“Trump GONE? US State Department website says US President term is already OVER
THE US department of state website states that Donald Trump’s term as president has ended today.”
“Buzzfeed correspondent Christopher Miller tweeted: “Sources tell Buzzfeed ‘disgruntled staffer’ is behind the State Department site’s change of Trump and Pence’s biographies.” The official US website states: “Donald J. Trump’s term ended on 2021-01-11 19:38:51.” US secretary of state Mike Pompeo is now launching an investigation into how the biographical pages for president Trump and vice president Pence were changed on Monday.”
You owe me an apology. I think you owe Stew one, now, as well. Stew is quite correct. Trump has another week as President. Inauguration is set, still, Covid and security issues notwithstanding, for 20th January.
What happened yesterday is that the Democrats flip-flopped on their impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Instead of using the unfit/incapable Clause 25 the Democrats have decided to make it impeachment for incitement but are, if I understood correctly, having a spot of bother deciding in which House to do it. See front page of Guardian here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-55627012 or BBC US/Canada news here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55622326
I owe you nothing, or any one who tells me to shut up when reporting a headline from the msm “in quotes”
especially after that comment, jumping on a bandwagon / witch hunt ?
not the first time
Suggest you confine your comments to the subject matter under discussion in future rather than personal attacks which only tend to appear on the back of others.
Darcy – i saw your post – checked what you had put up – found that it was crap and that your misleading CAPITALS over a false STORYvhad wasted my time and set me thinking about your motivation on this site. An annoyed Fed .
Not MY misleading capitals check the link provided which I qoted verbatim within quotation marks (a story which holds interest for me at least despite the clickbait headline which the Express often use)
and equally annoyed at the attitude of the person above and their motivation to become abusive
which you have (remarkably) made no comment about, or questioned ?
some it seems are allowed to act like this towards others, whilst others are censured (or censored) for responding
Darcy – please control your anger . If you read this site regularly you do see me – from time to time – asking contributors to focus comments toward the BBC –
But I acknowledge the difficulty because the BBC contaminates all parts of life and death .
And it might be best not to call a site moderator a ‘troll ‘ either – although it is a ‘first ‘…
@Darcy3 There is no need to be angry,
I was unusually terse cos it’s a misleading clickbait headline
to a story I already knew about.
So I had to signal to others not to waste their time on the nothing burger story.
Of course Trump is still President today.
“Those in power don’t realize the significant miscalculation that they just made. I have already had an influx of founders and developers pitching me on the decentralized products they want to build. Most aren’t going to be successful, but a select few have a chance. ”
Darcy – there is a proportion thing – one of the aims of this site is to hold the BBC to account by recording what it does and how its’ Far Left bias operates . It’s a long haul and every so often someone pops up to criticise it . I used get annoyed but then thought -‘ well what more can I do ? ‘ I won’t break the law beyond non payment of the Licence – so this is the best avenue open to me .
After what has happened about plugs being pulled on social media for ‘disapproved ‘ people or comments I now fear this and similar sites are living on borrowed time .
The ‘take down ‘ won’t be announced nor challengable but will demonstrate how rapidly any freedoms we have are being eroded and being replaced by ‘approved thoughts ‘….
It’s lucky for many people that they don’t have ‘thoughts ‘ at all …
And therefore should be the last place where one should criticise another for ..what I still do not understand and when I try to explain motives hmm
sorry Fed2 but you have lost my confidence as a monitor, once I will accept a response as an angry or frustrated person, but upsnuff no way
It has been a great haven under these circumstances we are all suffering but if one tries to attack another it is no longer a pleasant or welcoming place if one is called a “resident troll”
Darcy – fine by me . My online skin has had to thicken – but I take comfort in knowing that it is not real . If you want to keep on about it – that’s up to you – but I have BBC issues to moderate – if you choose to carry on with other subjects – like others – that’s for you . I will not be communicating with you again on this .
You told me and other site users to eff off which I edited . Do it again and you are gone from the site – have some confidence in that- if not me as a moderator . So stop
@Darcy3 You have free speech, you copied and pasted Daily Express crap
I have free speech, so I spoke
You I expect are British so should have grown up being exposed to the British cultural thing of growing a skin
It should not bother you if my response to a BS post is “shut up”
I don’t know why your response was to take it personally and start lashing out and swearing
..instead of taking a second look at your post with the Express click bait crap story.
While the lying biased BBC are delighted to trumpet Arnold Schwarzenneger’s absurd Kristallnacht speech comparing MAGA supporters to Nazis (at the top of their news bulletins), they’re strangely quiet about Jon Voight’s many recent video addresses to his fellow Americans in which he praises Trump and speaks out against the election fraud and the shameful bias of the MSM and Big Tech.
Incidentally, try finding the recent ones on YouTube – I couldn’t. More Big Tech censorship?
I see far, far more parallels with what the Nazis did and with what the Democrats are doing than anything Trump did.
They are actively out to supress opposition. They are currently in the process of labelling their political opponents and attempting to turn the public away from them. They will have them wearing insignia next so everyone can identify them.
The Left is a blinkered ideology driven by shallow people who are convinced they are morally superior. That same shallow character enables them to hate enemies with ferocity.
Just like their fellow socialist, Adolf Hitler did. And Pelosi is right up there with the best of them.
What is disgusting me most at the moment is how they are being given a free ride to do it.
I don’t approve of what those Trump supporters did in any way. It was just stupid and undemocratic.
But Arnie’s speech made me feel really uncomfortable. Comparing those two incidents seems wholly inappropriate.
Once again the BBC shows it’s true colours with one of it ‘s chief clones, the Cox fellow, eulogising about the BBC ‘s role in educating the locked -down school-kids at home. Bit of a shame then that it is mostly streamed rather than shown on the box. The BBC is rich enough to open a dedicated education channel or at least provide content on it’s ludicrous red-button, aka channel 601(no one knows what goes on down that black-hole, well, apart from oodles of cash). So, potentially, the most disadvantaged educationally get the nasty end of the stick. Now, along with the BBC, we all know, even the academics admit it, who comprises that group. White, working class and poor. It is BBC bias at it’s worst. A nasty middle-class dig at people they hate and despise.
Youth climate activists with the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats were arrested on Capitol Hill Monday for staging a sit-in at the Washington, D.C. office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi to demand that congressional Democrats back a "Green New Deal"https://t.co/eCpOIkDDgV
BBC reporting that EU unity is crumbling as each member states is panicking into doing its own vaccine deal …just like the krauts …
…,.,,, in fact … silence from the EU loving BBC on such an important subject .
Perhaps lives in the UK are being saved already – because of brexit – because will pulled away from their corruption .
Hungary had already bought Russian vaccine in November before we started our programme in December.
But since the Russian Sputnik vaccine had not finished testing , it was counted as bringing Hungary into the test programme.
Anyone see parallels with Hillsborough ?
You wake up in the morning and media have a narrative
and it’s an OUTRAGE BUS
.. Such outragebus news is always wrong, cos it reduces complex events to a simplistic emotional narrative.
“All Liverpool fans are thugs”
“All them Trump supporters are rioter, insurrectionists”
Hang on
– Those guys that occupied Nancy Pelosi’s office, just sat around after they walked into the building cos the cops waved them in
..are no different to the 2018 Climate protesters, surely ?
– Those guys that smashed windows – hooligans
– Those guys that tried to stop them good
– Those guys that really pushed against cops in the tunnel really risking crushing them, violent hooligans
– Those guys that walked in through the open fire door, naive.
– Those guys that were pushing against corridor barricade with cops right next to them .. were at least stupid ..and the woman breached the door and got shot .. I do sympathise with the cop.
– Those guys that scaled the walls and came in through the roof … that’s criminal
But none of them came with guns and bombs
.. so none were “armed insurrectionists”
They didn’t even bring in fire like antifa do
Outside some did use teargas as a weapon, but in a non-lethal weapon.
I’d need to know what cops got injured and how to make a full judgement
I still don’t really know what happened to that cop that died.
I can imagine different scenarios a bit worse and far worse, like loads of militia with guns.
So I cannot be outraged so far like the media are.
BBC2 Newsnight pushing the lies more than usual tonight.
Emily Maitlis first trying to claim Donald Trump will start WW3 in his last week, then muting the person who was correcting her. Then she interviewed a black woman who claimed The Capitol protest was an attack against mostly African American cops. This comment was left unchallenged.
Then a negative piece on Gab and Parler which was a voiceover over never ending videos of men with guns.
From my Virgin broadband it won’t connect – tells me the site is down ( Cloudflare) all day.
traceroute shows normal hops to USA and then the undersea telecom cable router on the USA side > dead end.
If I trivially use a US proxy – bongino.com responds OK. (as does VPN)
Ah… as I type… bongino.com has come up…. after 10+ hours.
Bongino is an investor in Parler and more…. but for the other side of the story from a participant THIS gives some idea of the effort going into expunging the opposition in the USA.
Outside of Europe due to our data protection laws but still rather insidious:
“Millions of WhatsApp users ABANDON the app and switch to rivals Telegram or Signal ahead of privacy policy update that will force them to share their personal data with Facebook
WhatsApp is making a huge change to its privacy policy from February 8
The change affects the way that WhatsApp processes user data
Users cannot opt out and will lose access to their accounts if they don’t agree
The change does not affect WhatsApp users in the UK or Europe
Following the news, many users have jumped shipped to rival messaging apps, including Telegram and Signal “
If the aim of this incoming lot is to provoke civil war….they are going the right way about it
“‘They called me a f***ing terrorist!’ Moment burly ‘pro-Trump’ protester sobs at DC airport after finding out he’s been put on no-fly list
Video was likely recorded on Friday at Dulles International Airport outside DC
It shows a man in a white ball cap going into a meltdown and crying about being placed on a no-fly list
‘They kicked me off the plane, they called me a f***ing terrorist and they want to f***ing ruin my life!’ he says through sobs
A woman who was possibly kicked off Delta Air Lines flight that day attempts to comfort him
Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Bennie Thompson ”
As chance would have it I was switching a few short cuts around and yes, biased bbc was way down the results although being the most relevant response to my search.
WOW – me too. I’ve been coming here via a favourites link only for 2 or 3 days. The webiste came up maybe second or third on the list before that.
Today it’s not even on the first page. On DuckDuckGo it’s right at the top as it should be.
This is serious business. Somebody has actively done this.
Same happened to Mr D and myself this morning, better results if you add ‘blog*. I think it also happened some years ago and just lasted a few days but with all what is going on with Tech companies, I worry this world is becoming ever more dangerous.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55625707
“Capitol riots: FBI warnings amid fears of more pro-Trump violence”
“There are reports of armed groups planning to gather at all 50 state capitols”
Skinhead scare stories for the 2020s, in response “Officials say up to 15,000 National Guard troops could be made available to fortify the event.” (inauguration.)
If the Guard were given the order to defend democracy there may be some confusion regarding which way to shoot.
I watched the Simon Parkes video linked to on the first page of this post. He gives a very convincing display but I was alerted to scepticism when he started talking about the Rothschilds which in my book is shorthand for antiSemitism. When he started about Satanists, I switched off. Then you start to wonder about who these people are that are doing things secretly but then share it with him so he can broadcast it. I think he is best avoided.
It is worth checking the two Twitter messages that caused them to ban Trump, inocuous:
According to the Mail Online:
“Isn’t this all very odd? Whereas Hassan Rouhani, Louis Farrakhan, and legions of rogues are considered acceptable to Twitter, the elected President of the United States is suddenly persona non grata.
