For Once, Theresa May is Very Accurate 393


Theresa May today chose to compare herself with Geoffrey Boycott. For once, she was being very accurate, especially when it comes to relationships with her own team. Boycott’s players hated him so much during his captaincy they actually ran him out on purpose during a test match.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/604169.html


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393 thoughts on “For Once, Theresa May is Very Accurate

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  • Sharp Ears

    FAO Brian

    I see Scotland are playing Israel on the 20th in a UEFA match.

    Tuesday 20 November 2018. Kick-Off 7:45pm. UEFA Nations League. Scotland v Israel. Scotland play Israel in their final Nations League group match at Hampden. Join us at Hampden Park where Scotland will be …

    Give Israel a good pasting and wave those Palestinian flags.

    PS. Why is Israel in UEFA? It is in the Middle East. It is NOT in Europe.

    • nevermind

      Why should one spoil ones shoes with bloody sand Lucius?
      why suffer the indignities of a zionist system hell bent on ruling the ME with Apartheid , fear and brutal murder, now legitimised ?

      I pity those who think their theatre of guilt Inc. as justification for their violent disregard international human rights, laws and or statutes/treaties, has us all enthralled.

      Zionism is destroying what it claims to protect, it has no sustainable egalitarian future to offer its people.

    • Antonym

      All oppressed nations deserve their own state if the want it, except Israel, the Scotsmen said.

      • SA

        Last time I looked Israel was the oppressor with illegal occupations and settlements in territories they don’t own and condemned by the UN .

        • Paul Greenwood

          Israel is for some odd reason providing exculpation for Adolf Hitler’s irredentist policies and facing far less opposition in pursuing them

    • Clive P

      In 1958 Israel was in the Asian confederation but no country would play them. The outcome was that they would qualify for the World Cup in Sweden without playing a game. In the end they had a play-off match against Wales and lost. Ever since they’ve been in UEFA.

      • Alex Westlake

        Actually they qualified in 1970 from the Asian Confederation, and it was shortly after that they joined UEFA. They probably could rejoin it now, and World Cup qualification would be much easier for them, but being in UEFA means that their club sides get to compete in European tournaments, and they don’t want to give that up.

        • Alex Westlake

          It’s not the only UEFA country outside Europe. Georgia and Armenia are in UEFA. Australia is a member of the Asia federation rather than the Oceania one

          • laguerre

            Georgia and Armenia are considered parts of Europe. Whether that’s right or not is another question.

      • Jo Dominich

        Clive/Sharp Ears, for the life of me, I cannot see why the EU and the rest of the world have not imposed sanctions on Israel as they did in South Africa when the apartheid regime was in full flow. Surely, there must be some action the world can take such as dropping few bombs as the Israeli’s have done in Gaza?

      • Antonym

        Israel is in Asia, just like Pakistan or North Korea, correct. That is why I am in favor of labeling them not as Zionists etc. but as “Asians” for equal treatment of perps in UK media.

    • Dungroanin

      This looks like as good a thread as any to park this latest bit of religious nuttery!

      “Ultra-orthodox passengers on board two Israel-bound El Al planes that took off from New York on Thursday assaulted flight attendants out of fear that they would arrive after the beginning of the Jewish Shabbat.”
      https://sputniknews.com/viral/201811181069908972-orthodox-jews-flight-attendant-brawl-shabbat/

      Why isn’t that in any MSM? How come they were not arrested? Why aren’t they banned from flying? What is this crass exceptionalism?

      Unfuckingbelievable.

      • Jo Dominich

        Dungroanin, here here. The MSM are very selective clearly about who they call yobs and terrorists and who they exonerate of these charges.

      • giyane

        Dungroanin

        As they were flying the opposite way to daylight Shabbat would arrive much quicker than if they were standing still. It gets dark here in the UK at 16.15. Not much daylight at this time of year in which to travel from the US to Israel , a distance of some 5,700 miles. A practising Jew would realise it was mission impossible to set out at any time on Thursday to beat the deadline. As a practising Muslim I would easily be able to calculate what prayers I would have to do on flight.

        No, this looks like a case of people who were unfamiliar with their religious time schedules suddenly realising that the airport would be closed when they arrived, something a practising Muslim or Jew would never do.

        • Dungroanin

          Giyane, i am sure even these religious nutters are aware of the rotary nature of the earth.
          It may well be there was an inadvertent delay in departure, or there may be severe headwinds, whatever, once they get on the plane … their fate is in the hands of … weather, technology and engineering.

          Not GOD.
          Unlike so many other nutters they don’t refuse to fly because otherwise their god would have given them wings.

          But mainly, at 40,000 feet i don’t want some nutter trying to ground the plane because it may get dark outside! I mean what did they do in the days of seacrossings? Get off the ship? So they wouldn’t be in a machine?

          • giyane

            As you say Dungroaming if they were attempting to move their wings or fly the plane that could count as work, but supinely being propelled through space and not looking for a mate on another cowpat, I can’t see any problem. They used to catch fish on the sabbath by making one-way traps, for which God punished them by changing their faces to monkeys.
            One would have thought they would have been judged by the Knower of hearts on the innocence of their inner intentions. but ‘laysa ba’d al kufri dhamb.’ / there is no worse sin than their rejection of the messengers Allah sent them, ‘Eesa (Jesus) and Muhammad peace be upon both of them being two of them.

    • BrianFujisan

      Hi Sharp Ears

      Sport is one of the Elite’s weapons.. I read yesterday that three Scots were spared mistreatment becauase they had the Kilts on..their poor taxi driver went through the works.. I hope the Tartan Army get them Palestine Flags Flying.

      I aways carry the Palestine Flag at Indy Marches / Rallies.. And I might soon get arrested for it.. That’s Police Scotland for ya.. A man was Arrested at the Bolton protest.. for holding a NEA NAZIS ANYWHERE placard… Police Scotland for ye.. Where are the snp outrage at this.. Where is Labour . after Newsnight Lies Against Corbyn… whats the Point if the MsM Rule.. bbc cost us our Independence. If I knew it would Happen.. How could the snp not Know..

      Sorry Rant Over

  • nevermind

    Something we should.note is that Julian Assange is.now.beong held incommunicado, he is inable to answer to the news and or charges that are being prepared/are ready in the drawer, against him.

    Kangaroo justice in an increasingly rogue western world that discards its own claims of fair justice on the pyre of indignant acceptance.

    At least in France people act, not cower, sniffle and ask for more of the same.

    If poverty and worse conditions than what we had in Europe cant get people interested, if journalists cant see what is happening to people and country and to journalist Assange, then a no deal scenario, bad karma, is exactly what they deserve.

    Lets call the whole thing off, get in there and reform the EU, make it accountable at the top.
    Start with sending an elected commissioner and ask others to follow suit. Mind, that might mean more reliance on young educated minds not party political self servers hanging on strings.

    • Dave Lawton

      nevermind

      “Lets call the whole thing off, get in there and reform the EU, make it accountable at the top.”

      Not that old cracked record .It has been playing for years. You cannot change a fascist run state like the EU.

      • SA

        Dave
        This globalist imperialist fascism cannot be defeated by coming out of part of the system ‘The EU’ but remaining under the wider hegemonic neoliberal system. In fact fragmentation in this case will only allow more fascism not less.

        • Dave Lawton

          SA
          November 18, 2018 at 04:28
          Who you kidding, you are wrong.If we leave that system it will encourage others to follow.The EU project was set up by Allen Dulles fascist CIA spymaster and funded by the Ford Foundation,check it out.You need to expose it to the light instead of encouraging it.The EU now is trying to push for a European army.We have been here before with Hitlers Pan European army which was created during WW2.Remember that?

          • Republicofscotland

            “We have been here before with Hitlers Pan European army which was created during WW2.Remember that?”

            No because the Greater Germanic Reich never really physically existed in the way it did in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

            I rather a EU army than Europe as a minion battlefield for US led Nato policy.

            It wouldn’t affect Britain as it will be outside the EU, and it’s already a US subordinate lackey.

