48 years in the Common Agricultural Policy did considerable damage to U.K. farming, and led to a sharp decline in the proportion of temperate food we grow for  ourselves.
The BSE disease was used by the EU to help shrink our beef herds by prolonged bans after the disease had gone.
The U.K. was kept short of milk quota, forcing us to import milk or milk based value added products like yoghurt and cheese.
Grants were given to get the U.K. to grub up orchards to be replaced by French and Spanish imported fruit.
The Dutch flower industry had advantages which took out much U.K. production.
The Spanish vegetable industry took market shares away from U.K. market gardens.
Now we are out of the EU the U.K. could replicate some of the subsidies, favourable pricing, lower energy costs and regulations that have benefitted  continental competitors  to U.K. growers. The farming budget needs to be reorganised away from granting subsidies to landowners not to farm to rewarding and supporting those who will invest in more U.K. food production. Modern vegetable and fruit growing can be done in controlled conditions minimising water and feed inputs, and protecting crops from weather and insect and animal attacks. This takes investment which the agriculture budget could assist with.
Growing more at home should also satisfy the greens, as it will mean less CO 2 generated by all those transport movements to import bulky food items and keep much of it refrigerated on the  journey. It would mean growing less in countries with bad water shortages.
August 1, 2024
All obvious to a blind man. Would also be great if instead of demanding, we could ban the spraying of OPs onto our fruit and vegetables, banned from all animal dips, banned from being mixed with oils and run down the spines of our beast.
OPs are nerve agent and itâs no wonder that our animals âstaggerâ after receiving doses onto their spinal cord.
I was horrified to see shirtless Spanish workers spraying OPs on to poly tunnelled tomatoes. They might not feel well either and as for eating the fruit – well!
Re establishing our marvellous orchards with all the varieties of apples we once grew, with medley trees again in the landscape, with pears and figs, should be tax-free.
We need the political class to be able to differentiate between âcapitalâ and âincomeâ. They can tax income but NOT capital. The destruction of capital has been ongoing for generations and we are reaching an inflection point.
August 1, 2024
âMedlarâ trees, obv. My computer is just too clever and improves nanoseconds prior to printing. I will eventually smash this beast, and it has not even started with programming itself.
August 1, 2024
Farming is seen by the net zero zealots as a CO2 producing industry and must be curbed at all cost. Milipede is happy to cover the productive farmland with solar panels and windmills as he sees it as a win win situation. Talking of cheaper energy, the next round of licensing for offshore floating windmills is being offered ÂŁ250 per MWH, baking in ever higher prices from the so called cheapest way of generating.
New Zealand is back tracking on its 2030 net zero for aviation as it’s impossible to meet without bankrupting the industry. I just can’t wait for reality to collide with the aspirations of our ruling clowns.
Government increasing tax on North Sea oil and gas yesterday to 78% and stopping investment allowances is the latest nail in the UKs coffin
The recent riots are only a precursor for the future.
August 1, 2024
So are they totally deluded clowns or crony capitalist on the make in league with politicians, is it blatant fraud, or just another mad religion that they have fallen for and think there are votes in it?
So my junior doctor son in London gets, sort of, a 22% pay rise. Still not actually enough to give him any disposable income after rent, student loan interest (just interest) commuting, council tax, prof. fees, utilities⊠He will still earn less than half of what his same age two flat mates get. Plus they have had only three years of student debt and not six so £50k rather than £100k+.
August 1, 2024
It really, really is as if âtheyâ donât want âhome-grownâ
doctors isnât it?
Even when ill we are denied our own culture.
Mad rush to get wages down.
And now they are adding to the (fictional) black hole by trying to mollify student doctors.
They should b well provide housingâŠlike they used to!
August 1, 2024
âThe BSE disease was used by the EU to help shrink our beef herds by prolonged bans after the disease had goneâ
âExpertâ predictions of 136,000 deaths & other predictions feared an epidemic could wipe out millions. Not sure if Imperialâs experts were involved this time?
In the end, 176 people died in the UK and even that was prob. an exaggeration as we have very similar background diseases and at similar low levels.
August 1, 2024
So finally we get small a cut in interest rates. Why on earth did Sunak not wait until the years end. Better still why did he not just get a sensible replacement as PM who would have done so much better than he did. This at he was so soiled by his many failures and broken promises.
“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.” -Mark Twain
So my second daughter get her Gordon Brown Baby bond in a few days at 18. A con-trick to buy votes by the dire Chancellor Gordon Brown. It is only doubled in 18 years. What a pathetic scam! Brown taxes people wasting money on collections and distribution. They tied it up in a duff investment (had it been taxable it would have made less than nothing in real terms). Just about doubled in 18 years hardly even beating inflation.
Just how pathetic are the UK financing investment “professionals”. Had I bought gold, property, Berkshire Hathaway, most commodities… nearly all would have beaten this expert by miles. A pathetic return load of pointless activity thanks to Gordon is a Moron – see the book by this name.
August 1, 2024
Sunak particularly soiled with his economic incompetence, his knifing of Boris and Truss, his failed pledges and blatant lies about Covid vaccine safely.
Andrew Montford on the Sceptic podcast explains very well exactly why the ÂŁ trillions heat pump, renewables agenda is totally mad and deluded. Does Ed (PPE) Miliband really believes the drivel and lies he comes out with on Climate, energy, CO2 and so called renewables? Is he an idiot or a liar?
August 1, 2024
Sorry, but baby bonds (in fact they were called Child Trust Funds) could be transformed into Junior ISAs from Decâ2013. Junior ISAs can be invested in any type of bonds, shares, investment funds, investment trusts and ETFs. So if your daughterâs bond only doubled in 18 years, you bear quite a bit of responsibility.
August 1, 2024
@ Hefner it is a rather trivial sum anyway. I have rather bigger fish to fry & not worth my time even checking out the options. But what an appalling con trick to try to buy votes using you taxes by the appalling Gordon Brown.
August 1, 2024
Just heard Kier Starmer pouring petrol in the flames of the protests. The protests are mainly against the police’s very clear two tier policing. The protesters not remotely far right and calling them that adds fuel to the fire. You have to police with consent Starmer. You will not get consent from your lies two tier policing and idiotic speeches like yours today – endlessly blaming the far right.
The disinformation is coming from people like Starmer, the BBC and the deluded senior police. Not terrorism so nothing to see here they so often say.
If you think leadership is helicopters to southport with flowers and quick photo ops then running away again you are even more stupid than I thought Kier.
August 1, 2024
Did he visit the children still in hospital?
Did he visit the location of the murder to get a clear picture of the devastation?
I would have done both of those things and if the parents of the murdered children wanted to see me, Iâd have made time for them also.
August 1, 2024
Kier is a construction group, KIE on the London Stock Exchange. Our PM is a Keir.
August 1, 2024
Exactly @ A-Tracy
August 1, 2024
IW : âI just canât wait for reality to collide with the aspirations of our ruling clowns.â
I wouldnât count upon any U-turns no matter how bad it gets. CAGW is totally false (you never see or hear of any activists actually articulating any âscienceâ) and Net Zero is the âsolutionâ devised to destroy the Westâs wealth, democracy and military capability. Its top down plans and targets with no costings or the developed technology to achieve the stated goal is akin to Stalinâs collectivisation in the last century and he didnât stop even though it wasnât working, was very unpopular and led to the deaths of millions of people.
August 1, 2024
I have never been a regular Church goerâŠwell Assembly every morning at schoolâŠa few hymns thatâs all.
