Derek Draper has died. I don’t forget he was an obviously beloved husband and father and I can understand for his close family to mourn.
What is difficult to understand are the comments on the Daily Mail website. I even opted for the ‘worst rated’. It would appear that Gordon Brown’s attack dog was such a wonderful person that even the worst rated comments suggested he was marvellous and kind hearted.
Even Classic FM and GBNews at the top of the hour suggested Derek Draper was a kinder sort of politician with no mention of his reputation.
How amazing that a tv presenter should have been married to a Labour activist. I can still go to GBNews to find Esther McVey’s husband or Christine Hamilton.
By the way, where is Dan Wooten? And I hadn’t realised that he had been Calvin Robinson’s partner for a while. (I knew they were both gay, just hadn’t thought they would have been each other’s cup of tea.). Calvin used to do a particularly excellent Saturday evening programme on GBNews which questioned ethics and always ended with a prayer. (Far to good to have been on the BBC.)
TalkRadio was banging on all day yesterday about Derek Draper (who he?) who had been cared for by his wife Kate Garraway (who she?) who apparently had never recovered after Covid in 2020.
Why on earth was this news? More to the point how can the media claim that being ill with Covid was implicated?
Is it not beyond the realms of possibility that being injected with an experimental gene therapy in 2021/2022/2023 that by various estimates has done in over 20 million people world-wide also may have contributed to his demise?
Not having a telly and not watching the bBC I have no idea if this leftist lunatic did get jabba-jabbed but in general they are stupid enough.
I don’t know if you’re joking or not about Calvin’s supposed relationship with Dan Wooton. I’ve heard absolutely nothing to support this…I was going to say “back this up” but decided against…
If this is a “joke” then it’s in very poor taste…and if not, where’s your evidence?
Just watched Mr Bates v the Post Office. on ITV (ITVX channel) and I usually avoid ITV and BBC but a lot of people have responded on what happened to the (UK) Post Office when they went digital (Horizon) An elite who inhabit corporate structures, (like the BBC) do next to nothing but cause cock ups and leave with huge pays offs, then go onto another Public corporate body. with their diverse *skills. DIE (Diversity, Inclusivity, Entanglement), crap.
Mr Bates v The Post Office (four part series)
.
As usual the Liberal and Lefties running it (no real private company could survive that kind of cock up) made a huge mistake. Its the kind of drama the BBC used to do well but gave up after the Martin Bashir episode. The people running the Post Office are probably the same kind who pretend to read The Guardian (sic) and and praise the BBC for its (so called) unbiased insite, which, of course, is invisible to the naked eye. Both have survived on fixing prices and public monopoly and both claim to be ‘independent.
There are four episodes and each are damning of what happened and how they treated the staff it accused of theft. What makes it worse that the Woman (CEO) in charge was made a Dame afterwards.
Full credit to ITV for making this drama – its based on a true story which is still on going.
The Post Office admitted liability, finally. But you have to watch the torture they put these people through, denying any computer fault with ‘Horizon’. They still deny any problem occurred and that they lied for so long.
Just as an after thought. I am old enough to remember when the Post Office was twinned with the BBC through its UK broadcasting rights. I remember it was the Post Office that set off against the Pirate radio stations claiming lost revenue or/and illegal broadcasting. Only the BBC did that, monopoly broadcasting as it was before ITV. The BBC was at that time Dickensian and twinned with the Post Office, or Royal mail.
Phillip2
It really is worth the watch – and I’m no fan of ITV . A long time ago I was involved with the information commissioners ‘ office on the implications of digital ( computer ) evidence in court .
The dangers of the audit trail – or lack of audit trail – on the veracity of computer evidence – in whatever form – caused a real nose bleed .
This case is a consequence of courts relying on computer evidence – when the computer is wrong – with the computer company – Fujitsu – and even worse – the Post Office CEO suppressing the truth .
I really hope these characters grip the rail for perverting the course of justice – malicious prosecutions – perjury . I know they won’t do time – but at least they need some sort of public exposure ….. I noted the ex CEO – with gong is a C of E vicar
PS – the programme never got into the detail of what went wrong – whether it was hardware or software – could it have been as simple as defective ‘pin machines ‘ ….and the horrible – truly horrible consequences …
This should not be left to fester in a long drawn out public inquiry …. Resolution needs to be done quick …
Stop press – it seems the Met Plod is investigating Fujitsu and the Post Office for a number of crimes ….
Mr Bates and the Post Office is just the sort of topical people-interest programme which Al Beeb used to make….before it went into Rabid Left Wing politicking.
After watching it I mused on why Al Beeb had missed this golden opportunity to attack the Gu’ment, said Gu’ment for the last 13+ years having been, nominally, Toryscum.
I conjectured it was because the scandal arose under Al Beeb’s pals, the Far Left Liebor Party, and that the majority of the victims were Whiteys with far fewer BME than Al Beeb would have cast if they had made it. And of course, Liebor’s fellow-travelling placepeople (no sexism here), had a (covering-up) hand in it.
I’ve just watched Patrick Chrystis trying to ask people he assumed were Nat West employees going into the City HQ whether most people can get a mortgage. The only one who would speak to him was a young black man. But what struck me was how scruffy they all were. None were wearing a suit, jeans and a jumper seemed to be order of the day. I just wonder what their pay is, what their background and what their culture is that Nigel F doesn’t align with their values.
It’s sad and tragic about Derek Draper, but I think if truth be told, barring a miracle, this outcome was always on the cards. So I wish his still young wife, once she has navigated her way through the grief, a more peaceful life where she can take time for herself.
‘Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair has strongly denied an Israeli media report linking him to talks last week about the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza in other countries.’
So you had to go to a report from Israel to ‘prove your point’ maxi. LOL. And of course Bliar must be telling the truth right ?. LOL at you again.
What tomo said was prefectly true. Reports did say it.
Let’s see what else Tony had to say
‘Tony Blair: ‘We were wrong to boycott Hamas after its election win’
‘Tony Blair says he regrets siding with Israel and George W Bush over Hamas boycott in 2006’
Did the Right put those words in his mouth maxi ?. The original report sounds very credible to me.
“As Chief Executive of the Post Office from 2012, Paula Vennells presided over the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history, resulting in countless ruined lives, not only Post Office staff but their families.
Along the way, she’s been accused of various appalling professional oversights, many of which are chronicled in the ITV drama, where she is played by The Crown star Lia Williams.
On her watch, the Post Office sought to bury the scandal, with Vennells not only obfuscating and giving misleading information to MPs, but also backing her organisation’s strategy of aggressively prosecuting innocent sub-postmasters using computer data it knew was flawed.
Vennells was, among other things, personally responsible for the sacking of Second Sight, a forensic accounting firm brought in to get to the bottom of the scandal, just days before it was due to publish its excoriating findings. She also sanctioned the combative legal strategy her organisation pursued against victims of the scandal who sought recompense.
For this, she was richly rewarded, earning £4.9 million including huge performance-related bonuses and a CBE to boot, during the seven years before she resigned in 2019. Months after she went, the High Court awarded £58 million in damages to 555 persecuted sub-postmasters.
That decision didn’t deter Vennells’s ambitions. Instead of retiring to her £2 million Grade II-listed farmhouse, she took up a string of lucrative high-status jobs. The NHS made her chair of a large trust. The Cabinet Office gave her an advisory role. Supermarket Morrisons gave her an £89,000-a-year non-executive directorship and home retailer Dunelm paid her £55,000 to join its board.