          • Dave Lawton

            Republicofscotland
            “No because the Greater Germanic Reich never really physically existed in the way it did in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”
            How do you know that? Did you get it out of a book or where you around then?
            “I rather a EU army than Europe as a minion battlefield for US led Nato policy.”
            I would rather no armies no armies at all

          • Dave Lawton

            Republicofscotland
            November 18, 2018 at 18:20

            “So tell me Dave, where did you get the info from that Hitler’s Pan European army was already created in WWII”

            From talking with Nazi`s in Hamburg in the 1950`s and also with Latvian`s. Legion`s were formed from each country occupied during WW2. I said during WW2 not “already as you wrote above”if you read my previous post on the subject.
            There was an old film of the Pan European army a few years ago but has disappeared I should of saved it.

          • SA

            You come out of a system to join another but that other system I also under the control of the same. Coming out of the EU will merely mean you have to accept US low food standards and become even more susceptible to the sanctions whims if narcissistic US POTUSs something that goes with the job.

          • SA

            Dave
            “I would rather no armies no armies at all”

            The enemy of a possible solution to a problem can often be the pursuit of perfection.
            If course we would all like no army at all but that will not happen. The imperative is to replace NATO which no longer serves the interests of defence of Europe but is an aggressive projection of US external policies. I believe that this would be the main function of a European army and would , together with economic independence from the US lead to the possibility of a more multipolar world.

          • Republicofscotland

            Dave.

            Thank you for that, however created during, and in are the same to me with regards to this context.

            Your explanation in my opinion still doesn’t constitute a Pan European Germanic army, it amounts to pockets of nazi collaborators.

            Still Dave, you have a good memory say you were 20 in the mid 50’s you’re at least an octogenarian, or older, good for
            You. ?

      • nevermind

        Off course not Dave, when you continue to appoint self servers and fascists to it, you never get anywhere, hence my point about some fresh young minds who know about EU legislation regulation and rigmarole.
        If it cannot be solv3ed, the EU will become as unsustainable as that rogue ME country.

        • SA

          By the way there are now more than one rogue state in the ME and in future you may have to qualify which one of 2 or possibly 3.

  • Sharp Ears

    The Tories are at each other’s throats like rats in a sack.

    Dominic Raab accuses May of caving in to EU bullying
    Former Brexit secretary adds voice to protests but is warned no-deal Brexit will split party

    Sun 18 Nov 2018 06.00

    Theresa May has come under more fire from MPs within her own party, with the former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab suggesting the prime minister has failed to stand up to a bullying European Union over the withdrawal deal. Meanwhile the Conservative MP for Richmond, Zac Goldsmith, has revealed he has written a letter of no confidence in May to the party’s 1922 Committee.
    /..
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/18/dominic-raab-accuses-theresa-may-failing-resist-bullying-eu

    • Paul Greenwood

      no-deal Brexit

      That sounds moronic. There will be a “BreXit” at midnight CET on 29.03.2019. That is a consequence of invoking Art 50 in order to avoid UK participation in 2019 EuroElections (though why that would have been a problem I don’t know).

      The issue is why May failed in the previous period to find an Agreement to exit on 29.03.2018. Entry into EFTA/EEA was very simple until she gave her Lancaster House Speech on 17.01.2017 making an incoherent policy decision public.

      Everything has been about getting her off the hook she impaled herself on in Lancaster House.

      To think the UK will pay £39 billion to get an extension to 2020 which must be reviewed by July 2020 and if extended wildest a further £10 billion each year, is an indictment of her sheer stupidity. She may as well introduce an “EU Tax” as a Supplement to VAT say a further 1%. After all Taxes are at their highest share of GDP since 1981.

      It is symptomatic of British Incompetence that a basic predesignation of status WITHIN the Single Market has not been negotiated when it involves leaving EU and joining EEA and EFTA which UK founded in 1960. May is setting in train events which will inevitably lead to the next European war

      • Laguerre

        “May is setting in train events which will inevitably lead to the next European war”

        Who would be fighting who? Britain against the Continent is the only one that’s looking likely, and then only on the British side. The British army planted bravely on the White Cliffs. The continentals prefer peace.

        • Sarge

          “The continentals prefer peace”

          Hence all Macron and Metkel’s talk of a European army … on the day of remembrance!

          • nevermind

            Sarge stand at ease, they have been talking about an EU army since 1989 when the wall fell. Why they want to join the arms race is beyond me, its also very likely that it will be cut short because the warmongers get their armageddon in first.

          • Paul Greenwood

            They need a European Army to get round Germany’s prohibition on using their Army internally. The revised “Brezhnev Doctrine” in Europe means you need an Intervention Army. Germany invaded Czechoslovakia twice in 30 years……but cannot use its own Army internally today and has no General Staff of its own. A European Army using the French HQ at Mons near NATO HQ is probably how they want to run it. NATO to deal with external defence and EuroArm to deal with internal dissent

          • Republicofscotland

            I’d say Nato was more against a EU army than for one.

            https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/11/17/nato-official-warns-eu-force-would-be-unwise/

            In my opinion a EU army could supplant Nato in the long term, and allow EU nations not to be dragged into US led wars or sanctions. Such as in JCPOA, where the US reneged on the deal with Iran, but Europe wants to continue trading with them. Of course the US is itching to attack Iran, why should Europe follow suit.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            I would say that NATO is totally opposed to a EU Army. Just look at the disasters it has caused like the German Wings crash in the Alps in the hope of preventing it. NATO is for Israel and the Mediterranean Dialogue.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            Remember Britain is the biggest supporter of NATO in Europe. May loves it, and is Trump’s biggest supporter for building it up.

          • Republicofscotland

            Alex.

            I’d say that a EU army would be more of a defensive than offensive army. It wouldn’t need to project military might like the US armed forces, which is an aggressive warmonger.

            But yes you have a very valid point, in that first it would need proper functioning hardware.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            I guess you think that the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic could never be made into Hitler’ Wehrmacht.

        • Paul Greenwood

          Yes and Adolf Hitler was an avowed Anglophile if you read up on facts ands admiration for Barry’s architecture on St Stephen’s Wharf. The German General Staff went on vacation in July 1914 convinced there would be no European War least of all with Britain.

          Events, dear boy……..

      • giyane

        Entry into EFTA/EEA was very simple until she gave her Lancaster House Speech on 17.01.2017.

        For once nobody can blame her lack of grip on her sex because Hubris Johnson only realised the EFTA solution was available in October. These political whores are so slack – their minds, not their holes – because unlike us ordinary mortals, they enjoy a good work-over by any passing stranger.
        How could anybody who can work with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Trump, be expected to have any mental grip? To unblock a toilet you need to select the right size of plunger.

        No, politicians are not the people from whom one would ever expect a logical answer. it would have taken about five seconds flat for any ordinary punter to negotiate Brexit with the EU. But then …. there’d be nothing for these toss-pots to do.

    • Jo Dominich

      Sharp Ears, I read a lot about the alleged EU ‘bullies’ but find myself unable, totally, to agree with this tag. The UK voted to leave the EU for two years they sent a negotiating team to Brussels without any idea what they were negotiating on merely just hurling insults at the EU negotiators and adopting the old colonial mentality of saying ‘you will cave in to what we want’. In the past year the EU negotiators have repeatedly said to our Government, bring something to the table as time is running out. Well it has, Treason Maty has not been in control of the grossly incompetent UK negotiating team and, alas, right at the last minute, she has realised that a No Deal Brexit will be disastrous for Britain and its economy so she comes up with what she has. This government has made such a chronic mess of Brexit as for it to be unbelievable. Had a Labour Government presided over this my God the MSM would have crucified them several times over. The EU is not to blame here, the blame lies fair and square on this sorry bunch of individuals we call a Government. The MSM however, continue to try to patch the mess over including Andrew Marr this morning supporting a minority government, who is not fit to Govern at all and which is in total disarray. I support the EU on this one and think the time has now come where they should just walk away and say the 2yr negotiating period is over, the UK brought very little to the table and let Treason May and her bunch of idiots carry the can for the mess.