True, last Wednesday he recklessly called the people who stormed the Capitol ‘patriots’, and was locked out of his account for 12 hours by Twitter. But the supposedly toxic two tweets which led to his expulsion don’t seem very incendiary.
In the first he raved about how ‘the 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me . . . will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future’. In the second he merely said that he would not be ‘going to the inauguration on January 20’.
According to Twitter, the first tweet was construed ‘as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an orderly transition’ while the second provided ‘further confirmation of [Trump’s view] that the election was not legitimate’.”
“The fact is that it has provided, and still provides, an arena for many bad people. It allowed the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai massacre, to operate an account. During the Westgate terrorist outrage in Kenya in 2013, al-Shabaab used Twitter to claim responsibility, and tweeted live throughout the attack.
Twitter has kept Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, on its books. He has made various highly provocative remarks interpreted as anti-white, and in particular as anti-Semitic.
Farrakhan once described Adolf Hitler as a ‘very great man’ and a ‘great German’”
“What all this shows, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggested in a television interview on Sunday, is that Twitter is not a social media platform, as it likes to pretend, but a publisher which increasingly makes its own political judgments about what to include and exclude”
“Ywitter is different inasmuch as it has generally much looser standards, and claims not to be a publisher selecting pieces, but a platform on which 300 million people can roost and write more or less what they want.
Except for Donald Trump, and others of his political stamp with whom Twitter disagrees. And if Trump is censored — in fact, banned — who comes next? However obnoxious he may be, he is still an elected President, and speaks for many millions.
If he broke the law in fomenting a riot — as has been widely alleged — that is a matter for the law, and upholders of the American constitution. It is not for Twitter to determine what can be written.”
Darcy,
“…that is a matter for the law….”
The problem is, in the witnessing of a society breaking down and regressing, you have to expect an increase in lawlessness and those tasked with upholding the law, found absent or increasingly biased. They have to take sides. Any law abiding society will only succeed when the majority are comfortable with volunteering their support for the legal / political structures. Slip in, “USA” wherever you like.
“Channel migrants: More than 150 migrants enter UK on small boats “
We have recently heard the term “Blood on their hands” . Who will have “Blood on their hands” when one of the dinghy invaders turns out to be a terrorist and starts to kill people?
I suppose the standard term “Lessons to be learned” will be the get out term ?
“Capitol riots: FBI warnings amid fears of more pro-Trump violence”
If indeed it is true that the recent US election result was “rigged” , there are a lot of disgruntled Republicans in the country . Many more than indicated by those results ?
“Covid rules: What could be done to tighten lockdown in England?”
There are a lot of people in my part of the world that find the “Covid rules” becoming totally confusing. It’s almost as if Hancock and Johnson are experts in the children’s game called ‘Simon says’?
This is sick by the BBC attempting to propagandise the death of a young girl to keep the fear going. Those who are paying attention just need one look at the picture to see what the issue really is.
Yesterday I posted that the Big Brother Corporation were merrily trumpeting Schwarzenneger’s ridiculous Kristallnacht speech all over their news, in which he compares MAGA supporters to Nazis – while by contrast they had previously completely ignored a number of video clips by Jon Voight supporting Trump and denouncing the election fraud.
Two Hollywood stars of comparable profile, yet the Trump-hater gets the full red-carpet treatment, while the one guilty of wrongthink gets the full cancel-culture treatment.
Yesterday I couldn’t find the Jon Voight video clip – no doubt buried deep by YouTube and Google’s algorithms – but I have since.
Well, if the biased lying BBC wants to silence him, it behoves us to give him a voice. Powerful words spoken with deep conviction and gravitas.
Its a Twitter video “”Our priority will be Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American owned small businesses, women-owned businesses,
and finally having equal access to resources needed to reopen and rebuild.”
— President-elect Biden
By the by, one tends not to bookmark this here site but rather to google the phrase Biased BBC. For what seems like donkey’s years google used to offer the location within its top couple of suggestions. That seems to have changed this morning after a Firefox update. I hand this info to the geeks among us who may know better but these days I lean increasingly toward the notion it’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s true.
To this morning’s Guardian and the story of the muslim who stabbed three gays to death in a Reading Park. The Graun takes the usual reflexive journalistic line of something must be done and of course that something daren’t be anything to do with the culture or religion of the perpetrator: ‘Warnings were given on Reading murderer’
Come to think of it the Guardian may have a point – I recall Enoch Powell said something about uncontrolled third world immigration and rivers of blood.
But the Guardian sees failings in what it terms “the authorities” and specifically “health and probation professionals” and notices only sensible and prompt alarms coming from the do-gooders of the Reading Refugee Support Group.
The Guardian wins no admiration this morning for their rather lame if novel euphemism for another Jihadi murder on British soil – “London Bridge-type scenario”
That’s very much in the style of the script writers for the BBC spoof W1A, wouldn’t you say?
Sensible commentators would tend to note the Telegraph’s apt and concise observation: ‘Reading terrorist “had no right to be in UK”‘ – sadly even the Telegraph chickens out from editorialising such an obvious conclusion with the get out clause provided by quote marks, attributing rather than owning the comment.
The giveaway Metro attempts to invoke the Blitz spirit: ‘Careless talk costs lives’ – apparently we are now being told not to stop and chat or to socialise. And who you may ask has the gall to order such an invasive ruling? Why, Chris Whitty of course. Is anyone nostalgic for the days when our press fretted over Dominic Cummings and his weirdos and misfits? Well our newspapers have certainly taken this sinister-looking weirdo to their hearts. I can’t decide if the pic of him on the frontpage of the Metro puts me more in mind of an East German Stasi interrogator, an alien invader in a suit, or a second rate ghoul from the Harry Potter pantheon.
Suzanne Moore the working class feminist journo hounded out of the Guardian for her un-PC speech on sex-change issues sounds a rare alternative note: ‘We don’t need more punitive messages – most of us are doing the best we can’ (Telegraph)
Another bum note… classical conductor Simon Rattle is leaving London. The Telegraph’s headline would have us believe Simon says he’s thrown his rattle out of the pram over Brexit. However, he made his conducting debue with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1987 and has often worked in Germany. He says his reasons for the latest move include “Brexit, family and Britain’s indifference to classical music”
I’m sure a moan or two about Brexit will endear him to his new masters in Munich. Family is obviously important to a chap who has been married three times. As for British indifference to the classics, that’s a decades long cultural issue best addressed to an institution such as the BBC which would have had the resources and clout to have done something about it.
Coarsening of the culture goes on apace in the Sun this morning where a Dancing On Ice star speaks out: ‘Myleene: I really like J-Lo’s bum’
‘Rink amateurs’ explains the Mirror: ‘Stars set to warm nation with showdown on skates’ – break a leg, as they say in showbiz.
The ‘i’ would have us believe Greta the scandi global warming munchkin child pictured on their frontpage is intellectually up there with the likes of Alan Turing: ‘Spectrum of brilliance how autism has influenced human invention’ – come off it, she’s not even up there with Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. I guess this article is aimed at making middle class parents feel better about labelling their offspring autistic when they’re really just daft kids.
There’s a lot going on today meaning we’ve hardly space to explore: ‘Royal Mail’s virus “blackspots”‘ (Telegraph) or fully do justice to: ‘Economy set to get worse, warns Sunak’ (Telegraph)
One sometimes regrets the demise of the great political scandal. The Profumo affair for instance. That had aspects of international espionage and of sex that rocked the establishment. Today we have: ‘PM facing questions over “local” bike ride’ (Telegraph) and sadly we’re not talking about him up to any bike riding that might upset his latest “her indoors”.
Small factoid for those among us who tend to fret that our government likes to employ George Orwell’s 1984 as less a warning than a guide book… our Carrie Symonds works as a senior advisor to a charity outfit named “Oceana” – spooky…
9am Radio4 “Geologist Chris Jackson talks to Jim al-Khalili about global warming,
abseiling into a volcano and being the first black RI Christmas lecturer”
But asiseeit – you left a gap where the most important story should be – the new 2 – 3- 4- 5 metre distancing rule – which will be fully embraced by this website .
Accordingly big distances should be left between paragraphs to minimise transmission of the virus or good ideas …..
Although you left ‘the gap ‘ out I’m glad you mentioned Simon rattled fondness for families – 3 of them to support – the krauts must pay well ….
…. you mention another ‘serial dad ‘ and his bike ride . I don’t know if you have been to the Olympic park in peacetime but it is bleak – and really only fit for riding through . The adjacent ‘Westfield centre ‘ is a muggers ‘ heaven . Why the PM took his range rovers there to then get the bike out and be seen – seems a bit of a dumb PR stunt .
Elsewhere – I’m preparing to go outside to take my car for an MOT – I emailed grant Shapps – the idiot transport minister – last night asking him whether he knows his dumb department is doing this .
When you think about it the calibre of the Tory cabinet isn’t upto much
Richi and his restaurant discounts
Hancock – well enough said
Williamson – education ? Ha ha
Patel minister of strong statements
Vaccine minister – what’s the point
Raab – still giving away tax money to foreigners
Defence – who ?
Business – who
Culture do nothing Dowden
Trade – truss -the only one worth a spit
Hague and Moore in the DT this morning. Both write about the threat to democracy, Hague is batting for the globalist elite and Moore much more for the people.
Hague mentions the threat posed by China and Turkey , with which few would disagree , but he includes Modi in India and Orban in Hungary. We all know that Orban is just defending the right of the Hungarian people to make their own laws but of course Hague doesn’t like nation states being a globalist.
He then ludicrously states three times that there is no evidence that there was any election rigging in the USA and that Trump was a threat to democracy.
Even more ludicrously he claims that social media needs more regulation to stop right wing agitation and mis information spread by a China and Russia. No mention of the ever increasing censorship of anything but globalist views. In one priceless paragraph he writes “ it will be vital to regulate social media so that varied views are heard instead of a stream of assertions that reinforce prejudices” !!
The globalist narrative , which he so faithfully parrots, is clear, #deny there was any election rigging,
#make an example of a Trump by metaphorically hang draw and quartering him so no one dares to try to represent the people again
# stop anyone who is a populist , Orban, Salvini, Le Pen etc, by huge social media and MSM propaganda against them and by rigging elections if required,
# increase social media censorship and hope that the great unwashed, ie us, believe it all.
Moore on the other hand gets much closer to the truth by half recognising that the MSM and Social Media are now thoroughly corrupted and biased and that increasing numbers of people believe that their views are being suppressed by them. He doesn’t say it but he hints that a great schism is opening between the elite and the people.
I am thinking of committing an ‘0’-turn, or 36o, which is that most loved BBC howler monkey transgression of all, a ‘U’-turn atop a ‘U-turn’, and staying off twitter.
Clearly I can see what is written if a link posted, but I don’t what to give that nest of vipers BBC Editorial so relies upon even one more name to its roster even as a lurker.
As an ITiot, is there a way to access a list of low lifes posts without being registered, to stay abreast of their descent into full censorious, propagandist derangement?
If not, could one be created?
It would be sweet to see the left go ballistic trying to shut down a site simply listing their posts but in a way they don’t get money or ratings like good Marxist capitalists.