Mainly because C of E was so cliquey and unwelcoming by the time I grew up and moved around the country.
But I do really think that Christianity which enjoined us to make good use of all the things âBright and Beautifulâ was far better than this cult of starvation and death. Where even cultivation is held to âdestroyâ the soil ( so whatâs it for then?)
âPlough the fields and scatterââŠHarvest FestivalâŠall so wholesome and lovely.
And EDIBLE!
The animals in the field are for manâs convenience. Specially created.
No wonder the fake Christians dumped the Old Testament!
August 1, 2024
+1
August 1, 2024
Well said Lynn, I have always boycotted EU produce, buying at the farm gate is a benefit to me directly and the farmer .
Eating veg one has watched develop and paying cash to the farmer is much more wholesome and the pleasure of knowing one is preventing the treasury of getting their greedy mitts on it adds too it !
August 1, 2024
The lack of varieties and seasonality is sad. We used to get all sort of seasonality of apples, cherries, plumbs, raspberries, logan berries, tay berries, red, white and black currents⊠even stawberries that self hulled and did not taste like cucumbers!
August 1, 2024
Do you make jam or pies with your plumbs?
August 1, 2024
Crumbles or just eat them.
Plus summer pudding with the berries and currents.
August 1, 2024
I grow most of that but canât beat my Keeshonds to the ripe fruit! They clean the bushes, even the goosberries protected by their massive thorns. Keeshonds donât wag their tails, but Georgie does when she find a ripe strawberry.
Something about fruit warm from the sunâŠ.
August 1, 2024
OPs? These days I am avoiding processed foods – heaven only knows what âtheyâ put in there – but you know that in a factory it will be the cheapest, nastiest crap available, and, Iâm only eating organic fruit and veg. I just have to hope that organic means organic.
August 1, 2024
Organo Phosphates. Interestingly the âorganicâ wheat is preserved by OPs sprayed on the harvested husks. Avocados are wrapped in OP soaked paper. It preserves them.
So white bread (OP soaked husks removed) is more healthy.
I could go on.
August 1, 2024
White bread aka damp, tasteless poor quality cotton wool.
August 1, 2024
Sir John
Whilst I agree with you that the EU systematically helped destroy our food and farming industries, I would suggest that supermarkets have also had a hand in it. They have driven down profit margins for farmers and often, drive those wholesale prices so far down, the farmers make a loss on their produce.
Recently I saw a well known retailer offering four fresh chickens for Ten Pounds, how can that be right?
August 1, 2024
Cliff,
Bet those chickens were exhausted dead egg layers, ok for soup with enhancement.
August 1, 2024
@Cliff.. Wokingham
A bit weird to suggest that the EU would systematically help to destroy its own food and farming industries! Donât you think so?
Maybe Britain, spoiled by earlier colonial supply lines, it took time to learn how to compete internationally, and as you stated, the power of supermarkets should not be underestimated.
Blaming the EU for everything is maybe a bit . . . cheap.
Reply Never let facts get in the way of EU spin. U.K. lost huge market share during our period in CAP. U.K. had to be largely self sufficient in food in the 1940 s when Europe wouldn’t and couldnât export to us.
August 1, 2024
No imports from colonies during WWII? Of course I wish the best for Britain in growing much more food in Britain, while I maintain that making the EU the scapegoat for all and everything is cheap.
Reply The Europeans were doing their best to sink every ship bringing imports from friendly countries.
August 1, 2024
France had many colonies, Holland the same. Very poor attempt to single out UK in a derogatory manner. EU is a supra national corrupt organisation non elected dictatorship that has no place in a modern democratic society. Has it sorted out all that hidden back hander cash to its officials to votes or decisions made? Stop your woke rot nonsense.
Furthermore UK gave jobs and money to countries. It raised their living standards to trade, transport, manufacture etc. not all negative.
August 1, 2024
Not the Germans but the Europeans đ Us (UK) versus the Europeans đ
Reply should have said the Axis Europeans led by Germany and Italy who controlled France, Netherlands, Belgium etc It was most of Europe controlled by the Axis powers governments. They used the resources of the conquered lands.
August 1, 2024
I don’t think it is helpful reliving the events of 80 years ago. Let’s think about now, and the complete horlicks the Tories have made of governing this country for the majority of the last 80 years.
August 1, 2024
Itâs very helpful because the. You recognize the same tactics applied in the not so distant past. For instance you have been eating OPs legislated for by the EU. Nerve agent. Look at all the nerve complaints, and it preserves in that it stops corpses rotting. So your âorganicâ diet, gratis the EU will probably be not as good for you as you had hoped.
See the point?
August 1, 2024
Peter, good to see you are still with us. EU agriculture, a model of world class efficiency?
Or on the basis âevery French politician is related to a farmer, who in general are volatile and have the clout (so are the Dutch I read not that long ago) a ponzi scheme to âbuy them offâ politically?
August 1, 2024
That’s precisely what it set out to do, via Mark Rutte, in The Netherlands.
Until the Farmers Party and Geert Wilders stopped them.
August 1, 2024
+1 Donna. I’ve just had a Dutch couple staying with me as Airbnb guests. Turned out they were BBB supporters (Farmers’ Citizens’ Party) and very interesting to speak to. They were completely fed up with the EU and its autocratic control of the nation states of Europe, and said many other citizens feel the same. Funnily they limited their political discussions to half an hour per day while on holiday “because it gets us so angry”.
August 1, 2024
Not weird at all, especially in your native Netherlands, where the EU inspired efforts in the name of climate change, deemed more important than people, backed by the Rutte government to close down large swathes of farming led to extensive protests and the formation of the BBB party that is now part of government.
August 1, 2024
PvL : âA bit weird to suggest that the EU would systematically help to destroy its own food and farming industries! Donât you think so?â
No, not weird at all. The Marxist EU bureaucracy are determined to destroy not only agriculture but also the industry and the wealth of Europe with the totally unnecessary forced implementation of Net Zero. Theyâre quite happy for China et al to burn hydrocarbon fuels and increase atmospheric CO2 because China is already the sort of authoritarian state to which the EU aspires.
There simply is no CAGW as doubling CO2 causes a negligible increase in the GHG effect because of a phenomenon known as IR saturation. There is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the Earthâs emitted IR radiation available to it as defined by CO2âs IR bands and the Earths IR Planck distribution curve. So additional CO2 makes negligible difference. See both The Royal Society and the papers or podcasts by Happer & Wijngaarden.
August 1, 2024
Not âa bit weirdâ to legislate for the destruction of the wealth of Europe Pieter – stark raving bonkers, and very very dangerous for the globalist political class across the whole weird experiment which is the EU.
August 1, 2024
I buy chicken wings for my dog. I get 28 chicken wings for ÂŁ6.43 from a local supplier – not a supermarket. Iâve been veggie for decades so have no idea how much meat costs. The chicken wings seem ridiculously cheap to me.
August 1, 2024
You can get 1kg of Class A British Chicken wings from Aldi for ÂŁ1.99.
Waitrose essential, higher welfare British chicken wings 475g for ÂŁ1.20.
August 1, 2024
What % of food do we import?
August 1, 2024
Looking at labels it would seem almost all of it is imported.
And where the company is supposedly British it will probably be headquartered elsewhere for financial purposes elsewhere, eg Parks & Fences. But the Conservatives have been very comfortable with that because employment wages and taxes benefits government – until they aren’t of course when it is far too late.
August 1, 2024
Tony+Hart
Roughly 40% of our food is imported. Acceptable when it is mangoes but not when it is asparagus or mange tout when they are first flown halfway round the world.