      • Borncynical

        “without any idea what they were negotiating on…”

        JD,
        As a retired HQ civil servant, I agree entirely with all you say. From what I have seen there has been little, if any, proactive preparation by our Government at any time from the day of the referendum. My immediate reaction when the result of the referendum was confirmed (based on my own past experiences) was that, as a starting point, every policy section within each Govt Department would be asked to produce comprehensive tabular overviews within [12-18] months summarising the current policy position (in, say, column 1); a second column identifying those areas of policy not subject to EU regulations or Directives; for the other (EU ‘controlled’) policy areas, columns identifying the impact of the various alternative A,B and C optional scenarios; and a final column identifying, in the case of EU governed policy, the optimum negotiating position . Completing the final column would involve extensive consultations on the options with all interested organisations, and inter-departmental discussions and discussions between Government Departments with overlapping policy interests to ensure consistency. It would not be unusual for external and internal consultations to result in the need for a second public consultation process. I wonder, has any of this external consultation and discussion taken place? I am certainly not aware of any. Such endeavours would provide the baseline from which negotiations would then continue at a higher level of command but clearly involving ongoing collaboration at all levels of responsibility. To aid this, I would envisage that every Department has a distinct unit of staff seconded from other duties, and well supported by departmental legal advisers, specifically to oversee and co-ordinate each Department’s Brexit interests. Clearly it is a complex issue and on a large cross-Government scale but if dealt with logically and methodically should (operative word!) be well within the capabilities of civil servants and Government Ministers. I should add that one of my reasons for leaving the Civil Service (pre-retirement) about 15 years ago was my awareness of the drastically deteriorating standards of newly appointed civil servants at all grades, many of whom demonstrated no ability to apply ‘initiative’ which is key to being a productive civil servant; this was placing inordinate pressures on long-serving, experienced staff who were having to compensate for the deficiencies of less capable colleagues. I had fears for the impact of such reducing performance standards on future output and, unfortunately, I think this whole Brexit negotiation disaster demonstrates that my fears were not without foundation.

        • giyane

          Borncynical

          Maybe as the social contract between the people and government was steadily eroded by politicians the requirements for being a useful civil servant changed. you ended up doing a job that government didn’t want done. Your successors were not vexed by truth or justice. Think-tanks were established and now abound, whose sole function is to bypass truth and justice. nobody in government would thank you for putting it back again after they’d been removed.
          BTW you’re not the only profession to experience this phenomenon. It’s called privatisation , the dispensation of intellect and the accentuation of spin. We get buildings made from bent tin and plasterboard and banks made from smoke and mirrors.

          Brexit is the harnessing of the lowest common denominator in society rank racism to the scam of democracy, with the intention of serving the selfish interests of whatever group of lobbyists are willing to fund politicians. i.e. advertising.

  • Sharp Ears

    Nadhim Zahawi, the Iraqi born multi-millionaire Tory MP for Stratford on Avon, has been on BBC Breakfast, strongly supporting May’s deal.

    With his record (remember the heating of his horse stables on parliamentary expenses?) you know that the said deal is not for the likes of us. He works for Gulf Petroleum as their ‘strategy officer’ whatever that means.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadhim_Zahawi
    See
    3 Expenses
    4 Registered interests
    4.1Constituency home

    He comes second in this list, based only on income. His property empire alone is worth more than £25m.
    http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-richest-mp-in-terms-of-second-incomes-2017-8

    In January he attended the notorious Presidents Club dinner. He is the Children’s Minister in the Dept for Education. No conflict there! He refused to resign. Morally bankrupt..

    Look at Nicholas Soames, no longer Fatty Soames having had a massive weight loss. Must have cost him a bomb to have a new set of clothes made. He was the chairman of AEGIS, now under the ownership of a giant Canadian conglomerate known as GardaWorld since 2015. Spicer must have taken the money and run.
    https://www.garda.com/blog/gardaworld-acquisition-of-aegis-closes

    • nevermind

      ERG is a right wing group of rich self serving fascists who are trying to bust the EU, in a can.

      • Republicofscotland

        Really?

        Then why has Jacob Rees-Mogg opened a second business in Ireland? which last time I looked is in the EU.

        https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-brexit-scm-ireland-investment-fund-conservative-mp-a8461021.html

        Why has Nigel Farage acquired German passports for his family?

        The Brexiteers don’t give toss about Britain, or the people in it, its all about slackening regulations in the UK to allow already rich people to become richer and poor people to be hit harder.

        Leaving the EU, is just a means to an end, but Mogg and his kind, will tell you the EU is awful and we must leave, whilst investing in EU countries.

        • Loony

          Mussolini defined Fascism as being the merger of state and corporate power.

          If Jacob Rees Mogg is a fascist then surely you can provide examples of Rees Mogg seeking to merge corporate and state power.

          In the main large corporations are all in favor of increased regulation for the simple reason that regulatory compliance increases barriers to entry and thus limits competition. The EU is all in favor of increased regulation and limiting competition. Based on any intelligent understanding of the meaning of fascism the EU is far closer to fascism than Jacob Rees Mogg

          • Jo Dominich

            Loony, this entire government has merged state and corporate power. We are being governed by a neo-fascist government and becoming increasingly so.

          • Loony

            @Jo Dominich – What you write may or may not be the case. However Jacob Rees Mogg is not part of the government and the claim has been made that Jacob Rees Mogg is a fascist. I am simply looking for evidence of Mr. Rees Mogg’s fascism.

          • Republicofscotland

            “If Jacob Rees Mogg is a fascist then surely you can provide examples of Rees Mogg seeking to merge corporate and state power.”

            Loony.

            I can’t say that Rees-Mogg is a fascist, I have no evidence to do so. However Mogg isn’t the first politician to try to influence government policy to the benefit of their own business interests. That’s exactly what Brexit is all about, the Brexiteers care not about the welfare of the masses, its purely a self interest endeavour.

          • Dungroanin

            Loony, Mussolini may be credited with that Bon Mot but I expect it was fashioned for him, by his creators.

            It is no secret that the journalist, young Benito, was nurtured by the French and British at the beginning of WW1, to agitate and propagandise Italy to renounce neutrality and join in with that great game. He was even on our secret service paylist, which itself was no stranger to facist support in Britain, in the ensuing decades.
            More so it was the native corporatists (and their international collaborators) who didn’t want to miss out on the grand larceny of the populations funds for Military Industrial wonga, who carried on supporting his rise post war.

            The FUKUS Round Tablers were in their pomp from the Victorian days.

            Didn’t Churchill say he would have been a facist if he lived in Italy?

        • Paul Greenwood

          If Farage’s family acquire German passports pre-BreXit they do not lose their UK passport as they would post-BreXit.

        • Rhys Jaggar

          It is likely that Farage’s groen up children make their own minds up. I think Mr Farage has said publicly that views diverge in the family unit….

      • Dave Lawton

        nevermind
        November 18, 2018 at 12:48

        “ERG is a right wing group of rich self serving fascists who are trying to bust the EU, in a can.”
        Yes maybe self serving but fascists I doubt it.Have you ever met any real fascists or real nazi`s.If you had you would know the difference.

          • Loony

            Are you claiming to have met and fought Jacob Rees-Mogg on the streets of Hamburg and Hannover?

            I would be most interested to hear how that went and why your brawling with Jacob Rees-Mogg never seemed to attract the interest of the press.

          • Dave Lawton

            nevermind
            “Yes i have met real fascists, and fought them on the streets of Hamburg and Hannover.
            what about you?”
            No have never met any fascists in Hamburg only real Nazi`s who were with Hitler during WW2 that was in the 1950`s
            With regards to fascists, yes in Franco`s Spain and subjected to a Spanish Jail for 24 hrs sticking up for some Basque people in a small town near Bilbao again in the 1950`s

  • N_

    When are those “root race” “awaiting extinction of the fifth era” middle-class honkies up before a magistrate, the ones who were arrested in London? Tomorrow morning, is it? Or did the police release them without charge, so they could flock back to Stroud, Frome. East Grinstead, etc., in time for tiffin?

  • Muscleguy

    BTW I see Ewen Chatfield mentioned. The bravest act I ever saw was Chats going out to bat against the Windies quicks after being hit on the head at Carisbrook in Dunedin. His heart stopped and he had to have CPR there on the pitch.

    Chats was the archetypal No11 batsman in tests. He scored centuries for his Wellington club but in 1st Class or Test cricket he was a bunny.

