasingly occupied by an alien culture, he is clinging to the ‘ever closer union’ club, yet is demanding opt-outs, his Chancellor is still giving money away to countries that have said they don’t need it and to many that don’t deserve it, while squeezing local authorities to the point where they are expecting to close libraries in droves; the ‘police service’ is working against civility and his EU renegotiations are a complete farce!

    And now, while we still get those who say we need immigrants to man the NHS, we get this glimpse into reality:
    Quit the EU to SAVE our NHS: Top cancer doctor says migrants are bleeding it dry

    BRITAIN should leave the EU in order to save an NHS which is being overrun by migrants, according to a top cancer specialist.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/642236/Expert-warn-EU-membership-damage-cancer-research-collapse-NHS-health

    I can understand that Euro-sceptic Cabinet ministers need to keep their powder dry, at least until the PM set the referendum date, but when he does, they must be ready for action.

    I watch the video of the Grassroots Out kickoff meeting and thought it went very well and there is some very good sense here, where there has been a stream of good articles:
    http://johnredwoodsdiary.com

  12. FURTHER:

    I thought it was an offence for carriers (by sea,train or air) to bring illegal immigrants into Britain,already.

    Anybody who wants to come to Britain from France has only to buy a Eurostar ticket for about £50; go to the Gare du Nord;pass through the French and British border controls with valid documents and get on the train.

    (Another reason France wont open access to Britain from Calais is because France owns 55% of Eurostar and won’t want further problems there.)

    A danger is that when immigrants have been in Germany for three years,Germany could give them valid documents which would allow them to get on Eurostar…unless we leave the EU.

  13. It’s That Man Again! (No, not Tommy Handley…)

    The English journalist, Paul Joseph Watson, considers the Tommy Robinson interview on Al Jazeera in the Gates of Vienna piece linked by me above and starting at about 37 minutes in on Monday’s Alex Jones Show here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph4X5eIVaLQ

    Watson mentions, by the way, that he himself will be interviewing Tommy Robinson on the Tuesday 9th January show.

  15. RobertRetyred February 9th, 2016 – 10:21

    The problem with empirical observations like Professor Angus Dalgleish’s is that the prevailing media narrative of the bien pensant left (including Vichy Dave) will simply ignore the reality and denounce them as being “anti-immigrant” if not “racist”. The stupid “Migrants and Refugees Welcome” banners fly over the NHS too.

    It’s like the food banks and 25p supermarket. If you offer stuff free or cheap then people will queue up to get it and the taxpayer funded NHS in a global free market is no exception. Despite the thousands of managers, bloated bureaucracy and tick boxes there is neither the efficiency nor will to administer foreign outpatients properly. It is literally a free-for-all. And like Rotherham the bureaucrats responsible will do anything to avoid an accusation of discrimination and racism, even if it means routinely gross negligence.

    The clowns who presume to rule over us have never thought this through, never properly considered the risks and threats whilst eagerly signing us up to the blasted treaties. They have turned the UK into the world’s “food bank” and 25p supermarket and the punters are flocking in to take advantage of it. You can’t blame them either. It is our idiotic politicians who deserve opprobrium for their crass stupidity and recklessness.

  17. Daily Politics – Jo Coburn, the less than covert Labour party supporter, demands of Ruth Davidson whether the Scottish Conservatives are damaged by the image of the ‘toxic’ Tory party in England. (Her animosity towards Ruth as a guest was palpable).

    Hey, Jo, for your information those ‘toxic’ Tories won the 2015 General Election in England. Remember that? So stop peddling the arrogance of all the other lefty drones in the media of conflating the prejudices of the Labour party with the public as a whole.

    To paraphrase Owen Jones, in the absence of a viable alternative the worst Tory government is still safer than the best Labour government. They just need a better leadership than that which they are saddled with under the ghastly Vichy Dave and his bien pensant Eton chums.

  18. Col. Mustard (07:15)

    Thanks for your help; my Nexus tablet is a bit tricky as far as the scroll function is concerned.

    Thanks also for your update today on the knavery of his scaremongering.

    I infer that, as he is not standing in the next election, CMD feels able to pull strokes like that. But it also shows that he has little regard for the continuity of the Conservative Party in government. Not that the current administration is still worthy of the name, anyway. He’s pussy-whipped by his lefty spouse, of course.

    I also concur with your contempt for the current Commissioner for the Met.
    Moreover, the devastating comparison you linked was a portrait: one of the few occasion Sir Robert Mark appeared in uniform. He didn’t need to bolster his authority by donning his ceremonial rig willy nilly and strutting around with his (well earned) tin tinkling; he spent most of his time in mufti.

    His self assurance and authority was evident to all who worked for him – and to the general public too, that was well served by his talent throughout his career.

    Similarly with Sir Joe Simpson:
    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sir+jospeh+simpson+image&rlz=1Y3NDUG_enGB553GB553&oq=sir+jospeh+simpson+image&aqs=chrome..69i57j33.20404j1j4&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=yY03ERS4YcuK7M%3A

    although, sadly, his self-effacing 10 year stint was tainted in the final stages by corrupt subordinates in the CID heirarchy who jumped on the bandwagon of the Zeitgeist of the “Swinging Sixties” and got into bed with organised crime (Commercial Sex & Dope Division), then sold The Job down the river, enabling the politicisation that has now evolved into a police farce.

  19. Radford NG (11:54)

    I’d appreciate it if you would cut ‘n’ paste the Douglas Murray piece. It’s pay-walled, because I’m a Speccie apostate and therefore an infidel. ☺

  20. I think Dave’s “Keep ’em in” EU tactics are to put the fear of God into the minds of less well-informed voters, in order to make them vote for the devil they know, rather than the devil they don’t know. No one with half a brain would be taken in by his idiotic UK Jungle comments, or be inclined to change their already-decided voting position. As in any general election, it’s the “floating voters” who are the targets of both sides.

  21. I don’t usually respond to Malfleur’s snark; but perhaps I should address the post with which he opened this week’s wall. I used the word ‘bugbear’ when teasing Baron about his aversion to Alex Boot’s relentless attacks on Putin.

    I chose the word to replace ‘bête noire’ which hitherto I had used (perhaps a little too often) in my exchanges with my old Slavic sparring partner when linking Boot’s blog essays for his perusal. Baron and I understand each other and I’m sure he realizes that there is no malice in my repartee and he gives as good as he gets. Sometimes more than he gets and probably justifiably so. ☺

    So as Malfart has plagiarised the said synonym in an attempt to score a snide debating point, it is perhaps necessary to put him straight.

    Firstly, though there do exist ‘bugbears’ in my purview of politics, Stephen Christopher Yaxley, aka Paul Harris aka Andrew McMaster alas Tommy Robinson aka Fucknows Whatelse (in his ducking and diving and confrontation with authorities various), is not one of them.

    On the contrary I have remained fairly shtum during Malfuffy’s lovefest with the young football hooligan turned ‘activist’, even in face of a request from him to go visit his protege in one of HM holiday camps in Norfolk. Mr Yaxleys pedigree disqualifies him from my list of possible political leaders in the UK, or indeed people in need of a friend whilst doing porridge.

    Though much of what Yaxley says about the Muslim menace, his previous behaviour makes me suspicious of his motivation. He seems to get off on street violence and prodding cops in the chest in order to provoke more civil unrest. But he’s small beer in the political spectrum and therefore unlikely to join my list of bugbears’ any time soon.

    Likewise Malfart; but as my refusal to join the ‘Tommy Robinson’ fan club has raised his ire, I thought I should not leave his little dig unaddressed.

  22. “Is it really wise for David Cameron to threaten us with migrants?”
    Douglas Murray 08/02/2016
    Is it really wise for David Cameron to threaten us with migrants? That is what he has done today with his warning that if we ‘leave’ the EU then the migrant camp in Calais could have to be moved to Folkestone, Dover, or our own back gardens. Not only is the claim wrong (our Calais arrangements are with France, not with the EU) it neatly shines a light on the biggest failure of his time in office.

    The ‘jungle’ in Calais is currently home to around 5,000 people. They are there because the EU does almost nothing to control its external borders and made a principle of abolishing its internal borders (‘free movement of people’). As Nick Cohen noted in yesterday’s Observer, the people in the camp in Calais are economic migrants, not refugees, and as such they have no more right to be in the EU than anyone else in the world. They are there because they broke into the EU and now they are trying to break into Britain.

    But let us say, notwithstanding last week’s ‘concession’ crumb from Brussels, that the British people do what David Cameron is trying to scare us into not doing, and vote to leave the EU. And let us say that the French and the British never again want to do business with each other, and the dreaded camp-dwellers of Calais are immediately shipped over to the South East of England.

    How long would it take? Months? Weeks? Well, if we emptied the camp at Calais in a week and brought all the inhabitants here it would still be less than an average week’s immigration into the UK during David Cameron and Theresa May’s time in office. And even if that camp filled up again every single week then that still wouldn’t be worse than ‘managed migration’ under David Cameron and Theresa May. Remember this is the government that promised to bring migration into the UK down from the hundreds of thousands a year to the tens of thousands, yet just last year saw a record high of 330,000 people migrating into the UK. All of which has brought negligible economic benefits to Britain, but has greatly further damaged (to an extent no one seems to want to admit) the possibility of our having any coherent future as a country.

    Now the interesting thing in all this is that for six years now, whenever the PM or Home Secretary were confronted with their immigration failure they both used just one excuse: ‘It’s the EU’s fault.’ So it is really fascinating to watch a PM who used this excuse for six years now threaten us that immigration will get out of control if we don’t vote with him to stay in the EU. The sole excuse for his U-turn is a ‘renegotiation’ which does not even pretend to do anything about slowing the flow of people.

    I rather suspect that people can see this for the nonsense it is. If we were an independent, sovereign country then we could have borders which worked and remove people who ought not to be here. If illegal immigrants really were constantly allowed to flow in from France then we would ensure that they just flowed right back out again. However, if the British people are successfully scared into voting to remain in the EU then no future UK government of any political stripe will be able to stand against any of the immigration policies of the EU. A Calais a week will look like an idyll. Particularly since the main EU immigration policy at the moment is to encourage in millions of people each year from the most impoverished and radicalised parts of the world and only then work out that most of them shouldn’t be here.

    Still I imagine that by tomorrow ‘Project Fear’ will have moved onto some other argument. Perhaps it will be Alan Johnson’s argument that the European Union is the only thing that can save us from the jihadists. Or Nick Clegg’s argument that if we leave the EU then we will be able to do nothing to stop our children being abused by paedophiles.

    My own hope is that the ‘In’ campaign keep telling us that Britain was a sad and inconsequential little country that achieved nothing of note until the 1970s when the nice Europeans took pity on us and made us into something. I love that one.

  24. For the avoidance of doubt (asif!!!) the above was penned by Douglas Murray.
    (sorry, I cocked up the blockquote formatting)

  25. EC

    Thanks very much. And I’m sure you could have penned an equally eloquent piece, based on your previous copy.