Hague pontificates in the Speccie while reviewing a book about Conservatism; cut and pasted here:-
‘For some years I chaired the international alliance of centre right and conservative parties, the International Democrat Union. It is an organisation that illustrates the difficulty of defining and categorising right-wing political movements: it is called ‘democrat’, but includes the American Republicans, boasts the Australian Liberals among its avowedly conservative members and includes Christian Democrats, Independence parties, National parties, People’s parties and even one United Workers Party.
This variety is more than a matter of nomenclature. What these parties have in common is that they are the main rivals in each of their countries to a party of the left. They are defined more by a shared enemy than having similar programmes of their own. Conservative politicians generally shun abstract principles and universal ideologies. Each of their parties is rooted in the soil of a particular country, attached to the habits, institutions and history of that place. A Gaullist is a conservative but is particular to France in his or her views; the Christian Social Union is unique to Bavaria.
While socialist and liberal ideas prosper or wither in a global climate of ideas, the adaptability of conservatives to each nation’s circumstances is the explanation of their longevity and power — always changing, frequently compromising, often dealing with opposition by amalgamating with it. But that makes the global development of conservatism difficult to codify and define. Edmund Fawcett recognises this from the outset: ‘Conservatism as understood here is a tradition or practice of politics. Neither who conservatives are nor what they think can be put into a phrase or formula.’
To make the study of conservative thought a manageable exercise, Fawcett confines himself to the history of four great nations — the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany — and four momentous periods, beginning with ‘Resisting Liberalism’ in the 19th century. It is a sensible framework and a good starting point: reaction to the French Revolution, liberal ideas and expanding international commerce brought into being the conservative coalitions we can still recognise today. The attachment of Edmund Burke, a prominent Whig, to ‘shared customs and a common faith in a unified country’ led him and many others to join with Pitt’s Tories in the effort to preserve those attributes of Britain. Within a few decades the assortment of ‘Pitt’s friends’ had become the Conservative party.
Fawcett presents a clear description of the evolution of conservative thought: ‘It spoke for the powers of wealth and property, first, land against industry and finance, then for all three, and soon for small property as well as large.’ He has absolutely understood the trick of conservative adaptability. The defence of established customs is merited in the eyes of conservatives, not because those customs are always right or of value in themselves, but because they are key to maintaining social order and national unity. Once certain customs, such as noble privileges, limited suffrage or established churches no longer serve those purposes, they can be exchanged for new ones. Hence successful conservatives have always been able to move with the times, adopting liberal ideas and embracing gradual change, as in Disraeli’s ‘pitch-perfect’ combination of embracing social reform and mass democracy alongside a fervent defence of nation, crown and empire.
This book is a stimulating read, benefiting from the author’s clarity of style, breadth of historical knowledge and decision to place conservative thinkers from each period of history alongside political practitioners. We are reminded of the power of ideas, from those of Burke and Joseph de Maistre to Pat Buchanan and Roger Scruton, the latter singled out for praise for aiming to ground conservative politics in a philosophical outlook — ‘almost unique in the present-day English-speaking intellectual world’.
And we are presented with a core historical judgment: that the ability of conservative parties to change in each era and assimilate the ideas of their liberal rivals was decisive in allowing modern democracy to become established. Fawcett argues convincingly that where conservatism compromised with liberalism in the early 20th century it not only survived as a political force but lent ballast and stability to constitutional democracy. Where it rejected liberalism instead it fell in with fascism — ‘Weimar’s collapse owed much to the weakness of liberal democratic conservatism’.
To those of us who count ourselves as liberal conservatives in the 21st century it is an appealing message. Tribute is paid to the ability of Salisbury and Baldwin to ‘sound obdurate but concede, rather than battle in vain’ and to maintain a broad, mass governing party permitting social, economic and political change at a manageable pace. And Konrad Adenauer is saluted for establishing in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a similarly all-embracing party of the right for postwar Germany.
But then we come to the far less comfortable ground of recent decades. For many people in the age of globalisation, rising immigration, untrammelled market forces and the overturning of many social norms, change has become too rapid and the compromises with liberalism too much to bear. As Fawcett puts it: ‘Cultural conservatives found themselves in the awkward position of not feeling at home in a world that political conservatism had done much to create.’
What follows is more disputed ground, perhaps inevitably so when reaching the intense divisions among conservatives in the present day. Fawcett charts the rise in recent decades of a new hard right, with Enoch Powell as its harbinger in Britain. While Thatcher and Reagan could still hold together the diverging strands of conservatism, those strands have come apart after the departure of such giants. Dissent began growing on the right just as liberal conservatives believed they had won a permanent victory. The failure of democratic liberalism to meet the expectations of a mass electorate has led to the growth of a populist form of conservatism that has brought Trump, Brexit and the advance of Le Pen in France and the AfD in Germany.
The author’s grouping of all of these developments as the rise of the hard right brings him into some difficulty. He admits that labelling Boris Johnson’s radicalism in supporting Brexit as the ‘hard right’ might be too much. Indeed it is. The platform of British Tories at the most recent election certainly included final departure from the European Union; but it also embraced much of conservatism’s adoption of liberalism — internationalist on a global scale, generous to poorer nations, and highly progressive on social issues at home. Johnson is not Trump or Le Pen: he should be seen more as someone attempting to keep diverging trends in conservative thinking from drifting apart.
Fawcett argues that riding the two horses of liberal and populist conservatism will not be possible. His central case is that the security from rapid change that Trump and others have tried to offer cannot be squared with liberal beliefs in protection from power and respect for all:
‘For the hard right, security in turbulent, bewildering times is offered as a value that overrides others. Conservatives face a stark choice between two different versions of their tradition. They cannot have both.
I am not so sure. Certainly, this is a choice that seems difficult to evade at the moment. Republicans may well have to choose between more of Trump and his family or a more traditional, mainstream platform. French conservatives may be driven into becoming Macron-style centrists or joining Le Pen. The current dominance of British and German conservative parties can easily be threatened again from the right. Any of these parties could develop in a form that steadily pushes away their more pragmatic wing.
Yet it would be a mistake to assume that what conservative leaders have so often done before — combine the instinct for security with the careful embrace of modernity — cannot be done again. Many factors, from a revitalised left to a powerful China, could again bring conservatives to gather around a broad and common purpose. As a global pandemic exposes the failings of the sprawling but ineffective state seen in many western societies, it could be a renewed conservatism that makes the state more limited but more successful.
Fawcett’s assessment of conservatism is not a sympathetic or optimistic one. That, however, is no reason to avoid it, as he has provided a coherent framework for understanding the history of conservative habits of mind and discussing them anew. He has also laid down a challenge — that the unity of conservatism cannot withstand the pressures of the revival of cultural identity. Conservatives will hope that he is wrong. If so, it is becoming urgent to prove it.
I enjoy Hagues articles in the DT.
I never get past the first paragraph – he talks such rubbish.
But the comments are always a delight to read. You need the skin of a rhinocerous to carry on writing articles when you are universally criticised in the harshest terms.
Usually the DT don’t turn on comments when the author is so unpopular. I expect they allow them for Hague because he is not part of their own agenda. They have a whole raft of feminists and anti-Trump writers who they never allow people to comment on. Even their opinion pieces which is deeply unethical.
John,
“You need the skin of a rhinocerous to carry on writing articles when you are universally criticised in the harshest terms.”
Here’s his excuse. He obviously thinks his pontifications are unique and of World shattering importance within the scope of the subject matter. Typical of this kind of self-important twat. Campbell, Bliar, Major, they’re all the same.
JohnC
I think he is happy to get the fee and any comment makes him feel he has value now -when in fact he is just another dead politician who doesn’t have to deal with the vile voter class.
Hugh Pym (he of the face that I could kick from Lands End to John O’ Groats and back again) talking about the pandemic and how, very worryingly, it seems to be taking hold in younger people than it did in the first wave.
He made a statement that:
“infections are rising fastest in the 18 to 64 age group”
FFS when has 18 to 64 ever been an age group? That must be 85% of the population!
Shoddy amateurish journalism and zero challenge from the presenter (I forget who it was) but it was just slipped in there and left to waft into the consciousness of the sheeple watching.
At the moment I am glancing at the BBC to see what bilge they can throw out on the Trump situation. Just when you think this repugnant organisation couldn’t stoop any lower you find a new benchmark.
‘Biden has a stammer like me’ is the heading underneath a sweet-faced little kid fronting a video. Therefore, anyone who mocks Biden’s stammer (not dementia at all you understand) must clearly be the kind of person who would mock a lovely child. What low life monster would do such a thing??
I didn’t press on the play button for the video. I was too busy rushing to the bathroom.
‘Gay roles should be given to gay actors, Russell T Davies says’
Saw this in the Telegraph, but I’m sure the BBC has it somewhere.
Does Russell also think that non-gay roles should only be given to non-gay actors ?.
Of course he doesn’t.
He goes on to say “It’s about authenticity, the taste of 2020.”
So he disapproves of any black actor playing a role which should be a white person ?.
Of course he doesn’t.
But of course the questions are never raised in the article. Too awkward.
Virtue-signalling, hypocritical tripe.
Having assumed our covid vaccine to be 100% effective the projected death rate among 80 to 90 year olds coming out of my computer model is still extraordinarily worrying.
Something must be done. Otherwise we face the prospect of 97% probablity we will all die in our 80s or 90s.
AISI, there was some guy on the BBC web-site the other day claiming that he was going to live to 130 years of age with help of science and supplements and bio-engineering. Yeah, I know, he forgot to add ‘God-willing’ and RTAs, other accidents and terrorism-willing as well.
As the old saying goes, the only guarantees in life are death and taxes.
6:25pm last night Mark Dolan Show on TalkRadio
“how does the prime minister rebuild the economy with no money ?”
Amanda Milling MP Co-chair of the Conservative Party
“One example The PM introduced the 10 Point Green Plan
which is about re-energising the economy ,
SUPPORTING this sector, which will be so key to us recovering”
Clueless : a sector which depends on subsidies and decreases the tax income is supposed to be our saviour !
Someone posted this video of the BBC breaking lockdown rules filming Dr Who.
Essential work?
Unbelievable….video I just took of BBC filming Dr.Who on The Knap beach…while the BBC tell people 'stay at home' Is Dr.Who essential work? pic.twitter.com/IjwbW00oBi
Daleks tend to get sand up their backsides too, Tabs…
Ever seen a dalek try and get upstairs?
No, me neither, but then I haven’t watched Dr ‘Which, where, how, buqqer-me-sideways’ since Jon Pertwee moved in from HMS TRoutbridge in ‘The Navy Lark!
It has taken the small BBC team of just 22,400 employees just 6 days to finally come up with a distortion of facts to make The Capitol invasion into a “racist white confederate mob chasing down a hero black man” story.
This is nothing less than a denial and distortion of reality with the bbc at the helm
It is worth considering:
“Findings from Armed Conflict Location and Event Data raise concerns about continued violence during and after election day
Sat 31 Oct 2020 10.00 GMT
At least 11 Americans have been killed while participating in political demonstrations this year and another 14 have died in other incidents linked to political unrest, according to new data from a non-profit monitoring political unrest in the United States.
Nine of the people killed during protests were demonstrators taking part in Black Lives Matter protests. Two were conservatives killed after pro-Trump “patriot rallies”. All but one were killed by fellow citizens.”
I listened to bits of TOADY firstly from 6.30 a.m. up until or just beyond the newspaper review and again at 7.38 a.m. hoping to catch the newspaper thing again and some different news.
However, it was obvious that today’s TOADY was going to be a three hour ‘Whingeathon’ on behalf of the NHS interspersed with FakeNews and FalseFacts from the USA. I couldn’t listen to all that. OFF switch activated. Sorry.