    So after recovery and a while the time again came to walk out into the middle with a bat to face the Windies quicks again. This time with a helmet on. Amazing to think that once helmets were not worn to quick bowling.

    Chats was also incredibly fit, he once bowled all day into the wind at the Basin Reserve in Windy Wellington then insisted on jogging back to the team hotel ‘to stretch my legs’.

    He got the vast majority of his wickets bowled, lbw or caught behind. Very occasionally at 1st slip. He bowled straight and was very miserly in offering scoring opportunities. At the other end Richard Hadlee was bowling outswingers inviting the batsmen to hit him if they dared. Without the foil of Chats Paddles would not have garnered quite so many wickets.

    NZ still specialise in frustrating batsmen out by strangling the run rate.

    • Dungroanin

      Excellent thanks for the great biog, before my time, i’ll look him up.
      Btw that was a bit of a game yesterday! Maybe the WC won’t be as one sided 😉

  • Loony

    Republic of Scotland wrote “Brexiteers care not about the welfare of the masses, its purely a self interest endeavour”

    Prior to the EU referendum the leaders of 36 companies wrote a letter urging the UK to remain in the EU. This list of 36 companies included HSBC. Do you really think that HSBC spends anytime concerning themselves with the welfare of the masses? Even today a majority of MP’s in Parliament wish to remain in the EU.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg and David Cameron share a similar background – both were born into wealth, both went to Eton and Oxford and both joined the Conservative Party. However Cameron supports the EU and Rees=Mogg does not. Are we to believe that somewhere somehow Cameron and Rees-Mogg deployed their wealth so differently that one benefits personally from the EU and one does not.

    Given the similarity in backgrounds this would appear to be a rather strange thing to believe.

    • Republicofscotland

      Brexit in my opinion Loony, was/is an internal struggle within the Tory party. The Tories that wanted to leave the EU had enough clout within the party to call for a in-out EU referendum.

      As we know now leave won using all manner of scaremongering tactics, immigrants, NHS bus £350million take back control etc, I’ve seen it all before in 2014.

      However the minute leave won, chief players in the leave camp began resigning. In truth they didnt have clue about the impact that leaving the EU would have on the masses including businesses, it was all but a decision of self interest. Indeed it took the Tory government two years to produce a white paper on consequences of Brexit.

      As for ongoing concerns such as HSBC, and other big corporations, they’ll just open a EU HQ. Frankfurt appears to be a popular destination.

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/brexit-latest-banks-commit-frankfurt-germany-eu-london-goldman-sachs-a8294651.html

      • Loony

        Most of what you write is true, but there is also a lot of truth that you do not write.

        A lot of people far removed from the Tory Party also loathed the EU. People like Barbara Castle, Tony Benn, Peter Shore and Michael Foot. These days they are represented on earth by Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn detests the EU, but finds himself somewhat constrained by the legion of new supporters that he has attracted.

        Once upon a time the SNP stood steadfast against the EU. But not today. So far as I know they have never explained exactly what caused them to change their minds.

        Ringo Starr is on record as favoring Brexit – do you really think that Ringo is motivated by self interest. He is 78 years old, does not live in the UK and has a full and complete career behind him. Exactly what does Ringo Starr have to personally gain by the UK leaving the EU?

        It is a bit rich to accuse those who want to leave the EU of engaging in scaremongering tactics when today the population is warned of imminent food shortages, a complete shutdown of air travel and shortages of basic medicines.

        • Ken Kenn

          From memory I don’t recall Benn – Castle et al leading any marches against the EU.

          Benn’s arguments against Europe was due to its undemocratic nature.

          It is indeed a ‘Bosses Club ‘ but then again all the great trading blocks are bosses clubs.

          As usual for the ordinary people of the world it is about choosing the least worst of them.

          Ringo and his friends are talking about Sovereignty in a sort of patriotism at a distance ( say like Sean Connery) but what they Rees – Mogg and Cameron have in common is the fear of paying more taxes on not just incomes but assets.Perhaps Ringo and Sean feel the same?

          By the way John Lennon wrote Taxman – a critique of the Wilson governments tax policies.

          • Michael McNulty

            George Harrison wrote Taxman and he sings it too, as he sang other Beatles songs he’d written including I Need You; Something; Here Comes the Sun; and While My Guitar Gently Weeps. There are probably others. John and Paul sang lead on the songs they’d written, and while Paul sang Yesterday I’m sure I’ve heard a studio version with John singing.

          • Loony

            If you think John Lennon wrote Taxman then your memory is obviously faulty.

            The song was certainly a critique of tax policies but somewhat wider than you intimate, hence the words “Taxman Mr Wilson, Taxman Mr Heath”

            Wilson granted the first referendum on Europe although sensibly did not attach himself irrevocably to one particular outcome. He also allowed a free vote within the Labour Party and Benn, Foot, Shore and Castle were the most prominent members of the Labour left to argue against British membership of the, then EEC.

            During the course of the referendum campaign Michael Foot allied himself closely with Enoch Powell, Both men believed that whatever their other differences may be they were as nothing compared to the need to slay the European beast.

            It is entirely dis-ingenious to pretend that opposition to the EU is the exclusive domain of right wing zealots or rich people seeking to evade regulation of their financial affairs.

            The left has a long history in opposing the European project. The fact that they are substantially silent today speaks volumes with regard to the infiltration of the left by identity politics losers who so desperately wish to infect the rest of the population with the loser mentality.

            As the EU referendum results show they have failed miserably with regard to the British working classes who voted in massive numbers against the EU. One more person that loathes the EU is Michael Caine and he once observed that you cannot intimidate the working classes. So all the talk by the bourgeois clerks of famine and economic catastrophe will have no effect on the people who desire nothing more than to free themselves from the yoke of EU oppression

          • Ken Kenn

            Apologies to Dave Lawton as I can only reply to Loony by reply.

            I’ve no idea how else to do it.

            Loony.

            Apologies for my mistake it was George Harrison but the point holds for all the “stars ” that make money their patriotism is always tempered by money and taxes thereon. They give us a clue as to where they choose to live.

            Noel Gallagher, Bono and Saint Bob are full on about charity but would rail against Corbyn taxing them a little more ( and it is a little more) as we and your country have developed a penchant for charities to replace the State in looking after its citizens/subjects.

            Charity is fine by me as an adjunct to the State not a replacement of the State’s responsibilities.

            This is a parody of neoliberalism and at the moment for all its Bosses Club ills the main players in the EU have not got away with the Welfare Reforms ( read cuts ) that the US or the UK governments have got away with. True – they are still in austerity mode but in France ( where I live ) Macron is being opposed.

            I will repeat that all the Bennites – Footites ( call them what you will ) never organised an opposition on the streets to the what we now know as the EU.

            What I do know is that Benn thought that the EU was an anti democratic institution and he was right it is.

            What he would ideally have envisaged was an EU of socialist nations but reality always intervenes and here we are post Financial Crash.

            I would be careful using Michael Foot ( a lefty? ) as a big stick with which to beat Remainers as he is remembered by some of the left as a Warmongering leftie who backed the Falklands War.

            He was way ahead of Thatcher in the polls in 82 and guess what? – he was way behind after the victory.

            I think he was a leading light in British CND which was formed only after the Soviet Union developed its own nukes.

            Funny old world isn’t it? – A Trump supporter supporting the left.

      • Dave Lawton

        Republicofscotland

        “As for ongoing concerns such as HSBC, and other big corporations, they’ll just open a EU HQ. Frankfurt appears to be a popular destination.”

        No loss there then they are nothing more than a drug laundering bank and always have been from their inception if you care to look at its history. The City of London is is one of the most corrupt square miles on the planet. Here is its history.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN_pBKhftkg

    • Dungroanin

      Of course you answer the Cameron/Rees-Mogg coundrum in your own post.

      They both obviously benefit by brexit.

      Cameron (and oik gimp,Osborne) did his bit by getting it in the manifesto and then a parliamentary vote for the simple majority referendum to take place, under the cover of poll data showing a massive majority for remain. Knowing that a major psyop SCL/CA/AIG/FB etc covertly funded op was going to be unleashed to steal the result. Having imposed the Austerity to soften up the populace his job in the great ripoff done he exited to spend more time with his greater future wealth.
      JRM is doing his bit, as is May and their fellows in arms the MSM.