    Trouble is, nobody inside the Westminster bubble and certainly not in Brussels is paying attention.

    Perhaps it IS time to join Tommy Robinson’s mob? Get yer ‘ead shaved and draw a pair bovver boots! Pergida ‘ere we come! ☺☺

  27. Colonel Mustard – 12:55

    The ghastly Beeboid Coburn ensured that she was late night duty at Thanet South last year in order to oversee Nigel Farage’s surprising and questionable General Election defeat.

    I really object to having the “BBC licence fee” extorted from me to pay for their biased and malign output. Should a GOP candidate ultimately win the POTUS 2016 contest then it is guaranteed that Al-Beeb will resume their pre-Obama default anti Americanism, to go along with their perennial anti semitism, eurofilia and climate change hysteria!

  28. Frank

    Yes, me too. This is my fifth attempt –

    Apropos my posting in last week’s Wall about a discussion among mostly imaginary drinking pals.

    I woke up this morning after another outlandish dream. Osama had called me on his cell phone & said – “There you are Herb. Doesn’t it confirm what I told you all?” –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph4X5eIVaLQ

  29. EC
    February 9th, 2016 – 16:51
    I agree completely with your comments on the horrible B.B.C. The only good thing about being an ‘Ol Codger is that I don’t have to pay their licence fee.

  34. EC

    Luckily, Chomsky is moribund. Though these old Marxist miscreants have a habit of clinging on! [I know … Look who’s talking!]

    Erdogan is sitting on a powder keg. At least three elements of the multifaceted have the wherewithal to light the fuse when they feel that the time is right.

  35. Been hooked into the New Hants show for the past few weeks. Now prepared to flutter:

    1 Trump (but not by as bigger margin as he hoped).

    2 Kasich

    3 Bush

    4 Rubio.

  38. New Hampshire Exit Poll:

    Sanders 62%
    Clinton..37%

    Trump 36%
    Cruz….15%
    Kasich.15%
    Rubio..11%
    Bush…10%

  39. Bernie’s victory speech; an everlasting rant; a smorgasborg of utopian bollocks: boiled, sauted then served up again fried – and finally cold scraps for the dog.

  40. Well, Frank, the other winner isn’t much better, the barbarian stopped listening to his marathon of thanking when he grabbed a smallish guy from somewhere there in the back, if the thanking rate stays the same, hopefully by the time you click on the video he’ll be thanking the cleaners in the place, or perhaps the cleaners’ parents, God only knows …

    The American election, the best entertainment in the world, one’s at one’s wits end knowing not whether to cry or laugh. Just think, one of them may run the world.

    http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/02/09/video-donald-trump-victory-speech-after-new-hampshire-republican-primary-win

  41. Frank P
    February 9th, 2016 – 15:52

    “Bugbear”, apparently copyrighted by Frank P, was no allusion by me to some skirmish of his on the Wall with Baron, which I am afraid to say had slipped me by unnoticed, but as the second part of his adolescent rant confirms, just the right word in the right place.

    Silly billy.

    *****

    TOMMY ROBINSON interviewed by Paul Joseph Watson on the Tuesday 9th February Alex Jones Show here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLq0T7eGPdE

  42. 0437
    Extreme care son
    there are those around here with a hotline to God
    Why they might even get their friend H-H to send the boys round
    Or at least get them to ask Nick to stoke up an unfounded allegation about exploits in Dolphin Square
    I say all this as a friend of free speech

  44. I’ve been missing my dose of baloney.
    My brain has been saying if only.
    But when I woke up at seven,
    I was truly in heaven
    I found a link to Moloney

  45. So Dave tries to fool us on Tusk.
    He thinks we still eat Farley’s Rusk.
    But Fox called his bluff,
    And the going will be tough
    Leaving Cameron smelling like musk.

  46. And I say to all ground down by this vicious world:-

    Daily toil is mostly froth and bubble
    But two things stand out like stone.
    Kindness in another’s trouble,
    And courage in your own.

  48. Following Hillary’s impressive defeat let’s hope that the Feds finally grow a pair and use the overwhelming and damning evidence in their possession to indict her!

    I wonder how many more Trump victories it will take before the BBC do a reverse ferret and cease their “Trump is worse that Hitler” schtick? Don’t hold your breath, folks!

    “BBC delenda est!” as Verity used to say. She was quite right about that, and the fleeting days have proved her right about many other things too!

  50. EC @ 13:16

    In one of the postings in the Breitbart’s piece you’ve offered, EC, someone who calls himself Dexy has delivered his take on the New Hampshire results:

    It’s rude to employ interrogative,
    But did you think you’ve the prerogative
    Our nations to sell?
    You cnts – go to hell!
    If that ain’t unduly derogative.

    Fergus, eat your heart out:

  53. Is it only Baron who couldn’t get through the last few days, and today didn’t even get the dreaded 503 message, was told the server couldn’t be located.

  54. Further to my posting @ 18:56 – It’s a long time since I saw anybody wearing a rabbit’s foot talisman – so long that I couldn’t remember whether the talisman was a foot or a tail. At any rate after consulting Wikipedia it seems that it’s the foot that has the power to attract good luck and ward off evil.

    That has made me think there there may be a good business opportunity here – the production of a more politically correct kind of talisman – one that simple-minded purchasers would be assured would ward off rapists. Or even, as the case might be, attract them.

    Since it was Frank who – albeit indirectly – inspired this idea, I wonder if he would be interested in joining me in this enterprise?

    The talisman would of course be a tastefully mounted beaver’s tail.

  56. … but as for your interesting proposition … only if you guarantee that the previously quoted beaver’s tail is the first one to snipped off and mounted – preferably during the peak of the ongoing primaries. Now THAT would be a talisman worth keeping.

  57. Baron – 19:58

    I was OK until this afternoon but, as you can see, normal service has resumed 🙂

  58. Mrs Boris Johnson responds to David Cameron’s EU “deal”:

    Marina Wheeler: why David Cameron’s EU deal isn’t enough
    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/marina-wheeler-why-david-camerons-eu-deal-isnt-enough

    It is reported in the Mail:
    Is Boris Johnson about to declare he’s backing Brexit? His wife writes 2,700-word essay savaging David Cameron’s EU deal
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3440686/Boris-Johnson-s-wife-Marina-Wheeler-savages-David-Cameron-s-EU-deal.html

    and at the other place.

  59. Mrs Boris Johnson responds to David Cameron’s EU “deal”:

    Marina Wheeler: why David Cameron’s EU deal isn’t enough
    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/marina-wheeler-why-david-camerons-eu-deal-isnt-enough

    It is reported in the Mail:
    Is Boris Johnson about to declare he’s backing Brexit? His wife writes 2,700-word essay savaging David Cameron’s EU deal
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3440686/Boris-Johnson-s-wife-Marina-Wheeler-savages-David-Cameron-s-EU-deal.html

    and at the other place.

  61. Herbert Thornton @ 20:00

    The best talisman for girls guarding against rape of the sort that’s on an increase in recent years would be a distance of about 1,000 miles between the potential victim and the miscreant, Herbert, it would never fail, Baron’s sure of it.

  62. Frank P –

    Can I persuade you to enlarge on how high you rate the virtue of being a law-abiding person? How important is that virtue when assessing somebody’s general character?

    In particular, if a person has been in trouble* under the law – anywhere in the world – does that fact necessarily make him unsuitable to have any prominent place in political life?

    *(I use ‘trouble’ not in the sense of a minor infringement of the law such as shooting a pheasant out of season nor in the sense of really major crimes such as the Great Train Robbery.)

    I’m asking this because you not only seem to disapprove of Julian Assange but to have a special antipathy towards Tommy Robinson.

    I also remain puzzled too by your aversion the Vladimir Putin on account of his earlier association with the KGB. Sure he was a policeman, but what’s wrong with that? So were you. And so far as I know Putin – also I feel sure like you – has always been a law-abiding person.

  63. RobertRetyred @ 21:47

    This will teach you tempting fate, Robert.

    The Marina’s write-up is amongst the best the rag has published for some time. Polluting our centuries evolved justice system of Common Law is by far the worst that the membership of the Brussels club delivered with the help of the ghastly Blair.

    There was never any reason to meddle with it for as Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland said: “If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change’. Wise man he.

  64. Frank P – February 10th, 2016 – 20:58

    “Duck! Peta is lurking. And probably the ALF, too.” Yes and not just them. I just checked and there’s a typically Canadian phalanx of bureaucrats standing between us and the beavers. –

    “Beavers are classified as furbearers under the Wildlife Act ……….. and can only be trapped in-season by a registered trapper.”

  65. But you cannot get access to Ms Wheeler’s argument, can you. Here is a part of it. She (a human right lawyer) seems to good for the blond, wasted on him on many a level:

    “This (the most recent negotiations by the boy) ought to have been an opportunity to look at the Court of Justice of the European Union, whose reach has extended to a point where the status quo is untenable. Aside from eroding national ­sovereignty (which it does) the current situation also undermines legal certainty — which, in turn, undermines good governance.

    Proper reform needs to address the EU legal order, in particular the jurisdictional muscle-­flexing of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg. The new proposals do not do this. Instead, they duck the issue entirely — clearing the way for a whole new body of EU rights law.

    The problem lies in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was solemnly proclaimed in 2000. It described 50 new ‘rights, freedoms and principles’ in addition to the 20-odd rights in the European Convention of Human Rights. So the Charter was a far more sweeping document.

    In 2007 it was given legal force by the Lisbon Treaty. At the time, it was loudly proclaimed that this would change nothing: that it just ­underlined what was anyway the case. Smelling a rat, the Labour government asked for — and was given — an assurance in writing that Britain would not be affected by the ­Charter. It was called ‘Protocol 30’.

    Before the ink had dried on Protocol 30, concerns were voiced about its precise meaning and effect. Tony Blair assured the Commons that there was nothing to worry about: ‘It is absolutely clear that we have an opt-out from both the Charter and ­judicial and home affairs.’ David Miliband, then ­Foreign Secretary, also assured us that the Charter would not ‘extend the reach of European courts into British law’.

    Four years later, the coalition government was giving similar assurances: in March 2011 Ken Clarke, then Justice Secretary, said that the Charter was of more presentational importance and did ‘not actually change anything’.

    In English courts, however, another ­picture has been emerging. Take the case of ‘NS’, an Afghan asylum seeker who arrived in the UK seven years ago. Given that he had come via Greece, where he had been arrested, the UK sought to return him there under the Dublin Convention. But he argued that the treatment of asylum ­seekers in Greece amounted to ‘degrading’ treatment, contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights. He also sought to invoke the Charter of ­ Fundamental Rights — which, according to Messrs Blair, Miliband and Clarke, should have been legally impossible.

    This was referred to the Court of ­Justice in Luxembourg which ruled (in effect, and after some domestic backsliding) that the British opt-out had no legal force and the Charter of Fundamental Rights applied in the UK in precisely the same way as in any other member state. Since then, the English courts have increasingly been urged to recognise and give effect to new Charter-based rights in areas of law as diverse as employment disputes, immigration and ­asylum claims.