We in the UK have lost the concept of eating seasonally. We have lost the joy of fresh oranges in january, cherries in may or the apricots in june I enjoyed before returning to the UK. The Brits have to have everything on tap all the time, so the concept of freshness and quality have gone out of the door.
August 1, 2024
Agricola,
Totally agree but again, much of the problem is supermarkets, they have destroyed our high streets where you had the specialist food retailers such as, the butcher, the artisan baker, the fruit and veg seller, the deli and the fishmonger. These aforementioned specialists had the seasonal produce. I could not imagine going into our local greengrocer fifty years ago in September and asking for asparagus. Now you can get it but it has more airmiles than Prince Andrew.
Regarding your chickens… I still wouldn’t buy them. I do make chicken soup when I have a roast chicken on the odd Sunday. I use the carcus and left over brown meat. I find that it is worth paying a bit more for a quality product which actually tastes of chicken. I would hope that those types of birds (4for ÂŁ10) would go to pet food manufacturers or stock cube makers.
The benefits of eating seasonally include, better flavour and a better price especially mid season.
August 1, 2024
Since returning to the UK I have sussed out good food sources. Fresh free range chicken is delivered once a month along with a dozen FR eggs. Chicken became soup with veg, kebabs with mint, and a chicken tagine. At least eight main meals for two at around ÂŁ1.50 a head before using the eggs. Meat I get from the market butcher who returned after boredom in retirement. All of it superb, locally sourced, and no hype about hanging it for 28 days. The supermarkets take us for idiots. Veg and fruit from the car park of our local garden centre who also sell english cheese, a favourite being Waterloo. I use supermarkets for buying things I cannot get at the above. The biggest problem is a lack of fresh seafood. Try finding clams or an octopus in central England. I will persevere.
August 1, 2024
+1 Agricola. I was in France last month. The supermarkets there make a big play about selling different fruits and vegetables “in season”. Their consumers understand the concept. As you suggest, most of our consumers would be utterly puzzled by the idea of seasonal fruit and veg.
August 1, 2024
British vegetables are the highest quality I have ever encountered. Itâs to do with the richness of the soil and the plentiful water. In South Africa you get one crop and the soil is exhausted, you have to move the bed.
When my father went to Scottish relations during the war (between ships), he was staggered at the volume and quality of neeps and beets. Then they told him that was cattle food!
Look up how many sheep and beast each acre in the U.K. can support, then look up the Dominions.
Britain is not only the treasure chest of the world but also rich in so many other ways. The land of milk and honey.
August 1, 2024
Tony I think it’s now 60% up from 40% a generation ago.
August 1, 2024
50%.
Weâll be in trouble if Covid 24 is worse than Covid 19 and trade has to stop. Better hope the lanes are full of nettles. Thatâs all there is to eat in West Dorset. Nettles or grass.
August 1, 2024
Nettles can actually be quite nice & much better than grass, unless you are a cow, sheepâŠ
August 1, 2024
Au contraire Mike. Where I live in West Dorset there are (seasonal) blackberries, hazel nuts, elderberries, sloes …. for the making of sloe gin …. damsons and regular supplies of road kill if you have the stomach for it! Plus plenty of farm shops and farmers markets (which I prefer).
August 1, 2024
Yeah, we have some blackberries – my Labrador picks them neatly without the thorns getting in his way. They are there for a couple of weeks a year. Hazels? Haven’t seen a hazel tree/bush in my travels around here. Not one. A few elderberries and sloes – yes – only there for a couple of weeks. As for farm shops and farmers’ markets – where is the produce grown? I live near Bridport and I’d say for many miles around there is nothing but cows, sheep and grass. Not a crop anywhere in sight.
August 1, 2024
@Mike Wilson – live in Wokingham and over crowded slum of the future. Yes we have Blackberries, sloes, plumbs. I am sort of lucky with Hazel Nuts and also Walnuts, but it is a race to beat the tree rats to them some years. The apples are OK but the Badgers do like the plumbs, but that my fault for not picking them before they fall
August 2, 2024
Mike Wilson I live in Bridport some of the time and am delighted at the fresh farm food available there. You canât beat the lovely young couple who sell their delicious locally grown organic vegetables in the market. I get up early to queue up. Springtail Farm. Their flowers are worth queuing up for too. There is also Modbury Farm, Washingpool Farm, Bothen Hill and Felicityâs Farm all local to Bridport and Riverford Farm is just over in Devon. I stock up because there is nothing to match this in Wokingham! You need to get out more!
August 1, 2024
“The UK is around 91% self-sufficient in dairy production and 86% self-sufficient in beef, when it comes to Lamb we are 109% self-sufficient”
Info from the NFU. https://www.nfuonline.com/media/sqhnllb3/the-facts-about-british-red-meat-and-milk.pdf
August 1, 2024
All sensible suggestions but unlikely to be adopted. Harry Metcalfe, of Harry’s Farm YouTube channel says that c50% of his land is not producing crops. Instead he is being paid not to produce crops, avoiding all the risks of English weather. Like so many over regulated activities, farming is in danger of being a mugs game. He, like most of us, wonders where the food we need will come from.
August 1, 2024
Some of us don’t wonder, DA, because we know where the food is going to come from. Labs. As we’ve been told many times over, lab-produced meat and other produce is what big corporations want us to eat in future. Harry Metcalfe knows that as well as anybody else who’s been following developments.
August 1, 2024
The most significant danger to UK farmers are the public sector, schools and councils that are going plant-based and Halal.
3 Jul 2024 â Oxford City Council voted unanimously for all food served at internal council meetings to be 100% plant-based.
28 May 2024 â Calderdale Council wants its menus to be entirely plant-based, with a preference for seasonal and non-processed foods.
This is where free school meals for kids will lead us to… a diet free of meat and replaced with lab and gm modified food.
August 1, 2024
I drew your attention to it yesterday as an adendum to trees. It stems from ignorance and inertia on the part of government and the politicians who hover behind them.
Post Brexit, the consocialists made promises to farmers that were immediatly forgotten. The current rabid socialists will do nothing that jeopodises their creep back to the EU. Supermarkets are only too happy to predate upon the situation. The can’t cook, won’t cook population muddle on paying ever higher prices for a mediocre or in the case of fish, none existent product. Before you all choke in indignation, ask yourselves when did you last make your own fresh mayonnaise, vinigrrette, omlete or soup. Seeing the eating habits of the majority of Brit holiday makers in Spain was confirmation that they have largely brought on this crisis in farming through their own lethargy and ignorance. To whichever minister is offering free school meals, please in the process teach the recipients how to hold a knife and fork, assuming he/she knows himself.
You have the disinterested, unaware, leading the largely ignorant, so have no expectation of change. It is a symptom of national decline that will move apace in the hands of the current incumbents as it did the last.
Reply I usually buy fresh produce and cook it myself as I like to know what has gone into a dish.I do not buy EU produce after the way they have treated me. I buy U.K. fruit,veg,fish and meat as available with additions from overseas for things like pineapples and grapes. You over generalise about what people eat. I do buy manufactured biscuits and ice cream.
August 1, 2024
Good for you SJ, buy yourself an ice cream maker (Gaggia) and you will know what goes in the ice cream and your guests will appreciate it.
As to what people eat, just visit a UK supermarket and observe the vast range of pre prepared ( value added)food. It is on sale because UK citizens buy it. Then visit a spanish supermarket and make the comparisons I have observed from 15 years of living in Spain and the balance of years all over the UK. While living in the UK I was also travelling much of the World, so I can make valid comparisons.