      The actual job of delivering the voter manipulation was left to technoratic worshipping neo-facist types, with endless funds to deliver it. Just like the project to put man (the USA) on the moon!

      Infact I blame the success of NASA and George Mueller turned from a failing bureaucracy into an organisation that could put man on the moon.
      (Clue: He was the inspiration for Dominic Cummings.)

      Anyway in other news (and why i rudely barged in,sorry) the BBC has just unearthed the epicenter of FakeNews, Kosovo.
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46136513
      It is all about earning Adbucks by putting out viz/enquirer type content. All looks very much in order except it’s a load of imaginative fairytale writers instead of major corporations making the money.

        • J

          The importance of von Braun was surely the date at which America could deploy nuclear missiles. The cost was probably the diffusion, through ‘osmosis,’ of ideology. Perhaps he even lead NASA down a dead end. We’ll never know.

          • Dungroanin

            Von Braun didn’t lead NASA – he built rockets.
            The USSR had their own ex nazi doing the same too.

            The point of my comment is about Brexit and the scientific method used to identify millions of facebook users and then micromanage them into voting for brexit – all done with massive foreign money.
            It wasn’t the VoteLeave Banks’s bad boys who did it by themselves, it was the barking Cummings and his Strangelovian fetish for purity through that technocracy. He has as you know failed to answer the questions of the select committee with no censure!

            The Alt-Right, billionaires created project of a supreme white race worshipping thick as shit neo nazi thugs across Europe are linked via the Cambridge Analytica /AIQ back office – ruled over by the SCL aristo deepshits here and the Mercer coardinated Billionaires in the US. It is so out in the open …but no one is being arrested! No one is saying that the general election was manipulated as was the referendum!
            Why not??

            Cadwalladr ended up with the story but Obsessive Groaniad – and the editors there have all but buried it!
            Meanwhile the toothless electoral commision, information commissioner, select committee, the police, sfo and now the nation crime agency – who are all controlled – have done absolutely fuck all.
            Farage even has a daily platform on LBC – an agent of the media moguls, to hammer home a hard brexit. He uses blunt tools to control the messages he allows to emanate from that bully pulpit. He even called Carol a crazywoman and cut her off when she managed to bypass his caller selection triage.

            Is anyone interested in how much a billion farcebutt adverts cost?
            How much data on how many people was provided by them?
            What advertisements were served up to how many persons?
            How they were targeted? Who controlled it all? Who funded it?

            Anyway a little late to the show – why the tardiness New Yorker?- starting to connect the dots. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/new-evidence-emerges-of-steve-bannon-and-cambridge-analyticas-role-in-brexit

          • Vivian O'Blivion

            Dungroanin @ 12:32
            Agreed. The Mercers have immunity from the law. The tax evasion case (to the tune of $ 7 Billion) resulting from their use of a flagrantly fraudulent scheme peddled by Deutsche Bank was being handled by US Attorney Preet Bharara in the Southern District NY office. When the incoming Trump administration was conducting its wholesale clear out of Democrat appointed US Attorneys, Trump himself was reported to have taken the time to personally talk to Bharara on more than one occasion to ” you know, be reasonable and help a buddy out”. Bharara was uncooperative and was shown the door. The tax evasion case remains in stasis.

          • J

            “Von Braun didn’t lead NASA – he built rockets.”

            I know. Same way Cheney wasn’t president. I was juat thinking aloud.

      • Kerchée Kerch;ee Coup

        @Dungroanin
        The BBC neglected to mention the epicentre of the fake news industry in Pristina, Kosovo was, appropriately enough, to be found on Anthony Blair Street.
        BTW,the MSM and blogs seem just to be waking up to the possibility that the whole story of Khashoggi going to the Saudi consulate in relation to his intended marriage may, as Sibel Edmond intimated nearly 2 weeks ago, have been a complete load of cobblers.

        • Blunderbuss

          There are similarities between Khashoggi and Skripal. In both cases, one might ask “why do something so complicated when they could have just shot him in the street?”

          • Tom Welsh

            @Blunderbuss:

            ‘In both cases, one might ask “why do something so complicated when they could have just shot him in the street?”’

            Perhaps to tie up the media for days and weeks and grab a large share of public attention? Also to drive home the message of the sheer wickedness of the Emmanuel Goldstein du jour.

            I find that, when I contemplate the official stories of those murders, I keep thinking of Ming the Merciless, Goldfinger and other such classic fantasy villains. Their incompetence goes hand-in-hand with impressive hatefulness.

          • Paul Greenwood

            They could not have shot him in the street. Turkey clearly has the Saudis under full surveillance. There was an object lesson to be meted out and MBS is not intelligent. He will now be the victim of a helicopter crash as CIA and MI6 look on and his successor is groomed by the extended family

          • Blunderbuss

            From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein

            “Goldstein is the Osama Bin Laden figure in Orwell’s novel, an extremely elusive person who is never seen, never captured, but believed by the leadership of Oceania to be still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters. Since Goldstein is never captured, the battle against his crimes, treacheries, sabotages must never end”.

            I always thought that Osama Bin Laden died of natural causes several years before his alleged killing by the Americans. However, the Americans found it useful to pretend he was still alive for as long as it suited them.

      • Tony

        What a complete and utter load of upside-down codswallop, Dungroanin! Cameron and Osborne did their level best to keep us in the EU, as per the instructions from their globalist peers, in a referendum they were convinced they’d win, and put brexit to bed for another forty years. Theresa May was put in place to make a proper dog’s dinner of the brexit process (starting with her suicide manifesto at the snap general election), and she has delivered magnificently. She will be gone soon, job done, to be replaced by a government which will rely on the last two years of relentless msm anti-brexit propaganda to get a remain majority in a peoples vote. Your theory couldn’t be more wrong: it’s the complete opposite of what you claim.

  • John Goss

    Two days after the Brexit deadline (29 Mar) there is another deadline. Ukraine must hold elections.

    The breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (collectively known as Novorossiya} have already had theirs.

    https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/11/against-democracy-u-s-blasts-donbass-elections-and-threatens-sanctions/

    The west has forgotten that the Fascists dictated to from Kiev are constantly bombarding these republics, and although they are not considered to be free from Ukraine they cannot vote in Ukraine elections. What did the western sponsored coup achieve? A failed state, headed by a leader who almost everybody despises, Poroshenko. who is unlikely ever to be returned short of another dictatorship move, like a claim that the country is too unstable to hold elections.

    I wonder whether the rest of Europe will bombard the UK after (if) it breaks away. I suspect not. Please give some thought to the poor people of Novorossiya.

    • Dungroanin

      Ukraine and a few others including Lithuania are being primed with neonazi fervour, a Atlantic Council project to salami slice away at Russia – a massive country with huge resources. Yet another MIC/CIA/NATO proxy army to sacrifice their land and peoples, just like the original nazis in Europe did. Since then there have been others including the mujahadeen/Taliban in Afghanistan, the Iraqis under Saddam to fight Khomenni, Isis in Syria… Nigeria/CAR/Sudan/Libya/Yemen…and now the White Christian Supremacists in the Ukraine.
      https://off-guardian.org/2018/11/18/the-intensified-ukrainization-of-new-nato-member-montenegro/

      https://consortiumnews.com/2018/11/17/blowback-us-funded-ukraine-neo-nazis-mentor-us-white-supremacists/

      Now they are all but screwed in their Syrian escaped. Not even the UK built LeMesuriers White Helmets and our own Chemical Ali – Hamish de Breton Gordan and their Syria Campaign/SCL masters can deliver. The prixy Saudis are for the chop – having been isolated from their Islamic brethren.
      https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/11/syria-sitrep-army-wins-al-safa-battle-more-troops-move-towards-idelb.html
      The Kurdish KPG abandonment of their Euphrates task, hell even Iran and Iraq have decided to setup a new trading relationship! Even the Israelis are rattling to pieces with the cabinet going rogue!
      November 13 – The Short War With Gaza Exposed Israel’s Weakness – Updated
      November 14 – Netanyahoo’s Likely Fall Destroys Trump’s Middle East Strategy
      https://www.moonofalabama.org/
      https://southfront.org/iraq-boosts-economic-cooperation-with-iran-despite-us-sanctions-war-on-islamic-republic/

      We are going to need a much bigger memory hole to fit it all in – the disappeared Skripals, Brexit fraudsters, Assange persecution …

      • giyane

        Dungroanin

        The 1% who control the moral narrative are seated on their joysticks. No wonder Panny Mordaunt said in parliament God had given her the wrong equipment. What she clearly meant was that God had given her a tongue with which to foment disturbance and dissent , but not the physical means to implement full Tory wreckage on the 99%.

