Well, this week I scored 5/10, again beating political journalist John Rentoul, who scored a modest 3/10. I knew the answers to questions 2, 5, 6, 7, and 10. Had I not misread the question, I should also have got no. 8, and in the back of my mind I knew number 1 as well. Never mind.
Interesting to recall to mind that, if all ice on the Earth were to melt, sea levels would rise by no less than 230 feet. Where I once lived in London, Little Venice, is only about 60 ft above sea level. Where I now live is about 80 ft a.s.l., and where I was largely brought up, Caversham Heights, near Reading, on the border of Berkshire and South Oxfordshire, is —despite the “Heights” name— still only 180 ft a.s.l. Indeed, where I lived in New Jersey is only about 150 ft. a.s.l. despite its rather American name of Skytop Gardens.
Early this morning, checking the flock. Even though there is access to the shed, some had chosen to stay outside. I must admit, at one point, slight panic of where one was, but a sheep shape of Lunar came into torch view. All is well & #StormBert is turning to rain for us. #snowpic.twitter.com/flws6NuWp2
Time was, when storms and hurricanes had suitably tempestuous female names such as Veronica, Pamela, and Annie. Political correctness then took over even the weather forecast.
The police have largely given up their proper job of protecting the public and detecting crime (and deterring it), and have become the militia of the “woke” state. Criticize the groups that do much of the real crime (think caravans, or drill “music”, reggae etc, or Romanian passports carried by non-European-looking women in long dresses stuffed with stolen goods) and you yourself will fall victim to the poundshop Stasi that the UK police has become.
40 years ago, Surrey Police were very efficient; times seem to have changed.
As for Essex Police, they tried and failed to have me prosecuted for writing online the truth nearly 8 years ago. My blog article about it (written 6 months later) has proven one of my most popular, having had thousands of views:
Lindsey Graham stands out even in the U.S. Congress as a complete doormat for Israel and the American Jewish lobby. He should not be permitted to continue.
As for the threat to “crush the economy of the UK“, be careful what you wish for, bastard. The UK and EU states may end up forming a rapprochement with Russia, barring American interference with our economies and cultures, and letting the USA die on the vine, preoccupied with its upcoming racial/societal/cultural war.
▪️Lieutenant General of the Armed Forces of Great Britain Rob Magowan, who is in the position of Deputy Chief of the General Staff, said that the British Army would fight with Russia, if it was required of it.
Gung-ho careerist all-too-ready to have a war with Russia. Does he also accept that, in such a war, the UK might become a devastated irradiated wasteland? Does he imagine that that is somehow brave, or honourable? All because of a cabal of Jew-Zionists who are running a shambolic and brutal dictatorship in Kiev. Why? Meaning— “what is the real agenda?”…
“A King’s Counsel who once headed up the Criminal Bar Association allegedly used his powerful and influential position to coax an aspiring barrister into ‘unwanted’ sexual activity, a tribunal has heard.
Navjot ‘Jo’ Sidhu, who is married, faces 10 charges of professional misconduct that pertain to allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour with two young women who came to him for advice.
Sidhu, who hails from Southall in west London, wrote he ‘never wanted to be a barrister’ in a column for Counsel magazine in 2023, in which he extolled the virtues of equality and diversity.“
[Daily Mail]
[Respondent]
I can feel the “diversity” from here!
Of course, “those people” are not the only ones who do such things as alleged, but proportionately, they do far far more of such activity than English people.
A new and interesting mural design in Tehran's Palestine Square has emerged following the news that the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Galant.
The poster says: In Hebrew: "The beginning of the end of Israel. Criminals under… pic.twitter.com/dJ9ID2XgUH
“A Lewisham teenager who left a university student in a coma after a near-fatal stabbing bragged his knife “turned from blue to red”. William Osaseri, 19, fled from the scene in Nottingham and caught a train to Birmingham before returning where he was caught on CCTV calmly playing table tennis, Nottingham Crown Court heard.”
[Daily Mail]
What will London and all major urban areas of the UK be like by 2034 or 2044 if Britain does not wake up and put a permanent stop to this?