    So where are we now? Mr Justice Mostyn has put it well. In 1998, the Human Rights Act incorporated large parts of the European Convention on Human Rights — but not all of it. Some parts were ­deliberately missed out by Parliament. Yet the Charter, he said, ‘contains all of those missing parts — and a great deal more’. In spite of Blair’s endeavours, he said, ‘it would seem that the much wider Charter of Rights is now part of our domestic law’. Moreover, he said, it ‘would remain part of our domestic law even if the Human Rights Act were repealed’.

    Which raises an interesting question. The Tusk proposals suggest that the ­government does not intend to use this ‘renegotiation’ to reassert any form of Charter opt-out or control over its scope. So why repeal the Human Rights Act while the Charter, with its far wider panoply of rights, remains?

    As David Anderson QC and Dr Cian Murphy have argued, the Charter — as it now stands — requires ‘enormous faith to be placed in the Court of Justice, its ultimate arbiter’. My current view is that a court which has been known in cases of vital importance to ignore its own rulings (viz, the infamous Digital Rights Ireland case), and give no reasoned explanation for doing so, is acting capriciously rather than judiciously. It does not inspire much faith.

    Now, when Britain is debating its relationship to the EU, we should state our position afresh. Here is an opportunity to restore a measure of constitutional coherence. Let us not pass it by”.

    (Baron has referenced the piece for future use, it summarises the treacherous imbecility (if that is what it was) of those who imported the Charter, let it sneak in through the Lisbon Treaty into our Statute Books. Unforgivable).

  67. If anyone were still in doubt we’re changing into a nation of infantile tossers here’s a 100% proof of it. A grown up married man who looks he could move mountains claims to have been harassed by a female shopping assistant at Selfridges. Notice the comforting hand of his wife, and the sweater, which probably was the reason he was chased out of the store.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3440132/Married-man-claims-sexually-harassed-Selfridges-shop-assistant-shopping-Valentine-s-gift-wife.html

  71. I know that we mustn’t confuse Theology with Religion, or consider that Science has the closest connection with Reality, but I am amused that this article presents this knowledge as ‘new’, as well as slipping in the ‘I’ word where it can generalise but is blatantly absent in what I have quoted:
    God was ‘vital for the development of civilisation’ as we know it
    A new study has suggested that belief in all-powerful Gods is absolutely vital for the development of civilisation
    “The researchers conducted economic games with 600 people who followed religions including Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as diverse local traditions, including animism and ancestor worship from Brazil, Mauritius, the Tyva Republic (Siberia) Russia, Tanzania and islands in the South Pacific Ocean.”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/12151083/God-was-vital-for-the-development-of-civilisation-as-we-know-it.html

    I suppose we have to restrict the ‘I’ word to those adherents that lose control of their bowels when sitting in a children’s swimming pool, though how it could be called the ‘development of civilisation’ is beyond me! 🙂

  72. Herbert Thornton (22:55)

    Heh, heh, heh. I always make allowances for people who have chosen to live in Canada. Behave yourself, now, there’s a good blogger!

  74. Frank P – 02:21

    Ye Gods!
    That’s definitely a case for David Icke, expert on all things regarding cold blooded shapeshifting reptilian aliens…
    [HRC makes our own Theresa/Jacqui look like Shirley bleedin’ Temple! 🙂 ]

  76. “Baron
    February 10th, 2016 – 13:56
    EC @ 13:16
    In one of the postings in the Breitbart’s piece you’ve offered, EC, someone who calls himself Dexy has delivered his take on the New Hampshire results:
    It’s rude to employ interrogative,
    But did you think you’ve the prerogative
    Our nations to sell?
    You cnts – go to hell!
    If that ain’t unduly derogative.
    Fergus, eat your heart out”

    While on New Hampshire and goons, one of them is no mean poet:

    “You know it really does not matter what
    You write as long as you’ve got
    A young and beautiful piece of ass
    But she’s got to be young and beautiful”

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/bard-of-the-deal#.vw21xooo5G

    Eat your heart out all you young beavers.
    And Peta.

  77. Moribund government: Why much the needed radical reform/repeals of mostly harmful, often looney, socialist policies have increasingly not happened upon a change of government.

    The Trifecta crew’s discussion about the problems caused “permanent” civil service beholden to one party. (This applies equally in the UK, as they maintain it does in the USA)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYChzX93D_8

  78. Watching the Junior Doctors striking, I see that the majority of doctors now are female. Shades of the ‘old’ Communist Russia. Not that I have anything against women doctors, but it says something about the state of the profession. Many of the women doctors will be more concerned about time off to raise children rather than a rise in pay. Rather than being eventually consultants, many if not most will be G.Ps and second-earners. Jeremy Hunt is probably not afraid if the doctors resign, staying in the EU, this so-called Conservative government will just bring in Polish and other East European medics.

  81. anne wotana kaye – 13:22

    I don’t think Poland will be any further away from Britain if we leave the EU.

    I wonder whether the non-drug focused health practitioners, such as Homeopaths, Osteopaths, Reflexologists, Masseurs and Acupuncturists will take a bigger share of treating patients. They are mainly in private practice and their patients are usually more aware of what helps improve good health, and there are more and more of them as people become knowledgeable of the deficiencies of the passive nature of Big Pharma.

    Spiritual health is never far away from physical health, yet so many believe there is a pill for every ill, and it is usually the latest product that has hardly been tested.

    If ‘they’ can get diet so wrong, when it is carbohydrates bad and some fat and some sugar good, why do people think Science can drive out any other form of wisdom?

  82. RobertRetyred
    February 11th, 2016 – 16:06
    How right you are, Robert. Thanks to the PC G.Ps, I have developed illnesses as grave, or worse than the illness I was initially treated for. My husband too, has suffered from the side effects (bad term) of prescribed medications. At nearly 89, the know-all G.P. will not prescribe what I need, a natural substance to relieve my pain and help me sleep. No, it id illrgsl, do dsy the Big Pharma who control the market. They are afraid not only of the Law, but hesven forbid I might get addicted! At 80 would it be such a bog deal? I also agree with your comments on spiritual health, but these knaves have no spirits and stunted souls.

  83. Errors. I am nearly 80 not 89.
    t id illrgsl, do dsy Should read It is illegal, so say the Big Pharma.
    Apologies.

  86. This prosecution makes me wonder whether it reflects the operation of genuine, natural justice.

    http://globalnews.ca/news/2511531/94-year-old-former-auschwitz-sergeant-on-trial-on-170000-counts-of-accessory-to-murder/

    The sergeant must have been around 24 years old at the time. Can he reasonably be said to have been seriously responsible for the 170,000 atrocities that were going on?

    It seems to me that if this young (as he then was) sergeant should now be treated as responsible for the atrocities, is there really much difference between him and the driver of a train that took victims to the extermination camp? Should not the train driver be prosecuted too? And who else? The railway track signalman?

    I ask – rhetorically of course – could we reach the point where “justice” ordains that every one of us who reaches 90 ought to be terminated on the grounds that we must have been responsible for anything that happened when we were young? In effect, making it a crime to be old?

    Ridiculous and Impossible? Well Pol Pot’s lot in Cambodia murdered a great many people for wearing glasses – and who would have ever thought it could possibly happen – because it was so absurd? But it did.

    Does anybody share my doubts about this prosecution?

  87. Herbert Thornton (18:58)

    Yes. Shysters getting fat on disinterred history, seeking to personify in one spent pathetic individual the evils of a whole era of shame. As if any court can dispense punishment for a generational atrocity involving a watershed into which the myriad streams of the mischief of many millennia had disgorged. Shameful sick theatre!

    Let him be; his own conscience is the punishment. If he has none, then what’s the point? Death is already staring him in the face.

  88. BERLIN (Own report) – In an article published by the leading German
    foreign policy journal, an influential diplomat predicts that
    worldwide, there will be a further increase in the number of wars and
    their victims, this year. “The number of conflicts, their victims, and
    their refugees” has been increasing worldwide, for the past five years
    and this development will “most likely continue this year.” The
    journal, “Internationale Politik,” substantiates this assumption by
    presenting an overview of the current wars. Today’s deadliest wars –
    in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and South Sudan – are indeed a
    direct or indirect outcome of western hegemonic policies. With its
    military interventions or subversive support for insurgents, this
    policy is aimed at provoking pro-western putsches or weakening
    non-compliant states. “Internationale Politik” assesses the
    possibility of conflicts in China’s vicinity. During the years of
    China’s rise, western powers were unsuccessful in knitting strong ties
    with the resource-rich Arab world, in view of the impending power
    struggle with the People’s Republic of China. This power struggle is
    already emerging.

    more
    http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/58916

  89. Latest from the NN:

    As a rule, I don’t circulate these “please add your name to show
    support” appeals that appear in emails, BUT this one is very important.

    It has been circulating for months and has been sent to over 20 million people.
    Please keep it going!

    To show your support for Jeremy Corbyn, just go to the end of the list and
    add your name.

    1. Mrs. Corbyn.
    2.

  90. Just had this email from Gatestone:

    Gatestone Institute
    Facebook Twitter RSS
    Donate

    Dear Friends,
    Last week, an important article, “Facebook’s War on Freedom of Speech” by Douglas Murray, detailed a new initiative by Facebook in Germany, to remove supposedly “racist” comments from Facebook. This initiative by Facebook at the moment appears to include anything critical of the EU’s open-door mass-immigration policy.
    Gatestone takes this threat to all of our freedom of speech most seriously. It is no secret that Facebook, the largest social network in the world, is a prominent channel for sharing ideas, articles and facts. For everyone, including us, it is, with “shares” and “likes,” a large source of daily readership.
    With Gatestone’s commitment to educating readers about what the media do not want them to know, however unpleasant these events may sound to would-be censors, we are concerned that if we disagree with policies that Facebook believes politically correct, it may decide to censor Gatestone, or even ban it.
    In the past month, Gatestone has already felt the quiet encroachment of censorship: In one instance, a New York-based online advertising network cut us off, saying our articles dealt with “sensitive” topics. These included informing the public of the recent mass-sexual assaults of thousands of women by migrants in Europe. In a second recent incident, a well-known online content-promotion company rejected all of our German-language articles, for, they said, similar reasons.
    What can be done?
    Unfortunately, we have no way of holding huge companies such as Facebook accountable. But each of our subscribers can do his or her invaluable part in helping us increase our impact and readership. If one of these days we actually are blocked by Facebook, we are determined to continue growing and telling you the truth. You can help!
    Click here to invite your friends and colleagues to subscribe to our free mailing list — it’s quick and easy.
    Go to our Twitter feed and follow it.
    Go to our Google+ Page and follow it.
    Go to our LinkedIn Page and follow it.
    Go to our YouTube video channel and subscribe to it.
    Finally, if you haven’t already, go to our Facebook Page and “Like” it. Show Facebook that we are determined to grow and influence, not to shut up.
    If everyone could please just make these small clicks, together it would make a big difference!
    Most gratefully,
    Nina Rosenwald
    President, Gatestone Institute.