Maybe normal service will be resumed tomorrow, BBC news coverage permitting?
From the BBC website:
Two members of Congress have tested positive for coronavirus after the pro-Trump siege on the Capitol last week.
Bonnie Watson Coleman, 75, and Pramila Jayapal, 55, both Democrats, tested positive after being forced to lockdown in a small room with many others as pro-Trump supporters broke into the building.
Some of their Republican colleagues refused to wear masks when sheltering, Jayapal said, calling such behaviour “selfish idiocy”.
So those two caught Covid and despite wearing masks, but the unmasked Republicans didn’t. Eh?
Oh, we had the full nine yards from a squeaky Politico autocue-reader around midnight, Stew! She barricaded herself in a room on the third floor with some mates, and watched it all unfold on the TV, until they thought that the ‘invaders’ might hear the sound, so they watched it all on their phones!
Purple hearts all round I say, and well done you for making a boring story even more boring.
Iain Dale Green Tory
and LBC evening presenter & Visiting Prof at UEA
I’ve been with @octopus_energy for around five years.
Very pleased to renew for another year and switch to their green tariff.
This means 100% of our energy is from renewable sources.
And before anyone hurls accusations of wokery,
no, it’s doing what conservatives do. Conserve.
·
Jan 11
Some cynical old bastards appear to think I was paid to tweet this.
No. I often tweet about bad customer service experiences
so why on earth should anyone think that if I have a good experience,
I would be paid for it. I do not accept freebies or payment for tweets. Ever.
Of course lots of people point out “100% renewable” is a deceptive con
“It means you get the same mix of energy from the grid as everyone else does though Iain.
The renewable energy target is set by the Government, so every domestic user has the same proportion, whoever their bills are paid to.”
Furthermore all green industries use a lot of fossil fuels in their construction and maintenance stages; they are not zero-carbon.
The Green Renewables Mafia Pub
launches the Fruit Punch bowl
Pay 50% extra & you’ll still get merry drinking it like everyone else
but we’ll give you a certificate saying you only paid for the fruit juice
Octopus Energy suffered a backlash on June 5th when they announced they’d be funding BLM
Bulb Energy announced they be doing the same.
#1 So these Green corps business model depends on extracting extra cash from the electricity market cos of the subsidies (priority market access, guaranteed high price, extra infrastructure & inefficiency costs of a green grid)
#2 They then take some of this income and donate it to BLM causes
They claim they are not donating to the Marxist org itself
Instead they talk about an ongoing “internal fund”
They seem to use it for sending staff to Pride and special black events
which seems racist to me if you are organising events to serve specific skin colours. https://octopus.energy/blog/spotlight-ruby-kraken-technologies/
“We’re introducing a brand new project: Black Science Matters, a series of talks to amplify the voices of black leaders in the fight against climate change.”
.. I know they have changed the BLM statement from June 5th original but they have deleted the original page and made it forward to a newer blogpost, so the earliest archive I have is August 2020 https://octopus.energy/blog/black-lives-matter/
This week, in light of the global movement against systemic racism sparked by the killing of George Floyd and countless others, we've had crucial conversations within Octopus about how to effect meaningful change ✊ We've outlined some of our plans here: https://t.co/wn2yYneAxQpic.twitter.com/HafTzSwYVp
Another thing is they ban advertising from orgs that don’t support BLM.
This is after pressure from the socialist front group Stoop Funding FakeNews.
That of course is an “ambush name”
cos by “FakeNews” they mean publications that dare to counter or challenge the BLM dogma original Twitter thread
In case anyone still believes the BLM propaganda-narrative, eagerly lapped up by the lying BBC:
– Floyd was arrested on suspicion of being involved in forgery.
– He had a long rap sheet, including armed robbery and violent crime, which the arresting officers would have been aware of.
– The autopsy revealed he had a massive, fatal level of the drug fentanyl in his system.
– Dramatic though it appeared on film, the rookie officers were following standard arrest procedure of knee-to-neck as taught in their training.
BLM, the Dems, and liberal media like the BBC distorted the facts and weaponised the incident for their own malign purposes.
In the words of Candace Owens: “No one thinks that he should have died in his arrest, but what I find despicable to be is that everyone is pretending that this man lived a heroic lifestyle when he didn’t. …I refuse to accept the narrative that this person is a martyr or should be lifted up in the black community. …He has a rap sheet that is long, that is dangerous. He is an example of a violent criminal his entire life — up until the very last moment.”
He stupidly left the car running while making a delivery and some 14 year old scroat decided to take advantage killing the driver when he tried to stop him.
Here however is where I expect the bias to start.
Muslims require a speedy burial and there will be a funeral where only 30 people may attend.
Gestapo Manchester Police will be duty bound to fine anyone attending this in breach of the lockdown laws, however given the Fascist Andy Burnhams forces failures to do this when effnik minorities are involved leads me to conclude that in the next couple of days we will see a funeral where hundreds of Muslim men attend and the Gestapo fail to issue a single fine.
ITV News has appointed Paul Brand as UK editor. Paul will lead on the major issues facing the UK and be the go-to specialist of major home affairs and social affairs stories. His initial focus will be on the social impact of coronavirus and Brexit across the country, and will also provide special long-form reports for ITV’s Tonight programme and On Assignment.
It has been lovely for the last couple of weeks not to have Laura Kuenssberg`s angry know it all face at the press conferences and on the news . ( have you noticed how she never actually listens to the answers to any questions she asks, preferring to concentrate on her next `I know better than you` loaded question/statement. )
Has she had a few weeks holiday or have I just been lucky enough to miss her? Sad to see she seems to have come back 🙁
If you sell culture war all day, don’t be surprised by the real-world consequences
The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that long ago became standard in American media.
And a certain nation broadcaster whose Charter does not include selling wars, cultural or otherwise.
Or was not meant to.
The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that long ago became standard in American media.
It would be helpful if someone could list Dutch products and the alternative British ones to buy – by way of reprisal against such small mindedness from our EU ‘friends “.
from my hazy memory of studying EU competition law I recall my frustration that we could not encourage ‘buy British ‘ campaigns because it breached EU law .
Terminal MoraineNov 5, 12:27 Start the Week 4th November 2024 Plenty of room for more people once degrowth has kicked in. Just means we’ll have to get used to not…
Rob in CheshireNov 5, 12:18 Start the Week 4th November 2024 It will take as long as the Democrats need to manufacture the votes they need to overtake Trump. After that…
ZephirNov 5, 12:15 Start the Week 4th November 2024 The racist, marxist, far left scum just cannot stop themselves… “Fury at BBC Chris Kaba documentary: Panorama film is condemned…
Terminal MoraineNov 5, 12:09 Start the Week 4th November 2024 Update on the Samuel Paty case which the BBC are now covering — Hugh Schofield thinks “a 13-year-old schoolgirl’s lie…
Lucy PevenseyNov 5, 11:55 Start the Week 4th November 2024 Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes 🚨 South Carolina Poll Station not letting American submit their own ballots “I just went by…
Guest WhoNov 5, 11:54 Start the Week 4th November 2024 Ed presumably on full MP gas and leccy claims? https://x.com/BBCPolitics/status/1853730901336715632 Former Labour MP Beth Winter quits the party, accusing it…
Lucy PevenseyNov 5, 11:44 Start the Week 4th November 2024 Funny thing is, I’ve never seen GBN on the telly, I’ve only ever seen it on Youtube, so I won’t…
“Trump GONE? US State Department website says US President term is already OVER
THE US department of state website states that Donald Trump’s term as president has ended today.”
“Buzzfeed correspondent Christopher Miller tweeted: “Sources tell Buzzfeed ‘disgruntled staffer’ is behind the State Department site’s change of Trump and Pence’s biographies.” The official US website states: “Donald J. Trump’s term ended on 2021-01-11 19:38:51.” US secretary of state Mike Pompeo is now launching an investigation into how the biographical pages for president Trump and vice president Pence were changed on Monday.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1382691/Donald-Trump-news-US-President-impeachment-Mike-Pence-US-State-Department-website
12 likes
Oh shut up, its only a silly intern has put something on 1 government webpage.
8 likes
Charming, as usual
and my point is you have no idea who did it or why so maybe shut up until you do
26 likes
You are fast becoming our resident troll, Darcy.
You owe me an apology. I think you owe Stew one, now, as well. Stew is quite correct. Trump has another week as President. Inauguration is set, still, Covid and security issues notwithstanding, for 20th January.
What happened yesterday is that the Democrats flip-flopped on their impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Instead of using the unfit/incapable Clause 25 the Democrats have decided to make it impeachment for incitement but are, if I understood correctly, having a spot of bother deciding in which House to do it. See front page of Guardian here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-55627012 or BBC US/Canada news here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55622326
6 likes
I owe you nothing, or any one who tells me to shut up when reporting a headline from the msm “in quotes”
especially after that comment, jumping on a bandwagon / witch hunt ?
not the first time
Suggest you confine your comments to the subject matter under discussion in future rather than personal attacks which only tend to appear on the back of others.
32 likes
Darcy – i saw your post – checked what you had put up – found that it was crap and that your misleading CAPITALS over a false STORYvhad wasted my time and set me thinking about your motivation on this site. An annoyed Fed .
6 likes
Not MY misleading capitals check the link provided which I qoted verbatim within quotation marks (a story which holds interest for me at least despite the clickbait headline which the Express often use)
and equally annoyed at the attitude of the person above and their motivation to become abusive
which you have (remarkably) made no comment about, or questioned ?
some it seems are allowed to act like this towards others, whilst others are censured (or censored) for responding
And we complain about the same on Twitter etc
26 likes
You posted it – you own it . I’m not engaging in a debate on this – it’s not about the BBC – it’s about Trump.
6 likes
Non sequitor
you had better get attacking the hundreds of other non bbc posts then?
(Deleted by Fedup2moderator )====you and your two fellow trolls
You’ve finally got the (well deserved) response upsnuff wanted
he is like the snidey kid hanging behind the school bully to get a kick in when the victim is under attack
with your full support so as i said
(Deleted by Fedup2 moderator ). ==== you
23 likes
Darcy – please control your anger . If you read this site regularly you do see me – from time to time – asking contributors to focus comments toward the BBC –
But I acknowledge the difficulty because the BBC contaminates all parts of life and death .
And it might be best not to call a site moderator a ‘troll ‘ either – although it is a ‘first ‘…
6 likes
@Darcy3 There is no need to be angry,
I was unusually terse cos it’s a misleading clickbait headline
to a story I already knew about.
So I had to signal to others not to waste their time on the nothing burger story.
Of course Trump is still President today.
5 likes
The end of Google, Facebook et al?
“Those in power don’t realize the significant miscalculation that they just made. I have already had an influx of founders and developers pitching me on the decentralized products they want to build. Most aren’t going to be successful, but a select few have a chance. ”
[Anthony Pompliano – 11/1/21]
17 likes
And Darcy – last on this please – Stewgreen winds me up from time to time putting me right – let that be some solace … move on .
2 likes
I have calmed a little, SG had the grace to half apologise, as for the other one, a Nancy Pelosi in waiting
Mr Vance had some things to say about ad hominem
you will no doubt be relieved to know my use of the Anglo Saxon signifies I do not feel welcome here
well done upsnuff
23 likes
Darcy – there is a proportion thing – one of the aims of this site is to hold the BBC to account by recording what it does and how its’ Far Left bias operates . It’s a long haul and every so often someone pops up to criticise it . I used get annoyed but then thought -‘ well what more can I do ? ‘ I won’t break the law beyond non payment of the Licence – so this is the best avenue open to me .