I remember that winter of 1962-63. I was 6 years old, and had gone into Reading from my home in Caversham Heights (on the other side of the Thames) using the one bus, a single-decker, that serviced my home area. I cannot recall who accompanied me. Probably my grandmother, because she was the only adult family member unable to drive; unusually for that era in the UK, we were a two-car family.
As the bus returned to the nearest stop to where I lived (a couple of streets away), the driver slowed, but opened the exit door before the bus had come to a halt. It was still moving as I fell out. Luckily, I fell onto and into a large drift or pile of soft snow, and was entirely unharmed. My first lucky escape?
The general public is unaware of how much of the whole WW2 “holocaust” narrative is not even exaggerated but actually invented. The number of entirely faked “true stories” and supposed personal accounts is staggering, and well deserves the designation of being an “industry”.
A well-known example of “faction” is that of the Spielberg film, Schindler’s List, which many people believe to be an unvarnished true account of actual events. In fact, Schindler’s List was based on a novel, Schindler’s Ark, which was written by an Australian who, when the Second World War broke out in 1939, was only 4 years old.
It is uncertain how much of Schindler’s Ark (and, more so, Schindler’s List) is mere invention. A great deal, probably. Obviously, the Second World War happened, and Jews were put to work under compulsion in some parts of Europe. You could compare the book and film to other “faction” books such as The Day of the Jackal; skilful melding of fact and fiction.
There is at present a battle between the forces of Light and those of Darkness. Only the Aryan can give life. Only the Aryan impulse can, not only maintain our culture, but renew it.
Talking points
I should not go along with that completely, not 100%, but 95%— yes.
Madness
So the supposed strategists of the West believe that Putin’s armies can invade, and pose a serious threat to, Central and Western Europe, despite the fact that they have, as yet, not subdued the Zelensky regime after nearly 3 years?
Or is all that talk a Schauspiel for the Western masses as NWO/ZOG attempts both “The Great Replacement” and “The Great Reset”?
More tweets seen
Iran Prepares to Strike Back at Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran will soon take decisive action in response to the military aggression and attack against its ambassador in Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/z6XiBEmKlK
Time for the Kiev regime to cede the eastern part of Ukraine, east of the Dnieper, as well as the littoral of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, and Crimea, to Russia.
Very nice. How about my free speech? I do not recall a word from Farage, Matt Goodwin, Toby Young’s “Free Speech Union” etc when the Jew-Zionist lobby targeted me for 10+ years (they say “only” 7, but have as-if-proudly admitted to it, eg on the website and Twitter/X account of the “Campaign Against Antisemitism”, or “CAA”, pressure group).
This Hannah Ingram Moore and Captain Tom story is a great diversion from the important panicdemic facts: 1. They knew lockdowns were unnecessary. 2. They knew covid was easily cured with existing drugs. 4. Millions of people have been killed by mRNA jabs. 5. Jabs cause cancer.
No real difference between Hannah Ingram-Moore and a drug user who steals the charity collection from a pub bar to feed their habit. She needs a custodial sentence 😡 https://t.co/CBM00xCNiC
I have blogged in the past, briefly, about that whole silly, sorry, business.
My views are that, while the old ex-officer was no doubt well-meaning, the whole thing was really a bit silly. He obviously believed, as did most of the population at the time (though not me), that “Covid” was some kind of existential threat to the nation (whereas it was the overall policy of “lockdowns” and other panicky measures taken that has proven so damaging to both economy and society).
Apart from that, I do find “Captain Tom” a bit of a “Captain Mainwaring”. After all, what kind of person, in the modern era, uses his military rank on a day to day basis nearly 80 years after he left the Army? Particularly when his substantive rank was Lieutenant (war-temporary Captain; he may have been gazetted substantive Captain prior to “demob” in 1946— I do not know), rather than Field Marshal, General, or Colonel.
Of course, in the 1940s, 1950s, even 1960s, there were plenty of people around who used their old war rank of, as many were, Major and, yes, even Captain, socially, or in business, but that was anachronistic even in the 1970s, fifty years ago.
“Captain Tom” never saw action, though of course that was no fault of his own; he went where ordered, and in his case that was to set up a rear-echelon training course for motorcyclists in India, later becoming an instructor in tank mechanics in Dorset. After that, he worked in the family construction business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Tom_Moore.