  91. Herbert Thornton @ 18:58

    If the man could be charged with a specific crime backed by supporting evidence tested in the court of law, Herbert, his age shouldn’t matter, Baron reckons.

    If, as the article suggests, there is no specific charge levied against him, the whole affair smells, and you’re right, everyone else who lived at that time would also have to stand trial because everyone was helping the system to function. That would also include people from other nations, e.g. Baron’s farther, who for some time took goods trains to the Eastern front and back. That’s nonsensical, the law would be an arse if it were to proceed with such cases.

    There’s another point here, too. Why have the German authorities decided to stage the trial now? Could it be to remind the Germans how badly some of them behaved in the past, suggest to them they should be more compassionate to those who suffer today, i.e. the refugees?

  92. Frank P @ 22:21

    If memory serves the barbarian himself circulated the same request months ago. You must have overslept, young sir.

  93. Baron (00:13)

    Apologies, I probably read it before, too. But the memory bank gets leakier by the minute and as you know, these things tend to circulate until they disappear up their own anecdotes.

  94. Noa @ 21:03

    The notion fits the barbarian’s thinking, too, Noa.

    The Americans, for it is they who’re in charge of the West, either know or sense that their spell at running the world is nearing an end. It won’t happen overnight, they still hold alot of wealth, but the rate of its creation, and more importantly, their hunger to create it doesn’t come any close to that of the newly emerging powers, of which China is the decisive one.

    The last thing a falling hegemonic empire needs when its power is ebbing is a peaceful, orderly, powerful world outside its borders. The more other nations are in turmoil, the better for them, their weakness matters less if others are also weakened.

    Take Ukraine, a country on a brink of collapse today. Before the allegedly ‘democratic’ revolution, Kiev was visited weekly by Biden, McCain, Newland, they dished out biscuits to the Maidan protesters, led processions to the Rada, told the world how corrupt the Yanukovich’s regime was (and it was, but not more than any other that preceded it).

    Today, the Poroshenko’s regime is as corrupt as any one before it, if not more (see Radio Free Europe press release below), the country’s GDP sank over 17% last year, a number of Ministers resigned last week because of corruption, millions of Ukrainians emigrated, Kiev’s no longer visited by any of the top Americans, but there’s no Maidan, people are not only poorer, but scared, frightened, too, more than at any time before.

    Is that good for the Ukrainians, for democracy, for the world?

    It’s not bad for America though. Another failed state that may have coupled with a potential challenger to them i.e. Russia.

    All one can hope for is that Donald gets in, brings some sanity to the party.

  95. The world’s ‘favourite’ philanthropist George Soros’s having a go at Putin claiming the man from the Kremlin is pummelling Syria right and left, flooding Europe with refugees to engineer the collapse of the EU. That’s roughly the gist of it, you can read it for yourselves in either Breitbart, or the Full Monty in the Guardian.

    It seems pointless to Baron to counter-agrue, it would only give credence to Soros’s mischievous accusations, to put it mildly. There’s another point to be made though.

    Soros doesn’t rank high amongst the phylum of likeable personalities. His Putin kicking is grossly counter-productive in that it can only boost the KGB Colonel standing (read some of the postings with the highest number of upticks). More significantly, it also fuels antisemitism, and not only amongst the unwashed. Many of the postings refer to Soros’s Jewishness, something that Baron finds more than distasteful.

    Nobody can tell the man what to do with his money, for that he’s too powerful, but someone should tell him to stop making public utterances of the sort of the Guardian column. (If Baron believed in conspiracy theories, the Guardian piece smells like a trap for there’s a streak of antisemitism amongst the ruling classes here, not that anyone would ever admit to it, George Orwell’s essay on the issue seems as relevant today as it was when he penned it).

    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/11/migrant-crisis-funder-george-soros-putin-is-a-bigger-threat-to-europes-than-isis/

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/11/putin-threat-europe-islamic-state

  96. Frank P @ 00:33

    No apology needed, Frank, the barbarian is often guilty of the same, and more, he mentioned it only because you seem always on top of everything, and here it was, the guru’s missing something.

  98. Noa,

    I feel sure this will interest you –

    “Historian and researcher David Ratledge has been charting Lancashire’s Roman roads for more than 45 years and has recently used the environment agency’s laser detection and ranging data, known as Lidor, to discover a “lost” Roman road from Ribchester to Lancaster.
    Ratledge said: “These were the county’s most important Roman sites so good communications between them must have been essential.”

    Where did I find it? Of all places, here –

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-02/04/c_135072592.htm

    So I did more searching and found this –

    http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/roman2.htm

    Guess what? A picture on this last site shows a part of a road called Fowler Hill Lane – and THAT is only about half a mile from where I grew up.

    Stranger still – when I was a small boy I used to fantasize about finding Roman artifacts.

  99. Frank P @ 23:01

    The barbarian would like to obey your order, Frank, but he ain’t a member of any of the platforms. He does watch u-tube, however, and has subscribed to the Gatestone Institute on it few minutes ago.

    Didn’t he do well?

  100. “Many of the women doctors will be more concerned about time off to raise children rather than a rise in pay. Rather than being eventually consultants, many if not most will be G.Ps and second-earners. Jeremy Hunt is probably not afraid if the doctors resign, staying in the EU, this so-called Conservative government will just bring in Polish and other East European medics”
    *
    Sounds pretty sexist to me
    Also not true

    Yes there are more women training to be GP’s but also for most Consultant posts (except Surgery but not by much)

    Trainees in General Practice (58 percent)

    • Psychiatry (57 percent)
    • Pediatrics (75 percent)
    • Obstetrics/gynecology (85 percent)

    • Surgery (about 41 percent)

    *
    Sir Donald Irving, former Chair of the GMC said it was both immoral and dangerous to rely on foreign doctors-remember the German doctor who killed an emergency patient with an overdose of morphine
    Also you surely do not want to stoke up immigration, even if doctors – they have huge families that they will bring over

  101. Dr Johann Malawana, BMA junior doctor committee chairman, said: “The decision to impose a contract is a sign of total failure on the government’s part.

    “Instead of working with the BMA to reach an agreement that is in the best interests of patients, junior doctors and the NHS as a whole, the government has walked away, rejecting a fair and affordable offer put forward by the BMA.

    “Instead it wants to impose a flawed contract on a generation of junior doctors who have lost all trust in the health secretary.

    “This is clearly a political fight for the government rather than an attempt to come to a reasonable solution for all junior doctors.

    “If it succeeds with its bullying approach of imposing a contract on junior doctors that has been roundly rejected by the profession it will no doubt seek to do the same for other NHS staff.

    “It is notable that the rest of the UK has chosen a different, constructive path on junior doctors’ contracts with only the health secretary in England choosing imposition over agreement.

    “The government’s shambolic handling of this process from start to finish has totally alienated a generation of junior doctors – the hospital doctors and GPs of the future, and there is a real risk that some will vote with their feet.”

    “Our message to the government is clear: junior doctors cannot and will not accept a contract that is bad for the future of patient care, the profession and the NHS as a whole, and we will consider all options open to us.”

  102. Anyone watching Channel 4 News last cannot but have been impressed by the sincerity of the Junior Doctors interviewed and the shifty performance of Secretary Hunt
    *
    The doctors’, bright young things, main point was that throughout the process Hunt had dissembled and lied
    Hunt styles this as a drive to a 7 day NHS when the Junior Doctors are in fact the ones that work weekends and at present deliver what 7 day services exist
    If Hunt was honest he would have said that the hold up to the 7 day NHS is twofold

    1.The NHS does not provide support services fully on Saturday and Sunday (full laboratory, scanning and X-rays)

    2. The NHS does not provide full consultant services on Saturday and Sunday because to do so would pull them out of weekday clinics (no one can work 7 days a week safely) and hence lengthen waiting lists and failure to meet cancer targets

  103. Lies continued even unto yesterday
    Dalton and Hunt claimed support from 20 NHS CEO’s for imposition of the contract
    *
    These CEO’s (10 of the 20) who are part of the government machine running the NHS have gone into print to say they never signed a letter supporting imposition
    *
    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/12/health-chief-letter-whatever-necessary-contracts-not-agreed
    *
    for example
    “Andrew Foster, chief executive of the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS foundation trust, said the letter he and 19 other NHS leaders backed was not the one that advised the government to do “whatever it deems necessary” to break the deadlock with the medics”

  104. It is difficult to distinguish how much junior doctor belly-aching is motivated by genuine concern over contract issues and how much by embedded or bandwagon riding Labour party/left wing supporters and activists more interested in opposing and undermining a legitimately elected government.

    Well, it’s much clearer now!

  105. “Instead it wants to impose a flawed contract on a generation of junior doctors who have lost all trust in the health secretary.”

    OTOH there’s more than one generation of patients that have either lost, or are losing, “all trust” in their GPs who, with increasing personal venality, have becoming the prison camp guards for NICE / Inter-National Health Service. (very well paid guards, at that!)

  107. telemachus 24/7

    Amazing that, telemachus, the barbarian’s thinking on the issue mimics fully that of the Colonel.

    That’s the problem faced by anyone whose prism at looking at life gets fixed, one knows in advance what he or she looking through it will see because it never ever changes, the downtrodden never fail to suffer, the vile capitalists never stop exploiting.

    The barbarian take on any grievance advanced by any bunch of organised labour today for which they resort to striking (the word ‘today’ matters for the argument) is simple. You don’t like, you reckon you can get more for your labour, talent, contribution to mankind or whatever, then quit, go, get it. Could it be any simpler?

  108. Frank P, February 11th, 2016 – 23:01

    The days of the so called “social media” as a platform for dissent are numbered!!!

    http://www.infowars.com/danish-man-convicted-fined-for-facebook-post-comparing-islam-with-nazism/

    “Twitter Recruits Crazed Feminist to Police Free Speech”
    Paul Joseph Watson

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI2SWIvrkc

    [PJW should be given two weeks to either grow a proper beard or get a shave! I’m surprised Alex and/or his advertisers are prepared put up with the scruffy bugger turning up like that. Second thoughts, if PJW did manage a proper beard he would probably end up looking like Peter Sutcliffe, which I’m not sure would be a great image either.]

  109. Baron – 00:13
    Frank P – 00:33

    And still the list remains at its original length! 🙂

    You need to send it to DA.

  110. The Labour party policy on the NHS has always been the same. If they do it then it’s the right thing to do but if the Tories attempt to do the same or similar then it’s an outrage that must be opposed by protest and disruption with much aggrieved emoting peddled via the “impartial” media. One of the worst perpetrators of this double standard hypocrisy is Burnham who virtually admitted on Newsnight that when it comes to the NHS it is “Labour good, Tories bad” regardless of the facts of the issue at hand.