The Church of England, where Vennells served as a part-time priest, meanwhile decided to put her on the committee overseeing its ethical investments.”
“Vennells’s predecessor Adam Crozier prospered after the Blair government handed him the chief executive role at the Post Office in 2003.
For seven years, until his departure in 2010, the former boss of the Football Association was Britain’s best-paid civil servant, sometimes earning more than £3 million a year in pay and bonuses — despite presiding over the closure of more than 7,000 Post Office branches.”
“When MPs began asking awkward questions about the Horizon scandal, Post Office Chair Alice Perkins was called upon to allay their concerns.
A former civil servant who earned £100,000-a-year in the part-time job from 2011 to 2015, she knew plenty about telling politicians what they wanted to hear: her husband, with whom she has two grown-up children, happens to be Tony Blair’s former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
The crucial meeting, at which Paula Vennells was also present, mirrored several depicted in ITV’s drama (in which Arbuthnot is a prominent character) by turning into an exercise in bluster and obfuscation.
At one point, Perkins and her chief executive promised to be ‘open and transparent’ over the affair. At another, they reassured the MPs that Horizon had the ‘full support’ of the National Federation Of SubPostmasters.
A judge later pointed out that both claims were untrue. “
“Sir Ed Davey’s journey to the leadership of Britain’s third party began in 2010, when he was appointed Minister for Postal Affairs in the coalition government.
In May that year, a letter landed on his desk from Alan Bates, the wrongly-convicted postmaster at the centre of ITV’s new TV series.
‘Many people have been sent to prison, lost businesses and homes and faced financial ruin by an organisation that will stop at nothing to keep the true facts behind its failing IT system from being exposed,’ it read. ‘In writing to you on behalf of the group, I am asking for a meeting where we can present our case to you.’
Davey wrote back, primly informing Bates that this staggering miscarriage of justice was ‘an operational and contractual matter’ for the Post Office. The future Lib Dem leader concluded: ‘I do not believe a meeting would serve any useful purpose.’
Fast forward to 2017 and Bates led a group litigation against the Post Office. It responded by hiring attack-dog lawyers from City firm Herbert Smith Freehills to fight its corner. At this point, Davey makes a second ugly appearance in the scandal. For in June that year, he agreed to be taken on by Herbert Smith Freehills as a ‘consultant on political issues and policy analysis’, earning £5,000 a month, for six hours’ work — £833 an hour.”
“Moya Greene was in charge of Royal Mail as Chief Executive for eight years from 2010, earning a huge £11.5 million in the process.
During the first months of her reign, Greene’s organisation then decided to proceed with the notorious prosecution of sub-postmistress Seema Misra, who was sent to prison for 15 months, despite being pregnant, after faulty Horizon data suggested that she had stolen £75,000.
Later, in 2011, Ernst & Young warned in an official audit report that weaknesses in the Horizon system could ‘lead to . . . unauthorised or erroneous transactions’. Yet still the prosecutions were allowed to continue.”
Jo Hamilton: What the Post Office did to Horizon victims was criminalhttps://t.co/jekEpYnAHs
The former sub-postmaster, wrongly accused of stealing £36,000, enters the courtroom to find it packed with people from her Hampshire village who are outraged by the prosecution
An interesting comment about the bbc here that I came across:
“Israel is one of the closest allies to the USA, UK and France. You show support and solidarity with your closest ally.
For example in 2001 the UK and France had no interest in invading Afghanistan. They did it however to support the USA which had just been attacked by Al-Qaeda based out of there. This is what you are supposed to do for your allies.
The BBC and CNN have no business whatsoever showing videos of Gaza hospitals of wounded children trying to paint Israel in a negative light and trying to get sympathy for Hamas/Gaza/Palestinians.
And before anyone says; they are the news they have to show unbiased reporting. They have not once shown any videos of injured Russians in the conflict that has been going for almost two years now with Ukraine. It is universal support and propaganda videos for Ukraine. And the UK and USA are not even allies with Ukraine (Joe Biden might be due to dodgy dealings through his son, but America as a whole is not).
It is an outrage the BBC and CNN is able to post clear propaganda videos against the UK and USA’s main ally on the world stage claiming it is news.
Before Muslims start getting in a tizzy about that. Muslims support other Muslim countries no matter what they do. Never once do Muslims go against other Muslim nations in conflicts with outsiders.”
‘Rishi Sunak had significant doubts about sending migrants to Rwanda when he was chancellor, papers seen by the BBC suggest.’
This is not ‘news’ at all. I would be more worried if nobody expressed any doubts. It’s far from perfect and forced upon us by the ridiculous rules for illegal immigrants. The BBC have inserted the word ‘significant’ by themselves. It’s their ‘opinion’. They are campaigning against the Rawanda plan. It’s 100% political activism.
More ‘papers seen by the BBC’. Amazing how they keep getting fed all this anti-Tory information just when they need it. Borderline treason from the civil service IMHO.
Brought to you by Kuenssberg of course. Who is as far-left as they come at the BBC. Luckily for her, OFCOM are just the same.
Ep. 59 Most people understand that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself. But the attorney general of the United States helped cover up his murder? That’s a different thing entirely. Epstein’s brother Mark explains. pic.twitter.com/aP6EjURJmL
‘His arrest was part of a French inquiry into sex trafficking and sexual assault allegations against Epstein.’
I didn’t realise how easy it is to kill yourself in prison these days. And both before the trial. Surely you should wait until after you got found guilty.
What amazes me tomo is how the media keep absolutely silent when things like this happen. We get official versions only. They all know when to keep their mouths shut. Ukraine is another good example of everyone singing from the same song sheet when the truth is very different.
I often wonder how it happens. Do they just know not to rock the boat for their own good or are they told ?.
Another thing which stands out for me is how often the BBC report ‘historic’ charges against Trump – historic because nobody has ever gone after a President for it before.
But then they accept the charges as 100% legitimate and ignore the huge elephant in the room that all these separate ‘never before’ events might actually be linked as an attempt to influence the next election.
It’s like someone getting hit by lightning every day for a week and the BBC pretending it’s normal.
Will the Supreme Court split on Party grounds ? To exclude a private ( un convicted – even by a fixed democrat court) individual from standing for Government office must be illegal mustn’t it ? On the face of it President Trump will win and his polling will go ever higher . If he loses – his polling will also go higher…
….. the polling – of course – is as worthless as votes for trump in an Obama fixed country …..
… apparently poor old joe has been ranting about nazi evil and the like regarding the true president – the meds must be wearing off ….
1st American Civil War caused by Democrats trying and failing to stop a Republican candidate because he wanted to abolish slavery of the Blacks. Black lives matter leader supports Abraham Lincoln because of his removal from the ballot in Democrat states. The Democrats claim that the slaves own nothing and are happy.
2nd American Civil War caused by Democrats trying and failing to stop a Republican candidate because he wants to stop the slavery of the Deplorables. Black lives matter leader supports Donald Trump because of his removal from the ballot in Democrat states. The Democrats claim that the Deplorables will own nothing and be happy.