August 1, 2024
Yes I agree. Well done Sir John. No wonder you remain lean and fit with all your wits about you. No need to buy an ice cream maker. The freezer does a pretty good job and 3 ingredients makes ice cream, well 4 if you add a bit of alcohol which stops it freezing sold.
We buy and eat much the same and never buy any EU produce – that includes cars, wine, flowers and kitchen equipment etc. Moreover we do not visit or holiday in the EU.
I think that a substantial silent majority are not dissimilar in their habits.
August 1, 2024
Agricola you have a very biased view of British people from what you see of a section of holiday makers. Some people used a supermarket for tinned products, cleaning products and cupboard staples not for bread, fish and meat. My family make their own soups, vinaigrette and other dressings (not mayonaise too fattening) omlette is not difficult to make? The younger people I know are getting into fitness food they are more adventurous with their quinoa, nuts, seeds and lean protein.
August 1, 2024
@agricola “make your own fresh mayonnaise” I lapsed for a while but have gone back to making my own as the favourite UK Brand is also a Company that is helping to keep Putin in power, while our our taxes are spent on supporting the Ukraine. The rest you suggest has always been the route I have followed. However I am not keen on Supermarket Fish, thawing frozen fish out to place on the fresh counter seems bizarre, instead I order it direct from the Quayside in Newlyn sent overnight to Wokingham.
August 1, 2024
A left field one,… all, that is ‘all’ the chocolate and cocoa products sold in the UK and even the US originated from the plants grown in Wokingham ( although some have start to suggest Arborfield is now in Reading ) . A hidden away venue that appears now to be in the sights of those that want to build houses rather than feed the World
August 1, 2024
All sounds sensible Sir JR. Therefore we can be sure it will not happen.
August 1, 2024
Indeed. food is energy and it needs cheap reliable energy to fertilise, sow, harvest, process, butcher, package and deliver. Ditching the insane net zero agenda is the best policy to grow home food production.
August 1, 2024
No reference to Southport. Three little girls slaughtered and this site is groaning on about agriculture.
John surely understands that there is a human cost and a human dimension to many of the topics he raises on this site though for some reason he steers clear of this for fear of attracting the lefty scum who are only to willing to pull their various ‘cards’ of denunciations to slander and criminalise decent folk.
Reply Feel free to go to a different site. I am exploring the key issue of growth in a series of blogs given the governmentâs overarching target of the U.K. becoming the fastest growing G 7 economy. We all condemn the appalling knife attacks in Southport. I know nothing about the perpetrator nor about what happened so I have no original contributions to make as to why and how we can stop such outrages.
August 1, 2024
But we should stop the evil two tier policing, the lies and misleading information from the police & government and their orders not to speculate. ai shall speculate as much as I want to. Speculate is what people do until they get full information.
August 1, 2024
Trecherous May holds considerable responsibility for these outrages because she deliberately decimated the police.
Politicising of policing started under May for the type of protests allowed and the ones to be stopped. Selection and promotion procedures altered to force DEI rot. More energy on this rot than basic crime prevention and detection. Met had 900 officers looking at on line hate crime when knife crime rife!
May changed stop and search to the point it was never worth exercising for fear by police they were racists.
May stopped pay rises for the police for years, even Javid had his 1% request stopped when all other public services were granted annual increases. Under May police stations closed the hub of local policing and cells for arrests. Police now have to travel miles taking much longer to deal with everything.
May placed a former railway boss in charge of policing, Tom Windsor, who knew nothing about policing but railways had a very poor record of management. All very woke LGBT, hate crime nonsense made a priority under him.
May cut police numbers by 20,000 allowed the Manchester bomber to come and go as he pleased from France and two weeks before her election the bomb went off and the electorate could easily see and correlate events to one Treacherous May.
JR you were an MP under May and your role as an MP must have given you an insight to events in your area. Therefore I am convinced you could make an informed guess why knife crime is rife, you certainly do not have to be a crim8nalogist!
Reply I have no special knowledge of events in Southport. I have no idea why someone would knife attack so many young children when all my instincts as a father are to ensure childrenâs safety.
August 1, 2024
Reply to reply: again you do not need specific knowledge or qualification. Bill Bratton changed crime ridden New York, particularly Central Park, by ordering every officer to complete a number of touch downs each shift. Stop and search to you and me. Crime plummeted from drugs, murders, assaults, gun crime etc etc. many books, articles written on the subject.
Secondly you will know every crime report has ethnicity of victim and offender. Get Govt. to publish them. I am confident it will find there are more black victims and offenders for knife crime offences. Both in the US and here black communities, and every community, would rather their children stopped and searched than being told their loved one is dead. Met Commissioner Paul Condon did it in the nineties. There was an outcry from the vocal left so it stopped. Publish the figures and let the public make their own conclusions. It might force parents to actually take control of their children to stop such behaviour.
How do the police categorically know a person is carrying a knife? Therefore the strict laws and procedures need to change to make it much easier. Why? To save lives and make everyone safe.
August 1, 2024
Agree 100%
The day before a horrible incident here I was discussing this with an environmental health officer. He contacted me because of my complaint about a Saturday of live music just 3 doors away. ( Deafening and uber distressing)
I told him that if out of control behaviour was allowed it would escalate into violence.
He was actually very distressed by his now impossible job.
But judging by the knives and machetes the following day.
I was right!
August 1, 2024
The 2000 Prevention of Terrorism law makes it possible to search even without suspicion, if it’s in the country’s ‘national or economic’ interest to do so. What is lacking, Hope, is as so often not new laws, but the will by the authorities to enforce existing ones. Or rather we have the political control of the police so that the laws are enforced selectively to suit certain agendas. I’ve no doubt you’re right about the rot sitting in with Theresa May. I certainly don’t hold a brief for Cameron, but she was far worse.
August 1, 2024
May has much to answer for Net Zero, politicised policing, the fake Brexit disaster, the nasty party I cannot stand her⊠but she did give us opt out organ donation so one positive.
August 1, 2024
LL,
The duplicitous Mrs May, Brexit means Brexit, has much to answer for, but shackled policing starts with the thinking of Roy Jenkins and follows with the politisation of all our institutions by Tony Blair and his fellow plotters. The object was to put a left wing, social services thinking stay behind block in all departments of government to perpetuate his thinking irrespective of elections. He largely succeeded and policing fell victim. The only solution is hire and fire in a newly contracted CS subject to the official secrets act. Think about it.
August 1, 2024
If you will speculate as much as you want, what do you think the motivation for the attack on helpless children was in Southport?
August 1, 2024
Bear in mind that Starmer is going to create a special police crew to stamp out speculation. What is he going to do about stamping out the various attacks on completely innocent children and people. It is one thing to be mugged by a criminal with a knife, quite another to be knifed by a madman.
August 1, 2024
A dislike of young girls dancing and having fun perhaps?
August 1, 2024
As in so many areas of policy, it was the Conservatives in government who set the example of largely ignoring and undermining traditional farming activity, now being dutifully followed by Labour. Not since Owen Paterson has there been a Minister that has visibly championed farming. Farming, like traditional manufacturing, is in decline from a combination of deliberate policy (rewilding) and lack of interest.
August 1, 2024
The EU was creating interdependence, with the objective of creating a United States of Europe. No country was allowed to have resilience and the UK was particularly badly attacked with its fishing industry destroyed; farming industry badly damaged; manufacturing base weakened; energy security in the process of being destroyed.