        The French Gavin Williamson, Emmanuelle Macron, got a big merde from President Trump last week, no doubt to be followed by ” Et ta soeur ” for Angela Merkel this week.
        So far Trump has consistently damaged the war-mongering neo-cons, so I think Assange is safe.

      • Tom Welsh

        I recently read Richard Wrangham’s excellent book “Demonic Males”. Wrangham, a primatologist, describes male aggression in chimpanzee groups and finds that almost everything applies equally to Homo sapiens (the “third chimpanzee”). This is how he analyzes chimps’ custom of raiding into neighbouring territories and oppoertunistically killing any of the neighbouring groups whom they can manage to surprise and outnumber. (Four to one is usually the minimum odds they will accept, as it keeps the risk of injury to themselves low enough).

        “If you’re a party-gang species living in rivalry with neighbors, a chance to kill safely tends to pay off for the same underlying reason. It weakens the neighbors. The future can’t be foreseen, but whatever it holds, the neighbors will be rivals, armed and dangerous. The stronger you are, the more easily their land can be taken, regardless of the particular benefits the land will bring”.

        Wrangham argues that this logic applies – perhaps with especial strength – to humans, who are more intelligent than chimps. There might be the seed of a whole new theory of military history here, with nations or tribes instead of groups. For instance, one reason why the USA keeps pushing, probing, starting wars, and committing all kinds of aggression is simply to weaken all its potential rivals on general principle. The thinking – if you can call it that – would be “whatever is bad for them must be good for us”.

        But that reasoning is predicated on the assumption of a zero-sum game, which doesn’t seem to be the best kind of game for organized humans to play. China, for example, assumes cooperation and probably does better. One would hope that human beings could improve on chimp strategy.

  • giyane

    For once I am grateful for the words of old Etonian David Cameron. Some wonks from Muslim Brotherhood came to view my house when it was for sale and planted some hidden cameras. Now they have shared photos of me doing inappropriate things in the privacy of my own house. As Cameron said to parliament , ‘Today a great man has lost his reputation. Lord Ashcroft ….’ Yes, politics is a dirty game. How far will these people go to try and win a lost argument?

    Two things puzzle me.
    1/ How has a Berelvi ( i.e. seriously dodgy ) preacher whipped up a whole nation against an innocent Christian woman, when the Berelvis make their prayers to the prophet SAW? Muslims are allowed to marry Christian women. but nobody seems to have told us what she’s accused of.

    2/ How come president Trump’s office has only received an audio tape of Kashoggi, when Craig has seen a video? The video would surely show who did it. Is it so dodgy that it would incriminate the political islamists who manufactured it in their Daeshywood Studios Inc.?

    • Tony_0pmoc

      giyane,

      Very interesting post, but there are a few things in it, that I am not yet convinced are true eg “when Craig has seen a video?”. I don’t think he claimed that. “planted some hidden cameras”??? What make and model were they? “me doing inappropriate things in the privacy of my own house?” well like what?

      You probably won’t be able to read this, but I wish you well.

      Tony

  • Sharp Ears

    ‘Craig Murray
    @CraigMurrayOrg
    I have no more claim to be a strategic genius than the next man. But if I see my sworn opponents disoriented and knocking seven bells out of each other, I cannot help but feel that is the best time to attack them, rather than “letting the dust settle” so that they can regroup.
    9:54 am – 18 Nov 2018 ‘

  • Sharp Ears

    Plebgate issues warning.

    Times front page – Former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell has warned MPs against “hunting down” Mrs May for the party leadership, according to the Times. The paper quotes Mr Mitchell as saying any contest would do the party “untold damage”.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/plebgate-the-timeline-of-events-that-left-andrew-mitchells-career-in-tatters-9891088.html
    Of course he never did any damage to his ‘partei’ with his own outrageous behaviour.

    What a crowd. Tories Out! Now!

    Theresa’s off to speak to the CBI this morning. Sick of it.

    • giyane

      Sharp Ears

      I am a qualified electrician, registered with NAPIT to sign off Domestic Wiring. From this pinnacle of self-importance I do think I do think I have the right to tell someone who knows zero about electricity he is stupid for trying to tackle a 3 phase 400 volts installation on his own. The law is designed to protect such people and their future tenants from their own stupidity. The law has recently been strengthened so force all landlords to licence their HMOs, and prove they have been properly wired.

      Any security officer has the right to challenge the ID and credentials of people entering the zone they are guarding. Any electrician has a similar duty to stop people making danger for themselves and others if they become aware of the problem. I am the thin blue line that stops people getting fried alive in their beds.
      Believe me I don’t get much thanks for being the electrical safety policeman, the active representative of Part P of the Building Regulations.

        • Blunderbuss

          @giyane 08:50

          I’d never heard of NAPIT but I found their website:

          https://www.napit.org.uk/

          and I can’t find any explanation of what NAPIT stands for.

          The only thing I can think of is National Association of People Interested in Technology but I doubt if that’s right. Oh, just thought of another one: National Association of Perfectly Informed Technicians. And another: National Association of People Installing Terminals.

        • giyane

          Because each bedsit has an electric shower, an electric oven and electric sockets which can be used for heating. Because of that each bedsit is allowed 63 amps hoping they will never use more than 50 amps, I,e, half of 100 amps at any one moment. 6 flats. 50 amps each = three phases each at 100 amps. If you accidentally connect between 2 phases either between the 2nd and 1st, 1st and ground or ground and basement, because you don’t have a clue or someone else down the line doesn’t, that toast.

          Would the person who thinks they can do the electrical work themselves care to download some 18th edition BS7671 sample questions:
          http://www.sparkyfacts.co.uk/18thedition/18th-edition-exam-simulator.php

          I very much doubt an unqualified person would get more than 5 %.

          • Blunderbuss

            @giyane 13:06

            I see what you mean but I’m still puzzled. Surely a normal house would only be connected to one phase. To connect to the other two phases, the dodgy installer would have to dig up the road.

          • giyane

            The dodgy installer led me to believe he would go through building regs and I work to Part P of the Buidling regs so I agreed to fit a 3 phase distribution board after Western Power Distribution dug up the road and put a 3 phase meter in. Then the dodgy installer announced that he had no intention of going through Council building regs so I told him I was building regs so far as electricity is concerned.

            He then got an incompetent, unregistered electrician in whose work is terrible and that electrician connected all six bedsits to one single 40 amp MCB on one single phase via an enourmous junction box. Dodgy owner then told me dodgy sparky had done a runner and he had been finishing the work himself. so I reported him to Western power and the council in the hope they might intervene before he killed someone.

            Unfortunately these two stalwart organisations don’t act on whistleblowers, only on 999.

          • Blunderbuss

            @giyane 17:54

            Thanks for the explanation. The danger of using different phases for different parts of the same building had not occurred to me.

            I can’t understand why Mr Dodgy wanted to put in one 3 phase distribution board, rather than three single phase boards. Presumably he had to pay Western Power Distribution to dig up the road so it can’t have been a money-saving exercise. I’m surprised Western Power didn’t ask him why he wanted 3 phase in an ordinary dwelling house.

            Turning to a legitimate 3 phase installation, e.g. in a factory, I’ve had a look at this:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_wiring_in_the_United_Kingdom#Wiring_colours

            Presumably one would use L1 brown, L2 black and L3 grey for powering 3 phase motors and L1 brown alone for lighting. However, if every factory did this then there would be an excessive load on L1. Is it permissable to use L2 and L3 for lighting circuits, provided that they are not in the same building? What happens if two buildings, which were separate, are later joined together?

            I’m not trying to get a free training course on electrical installation. I’m just interested. I hope you don’t mind.