    Labour have come to believe that they own the NHS, that far from being a ‘National’ Health Service it is a Labour Health Service which they are quite happy to offer as an International service (and woe betide anyone who demurs about that and demonstrates their innate ‘racism’). Their ‘dog in the manger’ attitude to the NHS would be amusing if it were not so deleterious to the efficiency of the service itself as well as to the interests of the public which funds it from their taxes.

    The fact that the troll felt the need to lob in four salvoes of propaganda hate speech against Hunt extolling the junior doctors tells us all we need to know about Labour and the left’s exploitation of this sorry situation. A perfect demonstration of how they politicise everything.

  113. Just a selection of published Twitter comments

    You are a lying, spinning, horror of a health secretary. You don’t realise whole country is behind us. They won’t forget
    *
    What will you do when it’s all over and you sit surrounded only by the avoidable chaos you have wrought
    *
    how did we end up with you ‘looking after’ our beloved NHS?! You’re not a NHS staff member so you will NEVER understand
    *
    How does it feel being the most hated man in the country?
    *
    A sad day for the NHS…. its decline and fall…. no winners and patients the ultimate losers #NHS
    *
    whether through incompetence or maleficence, you have created harm to the public and individual patients and to the future
    *
    you’re effectively declaring war on doctors. It should be no surprise that the general public stand behind them and not you
    *
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/02/11/jeremy-hunt-junior-doctor-contract-_n_9212198.html

  115. telemachus@February 12th, 2016 – 11:29

    I’d say the BMA is declaring war on the democratically elected government for political reasons and the quacks clearly care bugger all for the patients they are making suffer.

    Its 2016, many people work 6 and 7 day weeks. what makes doctors so special they cant do the same.

  117. Colonel Mustard
    February 12th, 2016 – 10:59
    Must compliment you, Colonel Mustard, on an erudite and clearly excellent posting.

  118. Colonel Mustard
    February 12th, 2016 – 10:59
    I Must compliment you, Colonel Mustard, on an erudite and clearly excellent posting.

  119. Alexsandr
    February 12th, 2016 – 12:09
    I don’t think the BMA care at all about the Junior Doctors. They certainly don’t care about the poor patients. Sadly, once the Juniors become ‘seniors’, consultants, chief quacks, etc. they abuse and take advantage of those beneath them. Just seems the way of the world.

  123. Pity the content isn’t up to the same standard:

    “Europe needs to restore borders and impose controls on economic migration if it is to stop extremist political forces exploiting anti-refugee prejudice, the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls has said.”

    But isn’t he agreeing with these ‘extremist political forces’?

    And Norwich City FC aren’t doing to well, so ….

    … what goes around comes around.

  124. Colonel Mustard February 12th, 2016 – 10:59

    Correction: now six salvoes of propaganda hate speech against Hunt.

    Labour and their agitators always resort to hate speech – against Tory ministers and against those commentators, public and private, who dare to dissent from or to challenge their dogma. It brings to mind the troll’s virulent hate speech against Gove at the other place. I suppose it derives from their entrenched “Dear Leader” syndrome where political salvation is always believed to reside in a tyrant e.g. Brown/Balls hagiography, Obama hopey-changey hysteria, Sanders “future you can believe in” (zzzzzz) and of course Corbyn.

  126. telemachus
    February 12th, 2016 – 11:20

    So why is Jeremy Hunt hiding

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-drinks-canapes-fareham-conservatives-junior-doctors-tories-cancelled-a6869151.html
    *
    I am sorry that intelligent posters cannot see thru (H)unt (Naughtie)
    *
    The psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips talks about the need to hide, and at the same time be seen. You often get the sense, observing Hunt, that he is trying to conceal something and also to let you know about it. After finishing an elegant non-answer to a difficult question, he will smirk, momentarily, as if to signal collusion in an ironic joke. He presents the decorous façade, and he wants you to know there is something even more interesting behind it
    *
    “First, Jeremy Hunt continues to fight for his political career after the emergence on Tuesday of a cache of emails between his office and News Corp over the company’s bid for the remaining part of BSkyB it does not already own.

    The minister accepted that the 163 pages of emails demonstrated that his special adviser Adam Smith had “overstepped the mark” in the “volume and content” of his interaction with a Murdoch aide, but he has been left without any obvious forum in which to clear his own reputation.

    Second, James Murdoch and other News Corporation executives will learn this Tuesday whether they have been found to have misled parliament over their knowledge of phone hacking. MPs on the culture, media and sport select commitee are still divided over the exact wording of their final verdict, which they will have to thrash out the day before.

    The continuing events demonstrate that anybody hoping for closure as regards their part in the sprawling phone hacking and releated Murdoch sagas will be in for a long wait.

    It has not helped that Hunt has tried to seek redress through Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry.”
    *
    No smoke….
    *
    http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/apr/27/jeremy-hunt-murdochs-leveson-inquiry

  127. Three years ago, Mr Hunt had to repay more than £9,500 in expenses and was forced to apologise after it emerged he had let his election agent stay for free at his taxpayer-subsidised home.

    The MP had also submitted a claim for just 1p to pay for a 12-second telephone call.

    In December 2010, the Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie apologised after mispronouncing Mr Hunt’s name as Jeremy c— while live on air. Fellow presenter Andrew Marr then made the same mistake and also had to apologise. The accidental slip-ups led to the minister’s name becoming rhyming slang for the rude word.
    *
    No mistake

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9224722/Jeremy-Hunt-profile-rising-star-who-survived-expenses-scandal.html

  129. telemachus

    Your tribal politics and archaic mindset are no longer relevant. You’re not by any chance related to the supremely unfunny Marcus Brigstocke are you?
    Now please piss off!

  131. Did you pick up on “The Report” (Radio 4) tother week? It was about how the Mets. (current) finest had failed in a year to interview witnesses in the accusations against Lord Bramall that the BBC managed to interview within a week.
    I shall have to look up the reference as I can’t immediatly find it.

  133. The latest edition of `The Report` (Radio 4) is:

    “Trump v the Republicans in New Hampshire : P.J.O’Rourke on the campaign trail.”
    [O’Rourke is a denizen of New Hampshire.]

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zy3xc

    This is also available on the BBC World Service under the `Assignment`heading.

  135. Radford NG @ 16:37

    Thanks for the BBC report, Radford.

    O’Rourke is a smart man, but not smart enough, and he certainly dislikes Donald as would anyone who’s sitting pretty, worries little about life what with having enough cash to live comfortably whoever resides in the Whiet House.

    What he misses is that the Americans have been manoeuvred into a new paradigm of liberalism, and they don’t like it, they sense that something’s not for real, something’s missing in that new world, and they’re right.

    O’Rourke himself articulated the signs impeding their happiness – massive immigration of people who worship a different god to that of their fathers, safety on the streets, in their homes, and above all the little fact that real wages in the Republic of the vast majority of those who labour haven’t got any better in the last two decades or so.

    Life in America is still good for all this, but the gut feeling of many tells them it may not last, and last it will not.

    Donald may not get the Republican nomination, even if he does he may not make it to the Capitol Hill. If he doesn’t, another Donald will knock on the door again soon. Whether our Donald, or the future one could turn the Republic around is another matter.

  136. EC
    I will get on my bike after this post
    The BMA are considering setting up an agency – a not for profit co-op – that would provide services to the NHS. Junior doctors will then resign en masse to join that rather than accept the new contract. Then the BMA would sell services back to the NHS on the terms it wants
    Now that would give (H)unt food for thought

  137. Before Colonel Mustard jumps
    It is called laying your cards on the table in the name of truth

  140. Fergus Pickering @ 19:36

    The boil, or the cure for it isn’t with Hunt, the juniors or another agency, or anything else that deals with the failures of the NHS and hits almost daily the pages or screens of the MSM cesspit, the boil is that of the NHS itself.

    Many may still feel the health delivery mammoth to be the pride of Britain, but if they do, they should get ready for a shock. It will not survive. It’s a small replica of the communist construct that so spectacularly collapsed few decades back in the East.

    Fortunately for everyone, the NHS only operates in one segment of our society, but even this reduced scope is sufficient for it to bankrupt us all if it’s allowed to continue in the present form and shape, and upon the same founding principle of ‘free delivery at the point of need’.

    Making the delivery free has put up the cost of it to the taxpayer so high that soon it must become unbearable. Few years back when the ghastly Blair was in charge we were told the NHS was underfunded. No longer the case today, but a large number of the NHS trusts are massively in the red again. Why?

  141. telemachus @ 19:41

    When you get back, telemachus, say hello to Jeremy and the other inmates, will you please.

  142. The readiness of Lavrov for an almost immediate ceasefire in Syria at the Munich talks may have been because the Russians fear an immediate invasion of the US-Saudis-Turkish alliance into the country (the two small players are planning a joint military exercise soon), and aren’t sure what to do if that were to happen – fight them as another threat to Assad, join them, do nothing, see their (and their protege’s) territorial gains to disappear again?

  144. The one thing that islamic terrorists, that is, most terrorists today, have in common is that they have read the koran and were expected to believe it, and not read so as to understand that it is the instruction book of hate that it is. It is therefore to be expected that many who take the first step carry on to foul deeds, even if it is losing control of their bowels in a public children’s swimming pool! It may be only 1% who are ‘radicalised’, but that is still a large number and will inevitably throw up situations where we, with insufficient resources to defend ourselves, cannot help, like this for instance:
    ‘Get my orphaned grandchildren out of the caliphate’
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/australia-newzealand/article4689540.ece

    If the parents take their children to enemy territory and die in battle, how can we do anything meaningful. They are thousands of miles away, in ravaged lands with little rational authority. And would we want these radicalised children in our midst, and put our own in danger?

    It needs to be spelt out to everyone the dangers of mixing with this death loving cult. The sooner our PM does this, instead of pussyfooting around the capitals of the EU provinces, the sooner we will see some light at the end of the tunnel.

  146. In the same article:

    “Obama is to make a major intervention in the referendum campaign.

    Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said the president would make a “big reach out” to UK voters to urge them to back staying in the EU.”

    So, even more votes for Grassroots Out!

  147. I fkg loathe the BBC house magazine that is the Spectator but bought it for a train journey. This snippet was all right.

    ‘Napoleon III [formed] a special police squad, the “groupe des homos” [!!!], which eventually busted the Hotel Marigny, just behind the Madeleine, a brothel that was notorious for supplying minors for adult men. Here in 1918 the cops arrested 24 underage boys and 24 adult males. The latter included “un rentier” [!!!], 46 years old, 102 Boulevard Haussmann, name … Marcel Proust.’

    LMFAO! WBGTDWI ?!?

  148. BWAAAAA-haha! Marcel fkg Proust! Who lived in a cork-lined room and modelled all his female characters on men! What a disgrace …

  152. Ted Cruz uses a porn star, in a negative campaign ad. Not surprised – he is a ringer for a Maltese ponce I was eyeballing, who moved to Canada in the 60s.

    ‘ang on a minute! ….

  153. “NoDebt
    NoDebt’s picture
    Old Gary Larson/Far Side cartoon….

    Two buzzards picking over a dead animal carcass that’s obviously been rotting in the sun for a while. One buzzard turns to the other and says “Whew! Thank God for ketchup!”

