tree-fancier123

so our soldiers are dolescum too - scroungers with legs blown off

sure - there are rich who are milking the system, but a lot of those payments go to genuine farmers - you may resent that some rich people have a nice pad that would do you and for your yard - I know I do, but the scale of subsidies vs the scale of cost of dealing with migrants mean the illegal immigrants are what is ruining this country's finances The UK government spends a significant amount on agricultural subsidies. In 2023, farmers received £2.953 billion in subsidies, and in 2022/23, spending on farm support in England was around £2.33 billion. This support includes various schemes like the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), which provides delinked payments, and Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs). The government also provides grants for tree planting and other environmental benefits. Home Office figures cited by the Financial Times in August last year showed that the annual asylum cost reached £3.96 billion in the year up to 2023—double that of the previous year and six times higher than 2018. Yet, despite that astronomical cost, we continue to increase handouts to France to stop the boats.

1 - ok the super rich will try to avoid paying tax, but also they are not going to be scrounging benefits like illegal immigrants do 2 - Reform took more than 600 new council seats - if 6 have blown up, so what? Even a 10% attrition rate wouldn't matter

It's not somewhere I work, so haven't been right up to it, but that bright yellow is usually laburnum, quite a size for one of those. People with holiday lets and or kids around worry about them, as injestion of leaves and seed known to cause vomiting and even paralysis

they take a while to get big

the Israelis in Talks with Trump administration about US led administration of Gaza It would be no worse than any other injustice. Apartheid, slavery, holocaust - all part of human evolution

Harbour Energy are blaming windfall tax, Jeremy Hunt hiked that, seems to me Conservatives as much to blame, of course Labour are worse but Cons were quick to grasp at 'excess profits' These mid size oil companies are often loaded to the gills with debt to buy out smaller competitors, soon as energy prices drop they are in trouble. Equinor seems a good model - part state owned and part listed shares. Hit Farage up - he can add it to the manifesto

or add nitrous oxide

BillQ StevenP both cut from the same cloth, seemingly endless posts of almost interesting comments

he makes two observations about the spores 1 no leaf litter due to paved area below being swept clear 2 no other ash within 100m so, although the tree may have been infected, the absence of other trees and leaf litter means after abscission the tree can shed most of the pathogen and have a reduced chance of re-infection As above it may also be a genetically resistant specimen The leaf litter will remain at the base of most ash trees, aiding the pathogen's establishment. So if the author is right woodland ash close together are far more likely to succumb.

No, I exaggerated saying he was always in Spoons, I meant he was out drinking in the town most weekends. He said to me once ' I wish there was a job where you could get paid just for thoughts' There are jobs like that e.g a poet. Reminds me of the band UB40, band name referencing their source of income before they got going. So many creative types look at the benefits system as a way of getting money without having to go out and pick fruit or walk behind the bin lorry. I mean if you've been to art school why throw your life away on menial work, when you can have mental health problems and be free with you creative thoughts all day?

clearly someone with severe Down's or cerebral palsy isn't going to do much assembly work. But there are some with e.g Down's who could at least wipe the tables in the factory canteen. A chap I knew years back on the sick with mental health after art school, just kept taking the tablets, and often in the local Wetherspoon's - I used to think if he's well enough to go to the pub with his girlfriend, why can't he collect the empty glasses off the tables instead of scrounging? UK full of people scrounging. We are far too generous with benefits.

£30

We lost a lot of shipbuilding to the Philippines, among other places. Similar for a lot of our heavy industry. At least some of our Navy fleet was built somewhere else because it was cheaper. The fact that Dyson vacs are made abroad is just sick. Dyson vacuums are primarily manufactured in Malaysia, with additional manufacturing sites in China, the Philippines, and Mexico. Sick Sick Sick - we need to use the benefit claimants to make these vacs - if they won't do it - let them die

Trump isn't thick, no way. Maybe average, or even above average. Trump has cut illegal immigration to a trickle, whereas with Starmer we now have the situation where the French are handing out lifejackets as migrants set off and we are returning the lifejackets for the French to re issue. Trump doesn't have to be a good person to be not thick. Philipp Lenard was a German physicist who won the 1905 Nobel prize - he also became a supporter of the Nazi party.