      • Blunderbuss

        The Daily Mail will have a field day. I expect some foreign governments will interfere as well.

  • Sharp Ears

    There is a move to reduce the number of peers, currently 800, to 600.
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/19/house-of-lords-urged-to-axe-200-peers-and-boost-diversity

    The average age of Members is 70 (as at 10 October 2018).
    Membership and principal office holders – UK Parliament
    https://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-lords-faqs/lords-membe

    Salary and benefits: House of Lords. Members of the House of Lords are not salaried. They can opt to receive a ***£305 PER DAY attendance allowance*** plus travel expenses and subsidised restaurant facilities. Peers may also choose to receive a reduced attendance allowance of £150 PER DAY instead.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_of_Members_of_the_United_Kingdom_Parliament

    It’s another racket.

    *** A person needing care receives an attendance allowance as follows:
    Lower rate – £57.30 PER WEEK Frequent help or constant supervision during the day, or supervision at night
    Higher rate – £85.60 PER WEEK Help or supervision throughout both day and night, or you’re terminally ill
    Higher rate – £85.60

    • giyane

      Sharp Ears

      We thought the state would look after us in our old age, but we didn’t reckon on Thatcher’s liberalisation of the banks crashing the economy. Well, I personally did reckon on it and I said so at the time. Somehow, the Tories have managed to lay the blame for their mistakes entirely on the Labour Party. if you anticipate mistakes, and mistakes subsequently happen, you will get the blame while the people who made the mistakes collect their golden pensions in the House of Lords in total denial.

    • joel

      A “diverse” house of lords uh? In addition to a “diverse” Conservative party and a “diverse” royal family? What more could people want?

      • giyane

        joel

        mystic Megan gave a suitably WTF face on Remembrance Sunday so I for one am completely satisfied with royal diversity. I am however extremely pissed off with Mrs May and her quivering rat’s nest of tory wets pretending to have brains telling me that the referendum was democracy and therefore sacrosanct.
        We never used to allow the racists to get a look-in. . Alf Garnett must be spinning in ‘is grave. “we wuz never allowed to get away with ‘alF of what Tory politicians get away with nowadays. “

  • Sharp Ears

    There is talk of the Grayling joining the list of leavers from the ‘Cabinet’. Good and good riddance. He is a complete disaster.

    RMT calls for Chris Grayling’s resignation as rail services plunged into chaos
    https://londonlovesbusiness.com/rmt-calls-for-chris-graylings-resignation-as-rail-services-plunged-into-chaos/
    -1 hour ago
    Rail union RMT has called for Chris Grayling’s resignation as rail services plunged into chaos again this morning.
    RMT General Secretary MickCash said;
    “The chaos into Waterloo this morning is just another example of the fragmentation and division on Britain’s privatised railways where‎ maintenance schedules and budgets are hacked to the bare bones while private operators like SWR are left with a free hand to rob the network blind in the name of profit.
    “What we need is reintegration and a coherent system with all elements of the rail operation working together in one publicly owned framework with investment rather than exploitation as the watchword.”
    “While the crisis on our railways deepens the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is marked absent while he ponders his self-interest and a possible resignation from the May Government. He should go, and he should go now.” …

    Commuters on South Western Railway have been told not to travel after engineering works overran.
    No SWR trains are running between Surbiton and London Waterloo – the UK’s busiest railway station.
    Woking, Surbiton, Raynes Park and Earlsfield stations have been closed and people advised not to travel.
    The rail operator said services across its entire network may be cancelled, delayed or revised all day after work due to finish at 04:30 GMT was delayed.
    SWR has warned that disruption “is expected until the end of the day” while Network Rail has apologised to passengers.
    Normally-packed rush hour trains have been cancelled, leaving thousands of commuters stranded.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46258720

    It’s a wonder that anything is working in this country.

  • Republicofscotland

    The Sunday Times reported that Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee could have 48 letters by tomorrow. Coincidentally tomorrow is the 28th anniversary of the leadership ballot that saw Margaret Thatcher driven out of office.

    Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt, David Davis, Penny Mordaunt and Dominic Raab, are all said to be preparing leadership campaigns.

        • Blunderbuss

          Oh, I see. Quote from the Guardian article:

          “Under conditions of the original sale by the German federal police, the vehicles could only be sold on to a European policing or civil protection organisation, as a guard against them being used by a repressive regime”.

        • giyane

          Blunderbuss

          You’ve got the story all mixed up. BJ is a foreign dictator and he bought the water cannon tor jet-wash his own credentials squeaky clean with them. You’re not allowed to squirt water at protestors in the UK. You have to kettle them in a ring of weaponised police so they have to poo in public in the locked entrance to an underground station. The said folk would’ve been glad of the water, but the target of the demonstration being the banks, it was decided to teach them a lesson. I seem to remember it was arch=Tory Gordon Brown who was PM at the time

  • Republicofscotland

    Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn, has made his position crystal clear on a second EU in out vote, saying, its not an option for today.

    Corbyn told German, Der Spiegel last week, we can’t stop it referring to Brexit. So for once, (even though Keir Starmer is making a different noise on Brexit) we know where Corbyn and Labour stands on Brexit, and its shoulder to shoulder with Theresa May.

    Corbyn sealed the deal by declining to say how he’d vote on a second Brexit in out vote.

    • giyane

      Corbyn wants a general election, but Chopsticks May would rather Kashoggi him and eat him for supper than give him a GE.

  • Republicofscotland

    The HoL must axe 200 peers urgently said Sir Bernard Jenkins, who heads up a committee of MP’s in (PACAC) Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committie. The Lords should be capped at 600 instead of 800, Jenkins set out a 15 year plan to reduce the number to 600.

    No need for that, Labour, has been promising to abolish the HoL for over 100 years, Corbyn pledged to do the same more recently. I won’t hold my breath in anticipation though.

      • Dungroanin

        And elected – even if it is just by the MP’s in the commons by a free vote – preferably secret.

        • Paul Greenwood

          I prefer to use the EuroConstituencies in UK to elect Upper House. After all we need to use those Constituencies for something and repatriating MEPs to London would be representative

    • Rhys Jaggar

      Fifteen years to reduce it get real. Just do not create any new ones for five years. Offer two years attendance fees as a golden goodbye to anyone who renounces. You could do it in five years easily.

  • Sharp Ears

    Wonder what Mrs C BLiar thinks of her pal, Carlos Ghosn, chairman of the Nissan and Renault boards, getting the push and being arrested.

    https://group.renault.com/en/our-company/leadership/board-of-directors/
    She is a non-exec on the Renault board.

    Nissan plans to fire Carlos Ghosn over ‘misconduct’
    55 minutes ago
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46259420

    ‘Japanese car giant Nissan has proposed removing chairman Carlos Ghosn from his post over financial misconduct claims.
    The firm said it had been conducting an internal investigation for several months which showed Mr Ghosn had been under-reporting his pay package.
    “Numerous other significant acts of misconduct” including “personal use of company assets”, were also found.
    According to Japanese media reports Mr Ghosn, a towering figure in the car industry, has been arrested in Tokyo.’

    • Paul Greenwood

      Power play. Now Nissan-Mitsubishi holds a stake in Daimler-Benz and makes diesel engines for Mercedes plus certain cars like Smart are common as is a pickup. I wonder if the Dacia-Lada-Nissan-Renault-Mitsubsihi Auto-Union has a few more difficulties

  • Mochyn69

    In today’s grauniad

    09:59
    Libby Brooks Libby Brooks
    This lunchtime’s meeting of the joint ministerial committee (EU negotiations) in London – which brings together representatives of Scottish, Welsh and Westminster administrations – does not promise to be a meeting of minds.

    The meeting comes after Welsh and Scottish first ministers, Carwyn Jones and Nicola Sturgeon, wrote a joint letter to the prime minister, in which they criticised a “lack of meaningful engagement” over the Brexit deal and called for an urgent update.

    Cabinet Office minister David Lidington, fresh from his trip to Edinburgh last Friday, is telling the devolved administrations to support May’s Brexit deal, insisting: “The deal that is now on the table is the best possible Brexit deal for all parts of the UK.”