Of course, if we had actually LEFT the EU and taken back control, we could already be reversing the damage but the Treacherous Tories refused to do it. None of those sectors are free from EU interference.
However, we ARE out of the CAP and that does give us some flexibility. We should be supporting our farmers to grow food, not to set-aside and re-wild their land. (If Charlie-boy wants parts of the country re-wilded, he can do it on his numerous Estates instead of plastering them with solar panels).
Subsidies should also be provided for farmers who invest in harvesting equipment, so their constant demand for cheap foreign farm-labour is minimised.
August 1, 2024
Great news! The government has now banned new solar panels being built on farmland.
Oh wait, it’s the Italian government.
August 1, 2024
That’s because they have a sensible Right-wing “populist” party in Government.
Now where will we find one of those?
August 1, 2024
+1
August 1, 2024
Donna,
Excellent blog. However, not quite correct. Snake Sunakâs EU sell out agreement forces lock step with so many EU laws, regs and rules. Which is enforced by ECJ! The Environment lock step means the UK has to follow the EU on energy and farming in so many ways and of course the UK has still not got back its fishing industry and to prevent that happening our territorial waters and fishing is linked to energy inter dependence. Hence why Snake has increased reliance on French electricity to prevent divergence and regaining our fishing grounds. It is truly a traitorous act of govt. to act in stark contrast to national vote to leave the EU. Starmer acting with Pace to ensure lockstep in many other areas, therefore effectively never leaving the EU but act as a vassal state. Sunak and Starmer deliberately betraying our nation as,Cameron and May did before them.
Labour this week has got rid of EU select committee to keep everything quiet and to prevent public scrutiny.
Reform Party is the only answer to get the governance of our country back.
August 1, 2024
I agree; as I said the Treacherous Tories did not allow us to leave the EU and their refusal to take advantage of the limited freedoms we now have is so that we can (eventually) be in the outer tier as Associate Members along with the remaining EFTA members, Turkey, in due course the other north African nations and they hope, Rump-Ukraine, when the war is ended.
But we ARE out of the CAP and that does give us some flexibility in how farming subsidies are allocated.
August 1, 2024
Ah, but Ireland and N.Ireland have to act in lock step and thereby forces the rest of UK to accept EU farming/environment regs etc even though technically out of cap. DEFRA does not even hide its objection to change or diverge from EU. Hence paying farmers not to grow food! Starmer wants UK to accept EU vet rot.
August 1, 2024
N I farmers have seen a massive drop in income. Poor crop yields last year did not help, plus fuel, Net Zero, EU laws / restrictions, lack of joined up thinking, limiting what they can do & how they can best decide how to help themselves, the issue of the 20% to be given over to ‘green’ and an unequal playing field means many farms are struggling. Rural communities warning that the farming industry is at crisis point. They want food security addressed. To hear an experienced & dedicated N I farmer state that his return is little more than minimum wage, if that, cannot be right.
August 1, 2024
I’m all for growing more of our own food.
We should not be pouring dangerous honey-bee killing pesticides such as neonicotinoids onto our fields on the “just in case you get the bug” principle. The pesticide companies love farmers who dump their expensive products on our countryside unnecessarily
After once again allowing a dangerous invasive species to become established here (the Asian Hornet) DEFRA needs changes at the top. The Asian Hornet has devastated apiculture in France and now our beekeepers are once again in the front line.
August 1, 2024
I suspect a majority are rather more concerned about the other dangerous invasive species crossing the channel, with the encouragement of the Establishment, than the Asian hornet.
August 1, 2024
Although the EU finally banned the use of neonicotinoid (bee-killing) pesticides in January 2023, the UK now free of EU interference has in fact continued to allow the âemergencyâ use of them (wildlifetrusts.org 23/01/2023).
It is rather depressing given that the then DEFRA minister, Michael Gove, has been advocating such a ban since 2018.
August 1, 2024
Maybe Labour will ban them. Who knows? The ******* Tories didn’t.
August 2, 2024
This compound type is banned in UK except for limited use as a seed dressing on sugar beet, Mrs Gold need not get a bee in her bonnet without proper research.
August 1, 2024
Destruction will continue because current and recent political and other leaders do not care about our country or our people and our identity, ie Englishness and history, just their ideologies.
Taking to the streets is tbe only way to put things right.
August 1, 2024
30-odd years ago, the authorities learned that if you push the people too far (then, with the poll tax), you will have to give way, and the prime minister will be forced to resign.
More recently, they’ve learned a different lesson. If 1 million people take to the streets to protest about the insanity of your war policy, just use the police to kettle them. The prime minister will not resign, and will keep on lying.
That is now the modus operandi of government, and not just in this country – it was used to crush the gilets jaunes in France. Same drill with anti-lockdown protests in Australia and Germany.
Taking to the streets doesn’t work any more, Prangwizard.
August 1, 2024
It works for Just Stop Oil. They have an enormous influence on government policy. If they didn’t, we’d be using our own oil instead of importing it.
August 2, 2024
They aren’t ‘the people’. They are the footsoldiers of the globalist assault on traditional society and the nation state.
August 1, 2024
The farmers make money by growing wild flowers.
Why canât we just eat poppy seeds?
August 1, 2024
Team GB has made an excellent start to the Paris Olympics. We have already won six gold medals.
How come the BBC has been unable to afford to show the Olympics live? Why do folk need to pay for the Discovery+ app to watch our athletes win their medals in real time?
The BBC should be properly funded and the inflation + rise in the licence fee scrapped by the Tory Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer in November 2023 to curry favour with Farage should be re-introduced immediately
August 1, 2024
A better idea would be to distribute shares in the bbc to license holders and tell it to fund itself like other networks
Reply Indeed. I have put this idea to the Culture Secretary and am awaiting a reply. This government so far is not good at answering emails.
August 1, 2024
I wrote once to Ted Heath as a teen. I got a very long, polite and detailed reply that addressed the issues I had raised. I did not agree with any or much of it however. The replies nowadays, if you get one, are usually off the shelf standard party lies & drivel I find. Often indicating they have not even bother to read you letter.
August 1, 2024
Most replies I get are cut and paste jobs from the Government’s websites.
The exception was about a year ago when I wrote to the Pensions Minister saying that I was self-identifying as an 80 yr old woman and they owed me 15 years back-dated pension which I’d like to collect as a lump-sum đ
It was obviously a joke, but they appeared to take it seriously. As a former C/S I think I did, at least, give some poor “wordsmith” at the DWP something to smile about that day.
August 2, 2024
My sister is about to be 80, she has received a formal letter advising that her pension is going up by 25p per week. For those who didn’t pursue maths (so ideal for government positions) that equates to ÂŁ1 per month, or ÂŁ12 per year. Of course should you have any additional income the ÂŁ12 will be taxed. Is this handsome unearned increase to be targetted by Rachel Reeves?
August 1, 2024
I have written to our new Wokingham MP but have not received a reply. Surprise surprise. Not the service I had become accustomed to! I expect heâs very busy.
August 1, 2024
Well he promised to work full-time claiming Sir John didn’t!
August 1, 2024
That made me, as they say, ‘laugh out loud’. Isn’t five thousand, seven hundred and fifty two MILLION pounds enough to send some crews to Paris? If you want to fund it, knock yourself out. I don’t.
August 1, 2024
I agree we should be self sufficient in food production.
August 1, 2024
“Paid not to produce”.
Sounds rather like some elements of our benefit system for people as well.
Now shortly to be introduced, pay a fine for manufacturing too many ICE cars, or selling too few EV’s.