    That’s Hillary’s appeal. The MSM is the ketchup.”

    H/t Zero Hedge

  155. ALEX JONES SHOW FRIDAY 12th FEBRUARY – 1st HOUR

    Touches on , among other things, the Maoist iconography in Hillary Clinton’s campaign – including her trouser suits…and New World Order themes and policies going back through party control of elections, through the communists and fascists, to the French Revolution.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2VW6_huyqI

  156. Herbert Thornton,

    Many thanks for a thoughtful and informative post. I pass regularly through Ribchester, and have considered retiring there. I have a couple of books on Roman roads in Lancashire by the same writer and historian and until recently, would explore the more remote parts of Lancashire using them as a guide.

    Baron -00.41,

    Thank you for those thoughts. Did you ever look at “The Global Chessboard”? A fascinating analysis of US foreign policy in the geo-political context, by one of the men responsible for identifying and implementing it. It predicted the Ukraine crisis 20 years before it happened. The preferred solution of the US being the absorption of that country into its Germanic satrapy, the EU: thus reducing Russia to the status of a weakened regional power whilst strengthening US influence on the western flank of the Eurasian continent.

  157. Britain’s Wormtongue has slithered into one of the halls of Queen Brunhilda begging scraps from her table and assuring her that if he is allowed to return to his island with those scraps he will pledge his fief to her authority and make sure his vassals comply.

    Or, in modern parlance, gi’us a few worthless concessions and I’ll campaign whole-heartedly for the UK to remain a vassal state.

    The joke is that Vichy Dave was “campaigning” to stay in from the very first moment he drew up his own dodgy dossier of renegotiation, that thin gruel that has become even thinner. What he hasn’t said is what he might do if he does not get his concessions. Campaign less than whole heartedly to stay in?

  161. These days I do not often get shocked, but on last night’s BBC TV 1 News, I was horrified. It seems that at a State school, “Chestnuts” I think it is called, pupils of both sexes share the same lavatories. Pupils of both sexes can wear either skirts or trousers, e.g. boys can wear skirts! A blank-looking black pupil was interviewed. The poor lad seemed brain-washed as he said if girls could wear trousers, boys would be allowed to wear skirts if they wanted to. He appeared of African origin, and not UK born, and I thought of the many African parents I know who are deeply religious, many strict Christian. This government is living a lie calling itself Conservative, it is truly a communist coven.

  162. anne wotana kaye February 13th, 2016 – 12:33

    There are two women “conservative” MPs who are complicit in, if not responsible, for that sort of lunacy.

    Nicky Morgan and the truly ghastly Maria Miller who sits on the ridiculously named ‘Women and Equalities Committee’.

  163. Colonel Mustard
    February 13th, 2016 – 12:39
    Truly horrible!
    If it suits my orientation, may I wear an ostrich feather to indicate when I am walking backwards? 🙂

  164. Because of all the reading imperatives that demand attention in this volatile firmament, I’ve inadvertantly given Littlejohn a miss recently. My brother rang this morning and drew attention to his recent output and suggested that I should imbibe his last two columns as a tonic. I did and he was right. I recommend them:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3441528/From-EU-seeing-revolt-against-smug-elites-writes-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3438185/It-s-Flying-Squad-guv-eagle-landed-Met-plans-introduce-birds-prey-target-drones-London-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-asks-stop-there.html

  165. Incidentally I share the concern of others above of the fate of Ostrich (occasonally). Not even ‘occasionally’ recently. Hope the old sea dog is okay.

    And David Ossitt also seems to have hung up his blogging boots. Hope it’s nothing more serious?

    Let’s us know fellas, if you are lurking. Perhaps our host could drop them a line and mention that they are missed.

  166. This is a chunk of what the barbarian wrote only few hours ago:

    “What he (O’Rourke) misses is that the Americans have been manoeuvred into a new paradigm of liberalism, and they don’t like it, they sense that something’s not for real, something’s missing in that new world, and they’re right.

    Life in America is still good for all this, but the gut feeling of many tells them it may not last, and last it will not.

    Donald may not get the Republican nomination, even if he does he may not make it to the Capitol Hill. If he doesn’t, another Donald will knock on the door again soon. Whether our Donald, or the future one could turn the Republic around is another matter”

    Here is what the great Charles Murray penned only few hours ago:

    http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/02/13/charles-murray-the-logic-of-trumps-america-why-its-greater-than-trump-and-will-grow-even-if-he-fades/

    Serendipity or what?

  168. Baron (14:32)

    I agree that Trump is being underestimated and ridiculed over here; that’s because all the UK media are rooting for the Left as ever. I think they have a shock coming. Even the MSM over the pond are beginning to take Trump seriously; Fox News have from the beginning and even though they are under orders from above to give him less coverage and Ailes has had to back Megyn Kelly in her feud with The Donald,, he’s shrewd enough to make it impossible for them to keep him out of the headlines. It remains to be seen whether he can win against really big money and the Skull and Crossbones Mafia from Yale. It still might be the Bern ‘n’ Bush election; but much depends on whether Comey and Loretta Lynch decide to swoop before the die is cast. That’s beginning to look less likely as the days pass, despite the evidence of the Clinton Conspiracies piling up by the hour. Meanwhile the Middle East descends in complex chaos and Vlad is calling the shots.

    The combination of Kerry and Hammond ‘representing The West’s interests’ in that arena is utterly horrifying. Virtually another year of that situation and even if Trump does manage to finagle his way into the White House the damage by then may be irreparable.

  171. If you’ve missed it, here is what Aleppo looked like before the onslaught by the anti-Assad thugs armed by the Saudis and tUrks with the help of the American neocons. And is that wasn’t enough, we are now lumbered with the refugees. Sickening.

    The world should put sanctions on the honorary Muslim and his cronies, instead it’s more likely the Norwegian wankers offer him him another Nobel trinket. Sickening.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3334443/A-way-life-destroyed-Intimate-photos-relaxed-Sunday-lunches-playing-pool-rare-insight-life-beautiful-Syrian-city-Aleppo-laid-ruin-ISIS-thugs.html

  172. The day after tomorrow, top brass from four EU member countries – Poland, the Czecho, Slovakia and Hungary, known also as Visegrad4 or V-4 (google it for more info) – are meeting in Prague to discuss mostly the flow of immigrants from the ME (Bulgaria and Macedonia have also been invited, are coming). They intend to stop the flow, are totally ‘mistrustful of Turkey’ to play fair, ‘oppose the Mutti’s open arms policy’.

    This didn’t make Mutti at all happy, to the contrary, she accused the four of a rebellion, has sent a high ranking commissar to quell the initiative. This may be harder than she thinks, the four are pretty determined to succeed, the Czechs have dispatched 27 policemen and four dogs to Macedonia, the Hungarian PM Orban plenty of concrete mixers and barbed wire rolls. The Poles, chastised recently about the handling of their judicial appointments and press leadership, are in no mood to be nice to Mutti, she’s in for a shock, Baron reckons.

    You reckon the BBC will say anything about it?

  173. Baron February 13th, 2016 – 16:30

    There’s an interesting article by Oborne in the Speccie about visiting Aleppo. Assad and Putin do not emerge from it as the bad guys despite Andrew Neil’s rubbish about the “bombing of Aleppo”.

  174. Baron February 13th, 2016 – 17:07

    I don’t understand why/how Mutti comes to behave as the Fuhrer of the EUSSR. There seems to be some conflation on her part between the concept of ‘European Union’ and ‘German Empire’.

    Instead of grovelling at her table CMD should have had the balls to hand her her arse on a plate – “Shape up Mutti and wind your fat frau neck in or the UK is O-U-T – out!”

  175. Colonel Mustard @ 17:17

    It beats the barbarian, too, Colonel, perhaps it’s her ‘poll tax’ moment, although the moment seems to have unbelievable lasting power.

    Weird as it may seem, the support for her that dropped after the huge influx of immigrants, and again after Cologne has started to recover. The Germans, as we’ve noted before, are loyal to whoever plays the role of the Führer to the bitter end.

    Whatever one may hold against the boy, it would be unthinkable for him to keep on bulldozing a policy akin to the poll tax, and still command massive support of the electorate. This once more suggests the Anglo-Saxons come from a different stock from the eaters of sauerkraut. We just don’t fit the undemocratic monstrosity, full stop.

    Btw, have you seen Kerry telling us we should remain in the EU? ‘A strong Britain in a strong EU’ is what the world wants’, he said. Not unlike Soros, he isn’t much liked, if anything people may resent his i.e. American interference in what is our issue to resolve.

  176. Colonel Mustard @ 17:12

    Oborne’s right, the barbarian has just finished reading the piece, Colonel, what he says is closer to the truth (inasmuch as it can be established in the mess and anarchy Syria is today) than anything the MSM scribblers are feeding us.

    The postings are revealing, too. Except for some loopy tosser calling himself mo-the-grass, virtually everyone’s backing him.

    Initially, there was a chunk of the anti-Assad rebels that were native Syrians genuinely opposed to Assad, they broke off the regular Syrian Army for religious reasons mostly (Sunni worshippers), called themselves the Free Syrian Army, but they found themselves without hardware support, joined forces with what became in 2014 ISIL backed by the Saudis, Turks i.e. mostly displaced bands of Iraqi Revolutionary guards commanded by by Iraqi officers supplemented with fighters from everywhere – Russia (mostly Chechnya), China (the Ighurs), Turkey, the West.

    Aleppo was occupied in 2011 not by the Syrian Free Army, but by the thugs that later claimed allegiance to ISIL. This comes from Father David Smith, a Sydney Anglican priest, who travelled to Syria on a humanitarian mission. Baron reads occasionally his blog.

  177. Baron 18:48

    I don’t follow your logic when you say that the phenomena you mention “suggest the Anglo-Saxons come from a different stock from the eaters of sauerkraut.”

    I should have thought that this phenomenon of pig-headedly following the leader is – at present – conspicuous in both the German and British electorates – and that suggests that the two stocks are very similar indeed. And indeed, noting the Russians’ loyalty to Vlad, that their stock too resembles ours?

    The main difference being that the Russians have a genuine patriot, possessed with common sense leading them, whereas we and the Germans have leaders who happen to be especially obstinate and foolish.

  178. Frank P – 16:09

    “It still might be the Bern ‘n’ Bush election; but much depends on whether Comey and Loretta Lynch decide to swoop before the die is cast. That’s beginning to look less likely as the days pass, despite the evidence of the Clinton Conspiracies piling up by the hour.”

    With every day that passes without HRC being arrested the more I suspect that the Clintons have amassed enough weapons grade dirt to threaten to take Barry, Eric, John and many other senior Democrats down, and ultimately with her to jail. There has to be some reason why Barry is staying his hand, and it ain’t for love of Billary!

    The failure to indict her signals the end of the rule of law in the USA.

  182. Herbert Thornton @ 19:21

    When Lady T put forward the idea of the poll tax the country didn’t like it, her approval rating plummeted, the Tories dropped her fearing a defeat at the election.