I can tell you from direct personal experience that public sector wrongdoers will behave very aggressively and there are PR / lawyer “specialists” outfits that will attack at all levels – often bandying made up threats – in one case The Environment Agency threatened a reporter on my story with libel – which is simply wrong as libel/defamation *only* applies to individuals (Cadwallader etcetera) – many people would back off as the state (or a quango in that case) has deep pockets and can (and do) launch vexatious legal actions where the intent is process=punishment and designed to grind the opponent financially and motivationally in defending…. I’m not aware of a UK case (unlike USA) where the target of this sort of antics has challenged to the point of turning the tables….
There are reporting rules – before a story is run the target of the story has a right of reply – this, however – isn’t an iterative process of claim and counterclaim. Often the official wrongdoers are allowed final say via right of reply.
Most newspaper editors (local and national) shy off at the first hint of pushback. Some years back I had a story written up (and publication ready) and destined for the front page of The Independent about Environment Agency corruption and clear-cut maladministration and worse… The EA’s legals “went at” the editor and apparently frightened him >>>> canned.
More recently, trying to get some traction (The EA are “all over” the mainstream stuff) I got a story into Private Eye and while I appreciated their attention – The Eye accepted a bunch of lies and went along with wholesale misdirection…..via “right to reply”. I could’ve very trivially destroyed the EA’s claims but wasn’t consulted on the EA’s wholly dishonest response to the *evidence*.
While I appreciate the RoI on the effort put into a story sometimes the will to get to the bottom of a matter attenuates due to pressure of work and … I have to say – laziness and lack of appetite for confrontation.
aahhh that explains why we see ‘The BBC have contacted the IDF for comment’ in their ridiculous pro-Hamas propaganda and some of their other agenda topics.
They know they will be ignored, but the IDF had the chance to reply.
We had some truly poisonous busybodies (power crazed traffic warden types) on the local council here – who overstepped the mark on reasonableness and I dobbed them in with the BBC local radio.
The girl reporter (who was also a regional TV stringer) agreed that officials were absolutely, totally out of order / OTT.
The story never made it to public as, according to her – those sorts of stories according to the then BBC editorial guidelines were dropped if the council refused to use their right to reply.
No comment – no story
convenient for the councils eh?
edit:
I don’t get Private Eye these days … they simply don’t expose their reporting on the web. I’d have thought that maybe a 4 week delay or somesuch – but nope – they expose bad behaviour and madness only to the shrinking cadre of dead tree buyers…. bonkers
Tomo – thank you for posting the 25 minute Carlson interview… for those tired of Kennedy conspiracy theories the Epstein one comes as a Breath of fresh air – which someone may have forcibly removed from him …..
But where is the detailed TV documentary investigation ? The issues ( facts ?) laid out by his brother deserve detailed digging … but is anyone doing it ?
The idea that Epstein was left in an unlocked cell surrounded by other unlocked cells full of unknown ‘inmates ‘ just sets the conspiracy up … and everything else mentioned just smells ….
Carlson asked whether ‘fireign governments’ might have been involved ….. I thought of a Mercedes in a Paris underpass …..
As an aside – whenever the BBC mentions Epstein – they add that he ‘committed suicide in a federal prison ‘… which always sounds like a lie injected for ‘the truth ‘….
Both Maxwell and his brother may well have short lives ….
The Epstein story increasingly seems to me to actually be two stories.
Story 1 is that Epstein and Maxwell were insatiable sexual perverts who abused underage girls. They were also brilliant socialites and networkers who managed to increase their wealth and influence by pimping these girls to the rich and powerful.
Story 2 is that Epstein and Maxwell seem to have been recruited and used by the intelligence agencies (the CIA or Mossad, or perhaps both) to gather dirt on as many rich or powerful or influential people as possible.
The spooks have no qualms about eliminating their own operatives if their covert activities are jeopardised. The evidence strongly suggests that Epstein was murdered. Maxwell should have been able to get herself a better sentence by naming a few names. But she is obviously terrified to do so. I believe the intelligence agencies feared that Epstein might spill the beans and whacked him but that they are confident they have intimidated Maxwell into silence. These events suggest that Epstein and Maxwell, rather than just being at the head of a paedophile network, were also the tools of a sinister and more powerful force.
The feeling I get is that everyone in the political class, the justice system, and the media understands that probing too deeply into this case could lead to them jumping out of a high window and committing suicide. Hence the curious lack of any real investigation and the reason why finding out any information is like squeezing blood from a stone.
Ghislaine Maxwell was quite likely groomed/trained for greatness by daddy.
At least Epstein didn’t commit suicide by shooting himself twice in the chest with a 12 Gauge and then hanging himself.
Money, power and politics and gangsters…. I notice that Epstein’s long and profitable relationship with Bill Clinton and their touring the fleshpots of the Far East in Jeff’s Jet doesn’t get much play.
Where’s The Daily Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans Pritchard when you need him?
The casual observer might assume the bbc are fundementally opposed to anything the elected government do, and loathe to criticise anything the Labour opposition or Green party do or say.
Amelia was undoubtedly one of the many highly-educated Black women in Tudor times who enriched the UK’s literary output.
I’ve still got the ‘ Uncle Remus’ I received as a prize aged 8 from my Deptford primary school. Sarf east Lunnon dialect hasn’t changed much in my 60+ years since.
Not generally appreciated Mike Wendling cut his teeth at BBC Pidgin Serious? back in the day, and was responsible for laying the Virgin Queen rumours to rest centuries before Paul Brand.
The Reddit page questioning that claim is 8 years old
The name is the unmarried name of Æmilia Lanyer
There is no evidence she was black.
“Aemilia Lanyer was the first woman writing in English to produce a substantial volume of poetry designed to be printed and to attract patronage”
Comedy – a piece by extreme wokes about taking a foreign holiday without using aircraft – middle class woke heaven – a lady called ‘kat’ took the 5 and 7 year olds to Slovakia and Croatia last year for a week . She paid hundreds and spent 2 days out of 7 on trains ….
I laughed at the lack on self awareness because tomorrow londonistan will crunch to a halt as the greedy Marxists of the RMT strike and stop the tube . Ladies like ‘kat’ won’t even get to a railway station easily …..
And then ….
Meesh interviews an Indian scientist about their space programme … the inevitable question came – how can India
Pee money at a space programme when hundreds of millions of Indians have no facilities …..
The answer ? How did Isaac Newton do his work whilst London was full of plague ? I’m not sure if meesh was listening but I laughed out loud .
See ? There is comedy …..
I was wondering how much borrowed tax payers ‘ money is thrown at India every year ….?
Black, African Brits are one of the UK’s fastest growing communities. In the last census 1.5 million people said they were Black, African and British – that’s three times as many as the Black Caribbean community.
Whether it’s Kwasi Kwarteng and Kemi Badenoch on the front benches of British government, Stormzy headlining Glastonbury, resurgent congregations in Britain’s churches or the stories of entrepreneurs – the impact of Black African Brits cannot be missed.
Over four episodes British Nigerian broadcaster Jumoké Fashola travels the country to ask what it means to be Black, African and British and to explore how African migration is shaping politics, faith, business and culture today.