    TELLING THE DEVOLVED ADMINISTRATIONS ..

    Supine tory arrogance and crass disregard for the devolution settlement from Lidington.

    It won’t end well unles the ScotGov takes a stand against Westminster and prepares for a godalmighty fight.

    >

  • Sharp Ears

    In the i today.

    Faslane.
    There have been 505 ‘safety events’ there since 2006 including two Category A ‘events’ from 2006 and 2007. All ‘events’ are :recorded blah blah …to encourage a comprehensive robust reporting culture in order to improve safety’!

      • Sharp Ears

        In BLiar/Brown’s time.

        ‘Career and citizenship
        In 1998, Bill Browder gave up his U.S. citizenship and became a British citizen, partly to avoid paying U.S. taxes on foreign investments. At the time, he was working in the Eastern European practice of the Boston Consulting Group in London, and managed the Russian proprietary investments desk at Salomon Brothers. In October 2017, when answering a question about the decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship, he cited “a legacy of bad feeling about the rule of law” as a result of his family having been “viciously persecuted” by U.S. authorities in the 1950s.’

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder

        Does he live in the UK? James O’Brien had him on LBC at the time of the Salisbury/Skripals events.

        • Isa

          I think he lives mostly but not exclusively in the U.K.

          Thanks for the transcription of his bio . It’s interesting , and amusing , to see that whenever he commits financial fraud or tax evasion he claims to be persecuted by a state . Seems to be a recurring pattern with this man .

  • Simon Hewitt

    The comments here come from people who know as little about cricket as Theresa May. Boycott was Yorkshire’s most unsuccessful-ever captain. That is all that needs be said – and bringing Botham into it is irrelevant.

    • MK

      There are plenty of knowledgeable comments on Theresa M here. I’d expect a more thorough knowledge of cricket here of course.

    • Rhys Jaggar

      So there are no barnstorming, hard-drinking young headbangers in the Tory Party then?

      Shame….

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Just suppose, something completely unexpectedly happened, which almost completely cut off trade and almost all communications between The British Islands and The Rest of The World – could be a natural disaster, or someone in Europe has pissed off both The Russians and The Americans at the same time. Putin and Trump are on the phone together… British or French??

    Assuming we really were cut off from The Rest of The World????

    I reckon We would all get on well, and work together to make the future better for our kids.

    We in Europe, should choose our own Destinies for our Children and Grandchildren, and not be dictated to by Foreign Powers.

    That is what Democracy is all about.

    Or do you like being told what to do by some idiot in a uniform?

    Tony

    • Ian

      Since when was making trade and other mutually beneficial deals for all of our citizens the same as ‘being dictated to by idiots in uniforms’? This is the kind of bilge that ukippers trot out regularly, and is of course complete rubbish. We have benefitted in innumerable ways from hitching our wagon to other European countries, despite the flaws. The UK on its own would have sunk years ago, into a morass of backbiting monocultural poverty – just as it is in danger of doing now.

  • fwl

    Sounded today as if EU realise they have to renegotiate, are prepared to do so, and will agree an extension of severe months to do so.

    Who would agree to pay £35B for a blind Brexit?

    • laguerre

      What sort of renegotiation do you think is going to happen, seeing that they’ve definitively said, “no renegotiation”?

      • fwl

        Well they said no re-negotiation.

        Then they indicated no re-negotiation on the substantive issues and thereby indicated re-negotiation was possible albeit on only minor issues.

        Then they indicated that re-negotiation would be possible on the big issues too but only in a little way.

        Then they indicated that they would agree an extension of time but clarified they meant months not years.

        And this all happened in a very short time.

        To me that showed that the EU appreciated that there would be no deal and they would need to move if they want to avoid a hard Brexit.

        From this I conclude either:

        1) goal posts are shifting and EU have shown their hand i.e. they can’t allow a no deal in which case we are in a better negotiating position than hitherto thought; or

        2) we are being managed into tolerating a compromise albeit one slightly improved.

        Hopefully its one not two, but we shall see. If we don’t prepare, prepare prepare for no deal we will not get a meaningful Singapore deal whereby we remain on the best of terms but are fully independent.

  • Tom

    Looking at the unfolding events, I wonder, not for the first time, whether there was after all some wisdom after all in the apocryphal “Northern Labour voters with nothing to lose” plumping for Leave to bring domestic change. It’s certainly hard to imagine either the Tories or their client media being the force they were after all this is over. The Brexit negotiations have also thrown into bold relief the incompetence, hypocrisy and venality of our rulers. And, let’s face it – it would have been quite boring if David Cameron had actually succeeded in stopping the Tories “banging on about Europe”.
    Not that I would change my vote, as Remain has been thoroughly vindicated in many ways, but perhaps it is healthy for a few national boils will be lanced before we get back there.

    • Radar O’Reilly

      Tom, you might be right!
      Was the Brexit-endpoint just a headline, whilst actually it was/is the developing story arc that has revealed many obfuscated incompetencies, and led/will-lead to some surprising re-evaluations by our nation.

      Here’s something from yesterday’s Grauniad, which shows that the UK security/defence realm might be winding down their transatlantic spittle, after all there is structured co-operation business to be done. A while ago I was a consultant at the European defence agency for about a year, not representing the UK, who mostly ‘observed’ rather than participated in anything.

      The UK, long hostile to EU defence initiatives, has become more interested in being involved, say EU sources. The EU is due to announce by the end of the year the terms for non-EU countries to take part in Pesco projects.

      France has been pressing the EU to adopt a strict division between EU and non-EU countries, fearing its companies could lose out on lucrative contracts.

      Remember that France currently has around 350 “gilets Jaunes” citizen imposed fuel blockpoints, playing cat & mouse with the scary CRS, but successfully freezing the country’s diesel infrastructure for the fourth day in a row. If the French population had demanded a Brexit they would’ve been OUT within about a week!

      UK’s public random walk of shame follows accurately on from Churchill’s analysis made around 65 years ago that the country(including all parties) is exactly 50:50 split on the European project (ref CIA foia documents)
      I still can’t predict the result, but the ‘getting-there’ is enlightening!

      Links:
      http://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/automobile/essence/direct-blocages-des-gilets-jaunes-les-manifestants-poursuivent-la-mobilisation_3041677.html

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/19/eu-ministers-approve-spy-school-plan-in-raft-of-defence-initiatives

  • Sharp Ears

    The situation for the employees and the creditors of Johnston Press is not so clear cut as it first appeared when the acquisition of its assets was announced, especially with regard to the employees’ pensions. JPI Media, a consortium of the creditors, is the new owner of the Scotsman and 200 other titles. The chief executive is David King, He was the chief executive of the original company.

    https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-11-19/debates/52FF3860-684F-4B20-AD52-2B9687FE4E2B/JohnstonPressAdministration
    3.41pm – 4.34pm

    Jeremy Wright, the former Attorney General from 2014-2018 and now the DCMS Secretary of State since July, sounded glib.

    • Sharp Ears

      Ref Jeremy Wright.

      Exclusive: I Can Reveal the Legal Advice on Drone Strikes, and How the Establishment Works 364
      9 Sep, 2015 in Uncategorized by craig

      This may be the most important article I ever post, because it reveals perfectly how the Establishment works and how the Red Tories and Blue Tories contrive to give a false impression of democracy. It is information I can only give you because of my experience as an insider.
      It is a definitive proof of the validity of the Chomskian propaganda model. It needs a fair bit of detail to do this, but please try and read through it because it really is very, very important. After you have finished, if you agree with me about the significance, please repost, (you are free to copy), retweet, add to news aggregators (Reddit etc) and do anything you can to get other people to pay attention.
      The government based its decision to execute by drone two British men in Syria on “Legal Opinion” from the Attorney-General for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, a politician, MP and Cabinet Minister. But Wright’s legal knowledge comes from an undistinguished first degree from Exeter and a short career as a criminal defence barrister in Birmingham. His knowledge of public international law is virtually nil.
      /..
      https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/exclusive-i-can-reveal-the-legal-advice-on-drone-strikes-and-how-the-establishment-works/

      Wright’s entry on TWFY for you is slim. It does however contain an entry about a 5 day visit to Israel with the Conservative Friends of Israel.
      https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11791

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