Likewise stop producing energy from our own resources, but import the same from abroad.
I could go on but no point, as the politicians have lost all common-sense.
August 1, 2024
Indeed and keeping your old ICE car causes less CO2 than a new EV vehicle. Yet saving CO2 is the excuse for this mad policy. We have no space âlow CO2â electricity spare anyway to charge them with. Not that CO2 tree food is harmful anyway.
August 1, 2024
The RN has conducted a successful test of the advanced next-generation Spearfish torpedo on a Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarine, according to an Mod press release this week. The testing was undertaken at the torpedo proving range off Scotland
This modernised Spearfish Mod 1 variant features several enhancements, including a new warhead, a safer fuel system, an upgraded electronic guidance system, and a fibre-optic link to the parent submarine for improved accuracy and lethality.
Following the audacious transit of a Russian nuclear submarine through the Irish Sea past Faslane and Sellafield last year, this is good news
The ongoing transition of existing Spearfish torpedoes to the improved Mod 1 version is set to be completed by 2025, when all RN submarines will be equipped with this British developed advanced weapon system.
August 1, 2024
Hurrah!! Caps in the air! So we can have a war now?
Better wait a bit, though. I see from ‘Navy Lookout’ that this time last year we weren’t managing to have any attack submarines at sea at that point, because of our inadequate dockyard maintenance facilities. I wonder if we’re any better off now.
August 1, 2024
And we will not mention western planes and ships in the Baltic. Putin has said they âwill mirror our activityâ – so Russian warships in Cuba.
We need to produce enough to feed ourselves because we have no chance of establishing anything like the Atlantic convoys now.
So JR skips to the heart of the matter.
August 1, 2024
Has Putin read about WW2 UK shipping with terrible losses to supply Russia with essential food etc to assist and fight Hitler.
August 1, 2024
Sir John
It is always good to be reminded what was taken away from us by force. Big efficient farming was considered bad because continental part time farmers couldn’t compete. So in the usual Socialist fashion, bash and damage those that get it right, the ‘levelling down’ of Socialism.
CAP has since been weaponised, it destroys farming in poorer parts of the World by its dumping of produce on the poorest. Why should they become self-reliant when their own produce cant compete when flooded with dumped items.
Anything that seeks to manipulate the market is weaponising one section against another. That is why I am at odds with your suggestion of subsidises. Rather than subsidising things at home we should be taxing imports derived from subsiding by an amount equal to that subsidy. Otherwise where does subsidising stop?
August 1, 2024
Helping farmers produce food here is preferable to taxing farm produce from abroad. We can control the quality of the productive process here but not in foreign domains. Any idea that we could copy New Zealand in relation to subsidies needs a reality check by looking at an atlas.
Forcing or allowing the use of farmland in a sub-optimal way is the sort of thing that only dim-witted politicians and civil servants who behave as though the Climate Change Act is holy writ do.
I’m fully in agreement with JR’s post.
August 1, 2024
All this could and should have been done by the Brexit supporting Conservative govt at least in the last 4 1/2 years. No chance now.
August 1, 2024
Many are intrigued by the deepening defence relationship between the Irish Free State and the UK.
The transit of a substantial Russian naval squadron off the west coast of Ireland last year prompted the Admiralty to despatch a frigate to the vicinity to keep an eye on them. Many have speculated that this was at the request of the Irish government
RAF Lossiemouth recently hosted the Irish Air Corps (IAC) to discuss strengthening maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) cooperation between the two air forces.
This visit marked the first time an IAC maritime patrol aircraft, the recently procured CASA C295, was displayed at an RAF station, coinciding with RAF Lossiemouthâs friends and families day.
The IAC has procured three C295 aircraft for maritime patrol operations. During the visit, personnel from the IACâs 101 Squadron engaged with RAFâs 201 Squadron to explore increased SAR cooperation.
The RAF Lossiemouthâs P-8A Poseidon fleet often supports HM Coastguardâs SAR missions, making these discussions timely and crucial.
August 1, 2024
Why aren’t we saying ‘go ask your EU members for military protection’.
August 1, 2024
Dear Sir John –
yes, it would be good if we could grow our food here in the British isles. However – this is no longer going to happen for the following reasons:
* thanks to Net Zero, more and more productive land is being (ab)used for solar and wind ‘farms’.
* thanks to ‘green’ ideology (at home in Defra, our MSM and clearly some constituencies) farmers are told to take more and more of their land out of production, for ‘back to nature’ and ‘rewilding’ purposes.
* thanks to unbridled, nay: politically supported immigration (legal or illegal) there are now too many people here who need to be fed. How – on a shrinking area of arable and pasture land?
These issues were talked about during the EU Referendum. They are not unknown, they haven’t been unknown – but nobody has been doing anything about it. Labour now in power won’t, they’d rather punish all of us by more taxation. Ah, let’s stop here, I’m getting cross …
August 1, 2024
Nothing will satisfy the greens. Just Stop Oil. Just Stop Eating. Iâm surprised they donât eliminate themselves to save the planet. As if the planet cares.
August 1, 2024
Just Stop Oil is the country’s policy maker for road transport. That is why road building has been cancelled.
They are now demanding that flying out of the country must be stopped. They are starting this by saying frequent flyers must pay fees on top of the fares as punishment.
August 1, 2024
@The Prangwizard – and one of their(JSO) original sponsors is Dale Vince who makes millions from wind farms, oh I forgot he has donated ÂŁ1 million to Labour to get them elected…??
August 1, 2024
Britain’s finished. I’m thankful that my doctor son (and his doctor wife) are now emigrating and I have to work on the research chemist to make sure he does the same.
The real news hitherto unreported is the accelerating brain drain (500k last year)
August 1, 2024
Donât worry, all the Drs. In the colonies and ex-colonies I know come to the U.K. for 6 months of the year to earn a years wages. Atm I have a relation who lives in Hong Kong here and one from Cape Town.
Your children will learn that lesson too.
August 1, 2024
None of your suggestions will be implemented because we need to stay aligned with the EU because of Northern Ireland – what other reason could there be for the last Conservative government not to have acted on those obvious proposals ? What is far more likely is that the government will take measures to make food more expensive in the name of Net Zero as is already happening in the EU:
“Denmark will charge farmers up to ÂŁ80 for every cow in a world-first carbon tax on agriculture”
August 1, 2024
Letâs hope Denmark taxes pigs next – wonderful to export bacon and ham to them for a change and a big profit. After all we bred the lean pis they use to make bacon to sell back to us.
August 1, 2024
I think crop/fruit growing should be taught in inner city schools particularly as these children do not seem to know where their food comes from. I grew up just after the last War and we had fruit trees in the garden to counter food restrictions and regulations so that we could make our own jam (which I still prefer to everything else for breakfast) and fruit for pies etc. Vegetable production should be taught in schools so that small gardens, or even flats with balconies, could grow their own tomatoes and peas etc. We have become a machine operated lot of zombies who need to get back to living a natural life. Animal husbandry should also be taught so that children know where meat comes from if they are going to eat it. I know that my fight with not eating meat came from us keeping chickens when I was little and then my Uncle Jack (who was a butcher who gave it up and finished his life eating nuts and fruit as he could not stand killing after the War as well) coming to take one out for dinner as we had little else to eat. Mother went out to the shops as she couldn’t bear it and I found out as I got older that my pets had been killed for me to eat.
August 1, 2024
A farming friend was worried about his 5 year old son who spent a lot of time with an orphaned lamb – concerned about answering the question about the whereabouts of said lamb in a few months.