12pm just ran a trailer for Friday “Cobalt Limelight new five-part thriller
by Eno Mfon and Darragh Mortell,
starring Saffron Coomber and John Pfumojena. Maita goes to see her dad”
seems very black
Also Friday
Angellica Bell meets Nadiya Hussain
BTW the Monday 11:30am show is a repeat from November about child reading
The picture is of a little black girl
The back-to-Africa movement was a political movement in the 19th and 20th centuries advocating for a return of the descendants of African American slaves to the African continent. The movement originated from a widespread belief among some European Americans in the 18th and 19th century United States that African Americans would want to return to the continent of Africa. In general, the political movement was an overwhelming failure; very few former slaves wanted to move to Africa. The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance.[1] As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the radical abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States.
DT reports that the speaker of their commons – Hoyle – planned to meet the Palestinian ambassador next week which usually means flying the ‘national flag ‘ over their parliament – . There is no ambassador – the UK government does not recognise it . But Hoyle and his gang seem too …. Resign .
I’m surprised the Hamas broadcasting Corp,isn’t crowing about their boy meeting the British speaker ….
Not the BBC but exposed by the BBC and, no doubt others, ‘officials’ are said to be ‘dragging their feet’ over the compensation for sub-postmasters wronged in the Horizon/Post Office software scandal. The Minister responsible for the Civil Service needs to sack a few high level ‘officials’ in order to “pour encourager les autres”, as the French would put it. All those CSs working from the beach in Portugal, get back at your desks five or six days a week or be terminated with extreme prejudice.
We open with a style complaint as yesterday our BBC says: Derek Draper dies aged 56, wife Kate Garraway says
What? They didn’t believe her? If further comfirmation were really required our BBC ought to have held off on publishimg the obit.
I guess our national broadcaster is so deep into the habit of cutting and pasting their news updates from Hamas whilst appending that little fig leaf proviso ‘says’ that it’s become a reflex.
Blah-dee blah-blah dee-blah-blah, so and so says – that’s becoming way too common a desk-bound journalistic short cut.
Mr AsI would advocate a reduced quota for that phrasing, along with the now common or garden ‘despite‘ and we certainly don’t want to see any further proliferation of the as yet lesser spotted ‘BBC finds‘ – as in: Prescription drugs sold online without proper checks, BBC finds – trust the boys and gals at the Beeb to hit on some way to score a supply of illicite substances.
But we digress from what is – apparently – today’s big news story.
One likes to alight upon the underlying narratives as revealed by our media’s selection (call it curation) of headline news stories so as to discern what it is our media, via the telling of those stories, would want to tell us about our world – but additionally what the recognition of that agenda at work itself exposes.
Sign of the times
I refer to what the one time ‘Artist Formerly Known As‘ Prince termed Sign ‘O’ the Times (1987) – he’d obviously been watching a lot of TV broadcast news…
Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling of a church and killed everyone inside
You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin’ you somebody died
Goodbye Darling Derek – is the banner headline in the BBC online press line-up’s top pick the Daily Mirror.
The term tabloid press pack seems appropriate as herd instinct sets in at the Star, Express, Sun and Times – all go together leading (following?) with this obit as though being corralled into a pen by one man and his dog – the story, mind you, told very much from the widow’s point of view: I held Derek’s hand to the end (The Sun); ‘Rest gently and peacefully’… Kate’s pain at loss of ‘Darling’ Derek (Express); ‘Rest gently now Derek, my love (Star); TV Kate’s tears and tribute… (Mirror)
One wonders if the breaking news of the death of actor and singer David Soul will get similar frontpage screamer headline blanket treatment tomorrow – all told from his old partner, Paul Michael Glazer’s point of view? I jest of course – but there was a time, prior to the great language shift from the familiar husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend formula over to the term partner – when that word was largely understood in the popular imagination to refer to such as that pair of tv show ‘off-beat cops’
It’s general election year when Sir Keir will go through the motions of a contest against his seat-warmer for Number 10, Rishi Sunak. Our media will still attempt to make a show out this dead rubber of a vote in which – due to wet Tory anti-conservative ineptitude – Starmer has been gifted a by. However, we all know the result is about as unpredictable as an ITV 1970s World of Sport wresting bout from Wigan Town Hall between in the blue corner the likes of the masked evil baddie Kendo Nagasaki and in the rainbow trucks some baby-faced young crowd favourite. He might get thrown about a bit but the ultimate result is scripted.
We’ll hear psephological terms banded about such as White Van Man, Essex Man or Mondeo Man – but not so much Wine Aunt, Public Sector Karen, Electric Car Bore or Cyber Nat – so as pollsters prepare to scrutinise their runes and stereotype us into demographic categories – let’s see what it is we’re presented today as the ultimate couple with which we the great unwashed are supposed to identifty and indeed perhaps aspire toward?
Not so long ago it was our NHS doctors and nurses… Bang a Gong, (Get It On) – as Marc Bolan of glamrock band T-Rex might have put it.
The Times spells it out most concisely: Perfect partners – sorry, but that word for me still conjures Starsky & Hutch
As a callow youth I recall a pal complaining that he’d attended a party with a DJ presiding where he had made a request that the DJ play some soul. He was disappointed when the next record on the turntable was none other than the middle of the road pop ballad Silver Lady (1977)
Apologies for that intervening anecdotal comic interlude but that’s how I roll.
The Times goes on to spell out the attributes, the very recipe for the idealised ultimate media couple: Derek Draper, husband of the TV host Kate Garraway and a former New Labour strategist…
But besides all that New Labour guff and the power female TV host… what have they ever done for us…? As the Monty Python team in the guise of ancient Palstinians once famously asked of John Cleese about the Romans.
This aspect may have helped just a tad to garner some of that blanket news media coverage: …as he lost his long battle with Covid… (Express); …dies after long battle with Covid (Mirror); …battle against Covid (Sun) …long battle with Covid (Star)
And as that thought rings in our ears echoing resoundingly through the media of our popular press – retrospectively justificatory of the great Lockdown policy fiasco – we have just enough time for a couple of calm down dears – care of the formerly serious newspaper The Times
How I got famous? I flaunted my cellulite
Get fit with Joan. Meet the gym bunny aged 77
In the FT the cosmopolitan Janan Ganesh asks: Why is Britain cosmopolitan – oftentimes one tends to ponder a similar question: …in London, the proportion of social housing occupied by immigrant households is close to 50%, up from 40% ten years ago. This implies that the majority of new allocations over that period have gone to immigrant households (Migration Watch)
And finally, the left-leaning ‘i’ newspaper – our pound shop Guardian – and that’s direct from the horse’s mouth: Significantly cheaper than The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph
Our own general election being a foregone conclusion, the ‘i’ frets about – what is from their point of view – adverse swingometer movement across the pond: Politics UK preparing secret dossier on Trump 2.0
That won’t be the first: Christopher Steele: super-spy or dodgy dossier writer? The secret world of the man behind the leaked Trump document… Some say the ex-MI6 man is solid… Trump says he has produced ‘fake news’ (Independent, February 2017)
“ As a callow youth I recall a pal complaining that he’d attended a party with a DJ presiding where he had made a request that the DJ play some soul. He was disappointed when the next record on the turntable was none other than the middle of the road pop ballad Silver Lady (1977)
Apologies for that intervening anecdotal comic interlude but that’s how I roll.”
Being pretty smart, I figured out that the anecdote must have dated post 1977. If your pal was as callow as you, aren’t you a bit juvenile to have such trenchant views about society and, more particularly, Al Beeb?