    Contrast that with what happened after over a million of refugees arrived in Germany. The approval of Mutti who engineered the tsunami, or rather did nothing to stop it, also suffered, but only marginally even though the country, a large majority of the country didn’t like it. It has recovered since, it looks the forthcoming CDU conference will again endorse her a a leader.

    The Germans are more willing to back their leaders come what may than the British, that’s the point.

    You’re right, the Russians react in a very similar manner, whatever their leader offers they back it. Baron has argued this point before in some detail.

    The argument rests on a grossly simplified dissection of national characteristics, similar to that which sees the French as great romantic lovers, the Germans as heroic fighters … but it fits, Baron reckons.

  183. EC @ 19:34

    That may change, EC, if the Dem’s string pullers decide Bernie (rather than the Clinton woman) is the one who has better chance of winning, no?

  184. Two pieces of news from the east unlikely to appear in the MSM here.

    The Hungarian PM Orban is quoted today as saying that Mutti and Erdogan made a secret deal that will bring in 400.000-500.000 refugees directly (by train?) from Turkey into the EU, the number will split, each EU country will get its fair share.

    A family from Syria granted an asylum in the Czech Republic approached the press complaining the accommodation was ‘like a stable with painted walls’, not fit for habitation, unless they’re moved to something better they will return. The paper approached the council that furnished the abode, the spokesman said it was a standard council apartment on the 2nd floor, the only complaint they had from the family was that there was no lift. The family is Christian.

  185. Baron

    NATO has no way of stopping a Russian conventional invasion of Estonia and Latvia short of nuclear war, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

    That’s not surprising in itself. Russia has one of the world’s most powerful militaries, and can field vast armies compared to the Baltic states with their small populations. Not only are the Baltic armies small, but NATO reinforcements would be slow coming in the early hours of a conflict, allowing Moscow to quickly bypass or destroy the alliance’s defenses.

    What is surprising, or at least not discussed enough, is how quickly Russia would steamroll the Baltic states — and that has the study’s authors David Shlapak and Michael Johnson worried.

    The study relies on a series of tabletop war simulations of a surprise Russian ground invasion directed at the capitals of Estonia and Latvia. U.S. military officers and RAND analysts played the role of the combatants. They found Russian forces will have “eliminated” NATO resistance and be “at the gates of or actually entering Riga, Tallinn, or both between 36 and 60 hours after the start of hostilities.”

    “Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad,” Shlapak and Johnson wrote.

    “A bloody counteroffensive, fraught with escalatory risk, to liberate the Baltics; to escalate itself, as it threatened to do to avert defeat during the Cold War; or to concede at least temporary defeat, with uncertain but predictably disastrous consequences for the alliance and, not incidentally, the people of the Baltics.”

    IMG_7696Above, at top and below — Russian tanks, helicopters and troops during exercises. Russian Ministry of Defense photos

    Tabletop wargaming is an interesting choice for the study. Although games are not perfect and can only test possibilities, as opposed to an actual war, professional armies have relied on them for centuries. This is just a game, but one with a level of detail and scale that’s difficult to capture outside of a real-life military exercise.

    Here are some of the details. Assuming NATO has a week to detect a coming invasion, the alliance could deploy an equivalent of 12 maneuver battalions in the Baltic states. This includes the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team rushed from Vicenza, Italy, but no main battle tanks. Poland — which has the largest tank force in Europe west of the Bug River — would be “assumed to be committed to defend the [Polish] national territory” and blocking Russian forces from moving south from Kaliningrad.

    However, Russia could mass the equivalent of 22 maneuver battalions, including four tank battalions and large amounts of artillery from its Western Military District. Russia would also have an advantage in the air, with 27 squadrons of fighters and bombers compared to 18.5 NATO squadrons. While able to challenge Russian aircraft, the NATO planes could not quickly establish air superiority. Russian combat planes would then create “bubbles” of undefended airspace to launch “massed waves of air attacks.”

    There’s an important lesson here — though Russia cannot challenge the United States or NATO globally, it can do so locally … and win.

    To be sure, NATO has additional forces including at least two-dozen M-1 Abrams tanks and 30 M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles stored in Grafenwoehr, Germany. But RAND estimates those tanks need at least 10 days to organize and travel. Not enough time before a Russian victory.

    mo20150918-6

    That’s bad news for the soldiers facing an onslaught. Light infantry could slow an invasion by digging into the Baltic capitals, but the final result would be similar — a Russian victory except now at a high cost to the urban population.

    There’s a worse fate for ground troops outside the cities, according to the study. “They proved unable even to retreat, since they literally could not outrun their pursuers,” the RAND researchers noted.

    As to what NATO might do next, it’s worth reading the study in full. Reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank may deter the Kremlin, if it considered an attack. Beefing up Baltic armies with liberal supplies of anti-tank missiles would help delay, but not stop, a Russian assault.

    The main problem is that geography favors Russia. In the days after an invasion, the alliance would have to first mass its own forces and conquer Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave bordering Poland which could flank any counter-attack … before facing the bulk of Russia’s Baltic combat power.

    But remember — it’s just a game.

    And because a Russian victory, at least in the short term, is possible doesn’t mean the Kremlin would ever invade. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty obligates NATO to defend its allies, including Estonia and Latvia, if they came under attack. That could plunge Russia into a wider and far more destructive war it might eventually lose, but it could also set off a chain of events ending in a nuclear exchange.

    Which is why if Russia were to do it, it would want to do so quickly, presenting NATO with the option of … doing nothing.

  186. That is a cut ‘n’ paste jobbie from a blog named “War is Boring”. Hat tip Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest.

    Tried to post the link four times, but it failed to post.

  187. And we have news coming in that migrant, Mr Johnny Migrant, was served a lukewarm piece of toast with his Full English in the Café Rest, Goldhawk Road, London W12. There now follows fifteen minutes of Mr Johnny Migrant alternatively thrusting his rugrat, Little Abdullah Migrant, into the camera and screaming into it himself so loudly that you can see his tonsils. If you have been affected by any of the issues in this broadcast, please call 0800 Suck It Up Sheeple, so that we can brand you as a racist and wreck your life. Thank you.

    (BBC)

  188. Frank P @ 22:42

    Russia is about as likely to invade any of the Baltic Republics as is Britain to march into the Low Countries, Frank. You should stop reading comics, we have other boils and warts to attend to, closer to home, by far more scaring than some wildly imaginary occupation of countries that have no value to anyone, are largely depopulated, would collapse if we were not for the EU subsidies. Did you know that most of the construction industry in Latvia (or is it Lithuania? Baron forgets) was the EU paying for and constructing buildings for the civil service, amenities for the few locals?

    What’s more likely is the US troops stationed there would bait Russia, hoping she hits back. One can only hope the KGB Colonel won’t fall for it.

  189. Andy Car Park @ 23:46

    Your posting beats the poorly educated Slav, Andy, but then, he’s poorly educated, hence serves him right.

  190. Baron,

    Apropos the discussions about Russia & the Baltic Republics I think it would be interesting to consider which of the two – the Baltic or the Mediterranean – is more attractive to Russia as an outlet to the rest of the world.

    Russia’s access to the Baltic is already pretty secure but that can hardly be said for the Med, especially with access via the Dardanelles dependent on the rational behaviour of Mr.Stab-in-the back Erdogan and his fellow Islamists. Now, I suggest Vlad’s undeclared policy is likely to be to weaken Turkey by supporting the Kurds.

  192. Frank P

    Not everybody agrees about Russia.

    Erdogan has declared : “We can defeat Russia in three days…with our local allies (in Russia)…………and NATO.”

    This reminds me of Enver Hoxar of Albania who once declared : “We,and the Chinese,are the majority in the world.”

  193. Frank P

    RAND is totally out of date.Any attack against the Baltics would start with a massive cyber attack.Such was recently launched against one of the Baltics ,possibly from the back bedroom of a Russian nationalist.

  194. BBC reports that a US supreme Judge,aged 79,has died `suddenly`.

    I find it most encouraging the BBC can describe the death of a 79 year old as `suddenly`.What do others think?

  199. Andy Car Park (23:46)

    I have breakfasted in that very caff and found their Full English, which included black pudding, excellent. However, that was several decades ago and I would guess that ‘black pudding’ is no longer permitted, banned under Race Laws as derogatory, as it is also a euphemism for an African’s penis, even though ironically the wherewithal for the dish may well have been garnered during Halal slaughter (even in those days the butchers from The Bush knew the best way to get max gore, down at the Steptoe Abattoir).

    Also, wouldn’t be surprised if the blood was occasionally from the result of disputes between The Chaps from the scrap metal business, during their territorial disputes. But I understand that ‘long pig’, as the cannibals of the South Seas once described such delicacy does one no harm in moderation.

    Anyway, we must move with the mores, in these enlightened days.

  201. UK police arrest 16-year-old suspected of hacking FBI and CIA accounts
    International Business Times UK‎ – 2 days ago
    Either this lad is a genius or the FBI and CIA are idiots. The young man should be nurtured and cherished by Britain, since he obviously has more intelligence than the wretched clowns who dominate our politics and judiciary. He should receive the best preparation for taking over the running of this country, and Dave and Co should be dumped in the rubbish bin.

  202. Radford NG
    February 14th, 2016 – 09:31
    Definitely a ‘kind death’. He died in his sleep after a day out slaughtering innocent animals.

  204. It’s probably why Comey is dragging his feet on the Clinton cow’s server issue. If a 16 year old kid from this side of the Pond can breach the CIA/FBI servers, what difference does it make? (as Hillary will no doubt yell herself – as she is wont to do).

  205. Herbert Thornton @ 02:07

    The Kurds were unlikely to be be as successful in the last few weeks as they were had it not been for the Russians’ help with military gear, Herbert. There will more where that came from, Baron reckons.

    It may well be soon we are to witness another phase in the tragic destruction of what once was a peaceful land of the Syrians.

    The Saudis have moved a number of their military aircraft to a Turkish airbase only a stone throw from Aleppo, the Turks have built a camp across the border in Syria proper allegedly to house refugees, have tanks on the ready near the Syrian border, the Americans won’t publicly acknowledge that they (the Americans) have been backing the Kurds whilst the Turks (a NATO member) have been pulverising them. You may also be right, the two cocks of the region may well invade on the pretax of saving the suffering people of Syria.

    What do you think the Russians will do if that were to happen? Would they sit back, shout loudly, go to the UN, do nothing, or will they hit both the Saudis in the air, the Turks on the ground. From a purely practical viewpoint, hitting the invaders (they would be invaders, the Syrian Government is unlikely to invite them) would make sense, a real combat is the best test for the quality of one’s military gear.

    What will the Americans do?

  206. Roman roads;above.

    These were effectively re-invented by a chap called MacAdam 200 years ago.Then in 1901 Edgar Hooley (Surveyor for Notts County Council) chanced upon a portion of smooth road and was told it came about after tar had been spilled there and gravel used to fix it up.From this he developed `tarmacadam`.The first tarmaced road was Radcliffe Road by Trent Bridge Cricket Ground.