Then he heard his son talking to the lamb âyouâll be in our freezer by Christmasâ he told it!
Not all children are reared in the Metropolis.
August 1, 2024
People used to have to tell the kids their favourite bunny had escaped to join friends in the wild.
August 1, 2024
We wish. I wonder why in 14 years of Conservative Governance nothing happened to bring this sensible solution about?
August 1, 2024
It’ll never happen under this Labour Government, who, just like the last pseudo-Tory one, ignore the potential of the self-employed in OUR country, regardless of the benefits to all of us.
We’ve five more years of this and only god knows where we’ll be in 2029.
Not back under the jack-boots of Brussels I trust. If democracy still practiced in our once great Britain. It’s Deja vu the 1970s all over again, I fear.
August 1, 2024
Net Zero by 2050, with severely reduced energy available for fertilisers and for the growing, harvesting, production and distribution of food will mean the elimination of meats such as beef and lamb and food rationing. Additional food supplies will only be able to be imported by rail as shipping will be banned.
All of this will be made far worse of course by plans to add another 15-25 million or more to our population by 2050.
August 1, 2024
August now and Tesco Stores are only selling Tomatoes from the Netherlands and Spain. Whatever happened to local grown produce. Our local Market had local producers selling their produce every Thursday, Friday and Saturday and what did our Labour Council do, got rid of them. All our Governments seem concerned about is Globalisation, they want to be front and centre on the world stage and ignore the big issues which directly affect the British people. Idiotic Miliband and his Net Zero fantasy costly more than any Black Hole and all the while India and China are laughing their heads off while concentrating on their space travel aided by Aid from us the British Taxpayer. The House of Commons closed yesterday for their summer break, who would notice or care if they never came back?
August 1, 2024
Do not expect any change here because we all know the new PM wants us to ‘stay close’ to the EU.
It is an open secret that Starmer is planning to get us back into the EU any way he can, but most likely by the side door. To tie us in to EU decisions and make us fully compatible.
So why would this government want to increase our internal food market when a total reverse would be forced upon us in the near future?
Let’s not assume that this labour government is working to make life better for us. Growing more of our own food would help considerably, considering that before the decade is out we will be on survival rations.
August 1, 2024
It is a pity that the EU loving Parliament(s) joined with the ‘blob’ to bring about the sad state of affairs that is our domestic food security.
August 1, 2024
Read the Kipling poem âThe Landâ âŠ
Itâs ours no matter who âthe masterâ is.
August 1, 2024
Hi sir John
Labour want to take us back in the EU the previous government couldn’t agree with themselves hence three prime ministers one unelected
sunak jumped the sinking ship there is big trouble coming people have had enough all government’s have put the people second
And the people have been tolerant with the
Bombing and killing of our people children being raped by certain groups and allowed to by the police it’s now time to fight back I am 78 I will take up arm for my grandchildren my forefathers did it
this is a call to all ex servicemen to come forward
Thank you sir john
August 1, 2024
The disgraceful scenes of rioting in Stockport and London are totally unjustifyable, especially when the target is the Police. The Police are acting under direct orders set by the lawmakers in Parliament, so any expression of dissatisfaction should be directed at politicians who have allowed inward migration, both legal and illegal, to get out of control. That is the root of the problem.
Like most lifelong British citizens, I am angry at the way our society has been allowed to deteriorate since 1997 when the Blair Government started the influx of migrants from the third world, particularly young men from mainly Islamic countries whose values are very far from our own.
Labour and in particular the Home Secretary, will feel the backlash because it was blindingly obvious throughout the election campaign that she and Starmer have no idea how to deal with small boats and have given no indication that they are going to reduce legal migration to anywhere near manageable proportions.
Although no politicians other than Nigel Farage will be honest and admit it, everyone knows that the so-called “housing crisis” is overwhelmingly caused by the arrival of 2m migrants over the last five years. Until inward migration is brought under proper control, there is going to be growing unrest made worse by knife crime and the regular demonstrations we see in favour of Gaza. By proper control, I mean reduced to a level that is acceptable to the British public. Labour need to start by adopting David Cameron’s target of less than 100,000 net arrivals a year. If they don’t, the voices of extremists will only get louder and I fear that there will be more and more demonstrations.
August 1, 2024
Ian,
If govt does not listen, deliberately tries to silence the public through equality terrorism laws and act in stark contrast to what the public demands what are people expected to do?
Starmer made great emphasis on Govt. of public service. I now treat his comments as lies. After three/four weeks he has blown it. He is deliberately trying to sneak changes through without public scrutiny to change the face of Britain. That is before talking tax hikes. Starmer underestimates the fury of the public over mass immigration, reversing Brexit, now tax hikes to pay for these foreign criminal invaders! Prepare for more protests and disobedience. That is why Tory party were ousted. Starmer wants to go further âat paceâand enrage the public in doing so, what could go wrong! Brown sealed his fate by describing anyone opposed to mass immigration as a bigot ie Gillian Duffy. Starmer already had many EU meetings and meetings with EU countries to betray the Brexit vote and show complete contempt of the nation. I want another election I did not like the result, Starmer,Cooper,Lammy and Benn went much further than ask, they conspired and colluded to overturn the Brexit result.
August 1, 2024
Sorry, wrong name, Chris.
August 1, 2024
Well.
Judging by footage of brutal policing I have just seen the powers that be have got exactly what they wanted.
Import newcomersâŠgrant them cultural freedomâŠ.upset the established populationâŠ.to the point of riotsâŠ.( making them poorer and more stressed by the by)
Chaos and martial law.
As planned.
August 1, 2024
I think recent events have got Labour and the establishment running scared of events on the streets which, if action is not taken to deal with dissatisfaction among voters, they will not be able to control.
Hence the very quick release of reporting restrictions by the judge and the conversation between Starmer and Chief Constables this morning.
At present only the far right are taking to the streets but they must know that the majority of the population want firm action on knife crime and inward migration and have been ignored for far too long.
Starmer is going to have to deliver on the small boats : something quite difficult after cancelling the rather ironic Rwanda scheme. He will also have to reduce inward legal migration much further than the Conservatives planned to do. This has all had a knock on effect on public spending on the NHS, education, and housing, all of which are being adversely effected by the huge number of net arrivals. Our host has previously done a lot to point this out but has also been ignored.
In this new parliament, the cosy parliamentary concensus of keeping quiet about the many faceted problems being caused by net migration will no longer be able to be maintained with Reform in Parliament. Nigel Farage and his three companions, rather than the more established parties, represent the views of the vast majority of UK citizens and they will ensure that we can no longer be ignored.
August 1, 2024
Agreed except that ordinary folk appear to have already taken to the streets.
The tories ( supported by Labour) looked the other way when the extreme far left were kicking offâŠwhat after that would any government have to fear from the right? They obviously have no fear of mayhem and destruction.
All in the play book I am afraid. They want chaos and an excuse to impose totalitarianism. Already thanks to voter idiocy we have a virtual dictatorship.
There are even those who suggest that Tory âinefficiencyâ was not all it was claimed to be.
Parliament tied up neatly in a bright red ribbon and handed over to Labour with a side of steamed rice.
August 1, 2024
I can’t agree that ‘ordinary folk appear to have already taken to the streets’.
Ordinary folk don’t overturn police cars, set fires, throw stones and bottles at them, engage in hand to hand fighting. They don’t incite, invite more violent yobs with a preference in civil disorder.
Ordinary is what you are used to, I am not.
August 2, 2024
Oh really?
Aldershot?