As to my age… My lips are sealed – to paraphrase Terry Hall of Fun Boy Three and Jane Wiedlin, guitarist of the Go-Go’s – but I sense I’m giving away too many clues.
AISI, the Sun newspaper, usually omitted from the BBC Blog, has a front page picture of Derek Draper a.k.a. married to Kate Garraway looking unnaturally healthy in a hospital bed. Maybe it is because Kate is holding Derek’s hand.
There was a time when obituaries were sad and respectful. Check the Times frontpage pic of the pair – for a moment there I thought we had a Beeb publicity shot for Strictly’s first ever necrophile coupling. I wouldn’t put it past them.
The derek draper show rolls on ( yes I know it’s sad when someone dies – done the caring – know what it is ) – but apparently plucky Kate faces a £700 000 tax bill over a closed company they owned …. I’ve only read the headline because I don’t have an interest in what should be a private sadness…. So I might be wrong – but I can feel a ‘go fund me ‘ thingy coming on for wealthy people …. The film rights must be up for bidding …. ( no apology for my cynicism)
Unless it’s a death duty problem, why should anyone be concerned about a possible £700k tax bill for either Mrs Draper or the estate of the late Del Draper? It’s not as if they couldn’t afford decent tax advice and you are only due to pay tax if you have made profits.
I followed his despicable political activities at the time, and those of his fellow liar who got Catholic God after participating in a Mad Al lie factory under Bliar, on Guido.
Peter – I share your view but chose a ‘moderated ‘ version – but a bad week for the Far Left – Batman pilfer draper dead – as well as a fraudulent Tory MP giving up the lie ….
FOOC : Israel, Guatemala, The Philippines, Greece and the Faroe Islands
– Tom Bateman has switched post from Middle East to Washington
“After the assassination of a senior Hamas leader this week, there are now concerns the conflict will widen.”
strange wording .. cos Hamas widened the conflict on Oct 7th
Guatemala : moves to stop President-elect taking office
Philippines : a Catholic priest and a forensic pathologist are exhuming the remains of victims of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Rueters did the same story 2 years ago
Greece : government* is paying people 500 euros to live in the remote tourist island of Antikythera
* audio said the church not government
Faroe Islands : residents are trying to conserve their land and traditions in the face of an influx of tourists.
Faroe Islands : residents are trying to conserve their land and traditions in the face of an influx of tourists.
Danes of my acquaintance told me that there’s a tradition that every visitor to the Faeroes takes a piece of rock away with them, the purpose being to ensure that the islands disappear.
Trivia – islanders supposedly can’t buy alcohol without showing proof they’ve paid last year’s income tax 😕
Yesterday someone made various criticisms against this website.
I don’t know if they have any merit, but I do sometimes wonder what a casual newbie who dropped in here would make of it.
Sometimes I feel there’s a lot of rather inconsequential in-house chatter, with some of the regulars making a lot of posts.
May I humbly suggest more quality and less quantity, so that a few well-aimed criticisms of the BBC and related matters stand out and hit home.
My concern is that the casual visitor may not be able to see the wood for the trees, and leave, never to return.
Just a suggestion from a well-wisher.
Vlad – I gave up trying to focus the discussion on the BBC – but have sort of got Fedup trying – same for those repeated comments . Part of the issue ( not problem ) is that some people – including me – limit their consumption of the BBC but still want to raise issues – another issue is the BBC omission of issues which come up but do not fit the BBC narrative .
As a website not dependant on hits – with no commercial motivation maybe people can read it or not ….
As for the troll who popped up – I’ve invited them and anyone else who wishes to defend the BBC – or indeed evidence its’ ‘balance ‘ and objectivity – to input the site … but so far silence – which as far as I’m concerned supports my view about its’Far Left anti British anti judeochristian agenda …
I understand. I believe it’s quite legitimate to raise issues and publicise events that the BBC does NOT cover. After all, that, too, constitutes BBC bias, by omission.
‘Repeated comments’ may be due to bloggers not reading all the earlier comments and therefore unaware that the point has already been made previously. Personally I don’t think that’s a problem, as most readers, too, will not have read all the earlier comments. So for them it’s not a repeat.
My only other suggestion was about too much chit-chat, in-jokes and in-house banter that may be obscure or incomprehensible to new visitors.
Just one question: there used to be a meter showing the number of vistors on this site. Could that be re-instated, and what are, say, the daily numbers of visitors?
And the initial post was a page earlier at 5:00pm from Pollyanna https://biasedbbc.tv/blog/2024/01/02/midweek-3rd-january-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-1271947
” zero meaningful analysis of any broadcasting output”
I reject that of course
Page 4 of the Daily Mail 2 months ago was almost certainly based on my post 9 months earlier about BBCwales using a photohopped black hand on its election box photo
I’ve been holding my breath waiting for the Pollyanna to return and make her case for the BBC …. Maybe it’s an annual visit just to share a little seasonal cheer ….
“Derek Draper quits LabourList website in wake of Tory smear email scandal.
Shamed Labour activist Derek Draper has quit the campaigning website he runs following his part in the dirty tricks plot orchestrated from Downing Street.
Draper, a former adviser to Lord Mandelson, issued a statement last night admitting that his continued involvement with LabourList was damaging the site’s efforts to compete with its Tory rivals.
It is the second time he has had to quit frontline Labour politics. In 1998 he was embroiled in controversy over lobbying.
Last night he said that he regretted describing plans to smear top Tories with lies about their private lives as ‘absolutely totally brilliant’.
‘Black people are about 7.5 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder in the US than white people, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.’
That’s (75/13.6)*1.4 = 7.7 times as likely to murder somebody as a white person.
So if their wrongful conviction rate is only 7.5 times, they are in fact LESS likely to be wrongfully convicted and the system is racist towards white people if anything at all.
Another WHOPPING lie by omission from the BBC.
Well done Madeline. Another excellent example of a racist BBC reporter.
“Bank worker wins £490,000 payout after being unfairly dismissed for using the N-word in anti-racism training session – and says middle-aged white men are ‘bottom of everything’.
It left the woman leading the exercise apparently so ‘badly distressed’ that she had to take a week off – a ‘key reason’ for the decision to dismiss Mr Borg-Neal for gross misconduct.”
A bloody week off work after hearing what she probably hears in bloody rap songs every day.
Excellent:
“This week, he was awarded almost £500,000 in damages. Added to Lloyds’s legal costs and tax, the bank has a bill of nearly £1million.
The payout is the culmination of a two-year battle to clear his name after working for the bank and its affiliates for 30 years.
He told The Telegraph: ‘I often wonder if I wasn’t a white middle-aged male would I have had to go through everything I went through. There is no way of telling. You are bottom of everything.'”
2023 Britain is pathetic
cos people can’t simply begin the discussion about the news story by giving the simple context during a diversity training session, he quoted an imaginary person using the n-word in a question about a hypothetical situation
— should he reprimand a black employee for using the n-word in a conversation?
— he was fired for gross misconduct, with nary a thought given to his 27 years of unblemished service.
The actual judgement was back in August “The bank’s actions in imposing disciplinary action for gross misconduct were disproportionate and unreasonable given the nature of the complaint against a long-serving employee with an unblemished.”
It’s onl the compensation that has just been decided.
At GW Towers, fresh pineapple is not considered an essential.
https://x.com/sadiqkhan/status/1743677576449556817?s=61
It’s heartbreaking that the cost-of-living crisis is forcing families to go without essentials.