After what has happened about plugs being pulled on social media for ‘disapproved ‘ people or comments I now fear this and similar sites are living on borrowed time .
The ‘take down ‘ won’t be announced nor challengable but will demonstrate how rapidly any freedoms we have are being eroded and being replaced by ‘approved thoughts ‘….
It’s lucky for many people that they don’t have ‘thoughts ‘ at all …
6 likes
And therefore should be the last place where one should criticise another for ..what I still do not understand and when I try to explain motives hmm
sorry Fed2 but you have lost my confidence as a monitor, once I will accept a response as an angry or frustrated person, but upsnuff no way
It has been a great haven under these circumstances we are all suffering but if one tries to attack another it is no longer a pleasant or welcoming place if one is called a “resident troll”
23 likes
Darcy – fine by me . My online skin has had to thicken – but I take comfort in knowing that it is not real . If you want to keep on about it – that’s up to you – but I have BBC issues to moderate – if you choose to carry on with other subjects – like others – that’s for you . I will not be communicating with you again on this .
You told me and other site users to eff off which I edited . Do it again and you are gone from the site – have some confidence in that- if not me as a moderator . So stop
2 likes
Acting like a child who owns the football and takes it away when they get tackled
FYI only responded due to your non sequitur responses (are you upsnuff you seem to defend his abuse)
twitter and google would welcome such as you
19 likes
So stop
6 likes
Or is this a dictatrship ?
6 likes
@Darcy3 You have free speech, you copied and pasted Daily Express crap
I have free speech, so I spoke
You I expect are British so should have grown up being exposed to the British cultural thing of growing a skin
It should not bother you if my response to a BS post is “shut up”
I don’t know why your response was to take it personally and start lashing out and swearing
..instead of taking a second look at your post with the Express click bait crap story.
0 likes
I will tell you Stew precisley and maybe you can understand
anyone who tells me to shut up is bloody rude
do not try the bullshit of growing a skin because your second poster who attacked me was demanding apologies and called me a troll
where was his bloody skin when it mattered ?
I understand you and accept your half apology but that other one ….
11 likes
Further to that after mr fed up looked at the posts he decided in his wisdom to attack me
I think an apology is in order now
As Mr upsnuff demands an apology ( for whatever reason I cannot surmise)
Yes I am Sorry, I am sorry that I cannot meet you in person and see face to face how many apologies you demand then
7 likes
While the lying biased BBC are delighted to trumpet Arnold Schwarzenneger’s absurd Kristallnacht speech comparing MAGA supporters to Nazis (at the top of their news bulletins), they’re strangely quiet about Jon Voight’s many recent video addresses to his fellow Americans in which he praises Trump and speaks out against the election fraud and the shameful bias of the MSM and Big Tech.
Incidentally, try finding the recent ones on YouTube – I couldn’t. More Big Tech censorship?
42 likes
I see far, far more parallels with what the Nazis did and with what the Democrats are doing than anything Trump did.
They are actively out to supress opposition. They are currently in the process of labelling their political opponents and attempting to turn the public away from them. They will have them wearing insignia next so everyone can identify them.
The Left is a blinkered ideology driven by shallow people who are convinced they are morally superior. That same shallow character enables them to hate enemies with ferocity.
Just like their fellow socialist, Adolf Hitler did. And Pelosi is right up there with the best of them.
What is disgusting me most at the moment is how they are being given a free ride to do it.
45 likes
I don’t approve of what those Trump supporters did in any way. It was just stupid and undemocratic.
But Arnie’s speech made me feel really uncomfortable. Comparing those two incidents seems wholly inappropriate.
2 likes
NYC black youths harassing Polish American supporter
… Police right their won’t help her, cos she’s been labelled “A Trump supporter”
32 likes
Black youths harass da white ho and you think the police will intervene? They’re now untouchable, and they know it.
36 likes
Once again the BBC shows it’s true colours with one of it ‘s chief clones, the Cox fellow, eulogising about the BBC ‘s role in educating the locked -down school-kids at home. Bit of a shame then that it is mostly streamed rather than shown on the box. The BBC is rich enough to open a dedicated education channel or at least provide content on it’s ludicrous red-button, aka channel 601(no one knows what goes on down that black-hole, well, apart from oodles of cash). So, potentially, the most disadvantaged educationally get the nasty end of the stick. Now, along with the BBC, we all know, even the academics admit it, who comprises that group. White, working class and poor. It is BBC bias at it’s worst. A nasty middle-class dig at people they hate and despise.
31 likes
Nov 2018 The Capitol : Climate activists sit-in protest
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That’s the same Nancy Pelosi office that the Trump supporters invaded
20 likes
Well, at least Jack knows he can count on the bbc.
https://humanevents.com/2021/01/11/twitter-loses-5-billion-in-market-value-after-banning-president-trump
18 likes
BBC reporting that EU unity is crumbling as each member states is panicking into doing its own vaccine deal …just like the krauts …
…,.,,, in fact … silence from the EU loving BBC on such an important subject .
Perhaps lives in the UK are being saved already – because of brexit – because will pulled away from their corruption .
32 likes
Hungary had already bought Russian vaccine in November before we started our programme in December.
But since the Russian Sputnik vaccine had not finished testing , it was counted as bringing Hungary into the test programme.
11 likes
“Sir Simon Rattle will leave the LSO for Munich”
How many other ‘Europhiles’ and ‘Luvvies’ that threatened to leave the UK have gone?
23 likes
Anyone see parallels with Hillsborough ?
You wake up in the morning and media have a narrative
and it’s an OUTRAGE BUS
.. Such outragebus news is always wrong, cos it reduces complex events to a simplistic emotional narrative.
“All Liverpool fans are thugs”
“All them Trump supporters are rioter, insurrectionists”
Hang on
– Those guys that occupied Nancy Pelosi’s office, just sat around after they walked into the building cos the cops waved them in
..are no different to the 2018 Climate protesters, surely ?
– Those guys that smashed windows – hooligans
– Those guys that tried to stop them good
– Those guys that really pushed against cops in the tunnel really risking crushing them, violent hooligans
– Those guys that walked in through the open fire door, naive.
– Those guys that were pushing against corridor barricade with cops right next to them .. were at least stupid ..and the woman breached the door and got shot .. I do sympathise with the cop.
– Those guys that scaled the walls and came in through the roof … that’s criminal
But none of them came with guns and bombs
.. so none were “armed insurrectionists”
They didn’t even bring in fire like antifa do
Outside some did use teargas as a weapon, but in a non-lethal weapon.
I’d need to know what cops got injured and how to make a full judgement
I still don’t really know what happened to that cop that died.
I can imagine different scenarios a bit worse and far worse, like loads of militia with guns.
So I cannot be outraged so far like the media are.
35 likes
BBC2 Newsnight pushing the lies more than usual tonight.
Emily Maitlis first trying to claim Donald Trump will start WW3 in his last week, then muting the person who was correcting her. Then she interviewed a black woman who claimed The Capitol protest was an attack against mostly African American cops. This comment was left unchallenged.
Then a negative piece on Gab and Parler which was a voiceover over never ending videos of men with guns.
41 likes
If the BBC is doing a bit piece it’s usually a good sign as to which side you should be on.
35 likes
I am not on their recommend side because they inevitably get it wrong. Just have a look at their track record. Other non-licence payers have .
14 likes
And the degree of fact checking they deploy.
https://countrysquire.co.uk/2021/01/12/justice-perverted-by-set-ups/
6 likes
stew
http://www.bongino.com
From my Virgin broadband it won’t connect – tells me the site is down ( Cloudflare) all day.
traceroute shows normal hops to USA and then the undersea telecom cable router on the USA side > dead end.
If I trivially use a US proxy – bongino.com responds OK. (as does VPN)
Ah… as I type… bongino.com has come up…. after 10+ hours.
Bongino is an investor in Parler and more…. but for the other side of the story from a participant THIS gives some idea of the effort going into expunging the opposition in the USA.
This isn’t going to end well….
22 likes
I love a good conspitacy theory…if only
https://www.simonparkes.org/post/11th-january-third-update
5 likes
Outside of Europe due to our data protection laws but still rather insidious:
“Millions of WhatsApp users ABANDON the app and switch to rivals Telegram or Signal ahead of privacy policy update that will force them to share their personal data with Facebook
WhatsApp is making a huge change to its privacy policy from February 8
The change affects the way that WhatsApp processes user data
Users cannot opt out and will lose access to their accounts if they don’t agree
The change does not affect WhatsApp users in the UK or Europe
Following the news, many users have jumped shipped to rival messaging apps, including Telegram and Signal “
15 likes
If the aim of this incoming lot is to provoke civil war….they are going the right way about it
“‘They called me a f***ing terrorist!’ Moment burly ‘pro-Trump’ protester sobs at DC airport after finding out he’s been put on no-fly list
Video was likely recorded on Friday at Dulles International Airport outside DC
It shows a man in a white ball cap going into a meltdown and crying about being placed on a no-fly list
‘They kicked me off the plane, they called me a f***ing terrorist and they want to f***ing ruin my life!’ he says through sobs
A woman who was possibly kicked off Delta Air Lines flight that day attempts to comfort him
Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Bennie Thompson ”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9135541/Pro-Trump-rioter-breaks-airport-finding-hed-no-fly-list.html
16 likes
ALERT
I normally type “biased bbc” into google search and this site comes up usually first, or within the top three, ALWAYS
Not today
now halfway down page 3 of search results for the first time I have ever known
just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not after you
35 likes
As chance would have it I was switching a few short cuts around and yes, biased bbc was way down the results although being the most relevant response to my search.
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WOW – me too. I’ve been coming here via a favourites link only for 2 or 3 days. The webiste came up maybe second or third on the list before that.
Today it’s not even on the first page. On DuckDuckGo it’s right at the top as it should be.
This is serious business. Somebody has actively done this.
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I cannot help but agree it is all rather disturbing
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Same happened to Mr D and myself this morning, better results if you add ‘blog*. I think it also happened some years ago and just lasted a few days but with all what is going on with Tech companies, I worry this world is becoming ever more dangerous.
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Stick the link on desktop.
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I found if you search biasedbbc (no space) it pops up on top!
So it would appear they have penalised the two words when together. still stinks!
I think 2021 will be the year they try to cleanse us all.
duckduckgogo, so they don’t monetise you via pay-per-click is the best way to deal with them, hit ’em in the pockets!
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Will be stocking up on bottled water and baked beans today I think, and maybe some car batteries and a zombie knife.
Some string and a couple of cocoa tins for emergency comms.
All sorted but can’t find the tin opener.
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I keep my pitchfork under the pillow or strapped to my back like The Witcher when outdoors at all times.
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They don’t like it up ’em
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55625707
“Capitol riots: FBI warnings amid fears of more pro-Trump violence”
“There are reports of armed groups planning to gather at all 50 state capitols”
Skinhead scare stories for the 2020s, in response “Officials say up to 15,000 National Guard troops could be made available to fortify the event.” (inauguration.)
If the Guard were given the order to defend democracy there may be some confusion regarding which way to shoot.
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Google, Twitter, Amazon et al, the new Nazis, book burning away in front of our eyes
And it has happened at the same time as a stolen election, they think they are fireproof and can get away with anything now
Wonder who they think they can insert over here next ? unless of course they already have Boris in their pocket.
