50 yrs of paying taxes into the system and doing National Service for 24 shillings a week (£1-20p) means that I'm entitled to a full State pension without feeling guilty about it.
Royal Mail announce that second class post will not be delivered on Saturdays and only every other weekday. I would estimate that 90% of our mail is second class post.....locally neighbours agree that everyday delivery is not been happening regularly for awhile....although Royal Mail don't admit that is happening.
Starmer and Macron have agreed a "one in one out policy"....a boat person will be return to France in exchange for a person with genuine links to the UK. Starmer is claiming it as a big success....but it is limited to 50 either way per week......but in the meanwhile today alone another 200 cross the channel. My maths might be pretty basic.....over 20,000 have arrived this year.....and we plan to send back 50 of them per week......that will not lower the figure.
I have no problem with people working for what they have and wanting to keep it. I want to pass something on to my kids just like any other normal person. But bleating that they are constantly being seen off is just greed and a self self self attitude. I did a lifetime of paying tax as well and did 14 years of Service starting at £5 per fortnight in 1965 so you weren't the only one paid poorly. I too have earned a full pension but I'm not bleating on about being robbed because they are looking at how my pay rises are considered.
Liberian President Joseph Boaklai was praised by Donald Trump for speaking "good english".....and was asked where he went to school. Liberia has English as its national language and has had ties to the USA for years....and many Liberians speak with an American accent. Maybe Trump's idea of good english is it being spoken with an American accent ?
Whew......94F in the greenhouse this morning at 9am.....and all the windows opened overnight Front door facing the morning sun....and becomes a little difficult to open as it expands in the direct heat of the sun.
I think this Starmer- Macron love-in at the moment will not last long. Starmer gets excited over any little crumb thrown to him................Macron isn't really giving him anything that will be a lasting success. BUT.....Macron has told Starmer a few home truths why the UK is such a soft touch for migrants to come and be given hand-outs and work on the black market as well. Maybe ID cards will stop illegal working and show us who shouldn't still be here.
As usual Plym you are listening to the wrong people on this. Firstly, it's a pilot scheme and if it succeeds, could be expanded. Secondly, those so removed, having come in illegally, will lose all and any future rights to enter. Thirdly, the mere fact of expulsions will undermine the people smugglers' business model: who's going to pay them big money to cross the Channel if you're just sent back where you came from? I haven't voted Labour since my 20's (if you aren't a Socialist when you're 20, you have no heart, but if you aren't a Conservative by the time you're 30, you have no brain) but this seems to have more potential than any other scheme as it actually comes from getting the French to agree to something useful. What you should listen to is what President Macron said: Macron said the scheme would have a "deterrent effect" beyond the numbers returned. He added that Brexit had made it harder for the UK to tackle illegal migration, arguing that the British people were "sold a lie... which is that the problem was Europe". Clearly this bears weight as the numbers coming in increased post Brexit but under the leadership of the Great Clown, Boris Johnson and his Conservative successors. I believe he also pointed that Britain's slack employment laws, which make illegal working very easy are a significant "pull factor". Britain is one of a very few countries in Europe that doesn't have an identity card system, which exacerbates the problem. Ironically, many on the Right who get very worked up about immigration are also against the identity cards that might help stop it.
N Korea welcomes its first group of Russian tourists to the Wonsan Kalma resort......it was opened in a grand ceremony last month by North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un......who hailed it as a "world-class tourist and cultural destination".
It may be the raw emotion that Donald Trump experienced when he personally won the World Club Cup trophy for Chelsea but he gets weirder and weirder. “I don't want to call him (Putin) an assassin but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years, he fooled a lot of people – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden," he added. "He didn't fool me. At a certain point talk doesn't talk, it's got to be action." What’s that? Firstly, Putin was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB, so pretty much by definition, he’s been involved in assassinations, just as, let’s be honest, his equivalents in the CIA have. There is also a distinct suspicion that the number of his political rivals who conveniently fall out of windows or poison themselves accidentally or die in prison on trumped up (HA HA) charges is too high to be coincidental. Also there is the issue of him deploying a deadly biological weapon in a NATO country (Britain) to try to kill a defector, and in doing so kill an innocent civilian. Previous presidents may have made mistakes in handling Putin but they didn’t make fools of themselves by trying to strike up a bromance with him while simultaneously undermining NATO did they? The plan now is apparently to levy third-party tariffs on countries which buy Russian products, particularly oil and gas. This will include India - a growing democratic super-power in the making, India should be an important ally, positioned as it is between radical Islamist areas on one side and China on the other. Instead, Trump is pushing it further towards BRICS The more obvious weapon wound be to increase sanctions on Russia itself. Including perhaps using already sanctioned Russian money held in Western financial markets to fund Ukraine. Too simple for Trump and doesn’t include the word “tariff”, so not for him obviously. He’s certainly a one-trick pony when it comes to those.