The whole “Captain Tom” thing became very convenient for the Government in propaganda terms
As for the old officer’s family, mainly his daughter Hannah and her husband, they are little better than cockroaches, of course.
Still, the old fellow meant well, however naively, and in a way it is sad that his memory is now irretrievably tarnished by the flagrant greed and dishonesty of his daughter.
Incidentally, I must read the copy of the autobiography of “Captain Tom” which is in the back of the car. Thankfully, Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband will not be getting a penny from me, I having bought it for something like 20p in Tesco, off a charity bookshelf I saw there.
Dear @jonsopel and @maitlis I’ll just post this to remind you of the depths to which two former “journalists” can sink. Kicking someone in your trade when they’re down and having suicidal thoughts. Failing to stand up for free speech. Gaslighting me by having a discussion about… https://t.co/Z8g4WeJJf1
“Dear @jonsopel and @maitlis I’ll just post this to remind you of the depths to which two former “journalists” can sink. Kicking someone in your trade when they’re down and having suicidal thoughts. Failing to stand up for free speech. Gaslighting me by having a discussion about “persecution complex” when I was the victim of chilling wrongful allegation by Essex People. What a despicable pair. Shame on @TheNewsAgents.”
Presumably, she means “Essex Police“.
Well, I have mentioned this previously. I support Allison Pearson’s free speech rights, but she supports the Jewish/Israel lobby, which has been trying to take away my free speech for over a decade.
I am old enough to remember those little shops. One in particular, in Caversham Heights, near Reading, early 1960s. The sweets were dispensed by the owner, I think an otherwise-retired old fellow, who sold them in small white-paper bags. A wide range, but I either bought small boiled sweets (very small balls of hard candy), or a kind of chewing gum that came with collectable cards depicting (and explaining) battles of the American Civil War of the 1860s. I wanted the cards, not the gum.
Very gory, those cards (as I discovered only when I belatedly read law, 20 years later) were the subject of a legal case (as to whether they counted as “obscene” because of their bloodsoaked content), which case went as high as the House of Lords (House of Lords Judicial Committee, the forerunner of the present UK Supreme Court). That was around 1965, only a couple of years after I used to buy the cards.
I remember that all my friends (who also bought the cards) favoured the Confederate side, but I (alone, I think) favoured the Union. Not sure now, over 60 years later, whether that was because the Union side was more efficient, or more advanced in weaponry, or just because I wanted to go contrary to the views of the mob.
The sweetshop in question was actually made out of the front part of an ordinary late-19thC house, which (I see from Google maps and streetview) has now reverted to being just a house again.
I also remember the little sweetshop because, aged about 7, I sheltered in that tiny shop after I (God knows why, now, but it would have been in self-defence) hit another boy, and then was sought out by the much older, and rather fearsome, brother of the same. In the end, the older boy caught me outside but, after I explained that I had hit his brother in self-defence, he was very reasonable, and let me off. Maybe I had dormant barristerial skills even then (or at least the ability to get out of scrapes)…
Tweets seen
Among others I was widely criticised in the summer for tracing the riots to the fact “we’ve let too many people into our country who hate who we are”
Labour politician here blames conservative for linking immigration with crime while knowing the gvt won’t give us, taxpayers, data on crime by migration & then blames conservative for “dog whistle politics”. People have had enough of this constant gaslighting https://t.co/n5wNFJoNNJ
Thangam “Debbonaire”, an ex-MP who uses a fake name (her real or original name was “Singh”, but she changed it by deed poll, presumably wanting to sound less “ethnic”), and who was kicked out by the voters at GE 2024, is invited onto TV to opine about immigration and public order etc. Why? She has no real locus standi any more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thangam_Debbonaire.
What you see on Twitter/X/Westminster today is many of the same people who blamed “far-right thugs” for “misinformation” in August now saying citizens have no right to ask legitimate questions about new information that has come to light, including when, exactly, it was known by…
Working-class men in the West have been smashed on two sides as elites & global firms offshored jobs to exploit cheap migrant labour overseas then imported masses of low skill migrants to exploit cheap migrant labour here at home https://t.co/nn4u7GO5aF
The people instinctively know that the System parties are rubbish, but also feel that, equally, there are no credible non-System parties for which to vote, only the very underwhelming Reform UK. Certainly, there are no credible social-national alternatives.