For the firsrt time I think insurrection may be the only answer in the USA to enable the above to be held to account
Maybe Simon Parkes was right all along, he claims Trump was meant to address the nation on Fox and they pulled it.
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I watched the Simon Parkes video linked to on the first page of this post. He gives a very convincing display but I was alerted to scepticism when he started talking about the Rothschilds which in my book is shorthand for antiSemitism. When he started about Satanists, I switched off. Then you start to wonder about who these people are that are doing things secretly but then share it with him so he can broadcast it. I think he is best avoided.
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I understand, but can also add that a while ago he seemed to be about a week “ahead” of the news with regards to bank collapses and other news
so interesting to dip into now and again, if only for the entertainment value
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It is worth checking the two Twitter messages that caused them to ban Trump, inocuous:
According to the Mail Online:
“Isn’t this all very odd? Whereas Hassan Rouhani, Louis Farrakhan, and legions of rogues are considered acceptable to Twitter, the elected President of the United States is suddenly persona non grata.
True, last Wednesday he recklessly called the people who stormed the Capitol ‘patriots’, and was locked out of his account for 12 hours by Twitter. But the supposedly toxic two tweets which led to his expulsion don’t seem very incendiary.
In the first he raved about how ‘the 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me . . . will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future’. In the second he merely said that he would not be ‘going to the inauguration on January 20’.
According to Twitter, the first tweet was construed ‘as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an orderly transition’ while the second provided ‘further confirmation of [Trump’s view] that the election was not legitimate’.”
“The fact is that it has provided, and still provides, an arena for many bad people. It allowed the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai massacre, to operate an account. During the Westgate terrorist outrage in Kenya in 2013, al-Shabaab used Twitter to claim responsibility, and tweeted live throughout the attack.
Twitter has kept Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, on its books. He has made various highly provocative remarks interpreted as anti-white, and in particular as anti-Semitic.
Farrakhan once described Adolf Hitler as a ‘very great man’ and a ‘great German’”
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They further add:
“What all this shows, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggested in a television interview on Sunday, is that Twitter is not a social media platform, as it likes to pretend, but a publisher which increasingly makes its own political judgments about what to include and exclude”
“Ywitter is different inasmuch as it has generally much looser standards, and claims not to be a publisher selecting pieces, but a platform on which 300 million people can roost and write more or less what they want.
Except for Donald Trump, and others of his political stamp with whom Twitter disagrees. And if Trump is censored — in fact, banned — who comes next? However obnoxious he may be, he is still an elected President, and speaks for many millions.
If he broke the law in fomenting a riot — as has been widely alleged — that is a matter for the law, and upholders of the American constitution. It is not for Twitter to determine what can be written.”
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Darcy,
“…that is a matter for the law….”
The problem is, in the witnessing of a society breaking down and regressing, you have to expect an increase in lawlessness and those tasked with upholding the law, found absent or increasingly biased. They have to take sides. Any law abiding society will only succeed when the majority are comfortable with volunteering their support for the legal / political structures. Slip in, “USA” wherever you like.
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“Channel migrants: More than 150 migrants enter UK on small boats “
We have recently heard the term “Blood on their hands” . Who will have “Blood on their hands” when one of the dinghy invaders turns out to be a terrorist and starts to kill people?
I suppose the standard term “Lessons to be learned” will be the get out term ?
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“Capitol riots: FBI warnings amid fears of more pro-Trump violence”
If indeed it is true that the recent US election result was “rigged” , there are a lot of disgruntled Republicans in the country . Many more than indicated by those results ?
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“Covid rules: What could be done to tighten lockdown in England?”
There are a lot of people in my part of the world that find the “Covid rules” becoming totally confusing. It’s almost as if Hancock and Johnson are experts in the children’s game called ‘Simon says’?
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This is sick by the BBC attempting to propagandise the death of a young girl to keep the fear going. Those who are paying attention just need one look at the picture to see what the issue really is.
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The BBC’s representation of issues is as clear as it is misguiding.
https://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2021/01/11/the-dire-misrepresentation-of-last-weeks-trump-washington-dc-rally/
https://countrysquire.co.uk/2021/01/12/justice-perverted-by-set-ups/
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-socialist-conquest-of-america/
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Yesterday I posted that the Big Brother Corporation were merrily trumpeting Schwarzenneger’s ridiculous Kristallnacht speech all over their news, in which he compares MAGA supporters to Nazis – while by contrast they had previously completely ignored a number of video clips by Jon Voight supporting Trump and denouncing the election fraud.
Two Hollywood stars of comparable profile, yet the Trump-hater gets the full red-carpet treatment, while the one guilty of wrongthink gets the full cancel-culture treatment.
Yesterday I couldn’t find the Jon Voight video clip – no doubt buried deep by YouTube and Google’s algorithms – but I have since.
Well, if the biased lying BBC wants to silence him, it behoves us to give him a voice. Powerful words spoken with deep conviction and gravitas.
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Anthem for the disenfranchised
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And this one for the way things are going in the USA
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June Sarpong will be impressed.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Transition46/status/1348403213200990209?
Given actual majorities not counted by machines or media, this might not proceed as well as they think.
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Its a Twitter video
“”Our priority will be Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American owned small businesses, women-owned businesses,
and finally having equal access to resources needed to reopen and rebuild.”
— President-elect Biden
contradiction “priority” and “equal access”
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By the by, one tends not to bookmark this here site but rather to google the phrase Biased BBC. For what seems like donkey’s years google used to offer the location within its top couple of suggestions. That seems to have changed this morning after a Firefox update. I hand this info to the geeks among us who may know better but these days I lean increasingly toward the notion it’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s true.
To this morning’s Guardian and the story of the muslim who stabbed three gays to death in a Reading Park. The Graun takes the usual reflexive journalistic line of something must be done and of course that something daren’t be anything to do with the culture or religion of the perpetrator: ‘Warnings were given on Reading murderer’
Come to think of it the Guardian may have a point – I recall Enoch Powell said something about uncontrolled third world immigration and rivers of blood.
But the Guardian sees failings in what it terms “the authorities” and specifically “health and probation professionals” and notices only sensible and prompt alarms coming from the do-gooders of the Reading Refugee Support Group.
The Guardian wins no admiration this morning for their rather lame if novel euphemism for another Jihadi murder on British soil – “London Bridge-type scenario”
That’s very much in the style of the script writers for the BBC spoof W1A, wouldn’t you say?
Sensible commentators would tend to note the Telegraph’s apt and concise observation: ‘Reading terrorist “had no right to be in UK”‘ – sadly even the Telegraph chickens out from editorialising such an obvious conclusion with the get out clause provided by quote marks, attributing rather than owning the comment.
The giveaway Metro attempts to invoke the Blitz spirit: ‘Careless talk costs lives’ – apparently we are now being told not to stop and chat or to socialise. And who you may ask has the gall to order such an invasive ruling? Why, Chris Whitty of course. Is anyone nostalgic for the days when our press fretted over Dominic Cummings and his weirdos and misfits? Well our newspapers have certainly taken this sinister-looking weirdo to their hearts. I can’t decide if the pic of him on the frontpage of the Metro puts me more in mind of an East German Stasi interrogator, an alien invader in a suit, or a second rate ghoul from the Harry Potter pantheon.
Suzanne Moore the working class feminist journo hounded out of the Guardian for her un-PC speech on sex-change issues sounds a rare alternative note: ‘We don’t need more punitive messages – most of us are doing the best we can’ (Telegraph)
Another bum note… classical conductor Simon Rattle is leaving London. The Telegraph’s headline would have us believe Simon says he’s thrown his rattle out of the pram over Brexit. However, he made his conducting debue with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1987 and has often worked in Germany. He says his reasons for the latest move include “Brexit, family and Britain’s indifference to classical music”
I’m sure a moan or two about Brexit will endear him to his new masters in Munich. Family is obviously important to a chap who has been married three times. As for British indifference to the classics, that’s a decades long cultural issue best addressed to an institution such as the BBC which would have had the resources and clout to have done something about it.
Coarsening of the culture goes on apace in the Sun this morning where a Dancing On Ice star speaks out: ‘Myleene: I really like J-Lo’s bum’
‘Rink amateurs’ explains the Mirror: ‘Stars set to warm nation with showdown on skates’ – break a leg, as they say in showbiz.
The ‘i’ would have us believe Greta the scandi global warming munchkin child pictured on their frontpage is intellectually up there with the likes of Alan Turing: ‘Spectrum of brilliance how autism has influenced human invention’ – come off it, she’s not even up there with Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. I guess this article is aimed at making middle class parents feel better about labelling their offspring autistic when they’re really just daft kids.
There’s a lot going on today meaning we’ve hardly space to explore: ‘Royal Mail’s virus “blackspots”‘ (Telegraph) or fully do justice to: ‘Economy set to get worse, warns Sunak’ (Telegraph)
One sometimes regrets the demise of the great political scandal. The Profumo affair for instance. That had aspects of international espionage and of sex that rocked the establishment. Today we have: ‘PM facing questions over “local” bike ride’ (Telegraph) and sadly we’re not talking about him up to any bike riding that might upset his latest “her indoors”.
Small factoid for those among us who tend to fret that our government likes to employ George Orwell’s 1984 as less a warning than a guide book… our Carrie Symonds works as a senior advisor to a charity outfit named “Oceana” – spooky…
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By the by check 4 hours ago 🙂
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Not just me then. Which is just the sort of reassurance that one comes here for.
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@AsISeeIt ..Google searches are customised to your previous searches
Autosuggest always gives me this site as soon as I type “b”
or “l” for login
Actual search
“Biased BBC” ..wow we are just not there anymore as if censored
“Biased BBC blog” we are #1
“BiasedBBC” straight to us
One thing is we never use the phrase “Biased BBC” in our posts ..so that might be affecting Google’s algorithm.
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Can’t ‘phones handle ‘Favourites’?
I just have it on a list and click as normal – seems to work every time, although some posts take a minute to get written up.
Of course, it may just be that I talk borrocks, and the algorithm sees this and says, ‘Oh, let the old idiot wait a bit, he might buqqer off soon…’!
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9am Radio4 “Geologist Chris Jackson talks to Jim al-Khalili about global warming,
abseiling into a volcano and being the first black RI Christmas lecturer”
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But asiseeit – you left a gap where the most important story should be – the new 2 – 3- 4- 5 metre distancing rule – which will be fully embraced by this website .
Accordingly big distances should be left between paragraphs to minimise transmission of the virus or good ideas …..
Although you left ‘the gap ‘ out I’m glad you mentioned Simon rattled fondness for families – 3 of them to support – the krauts must pay well ….
…. you mention another ‘serial dad ‘ and his bike ride . I don’t know if you have been to the Olympic park in peacetime but it is bleak – and really only fit for riding through . The adjacent ‘Westfield centre ‘ is a muggers ‘ heaven . Why the PM took his range rovers there to then get the bike out and be seen – seems a bit of a dumb PR stunt .
Elsewhere – I’m preparing to go outside to take my car for an MOT – I emailed grant Shapps – the idiot transport minister – last night asking him whether he knows his dumb department is doing this .
When you think about it the calibre of the Tory cabinet isn’t upto much
Richi and his restaurant discounts
Hancock – well enough said
Williamson – education ? Ha ha
Patel minister of strong statements
Vaccine minister – what’s the point
Raab – still giving away tax money to foreigners
Defence – who ?