Alongside the @FelixProjectUK and @MayorsFund
, we’ve delivered over 1.3 million meals to London families over Christmas to give them a helping hand.
Pizza toppings for the home delivery from Dominoes?
That Sadiq Khan self promotion tweet went out to city of 9 million people
It got just 40 Likes
Sadiq continues the tradition of not allowing replies to his tweets.
quote tweet “And yet you’ve raised council tax 70% and pummelled them with ULEZ. ”
People mock Sadiq for his photo of them delivering pineapples to the poor at Xmas
I’ve thought for a long time that an advanced civilisation will inevitably self-destruct when their society reaches a point where the ‘useless in the real world’ far-Left in their number can survive and practise activism to change how society progresses from what has evolved though nature to be their own theoretical ideal world.
I seems to me the West has reached that point and our displacement by those who still live by the barbaric laws of nature is under way. We preach love and understanding while they cut our throats (or blow us up).
And in a few hundreds of years, the same will happen to them.
Well, they will keep killing each other and anyone who threatens them moggie until the Left reach a point they can tell them it’s not nice and we should just be good to each other.
That’s when the next lot – who don’t share that opinion – ‘displace’ them.
I’m not sure that there was a Socialist element in ancient Rome, but the fall of that civilisation really does parallel ours, and it appears to come when decadance and the elimination of want allow fools to start to think lunatic thoughts.
Mostly alas these fools are women and societies which repress women appear to function better than those which do not.
In Genesis 3 vs 16 God commands:
To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
But today we no longer give God the respect we should and have forgotten his commands – that is not a good state to be in.
“barbarian invasions, the movements of Germanic peoples which began before 200 bce and lasted until the early Middle Ages, destroying the Western Roman Empire in the process. Together with the migrations of the Slavs, these events were the formative elements of the distribution of peoples in modern Europe.”
Always use the English word for Black. Do not use the Latin word for Black because it is a denigratory foreign word used by a landlocked African Nation. The BBC should not denigrate people using the word “de-nigra-te” because this word also has a root in the derogatory Latin word for Black. This is why all Black people on the BBC speak English at all times.
Biden – “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-America.”
Response “Agreed.
Swear your allegiance to your rightful ruler, King Charles, and your previous insurrectionary activities will be forgiven.
Long live the King.”
“Idea for the NHS triage system…
“Do you support the striking doctors?”
“No”
“Back of the queue, Sir””
A reader in Bradford recalled asking a West Yorkshire officer on the street that day why the various “Muslim community leaders” weren’t being arrested for incitement to murder. The officer said they’d been told to “play it cool”. The calls for blood got more raucous. My correspondent asked his question again. The policeman told him to “F— off, or I’ll arrest you.” http://www.steynonline.com/6296/the-churchill-bust
MarkyMarkNov 22, 19:49 Midweek 20th November 2024 “This man got 81 million votes???? Stop!!!” Comment Joe Biden appears to wander off into Amazon rainforest after historic climate…
taffmanNov 22, 19:47 Midweek 20th November 2024 Starmer is insulting our intelligence! Even mayors in France have made a statement about the asylum seekers. Anything on Al…
ZephirNov 22, 19:45 Midweek 20th November 2024 I don’t think much of this Milibande green eco thing. I cycled to the local shop for a bottle of…
MarkyMarkNov 22, 19:41 Midweek 20th November 2024 Can anyone attend COP29? Conferences are not open to the general public. The United States, as a Party to the…
MarkyMarkNov 22, 19:37 Midweek 20th November 2024 Even Gang members agree with him …. “2012 … David Lammy MP says absent fathers ‘key cause of knife crime’…
vladNov 22, 19:31 Midweek 20th November 2024 Ironic that Lammy complained about not enough police on the streets, when usually his community aren’t too keen on police…
First.
Happy New Year to one and all.
Derek Draper has died. I don’t forget he was an obviously beloved husband and father and I can understand for his close family to mourn.
What is difficult to understand are the comments on the Daily Mail website. I even opted for the ‘worst rated’. It would appear that Gordon Brown’s attack dog was such a wonderful person that even the worst rated comments suggested he was marvellous and kind hearted.
Even Classic FM and GBNews at the top of the hour suggested Derek Draper was a kinder sort of politician with no mention of his reputation.
How amazing that a tv presenter should have been married to a Labour activist. I can still go to GBNews to find Esther McVey’s husband or Christine Hamilton.
By the way, where is Dan Wooten? And I hadn’t realised that he had been Calvin Robinson’s partner for a while. (I knew they were both gay, just hadn’t thought they would have been each other’s cup of tea.). Calvin used to do a particularly excellent Saturday evening programme on GBNews which questioned ethics and always ended with a prayer. (Far to good to have been on the BBC.)
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yep youmost certainly are.
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TalkRadio was banging on all day yesterday about Derek Draper (who he?) who had been cared for by his wife Kate Garraway (who she?) who apparently had never recovered after Covid in 2020.
Why on earth was this news? More to the point how can the media claim that being ill with Covid was implicated?
Is it not beyond the realms of possibility that being injected with an experimental gene therapy in 2021/2022/2023 that by various estimates has done in over 20 million people world-wide also may have contributed to his demise?
Not having a telly and not watching the bBC I have no idea if this leftist lunatic did get jabba-jabbed but in general they are stupid enough.
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I don’t know if you’re joking or not about Calvin’s supposed relationship with Dan Wooton. I’ve heard absolutely nothing to support this…I was going to say “back this up” but decided against…
If this is a “joke” then it’s in very poor taste…and if not, where’s your evidence?
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From Wikipedia (if you can trust it):
“In 2013, Wootton announced on his Twitter account that he is gay.[62]”
“Wootton is in a relationship with Alan Longair.[63]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Wootton#Personal_life
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Second
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Just watched Mr Bates v the Post Office. on ITV (ITVX channel) and I usually avoid ITV and BBC but a lot of people have responded on what happened to the (UK) Post Office when they went digital (Horizon) An elite who inhabit corporate structures, (like the BBC) do next to nothing but cause cock ups and leave with huge pays offs, then go onto another Public corporate body. with their diverse *skills. DIE (Diversity, Inclusivity, Entanglement), crap.
Mr Bates v The Post Office (four part series)
.
As usual the Liberal and Lefties running it (no real private company could survive that kind of cock up) made a huge mistake. Its the kind of drama the BBC used to do well but gave up after the Martin Bashir episode. The people running the Post Office are probably the same kind who pretend to read The Guardian (sic) and and praise the BBC for its (so called) unbiased insite, which, of course, is invisible to the naked eye. Both have survived on fixing prices and public monopoly and both claim to be ‘independent.
Anyway, watch it and weep that this is factually true.
https://www.itv.com/watch/mr-bates-vs-the-post-office/10a0469/10a0469a0001
There are four episodes and each are damning of what happened and how they treated the staff it accused of theft. What makes it worse that the Woman (CEO) in charge was made a Dame afterwards.
Full credit to ITV for making this drama – its based on a true story which is still on going.
The Post Office admitted liability, finally. But you have to watch the torture they put these people through, denying any computer fault with ‘Horizon’. They still deny any problem occurred and that they lied for so long.