August 2, 2024
Ever..your point being?
August 1, 2024
I understand 78 stabbings in the U.K. in the last 36 hours. This is not a âBritishâ weapon. We have allowed the political class to imported all of this crime and violence.
August 2, 2024
Correct. And the gang culture which is responsible for so much criminality and violence across the country.
August 2, 2024
FOUR companions and several by defection soon…
August 1, 2024
AS I HAVE STATED MANY TIMES HERE. BEWARE THE TROJAN HORSE.
IT HAS BEEN WALKING TOWARDS ENGALND FOR MANY YEARS AND STILL PEOPLE ARE NOT AWAKE.
August 1, 2024
Dear Sir John,
We should not blame the EU for all our agricultural ills. Big cereal farmers did well out of the CAP. We were not forced to grub up our orchards. We could have eaten our abundant shellfish instead of exporting it to Spain and France for lack of a home market. And we could have learned about marketing from Italy, France and Ireland.
The main problem was that, for good historical reasons going back to abolition of the Corn Laws, our policy and culture has been based on cheap food: importing from the cheapest source and supporting UK farms with price subsidies. EU policy, inspired by France, was to support local farmers by keeping cheap food out and prices up.
The UK remained addicted to cheap food, inevitably leading us to focus on the cheapest varieties, the cheapest factory methods and the cheapest ingredients at the expense of quality and British farmers. (Whatever happened to the fine hops of your native Kent?). Let us not blame supermarkets for selling us what we want.
We are where we are. Your aims could be achieved but only by integrated policies given high priority. In reality, no political party (including Reform) cares a bean. Even the Greens would be happy for us to live on textured soya protein from China.
August 1, 2024
Sir John. What would be nice was for the UK to have full access to the fish in UK Territorial Waters. At the moment the UK Governments have given greater access using Larger boats, than is permissible for our own Industry.
The UK fisherfolk act responsibly and sustainably, while the UK Government allows that care to be destroyed by irresponsible marauders that when the stock are gone they will be off plundering elsewhere. The UK Fishing fleet cant do likewise the UK under direction of their EU masters had the bigger boats destroyed so they couldn’t take to sea again. Now the fishing grounds, the breading grounds are needed for windfarms.
The Government will ensure we starve before we even see any energy.
August 1, 2024
With agri land about to be covered by wind-farms, its interesting to note –
”Swedenâs Markbygden Ett, Europeâs largest wind-power plant, has lost more than âŹ322 million since its start-up” ”The European Investment Bank (EIB) lent out âŹ174 million to the Swedish wind farm firm, making it the biggest lender to the company”
https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/08/europes-largest-wind-power-plant-stacks-up-hundreds-of-millions-in-losses/?fbclid=IwY2xjawEYjtNleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHX75QqAsOzLqd-SQwxiMBT1Ej6PVwB9WFtCflxKdlQNw26zeKXWyXaxP8w_aem_0pvOBdMuzEPV8ty12Izx8A
We can expect the same in the UK
August 1, 2024
At least! đ€ but Mr Cold of this blog will turn off the heating in his orchard house, so should all be fine.
August 1, 2024
Starmer showing his true colours. Never let a crisis go to waste. A new era of authoritarianism is just around the corner.
Thanks Tories for endorsing the poison of Blairism. You’ve only gone and destroyed a nation
August 1, 2024
We need to let Starmer get on with it for the time being.
He totally does not get just how angry and fed up white, English people are about crime committed by foreigners of all races and colour, and mass immigration which is causing the deterioration in our public services and has caused a housing shortage.
Labour will inevitably fail to reduce net migration or to deal with the boats because they have no workable policy on the boats, and the OBR ad BofE want mass immigration to continue, in their mistaken belief that it brings more growth in GDP. It doesn’t, it just decreases GDP per head of population which is what makes people poorer.
Starmer will just make our people even more angry. As a result, Labour will loose support very quickly.
The Conservatives are no better, especially when the party is now made up of at least 80% Remainers and even more One Nation Wets who support the establishment, including the B of E and OBR.
Polls will move in our favour and sooner or later the main parties will have to fall into line or support will hemorrhage to Reform.
August 1, 2024
The One Nation types need to realise that the 4m who already voted for Reform are certainly not going to go back to the Conservatives and are likely to be joined by millions of other Conservative voters !
August 1, 2024
I read that if the average English garden devoted half its area to fruit & veg, the UK could grow all its own fruit and veg!
So it’s a no brainer. But I don’t think politicians can really directly affect this. I think this is a cultural mindset that can only really be triggered by the media and the arts (in particular, fun, interesting, engaging TV programmes about how to do this). HOWEVER, politicians can still use their standing to try and influence people in the media and arts.
The benefits to the individual (and to the country) are huge:
1) It’s deeply therapeutic to grow your own fruit and veg. To see your own food growing in your own garden that you planted with your hands in the earth etc.
2) It saves a tonne of money.
3) It’s properly oragnic and so better for your health
4) It reduces immigration (fruit pickers)
5) It attracts beautiful and rare butterflies and other insects
6) It’s an interesting topic to chat over with your neighbours, friends and family
7) It gets you out of the house in the fresh air and moving around so health
8) You can make your own jam and other condiments
9) It looks great seeing fruit and veg in your own garden
10) I can’t think of anything else
August 1, 2024
The problem is that everyone has the glut at once, we have baskets of apples at the gate hoping people will help themselves. I see my neighbour with his wheelbarrow delivering to each neighbour presents of baskets of fruit and veg.
You need a freezer – that means you need electricityâŠ..
August 1, 2024
Well a freezer (not that much electricity), a dryer, vinegar to pickle, alcohol or sugar to preserve⊠all good fun if you enjoy it but if you cost your time at £50+ an hour!
August 1, 2024
OK, but in principle there are far more pros than cons!
Also, 2 other important points:
1) Less CO2 / pollution as you don’t have to deliver and store the fruit and veg – and less packaging
2) Tolstoy says in War and Peace something like (forget exactly now), every man should grow his own veg. Good for the soul. Something like that.
August 2, 2024
Tolstoy’s extended essay:”How much land does a man need?” is worth a read.
August 1, 2024
Press them into cider (you can send them to a professional cider press). Make more apple crumble ..
August 2, 2024
Apple Butter is the answer!
August 1, 2024
Spoiler alert.
It takes a lot of work, weeding, watering, protecting from bugs, animals and birds.
It can end up costing as much as buying in.
It gets you out of the house in the wind, cold and rain checking all your work.
When successful you might have a lot to prepare for a freezer, and maybe too much.
August 1, 2024
OK so my sister has a plum tree and two apple trees that involve ZERO work – great fruit and tonnes of it (excess apples can be pressed into cider and you can make plum liquor).
Here are veg and fruit that are easy / straightforward to grow:
salad leaves, peas, onions, tomatoes, courgettes and squashes, beetroot, beans, potatoes, radish, stawberries, shallots, gooseberries .. rhubarb.
August 1, 2024
I remember a moth trapping breakfast session in Suffolk – many years back with the young children – an amazing collection of moths caught in the UV light box.
August 1, 2024
You also get to eat varieties that are selected for taste rather than long supermarket shelf life. Also things the supermarkets do not even bother to stock. Loganberries, white and morel cherries, damsons, cardoons, different pears, medlars, apples, garlic spearsâŠ
August 1, 2024
Good exercise too & far better than some sweaty gym.
August 2, 2024
But to do this sustainably you need copious supplies of manure.
With the policy of livestock elimination, where will this be sourced ?