Business – who
Culture do nothing Dowden
Trade – truss -the only one worth a spit
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Truss for me!
‘Hang in there’, Liz!
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Hague and Moore in the DT this morning. Both write about the threat to democracy, Hague is batting for the globalist elite and Moore much more for the people.
Hague mentions the threat posed by China and Turkey , with which few would disagree , but he includes Modi in India and Orban in Hungary. We all know that Orban is just defending the right of the Hungarian people to make their own laws but of course Hague doesn’t like nation states being a globalist.
He then ludicrously states three times that there is no evidence that there was any election rigging in the USA and that Trump was a threat to democracy.
Even more ludicrously he claims that social media needs more regulation to stop right wing agitation and mis information spread by a China and Russia. No mention of the ever increasing censorship of anything but globalist views. In one priceless paragraph he writes “ it will be vital to regulate social media so that varied views are heard instead of a stream of assertions that reinforce prejudices” !!
The globalist narrative , which he so faithfully parrots, is clear, #deny there was any election rigging,
#make an example of a Trump by metaphorically hang draw and quartering him so no one dares to try to represent the people again
# stop anyone who is a populist , Orban, Salvini, Le Pen etc, by huge social media and MSM propaganda against them and by rigging elections if required,
# increase social media censorship and hope that the great unwashed, ie us, believe it all.
Moore on the other hand gets much closer to the truth by half recognising that the MSM and Social Media are now thoroughly corrupted and biased and that increasing numbers of people believe that their views are being suppressed by them. He doesn’t say it but he hints that a great schism is opening between the elite and the people.
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Think Hague was bought and paid for long ago . He used to be a conservative … long ago …
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Speaking of bought and paid for…
https://bongino.com/biden-selects-over-a-dozen-big-tech-executives-to-serve-in-administration-or-advise-transition?
Hopefully Lenny and June are happy with the diversity of representation.
One funding BLM, one XR, one Antifa….
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Bongino has an impressive resume.
https://bongino.com/twitter-stock-in-free-fall-following-decision-to-ban-president-trump
I am thinking of committing an ‘0’-turn, or 36o, which is that most loved BBC howler monkey transgression of all, a ‘U’-turn atop a ‘U-turn’, and staying off twitter.
Clearly I can see what is written if a link posted, but I don’t what to give that nest of vipers BBC Editorial so relies upon even one more name to its roster even as a lurker.
As an ITiot, is there a way to access a list of low lifes posts without being registered, to stay abreast of their descent into full censorious, propagandist derangement?
If not, could one be created?
It would be sweet to see the left go ballistic trying to shut down a site simply listing their posts but in a way they don’t get money or ratings like good Marxist capitalists.
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Hague pontificates in the Speccie while reviewing a book about Conservatism; cut and pasted here:-
‘For some years I chaired the international alliance of centre right and conservative parties, the International Democrat Union. It is an organisation that illustrates the difficulty of defining and categorising right-wing political movements: it is called ‘democrat’, but includes the American Republicans, boasts the Australian Liberals among its avowedly conservative members and includes Christian Democrats, Independence parties, National parties, People’s parties and even one United Workers Party.
This variety is more than a matter of nomenclature. What these parties have in common is that they are the main rivals in each of their countries to a party of the left. They are defined more by a shared enemy than having similar programmes of their own. Conservative politicians generally shun abstract principles and universal ideologies. Each of their parties is rooted in the soil of a particular country, attached to the habits, institutions and history of that place. A Gaullist is a conservative but is particular to France in his or her views; the Christian Social Union is unique to Bavaria.
While socialist and liberal ideas prosper or wither in a global climate of ideas, the adaptability of conservatives to each nation’s circumstances is the explanation of their longevity and power — always changing, frequently compromising, often dealing with opposition by amalgamating with it. But that makes the global development of conservatism difficult to codify and define. Edmund Fawcett recognises this from the outset: ‘Conservatism as understood here is a tradition or practice of politics. Neither who conservatives are nor what they think can be put into a phrase or formula.’
To make the study of conservative thought a manageable exercise, Fawcett confines himself to the history of four great nations — the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany — and four momentous periods, beginning with ‘Resisting Liberalism’ in the 19th century. It is a sensible framework and a good starting point: reaction to the French Revolution, liberal ideas and expanding international commerce brought into being the conservative coalitions we can still recognise today. The attachment of Edmund Burke, a prominent Whig, to ‘shared customs and a common faith in a unified country’ led him and many others to join with Pitt’s Tories in the effort to preserve those attributes of Britain. Within a few decades the assortment of ‘Pitt’s friends’ had become the Conservative party.
Fawcett presents a clear description of the evolution of conservative thought: ‘It spoke for the powers of wealth and property, first, land against industry and finance, then for all three, and soon for small property as well as large.’ He has absolutely understood the trick of conservative adaptability. The defence of established customs is merited in the eyes of conservatives, not because those customs are always right or of value in themselves, but because they are key to maintaining social order and national unity. Once certain customs, such as noble privileges, limited suffrage or established churches no longer serve those purposes, they can be exchanged for new ones. Hence successful conservatives have always been able to move with the times, adopting liberal ideas and embracing gradual change, as in Disraeli’s ‘pitch-perfect’ combination of embracing social reform and mass democracy alongside a fervent defence of nation, crown and empire.
This book is a stimulating read, benefiting from the author’s clarity of style, breadth of historical knowledge and decision to place conservative thinkers from each period of history alongside political practitioners. We are reminded of the power of ideas, from those of Burke and Joseph de Maistre to Pat Buchanan and Roger Scruton, the latter singled out for praise for aiming to ground conservative politics in a philosophical outlook — ‘almost unique in the present-day English-speaking intellectual world’.
And we are presented with a core historical judgment: that the ability of conservative parties to change in each era and assimilate the ideas of their liberal rivals was decisive in allowing modern democracy to become established. Fawcett argues convincingly that where conservatism compromised with liberalism in the early 20th century it not only survived as a political force but lent ballast and stability to constitutional democracy. Where it rejected liberalism instead it fell in with fascism — ‘Weimar’s collapse owed much to the weakness of liberal democratic conservatism’.
To those of us who count ourselves as liberal conservatives in the 21st century it is an appealing message. Tribute is paid to the ability of Salisbury and Baldwin to ‘sound obdurate but concede, rather than battle in vain’ and to maintain a broad, mass governing party permitting social, economic and political change at a manageable pace. And Konrad Adenauer is saluted for establishing in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a similarly all-embracing party of the right for postwar Germany.
But then we come to the far less comfortable ground of recent decades. For many people in the age of globalisation, rising immigration, untrammelled market forces and the overturning of many social norms, change has become too rapid and the compromises with liberalism too much to bear. As Fawcett puts it: ‘Cultural conservatives found themselves in the awkward position of not feeling at home in a world that political conservatism had done much to create.’
What follows is more disputed ground, perhaps inevitably so when reaching the intense divisions among conservatives in the present day. Fawcett charts the rise in recent decades of a new hard right, with Enoch Powell as its harbinger in Britain. While Thatcher and Reagan could still hold together the diverging strands of conservatism, those strands have come apart after the departure of such giants. Dissent began growing on the right just as liberal conservatives believed they had won a permanent victory. The failure of democratic liberalism to meet the expectations of a mass electorate has led to the growth of a populist form of conservatism that has brought Trump, Brexit and the advance of Le Pen in France and the AfD in Germany.
The author’s grouping of all of these developments as the rise of the hard right brings him into some difficulty. He admits that labelling Boris Johnson’s radicalism in supporting Brexit as the ‘hard right’ might be too much. Indeed it is. The platform of British Tories at the most recent election certainly included final departure from the European Union; but it also embraced much of conservatism’s adoption of liberalism — internationalist on a global scale, generous to poorer nations, and highly progressive on social issues at home. Johnson is not Trump or Le Pen: he should be seen more as someone attempting to keep diverging trends in conservative thinking from drifting apart.
Fawcett argues that riding the two horses of liberal and populist conservatism will not be possible. His central case is that the security from rapid change that Trump and others have tried to offer cannot be squared with liberal beliefs in protection from power and respect for all:
‘For the hard right, security in turbulent, bewildering times is offered as a value that overrides others. Conservatives face a stark choice between two different versions of their tradition. They cannot have both.
I am not so sure. Certainly, this is a choice that seems difficult to evade at the moment. Republicans may well have to choose between more of Trump and his family or a more traditional, mainstream platform. French conservatives may be driven into becoming Macron-style centrists or joining Le Pen. The current dominance of British and German conservative parties can easily be threatened again from the right. Any of these parties could develop in a form that steadily pushes away their more pragmatic wing.
Yet it would be a mistake to assume that what conservative leaders have so often done before — combine the instinct for security with the careful embrace of modernity — cannot be done again. Many factors, from a revitalised left to a powerful China, could again bring conservatives to gather around a broad and common purpose. As a global pandemic exposes the failings of the sprawling but ineffective state seen in many western societies, it could be a renewed conservatism that makes the state more limited but more successful.
Fawcett’s assessment of conservatism is not a sympathetic or optimistic one. That, however, is no reason to avoid it, as he has provided a coherent framework for understanding the history of conservative habits of mind and discussing them anew. He has also laid down a challenge — that the unity of conservatism cannot withstand the pressures of the revival of cultural identity. Conservatives will hope that he is wrong. If so, it is becoming urgent to prove it.
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I enjoy Hagues articles in the DT.
I never get past the first paragraph – he talks such rubbish.
But the comments are always a delight to read. You need the skin of a rhinocerous to carry on writing articles when you are universally criticised in the harshest terms.
Usually the DT don’t turn on comments when the author is so unpopular. I expect they allow them for Hague because he is not part of their own agenda. They have a whole raft of feminists and anti-Trump writers who they never allow people to comment on. Even their opinion pieces which is deeply unethical.
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John,
“You need the skin of a rhinocerous to carry on writing articles when you are universally criticised in the harshest terms.”
Here’s his excuse. He obviously thinks his pontifications are unique and of World shattering importance within the scope of the subject matter. Typical of this kind of self-important twat. Campbell, Bliar, Major, they’re all the same.
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You are correct : I think I have drastically underestimated the size of his ego.
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JohnC
I think he is happy to get the fee and any comment makes him feel he has value now -when in fact he is just another dead politician who doesn’t have to deal with the vile voter class.
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BBC 10 o’ clock news last night.
Hugh Pym (he of the face that I could kick from Lands End to John O’ Groats and back again) talking about the pandemic and how, very worryingly, it seems to be taking hold in younger people than it did in the first wave.
He made a statement that:
“infections are rising fastest in the 18 to 64 age group”
FFS when has 18 to 64 ever been an age group? That must be 85% of the population!
Shoddy amateurish journalism and zero challenge from the presenter (I forget who it was) but it was just slipped in there and left to waft into the consciousness of the sheeple watching.
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At the moment I am glancing at the BBC to see what bilge they can throw out on the Trump situation. Just when you think this repugnant organisation couldn’t stoop any lower you find a new benchmark.
‘Biden has a stammer like me’ is the heading underneath a sweet-faced little kid fronting a video. Therefore, anyone who mocks Biden’s stammer (not dementia at all you understand) must clearly be the kind of person who would mock a lovely child. What low life monster would do such a thing??
I didn’t press on the play button for the video. I was too busy rushing to the bathroom.
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Remember the “Trump balloon” ? and the delight of the left ?