    Without this where would the motor car be?

  207. Malfleur @ 06:33

    Lot of educational fun, Malfleur, thanks for digging it up.

    How accurate is it though? Baron cannot think of the time Britain invaded the little country in the middle of the Old Continent he was born in unless what counts the final stages of WW2. But does a liberation move into a foreign land qualify as an invasion?

    Still on the same map, shouldn’t we make it an ambition of ours to invade the 22 countries the mapmakers claim we haven’t yet occupied? Just to make it a Full Monty. Mongolia, for instance, we could raid them even with the few dozens of troops we currently have, no?

  208. Radford NG @ 08:04

    That’s a good quote, Radford, and for someone like the illiterate Albanian strongman, it’s as close to the truth as it gets.

  209. Re Roman Roads @16-57

    Remember the Scots road mender in “The 39 Steps” published in 1915.

  210. Frank P @ 11:25

    The treatment of the Kurds by the Turkish strongman may be one of the reasons the honorary Muslim called Erdogan’s Turkey ‘a close friend and ally’, Frank. What a strange company does the leader of the free world keep.

    Perhaps the time has come to put both the Republic and her two close friends in the ME – the Saudis and Turkey – on the sanction list.

  211. Malfleur @ 09:37

    Pity the syphilitic monster is no longer with us, Malfleur, he would enjoy gender fluidity to the full.

  212. anne wotana kaye @ 11:31

    Good point, anne, if a 16-year old could hack into their servers imagine what a group of trained Russian or Chinese hackers can do. You’re right, instead of arresting the young man, they should have arrested the ‘experts’ that set up whatever it was the teenager broke into.

  213. Meryl Streep, the American actress liked by some (not by Baron) has manoeuvred herself into a corner. At some gathering where the beautiful and famous self congratulate, award each other trinkets, she was challenged on the most pressing issue of our modern times, namely the composition of the panel she sat on. It wasn’t colourful enough, in fact, it was pure white, the skin of those who adjudicated that is. Instead of pouring a heap of ash over her head and apologising sincerely, she prattled abit, then said ‘we are all Africans, now’.

    That may be the end of her career judging from the response of the up-to-date progressives, Baron reckons, but does he care?

  214. Mistakes again, what else, and it is the bleeding software like ‘unless one counts …’ Sorry.

  215. Baron
    February 14th, 2016 – 16:45

    Until Obama’s term ends I think the answer is – probably very little, other than shout at the Russians.

    Whether the U.S. does anything significant after that depends on who they elect as their next President.

    If they elect a Democrat, nothing much will change. Among other things they’ll go on pretending that Turkey and Saudi Arabia are their good friends and allies.

    And if they elect a Republican nothing much will change either – unless they elect Trump.

    If they elect Trump as President, I anticipate that US/Russia relations will become much more cordial and co-operative.

    I can even imagine that Trump would do a deal with China – that in return for withdrawing U.S. guarantees of support of Taiwan independence, dropping it’s opposition to China’s construction of artificial islands, and even perhaps the US also adopting a policy of non-interference in the issue of what country owns the Senkaku Islands, China would effectively neutralise North Korea.

    All rather far-fetched? Or the 21st Century New Deal?

  216. RUSSIA.

    We should GO>to the future:seek to establish a free trade zone at Konigsberg in Courland (Kaliningrad) as part of a new Hanseatic League;with the re-founding of `The Steel-yard`at Canary Wharf…..or,better, at Hull;the European City of Culture (and stop laughing at the back there).

  217. RUSSIA.

    We should also promote a Franco-British consortium to build a tunnel to connect mainland Russia with The Crimea.

  218. Herbert Thornton @ 18:41

    Far fetched maybe, Herbert, but smart it would be if Trump got in, did as you say.

    History teaches that empires in the medieval cum modern times survive the longest if they not only fight enemies hard, but make deals with them to share power, cajole, buy them off.

    The Ottoman Empire had been rotting for centuries and yet survived until the beginning of the last century (lasting close to six centuries) because they were run but brutal, but smart leaders. Even its start is impressive, they took over Eastern Rome, kept things going, built on what they conquered rather than destroying it.

    Whatever one may hold currently against the American dominance (mostly thanks to the progressives in charge), culturally it’s by far acceptable than anything else on offer today, no?

  219. Radford NG @ 19:46

    A deal, Radford, the members of this blogging little club should run the world, Frank can police it, tele will be the enemy we clobber from time to time, just for the fun of it.

  221. These poor migrants somehow manage to have the resources to have their own no-go zone! How do the authorities explain that, apart from being cheese eating surrender monkeys?

    Terrified Calais resident reveals Jungle has Muslim-only zone where police CANNOT patrol

    FRENCH mother has made an impassioned public speech telling how migrants in Calais’s Jungle camp have made her life unbearable.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/643865/Calais-French-wife-tells-misery-caused-Jungle-camp-migrant-crisis

  222. Radford NG @ 09:47

    “…It then took hours for authorities in remote West Texas to find a justice of the peace, officials said Sunday. When they did, she pronounced Scalia dead of natural causes without seeing the body and decided not to order an autopsy. A second justice of the peace, who was called but couldn’t get to Scalia’s body in time, said she would have ordered an autopsy….”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/texas-tv-station-scalia-died-of-a-heart-attack/2016/02/14/938e2170-d332-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.html

    (h/t Drudge)

  223. ““He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution,” Mr. Abbott [Governor of Texas] said. “We mourn his passing, and we pray that his successor on the Supreme Court will take his place as a champion for the written Constitution and the Rule of Law. Cecilia and I extend our deepest condolences to his family, and we will keep them in our thoughts and prayers.” ”
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/13/antonin-scalia-supreme-court-justice-has-died-repo/?page=2

  224. Baron @ 17:00

    “Still on the same map, shouldn’t we make it an ambition of ours to invade the 22 countries the mapmakers claim we haven’t yet occupied? ”

    Give us time, Baron – and fewer or more moslems?

  225. A Christian perspective on the clash between Turkey and Russia:
    this time the useful idiots are ANTI-Russian and they are OUR useful idiots. Here’s Walid Shoebat on 4th February:

    “…The ascetic Greek Orthodox monk Saint Paisios [1924-1994] predicted that:

    “There will be war between Russia and Turkey. In the beginning the Turks will believe they are winning, but this will lead to their destruction. The Russians, eventually, will win and take over Constantinople.”

    http://shoebat.com/2016/02/04/92771/

    May be a spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Potemkin…

  226. Shoebat’s site publicises: rescuechristians.org/

    Perhaps that’s what Peter is doing. It doesn’t seem to be a priority of our government. Cameron and Corbyn seem to prefer rescuemoslems.disorg . I wonder why.

  227. So what WAS on the agenda of last year’s Bilderberger meeting of such importance to the British interest, Mr. Osborne? Mr. Balls?

  231. Independent: United Nations warns UK Government to ‘stop tasering children’

    alternatively:

    United Nations tells children to ‘stop being so threatening’

  233. And the scaremongering pro-EU tossers are telling us we won’t make it outside the undemocratic hydra of Brussels. With ingenuous thinking of this sort, we’ll be all millionaires in no time.

    The next step in the marketing brilliance: British farts in any bouquet of tang desired: from eating a cucumber sandwich for those of the delicate tastes to drinking of strong ale for the manly types. The Heinz beans variety should be the best seller, and cheap into the bargain, Baron reckons. Cannot fail.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3433515/Former-public-schoolboy-sells-bottled-AIR-British-countryside-smog-plagued-Chinese-elite-80-go.html

  234. The barbarian has been clearing out, a start of the Spring clean-up, came across an old copy of the business section of the DT.

    (In case you’re wondering why the DT, well, it’s because the boss insists on buying the annoying rag, however much Baron pleads with her not to. She buys it only because of their sudoku and the review section, she says, reads nothing else, a book of sudoku won’t do it, any other paper’s sudoku isn’t up to it either, nothing will please her but the bleeding DT sudoku, lunacy, ha, but then what would one expect from *reducted from now on.*

    Back to the business section of the DT with three of their well known pundits telling the readers of the paper what disaster will befall Russia and Greece in the months ahead of their predictions made on December 17, 2014.

    ‘Nightmare for the Russian economy’, shouts on the front page none other than Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, and continues ‘Russia has lost control of its economy, may be forced to impose Soviet-style exchange controls …The piece then carries on creating a picture of near collapse in the months ahead, and as if he himself wasn’t enough to adequately convey the message of doom a gloom in Russia’s immediate future, experts from no fewer than seven brokerage houses, all singing from the same hymn sheet, come to his aid – Russia in about to implode, disappear, vanish.

    On the inside page another pundit Allister Heath draws a comparison between the disastrous decision by John Major to push sterling into the ERM (exchange rate mechanism) at too high a rate of exchange to the D-mark (2.95), then suffer (this is how the ghastly Soros made a billion quid) with the massive fall in the exchange rate of the rouble vis-a-vis the dollar. He criticises the Russian State bank’s hike in interest rates, and also paints a gloomy picture of the country’s future, but says that because of Russia’s smallness in the world economy we don’t have to worry too much. Certainly more balanced take on things Russian than the Evans-Pritchard’s rant.

    And on the next page, Jeremy Warner tells those who bought (and read) the paper on that December 17, 2014 that “Without orderly exist from the Euro, Greece is finished”.

    So, here you have it. We’re now well into 2016 and both Russia and Greece haven’t collapsed yet, and as things stand it may well be that before either of the two countries goes belly up, other constructs may beat them to it for if we vote to get out of the Brussels monstrosity others may follow.

    Next time when you read a pundit telling you the world’s about to sink to the bottom of the Pacific, take a deep breath, sit down, have a large Scotch because if it does, you’ll be at least sitting comfortably with a smile on your face.

  237. Just tried to access Alex Boot’s blog. Got this response:

    “Forbidden

    You don’t have permission to access/on this server.
    Server unable to htaccess file, denying access to be safe.”

    WTF??

  238. Mental health: ‘One in four adults in England has a condition’ BBC WEB
    Perhaps I should, after all, vote for remaining in the EU. Everything in me rejects with horror, and indeed nausea of uniting with such countries, but it may be necessary. According to Dave’s minions, one in four adults has a mental condition. Whether the government is directly responsible for this sad state of affairs, is neither here nor there. However to enable this country to function, perhaps we should allow smart, shrewd opportunists, healthy in mind and body to breed and create a stronger race. The prosaic the better, out and out opportunists, they won’t be concerned with becoming depressed ‘at the state of the union’. If we are lucky, they may even have enough common sense and even intelligence to make sure that imbeciles and traitors like Dave, Corbyn and the foul Philip Hammond will never take hold of the reis of power.

  240. Just received from my brother:

    “My dear subjects,

    On this, my 90th birthday, I feel I may confide in you that I am female. I am your Queen and not about to become your King.

    ER

    With absolutely no disrespect of course to ER.

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