There is also a petition calling for the resignation for who was responsible for the cover up.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strip-paula-vennells-of-her-cbe?share=caeb6bad-ef07-4af8-8589-f50496daabb7
Just as an after thought. I am old enough to remember when the Post Office was twinned with the BBC through its UK broadcasting rights. I remember it was the Post Office that set off against the Pirate radio stations claiming lost revenue or/and illegal broadcasting. Only the BBC did that, monopoly broadcasting as it was before ITV. The BBC was at that time Dickensian and twinned with the Post Office, or Royal mail.
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Phillip2
It really is worth the watch – and I’m no fan of ITV . A long time ago I was involved with the information commissioners ‘ office on the implications of digital ( computer ) evidence in court .
The dangers of the audit trail – or lack of audit trail – on the veracity of computer evidence – in whatever form – caused a real nose bleed .
This case is a consequence of courts relying on computer evidence – when the computer is wrong – with the computer company – Fujitsu – and even worse – the Post Office CEO suppressing the truth .
I really hope these characters grip the rail for perverting the course of justice – malicious prosecutions – perjury . I know they won’t do time – but at least they need some sort of public exposure ….. I noted the ex CEO – with gong is a C of E vicar
PS – the programme never got into the detail of what went wrong – whether it was hardware or software – could it have been as simple as defective ‘pin machines ‘ ….and the horrible – truly horrible consequences …
This should not be left to fester in a long drawn out public inquiry …. Resolution needs to be done quick …
Stop press – it seems the Met Plod is investigating Fujitsu and the Post Office for a number of crimes ….
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Mr Bates and the Post Office is just the sort of topical people-interest programme which Al Beeb used to make….before it went into Rabid Left Wing politicking.
After watching it I mused on why Al Beeb had missed this golden opportunity to attack the Gu’ment, said Gu’ment for the last 13+ years having been, nominally, Toryscum.
I conjectured it was because the scandal arose under Al Beeb’s pals, the Far Left Liebor Party, and that the majority of the victims were Whiteys with far fewer BME than Al Beeb would have cast if they had made it. And of course, Liebor’s fellow-travelling placepeople (no sexism here), had a (covering-up) hand in it.
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There are echoes of the contaminated blood scandal in this too – particularly denials – delays – cover up – and no one guilty …
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Fujitsu and the PO will be found innocent of everything. The postmasters will all be additionally charged with racism and hate crimes.
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https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/post-office-scandal-covid-and-climate-change-the-trinity-of-con-tricks/
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I’ve just watched Patrick Chrystis trying to ask people he assumed were Nat West employees going into the City HQ whether most people can get a mortgage. The only one who would speak to him was a young black man. But what struck me was how scruffy they all were. None were wearing a suit, jeans and a jumper seemed to be order of the day. I just wonder what their pay is, what their background and what their culture is that Nigel F doesn’t align with their values.
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Have you been to a city branch lately? Tick box, tattoos, piercings..it’s like being in a tv drama!
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It’s sad and tragic about Derek Draper, but I think if truth be told, barring a miracle, this outcome was always on the cards. So I wish his still young wife, once she has navigated her way through the grief, a more peaceful life where she can take time for herself.
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qotd
If leftists didn’t put words into the mouths of their opponents they would have nothing to respond to.
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tomo, JANUARY 6,
“qotd… If leftists didn’t put words into the mouths of their opponents they would have nothing to respond to”
tomo, JANUARY 2,
“According to reports, Tony Blair would spearhead a campaign to bring Hamas-voting Gazans to Britain and Europe.”
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Back on nights again maxincony?
Have you paid your TV Licence or do you get it free for trolling here?
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‘Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair has strongly denied an Israeli media report linking him to talks last week about the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza in other countries.’
So you had to go to a report from Israel to ‘prove your point’ maxi. LOL. And of course Bliar must be telling the truth right ?. LOL at you again.
What tomo said was prefectly true. Reports did say it.
Let’s see what else Tony had to say
‘Tony Blair: ‘We were wrong to boycott Hamas after its election win’
‘Tony Blair says he regrets siding with Israel and George W Bush over Hamas boycott in 2006’
Did the Right put those words in his mouth maxi ?. The original report sounds very credible to me.
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maxincony
so glad you’re paying attention, makes it all worthwhile
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David Freiheit interviews Vivek …
https://rumble.com/v45cmkf-interview-with-vivek-ramaswamy-on-the-road-in-iowa-prerecorded-and-more-viv.html
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The far left:
“Labour’s Rachel Reeves moans her £86,000 a year MP salary is leaving her ‘increasingly short’
Shadow chancellor ‘winces’ at her bank balance and is ‘increasingly short'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12931891/labour-rachel-reeves-bank-balance-gb-news.html
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“As Chief Executive of the Post Office from 2012, Paula Vennells presided over the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history, resulting in countless ruined lives, not only Post Office staff but their families.
Along the way, she’s been accused of various appalling professional oversights, many of which are chronicled in the ITV drama, where she is played by The Crown star Lia Williams.
On her watch, the Post Office sought to bury the scandal, with Vennells not only obfuscating and giving misleading information to MPs, but also backing her organisation’s strategy of aggressively prosecuting innocent sub-postmasters using computer data it knew was flawed.
Vennells was, among other things, personally responsible for the sacking of Second Sight, a forensic accounting firm brought in to get to the bottom of the scandal, just days before it was due to publish its excoriating findings. She also sanctioned the combative legal strategy her organisation pursued against victims of the scandal who sought recompense.
For this, she was richly rewarded, earning £4.9 million including huge performance-related bonuses and a CBE to boot, during the seven years before she resigned in 2019. Months after she went, the High Court awarded £58 million in damages to 555 persecuted sub-postmasters.
That decision didn’t deter Vennells’s ambitions. Instead of retiring to her £2 million Grade II-listed farmhouse, she took up a string of lucrative high-status jobs. The NHS made her chair of a large trust. The Cabinet Office gave her an advisory role. Supermarket Morrisons gave her an £89,000-a-year non-executive directorship and home retailer Dunelm paid her £55,000 to join its board.
The Church of England, where Vennells served as a part-time priest, meanwhile decided to put her on the committee overseeing its ethical investments.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12932027/post-office-scandal-itv-drama-gilded-lives.html
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“Vennells’s predecessor Adam Crozier prospered after the Blair government handed him the chief executive role at the Post Office in 2003.
For seven years, until his departure in 2010, the former boss of the Football Association was Britain’s best-paid civil servant, sometimes earning more than £3 million a year in pay and bonuses — despite presiding over the closure of more than 7,000 Post Office branches.”
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“When MPs began asking awkward questions about the Horizon scandal, Post Office Chair Alice Perkins was called upon to allay their concerns.
A former civil servant who earned £100,000-a-year in the part-time job from 2011 to 2015, she knew plenty about telling politicians what they wanted to hear: her husband, with whom she has two grown-up children, happens to be Tony Blair’s former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
The crucial meeting, at which Paula Vennells was also present, mirrored several depicted in ITV’s drama (in which Arbuthnot is a prominent character) by turning into an exercise in bluster and obfuscation.
At one point, Perkins and her chief executive promised to be ‘open and transparent’ over the affair. At another, they reassured the MPs that Horizon had the ‘full support’ of the National Federation Of SubPostmasters.
A judge later pointed out that both claims were untrue. “
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“Sir Ed Davey’s journey to the leadership of Britain’s third party began in 2010, when he was appointed Minister for Postal Affairs in the coalition government.