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‘Gay roles should be given to gay actors, Russell T Davies says’
Saw this in the Telegraph, but I’m sure the BBC has it somewhere.
Does Russell also think that non-gay roles should only be given to non-gay actors ?.
Of course he doesn’t.
He goes on to say “It’s about authenticity, the taste of 2020.”
So he disapproves of any black actor playing a role which should be a white person ?.
Of course he doesn’t.
But of course the questions are never raised in the article. Too awkward.
Virtue-signalling, hypocritical tripe.
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The DM also has it and my comment on it for what it’s worth was
“ I can’t wait to see the remake of E.T. it’ll be out of this world.”
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Also casting for a zombie movie should be interesting.
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I feel I need to sound a note of alarm.
I’ve been modelling UK future death rates.
Having assumed our covid vaccine to be 100% effective the projected death rate among 80 to 90 year olds coming out of my computer model is still extraordinarily worrying.
Something must be done. Otherwise we face the prospect of 97% probablity we will all die in our 80s or 90s.
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Look on the bright side, it will save the Queen a few telegrams
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AISI, there was some guy on the BBC web-site the other day claiming that he was going to live to 130 years of age with help of science and supplements and bio-engineering. Yeah, I know, he forgot to add ‘God-willing’ and RTAs, other accidents and terrorism-willing as well.
As the old saying goes, the only guarantees in life are death and taxes.
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6:25pm last night Mark Dolan Show on TalkRadio
“how does the prime minister rebuild the economy with no money ?”
Amanda Milling MP Co-chair of the Conservative Party
“One example The PM introduced the 10 Point Green Plan
which is about re-energising the economy ,
SUPPORTING this sector, which will be so key to us recovering”
Clueless : a sector which depends on subsidies and decreases the tax income is supposed to be our saviour !
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Someone posted this video of the BBC breaking lockdown rules filming Dr Who.
Essential work?
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A beach is not the ideal place for the 3 LGBT BAME wheelchair using Dr Who companions rumoured to be in the next series.
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Daleks tend to get sand up their backsides too, Tabs…
Ever seen a dalek try and get upstairs?
No, me neither, but then I haven’t watched Dr ‘Which, where, how, buqqer-me-sideways’ since Jon Pertwee moved in from HMS TRoutbridge in ‘The Navy Lark!
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GWF,
Essential work? It would possibly be if the BBC didn’t have a diminishing following for the programme.
Anyway, I need to know why my Lithuanian neighbours are exempt from lockdown. Or, is it another example of, “We no speeka de Engliz”.
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Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman hailed as ‘a hero’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55623752
It has taken the small BBC team of just 22,400 employees just 6 days to finally come up with a distortion of facts to make The Capitol invasion into a “racist white confederate mob chasing down a hero black man” story.
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This is nothing less than a denial and distortion of reality with the bbc at the helm
It is worth considering:
“Findings from Armed Conflict Location and Event Data raise concerns about continued violence during and after election day
Sat 31 Oct 2020 10.00 GMT
At least 11 Americans have been killed while participating in political demonstrations this year and another 14 have died in other incidents linked to political unrest, according to new data from a non-profit monitoring political unrest in the United States.
Nine of the people killed during protests were demonstrators taking part in Black Lives Matter protests. Two were conservatives killed after pro-Trump “patriot rallies”. All but one were killed by fellow citizens.”
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TOADY Watch #1 has left the building
I listened to bits of TOADY firstly from 6.30 a.m. up until or just beyond the newspaper review and again at 7.38 a.m. hoping to catch the newspaper thing again and some different news.
However, it was obvious that today’s TOADY was going to be a three hour ‘Whingeathon’ on behalf of the NHS interspersed with FakeNews and FalseFacts from the USA. I couldn’t listen to all that. OFF switch activated. Sorry.
Maybe normal service will be resumed tomorrow, BBC news coverage permitting?
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From the BBC website:
Two members of Congress have tested positive for coronavirus after the pro-Trump siege on the Capitol last week.
Bonnie Watson Coleman, 75, and Pramila Jayapal, 55, both Democrats, tested positive after being forced to lockdown in a small room with many others as pro-Trump supporters broke into the building.
Some of their Republican colleagues refused to wear masks when sheltering, Jayapal said, calling such behaviour “selfish idiocy”.
So those two caught Covid and despite wearing masks, but the unmasked Republicans didn’t. Eh?
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“forced to lockdown in a small room”
who “forced” them ?
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Oh, we had the full nine yards from a squeaky Politico autocue-reader around midnight, Stew! She barricaded herself in a room on the third floor with some mates, and watched it all unfold on the TV, until they thought that the ‘invaders’ might hear the sound, so they watched it all on their phones!
Purple hearts all round I say, and well done you for making a boring story even more boring.
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Iain Dale Green Tory
and LBC evening presenter & Visiting Prof at UEA
Of course lots of people point out “100% renewable” is a deceptive con
“It means you get the same mix of energy from the grid as everyone else does though Iain.
The renewable energy target is set by the Government, so every domestic user has the same proportion, whoever their bills are paid to.”
Furthermore all green industries use a lot of fossil fuels in their construction and maintenance stages; they are not zero-carbon.
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The Green Renewables Mafia Pub
launches the Fruit Punch bowl
Pay 50% extra & you’ll still get merry drinking it like everyone else
but we’ll give you a certificate saying you only paid for the fruit juice
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I have some magnets that I can sell him.
The magnetic field repels carbon-derived electrons and stops them coming into the house so you only pay for the ‘green’ ones.
(They also stop limescale in water pipes and, in the unlikely event that you still have them, improve fuel consumption in cars and gas boilers).
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A simple spreadsheet is all you need, plus Uswitch, and save over 50 notes a month!
Anyone who stays with the same supplier for more than eighteen months is paying for the new one’s discounts!
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Octopus Energy suffered a backlash on June 5th when they announced they’d be funding BLM
Bulb Energy announced they be doing the same.
#1 So these Green corps business model depends on extracting extra cash from the electricity market cos of the subsidies (priority market access, guaranteed high price, extra infrastructure & inefficiency costs of a green grid)
#2 They then take some of this income and donate it to BLM causes
They claim they are not donating to the Marxist org itself
Instead they talk about an ongoing “internal fund”
They seem to use it for sending staff to Pride and special black events
which seems racist to me if you are organising events to serve specific skin colours.
https://octopus.energy/blog/spotlight-ruby-kraken-technologies/
“We’re introducing a brand new project: Black Science Matters, a series of talks to amplify the voices of black leaders in the fight against climate change.”
.. I know they have changed the BLM statement from June 5th original but they have deleted the original page and made it forward to a newer blogpost, so the earliest archive I have is August 2020
https://octopus.energy/blog/black-lives-matter/
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Another thing is they ban advertising from orgs that don’t support BLM.
This is after pressure from the socialist front group Stoop Funding FakeNews.
That of course is an “ambush name”
cos by “FakeNews” they mean publications that dare to counter or challenge the BLM dogma
original Twitter thread
https://octopus.energy/blog/digital-advertising
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In case anyone still believes the BLM propaganda-narrative, eagerly lapped up by the lying BBC:
– Floyd was arrested on suspicion of being involved in forgery.
– He had a long rap sheet, including armed robbery and violent crime, which the arresting officers would have been aware of.
– The autopsy revealed he had a massive, fatal level of the drug fentanyl in his system.
– Dramatic though it appeared on film, the rookie officers were following standard arrest procedure of knee-to-neck as taught in their training.
BLM, the Dems, and liberal media like the BBC distorted the facts and weaponised the incident for their own malign purposes.
In the words of Candace Owens: “No one thinks that he should have died in his arrest, but what I find despicable to be is that everyone is pretending that this man lived a heroic lifestyle when he didn’t. …I refuse to accept the narrative that this person is a martyr or should be lifted up in the black community. …He has a rap sheet that is long, that is dangerous. He is an example of a violent criminal his entire life — up until the very last moment.”
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I was only thinking about joining them a week or so. Glad I didn’t now.
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In Manchester there has been the tragic death of a Bangladeshi takeaway owner run over as some young thief stole his care while making a delivery.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/left-devastated-beyond-belief-family-19607455
He stupidly left the car running while making a delivery and some 14 year old scroat decided to take advantage killing the driver when he tried to stop him.
Here however is where I expect the bias to start.
Muslims require a speedy burial and there will be a funeral where only 30 people may attend.
Gestapo Manchester Police will be duty bound to fine anyone attending this in breach of the lockdown laws, however given the Fascist Andy Burnhams forces failures to do this when effnik minorities are involved leads me to conclude that in the next couple of days we will see a funeral where hundreds of Muslim men attend and the Gestapo fail to issue a single fine.
We shall see and time will tell.
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ITV News has appointed Paul Brand as UK editor. Paul will lead on the major issues facing the UK and be the go-to specialist of major home affairs and social affairs stories. His initial focus will be on the social impact of coronavirus and Brexit across the country, and will also provide special long-form reports for ITV’s Tonight programme and On Assignment.
IIRC from his twitter feed, Woo. P. Doo.
And from ITV’s ratings, who cares?
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16930/israel-vaccination-programme
Media: Israel Must Be Denigrated for Its World-Beating Vaccination Programme
Especially the Graun and JezBo, mysteriously left unchecked by Wendy, Marianna and M. Wrong Shysterperson.
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Oh no, she`s back 🙁
It has been lovely for the last couple of weeks not to have Laura Kuenssberg`s angry know it all face at the press conferences and on the news . ( have you noticed how she never actually listens to the answers to any questions she asks, preferring to concentrate on her next `I know better than you` loaded question/statement. )
Has she had a few weeks holiday or have I just been lucky enough to miss her? Sad to see she seems to have come back 🙁
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55626932
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https://taibbi.substack.com/p/we-need-a-new-media-system?
If you sell culture war all day, don’t be surprised by the real-world consequences
The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that long ago became standard in American media.
And a certain nation broadcaster whose Charter does not include selling wars, cultural or otherwise.
Or was not meant to.
The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that long ago became standard in American media.
https://quillette.com/2021/01/11/social-media-oligopolists-are-the-new-railroad-barons-its-time-for-washington-to-treat-them-accordingly/
What has changed is the technological environment in which inflammatory speech is communicated.
Too often by selective RT via BBC ‘news my own’ copy and posters.
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BBC Radio 4 on FB
Travellers from outside the EU are banned from bringing in meat and dairy products.
Brexit: UK driver has ham sandwiches confiscated at Dutch border
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55622331?
#CCBGB
Folk are flat out laughing at bbc Brexit Desperate Syndrome now.
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BBC Radio 4
After four years of debate, what are the hopes for Britain beyond the EU? ????????
https://bbc.in/3nBfBEY
***
Pretty dire unless the anti-British national broadcaster is not reconfigured to serve those prepared to pay for it voluntarily.
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BBC Radio 4
After four years of debate, what are the hopes for Britain beyond the EU? ????????
https://bbc.in/3nBfBEY
***
Pretty dire unless the anti-British national broadcaster is not reconfigured to serve those prepared to pay for it voluntarily.
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Apparently many fruits are banned like Kent apples
but tropical fruit like bananas, coconuts, pineapple are not.
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It would be helpful if someone could list Dutch products and the alternative British ones to buy – by way of reprisal against such small mindedness from our EU ‘friends “.
from my hazy memory of studying EU competition law I recall my frustration that we could not encourage ‘buy British ‘ campaigns because it breached EU law .
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