Look at what “they” are doing in Gaza, in the West Bank, and elsewhere. “They” always do such things when they have power. That is why “they” must never have power and, whenever they do have power, must be removed from having power.
South Korean and Qatari armies held a joint exercise. The South Korean army was represented by K2 tanks and K9A1 self-propelled artillery units pic.twitter.com/72H0FqqTEH
Terrible, but good to see that the lady’s companion animal was also rescued.
US has funded 73% of military costs associated with Israel’s war on Gaza
Washington has provided $22.76bn in military aid to Israel since the Oct 7, 2023 to Sept 30, 2024, according to analysis by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs… pic.twitter.com/fbH5kUDuuh
It is absolutely bananas what we are doing to the UK economy. Think we’re importing lots of high skill workers? That’s a little bit of the blue bar. The rest is a low-skill, low-wage Deliveroo economy that’s sapping our prosperity https://t.co/KPXX4VnTqTpic.twitter.com/MDlOxk1o9h
Big tax. Big debt. Big borrowing. Big state. Big welfare. Big immigration. Big regulation. All to get to small growth of around 1.5%. Britain's not working and it's the British people, as usual, who will have to pay the price.#Budget24#Budget2024
The state of Britain is so frustrating that it is tempting to shout “Full Communism Now!“, but that, of course, is not the answer. I recall that the Dowager Lady Birdwood opined that I was a “national bolshevik” (when I was aged about 18, around 1975)!
Don't complain about how much welfare benefits cost. Over 40% of Universal Credit goes to people who are working. No one working should need UC. No one is even trying to solve the real problems in the UK.
True, but the “welfare” bill would be very low were it not for the existence of literally millions of non-white parasites in the UK, both the migrants and the children and grandchildren of migrants and former migrants.
Talking point
More tweets
Former MI6 officer: Unknown air defense system led to failure of Israeli attack on Iran!
Alistair Crook, British diplomat and former MI6 officer:
“The Israeli planes, which were supposed to destroy the air defense systems with long-range missiles at the first stage, did not… pic.twitter.com/VReGzmGgb2
🇱🇧 The Israeli army blew up several neighborhoods of the Lebanese city of Deira with the explanation that it was destroying Hezbollah's infrastructure , reports the Lebanese media. pic.twitter.com/48FgsYilBS
Russian drone drops a net disabling Ukrainian drones in the skies of Donbas. The war in Russia – Ukraine has accelerated the capabilities of drone warfare. pic.twitter.com/KgHcsr5QhY
Only just beat political journalist John Rentoul this week. He scored “5 and a half“, he says, while I managed 6/10. I did not know the answers to questions 3, 4, 7, and 10. In fact, I had read about no.7 a while ago but forgot about it, and also should really have guessed no.10.
The destruction of beauty, and the creeping growth of housing
Earlier this week, I blogged about the horrible destruction of trees in Armada Way, Plymouth by a corrupt local council. Now, while reading a report about the recent suicide of a headmistress of a school attended by me 60 years ago, I saw something equally unpleasant about Emmer Green, just north of Reading.
Northwest and north of Reading, across the Thames, there are two basically suburban areas abutting the open woods and fields of Oxfordshire: Caversham Heights (where I lived at times as a child) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caversham_Heights], and Emmer Green [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmer_Green]. About two or three miles of more or less open country separates the two. Within that couple of miles there was, inter alia, a golf course, Reading Golf Club, which in the 1960s and 1970s was the only golf course on that side of the Thames and that close to Reading.
I myself was a junior member of Reading Golf Club for a year or so around 1972, when I was 15-16. My golfing equipment was old and rudimentary, given to me by family friends, I think: one or two woods (drivers), an oddly-short no.3 iron, an ancient and wood-shafted mashie niblick (no.7 iron)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolete_golf_clubs#20th_century_wood-shafted_irons], and a putter (also wood-shafted). Out of date even then.
That golf course was rather beautiful, I thought, with plenty of majestic trees framing the fairways of the 18 holes, and even a very small valley, from which one drove from the tee on one side to the hole on the other. A very unusual par as well— 2 par, if I recall aright.
That hole must have been some kind of anomaly, because 3-par is the lowest par usually designated: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par_(score). Maybe I just remembered wrongly, and it was 3-par; no matter.
I managed (by luck, really) to get a hole-in-one on that, though it hardly counts, arguably, not being a more typical sort of hole.
Be that as it may, I was discomfited to read yesterday that not only has that golf course now closed (and been subsumed, as a club, into a new golf club with a course a few miles away) but the area of the old course has been designated for housing— 223 new houses. There is strong local opposition from nearby residents calling their protest group Keep Emmer Green: https://www.keepemmergreen.org/.
[the old Reading Golf Club, Emmer Green, more or less as I remember it]
We see this all the time now, especially in southern England: “infilling” of green areas around or in towns and cities, usually so that housing can be built for profit. Mass immigration, births to existing UK residents, the collapse of the traditional family. Overall result— pressure to build more housing.
In the end, will there actually be an England worth saving or defending? A question members of the armed forces, and the intelligence and security services, might pose to themselves in a lucid moment.
Incidentally, since the early 1970s, I have rarely played golf, and own no golf clubs (both my younger brothers are keen players, though).
“Covid” “panicdemic” nonsense, migration-invasion nonsense (fake “refugees” put up in hotels etc), general “Ukraine” nonsense (arms, ammunition, medical supplies, and hard cash, all being funnelled to the corrupt and dictatorial regime of the Jew Zelensky). Etc.
NEW Pre-Budget Westminster Voting Intention.
LAB 48% (+3) CON 32% (+3) LD 8% (-2) GRE 2% (-1) SNP 3% (nc) REF 3% (-1) Others 5% (-1)
Prediction of the result of a general election not due to be held for possibly 20 months is a fool’s game, of course, but at present it certainly looks like a shoo-in for Labour, and most policy announced by the “Conservatives” seems to play into Labour’s hands despite Labour itself being so lacklustre.
Seems to be useful public health advice. I myself have no liver problem, but am posting those tweets as a general warning to anyone who, or who knows someone who, is in that situation.
Wow! What a nice little earner. £71,410 per annum to sit at home tweeting (playing) whilst publishing the odd blog. Money for nothing really?! Kudos to Craig for publishing the amount his grift garners, though. Unlike Jack Monroe. https://t.co/WObazrfOuO
Better pay than being “His Excellency” the Ambassador to [somewhere]. While a few British ambassadors get nearly £150,000, most are below £100,000, and some receive as little as £60,000, though they do get reasonably-nice, sometimes very nice, ambassadorial residences, and there are a number of perks. Also, diplomatic immunity. I should have appreciated that a few times myself, when working overseas. Very convenient.
I believe that Murray was appointed to Tashkent (Uzbekistan) in 2002.
Murray seems to be someone highly principled (according to his own lights), and a bit awkward, like one or two Quakers I encountered several decades ago. The Diplomatic Service was almost certainly the wrong career for him.
Labour never polled in local elections as high as its GE opinion polls even in the Blair era (if it gets 40%+ in May I will be impressed), but the year's seat gain trends are pretty clear https://t.co/xOBPSEavEB
Your going back to 2022 try looking at the last few weeks . It looks like the greens or independents are taking the majority . If this continues labours lead isn't 20 points
We survived one of the most sophisticated psyops in the history of the world. pic.twitter.com/4LWbbbSUWB
— David Morgan 🏴 #StayFree (@david_r_morgan) March 18, 2023
From where I sit, it appears Vladimir Putin is the one man standing between what’s left of a “free” world, and a totalitarian, tyrannical, murderous one-world government body.
Social security benefits in the US are on track to be reduced by 20%, which will hit the elderly and the vulnerable the hardest.
But there's always money for war. And there's always money for Zelensky.
Hopefully, by now, you can see that the people in power hate you.
— David Morgan 🏴 #StayFree (@david_r_morgan) March 17, 2023
God… and most of those people have so little anyway, and amid such wealth. The USA in some ways is “the Great Satan“, as the Islamic crazies sometimes claim. Not in every way, but in some. I myself have experienced a little of both the more comfortable and less comfortable sides of American life. The USA needs radical reform.
So much for “Biden the great humanitarian”. Not that he has invented such hypocrisy— Clinton was there first.
Incidentally, the (typically labyrinthine) American bureaucracy pays out to people in need (those that can get it at all), a very modest amount, in many cases just a few hundred dollars a month: see https://en.as.com/en/2022/01/22/latest_news/1642820139_262174.html.
(that’s cash; other programmes exist in parallel, such as Medicare, Medicaid etc).
I get messages from young people daily thanking me for speaking out. No matter how much I get attacked, insulted, defamed, I will never be intimidated. Because this isn't about me – It's about the truth. They fear a great awakening, especially among the young. We won't back down.
— David Morgan 🏴 #StayFree (@david_r_morgan) March 17, 2023
— David Morgan 🏴 #StayFree (@david_r_morgan) March 17, 2023
Of course, tweeting (or blogging, or vlogging, or writing articles, or even launching doomed public law claims) does not frighten MPs. What does? Well, I am not going to say anything, but think back over the past decade…
This was the House of Commons today during a debate about the harms caused by the mRNA gene therapies. I counted less than 20 MPs present out of a total of 650.
$128 billion in military aid to Ukraine (more than double the entire Russian budget) & their soldiers are using 19th Century gatling guns in the defence of Bakhmut. Astonishingly, or perhaps not, no western journalist has asked the obvious question…https://t.co/ebwY8oGbY9
Ukrainian troops using M113 and YPR-765. Footage allegedly from the Bakhmut region. Imagine that as a Russian cannon fodder soldier you have to run against this.
True. Brutal. However, it seems that some fighters on both sides might be termed “cannon-fodder“. In fact, we in the West, subjected to the usual msm lies and spin, are not getting the true measure of the Ukrainian/Kiev-regime losses. Massive.
#Ukranian soldiers asked Zelensky and Zaluzhny to return him. The Armed Forces also confirm Dome's statements in an interview with the Washington Post about sending untrained replacements to the army and about heavy losses in the brigade. Slavyangrad
In the interview with WP, he complained about lack of ammo on the front, fresh recruits being sent to the front without proper training, some even don't know how to shoot a weapon. After a year of war, the unit had roughly 100 KIA and 400 WIA.https://t.co/5jevIm2XSf
A maverick officer, too honest for his notional superiors. Every army has a few. General Lebed, a Soviet and, later, Russian Army commander, was like that. He would have made a good President of the Russian Federation but, like others before him and since, he died in an apparent “accident” (in his case, a helicopter crash). Maybe it was an accident. Maybe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lebed; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lebed#Political_views.
Volunteer Mykhailo Storoznuk evacuates animals from the most dangerous frontline regions, including Bakhmut.
Volunteer Anastasia Tykha cares for them, treats their injuries and makes them feel safe.
There must be room for compassion and active help for the animals in war zones. None of them volunteered for this.
Late tweets seen
⚡️Ukrainian reinforcements reportedly in the Bakhmut direction.
Why?
The only military reason for it would be that the defensive lines after Bakhmut are not capable of holding back Z forces and thus are at risk of getting captured easier. pic.twitter.com/UI6YOLdp6o
I knew there was a strong correlation between attitudes/policies on Covid and Ukraine. Anybody can sense it even in intraparty debates within the libertarian and right-wing bubbles. But this is remarkable. https://t.co/Jfsmb6dCTe
A black man was arrested for allegedly spraying neo-Nazi, lynching & anti-gay graffiti on a black Atlanta church. James McIntyre was quickly released without bail. Some people online blamed white supremacy & white people for the hateful messages. #HateHoaxhttps://t.co/C1kufoP3Om
Of course, over the years quite a few Jews have actually been exposed and/or arrested for attacking Jewish graveyards, with the aim of inciting other Jews (via newspaper reports) to get excited about “antisemitism”, as well as the aim of goading the authorities to crack down on so-called “far right” (social-national) people or parties and groups, as well as repressing freedom of expression.
I have never understood why any social-national people would attack Jewish or any other graveyards. What is the aim? To kill dead Jews? Very strange.
What's even more Clown World is that Hitler never intended to harm UK
Germany only ever attacked as we declared war on them, attacked them & refused all peace offers