In May that year, a letter landed on his desk from Alan Bates, the wrongly-convicted postmaster at the centre of ITV’s new TV series.
‘Many people have been sent to prison, lost businesses and homes and faced financial ruin by an organisation that will stop at nothing to keep the true facts behind its failing IT system from being exposed,’ it read. ‘In writing to you on behalf of the group, I am asking for a meeting where we can present our case to you.’
Davey wrote back, primly informing Bates that this staggering miscarriage of justice was ‘an operational and contractual matter’ for the Post Office. The future Lib Dem leader concluded: ‘I do not believe a meeting would serve any useful purpose.’
Fast forward to 2017 and Bates led a group litigation against the Post Office. It responded by hiring attack-dog lawyers from City firm Herbert Smith Freehills to fight its corner. At this point, Davey makes a second ugly appearance in the scandal. For in June that year, he agreed to be taken on by Herbert Smith Freehills as a ‘consultant on political issues and policy analysis’, earning £5,000 a month, for six hours’ work — £833 an hour.”
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“Moya Greene was in charge of Royal Mail as Chief Executive for eight years from 2010, earning a huge £11.5 million in the process.
During the first months of her reign, Greene’s organisation then decided to proceed with the notorious prosecution of sub-postmistress Seema Misra, who was sent to prison for 15 months, despite being pregnant, after faulty Horizon data suggested that she had stolen £75,000.
Later, in 2011, Ernst & Young warned in an official audit report that weaknesses in the Horizon system could ‘lead to . . . unauthorised or erroneous transactions’. Yet still the prosecutions were allowed to continue.”
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Post Office – UK GOV – Directors?
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An interesting comment about the bbc here that I came across:
“Israel is one of the closest allies to the USA, UK and France. You show support and solidarity with your closest ally.
For example in 2001 the UK and France had no interest in invading Afghanistan. They did it however to support the USA which had just been attacked by Al-Qaeda based out of there. This is what you are supposed to do for your allies.
The BBC and CNN have no business whatsoever showing videos of Gaza hospitals of wounded children trying to paint Israel in a negative light and trying to get sympathy for Hamas/Gaza/Palestinians.
And before anyone says; they are the news they have to show unbiased reporting. They have not once shown any videos of injured Russians in the conflict that has been going for almost two years now with Ukraine. It is universal support and propaganda videos for Ukraine. And the UK and USA are not even allies with Ukraine (Joe Biden might be due to dodgy dealings through his son, but America as a whole is not).
It is an outrage the BBC and CNN is able to post clear propaganda videos against the UK and USA’s main ally on the world stage claiming it is news.
Before Muslims start getting in a tizzy about that. Muslims support other Muslim countries no matter what they do. Never once do Muslims go against other Muslim nations in conflicts with outsiders.”
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Front page, world headline from the BBC:
Rishi Sunak had significant doubt over Rwanda plan, papers suggest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67897560
‘Rishi Sunak had significant doubts about sending migrants to Rwanda when he was chancellor, papers seen by the BBC suggest.’
This is not ‘news’ at all. I would be more worried if nobody expressed any doubts. It’s far from perfect and forced upon us by the ridiculous rules for illegal immigrants. The BBC have inserted the word ‘significant’ by themselves. It’s their ‘opinion’. They are campaigning against the Rawanda plan. It’s 100% political activism.
More ‘papers seen by the BBC’. Amazing how they keep getting fed all this anti-Tory information just when they need it. Borderline treason from the civil service IMHO.
Brought to you by Kuenssberg of course. Who is as far-left as they come at the BBC. Luckily for her, OFCOM are just the same.
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I suspect they have already attempted to tie Gislain up in ropes and gagging her in her cell until they realised she was enjoying it.
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I was checking that story and it seems the French bloke who allegedly sent Epstein young girls also killed himself in prison.
Jean-Luc Brunel: Epstein associate found dead in Paris prison cell
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60443518
‘His arrest was part of a French inquiry into sex trafficking and sexual assault allegations against Epstein.’
I didn’t realise how easy it is to kill yourself in prison these days. And both before the trial. Surely you should wait until after you got found guilty.
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The cover-up often exceeds the original deed and informs about the quality/calibre of the folk involved?
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What amazes me tomo is how the media keep absolutely silent when things like this happen. We get official versions only. They all know when to keep their mouths shut. Ukraine is another good example of everyone singing from the same song sheet when the truth is very different.
I often wonder how it happens. Do they just know not to rock the boat for their own good or are they told ?.
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There’s media silence (censorship), and then there is what the BBC manages…
https://x.com/bbcnewsnight/status/1743404780649615595?s=61
And Sky.
https://x.com/skynews/status/1743553254544331087?s=61
It’s like they want to rig rigged elections more.
Still, they loved Ed’s Postman Pat van stunt.
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Another thing which stands out for me is how often the BBC report ‘historic’ charges against Trump – historic because nobody has ever gone after a President for it before.
But then they accept the charges as 100% legitimate and ignore the huge elephant in the room that all these separate ‘never before’ events might actually be linked as an attempt to influence the next election.
It’s like someone getting hit by lightning every day for a week and the BBC pretending it’s normal.
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Last, and only, previous US presidential candidate to be excluded from state ballots was, I believe, one Abraham Lincoln.
The Southern states which excluded him were run by Democrats, those who now purport to champion the rights of the Black man and woman.
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Will the Supreme Court split on Party grounds ? To exclude a private ( un convicted – even by a fixed democrat court) individual from standing for Government office must be illegal mustn’t it ? On the face of it President Trump will win and his polling will go ever higher . If he loses – his polling will also go higher…
….. the polling – of course – is as worthless as votes for trump in an Obama fixed country …..
… apparently poor old joe has been ranting about nazi evil and the like regarding the true president – the meds must be wearing off ….
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1st American Civil War caused by Democrats trying and failing to stop a Republican candidate because he wanted to abolish slavery of the Blacks. Black lives matter leader supports Abraham Lincoln because of his removal from the ballot in Democrat states. The Democrats claim that the slaves own nothing and are happy.
2nd American Civil War caused by Democrats trying and failing to stop a Republican candidate because he wants to stop the slavery of the Deplorables. Black lives matter leader supports Donald Trump because of his removal from the ballot in Democrat states. The Democrats claim that the Deplorables will own nothing and be happy.
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JohnC
I can tell you from direct personal experience that public sector wrongdoers will behave very aggressively and there are PR / lawyer “specialists” outfits that will attack at all levels – often bandying made up threats – in one case The Environment Agency threatened a reporter on my story with libel – which is simply wrong as libel/defamation *only* applies to individuals (Cadwallader etcetera) – many people would back off as the state (or a quango in that case) has deep pockets and can (and do) launch vexatious legal actions where the intent is process=punishment and designed to grind the opponent financially and motivationally in defending…. I’m not aware of a UK case (unlike USA) where the target of this sort of antics has challenged to the point of turning the tables….
There are reporting rules – before a story is run the target of the story has a right of reply – this, however – isn’t an iterative process of claim and counterclaim. Often the official wrongdoers are allowed final say via right of reply.
Most newspaper editors (local and national) shy off at the first hint of pushback. Some years back I had a story written up (and publication ready) and destined for the front page of The Independent about Environment Agency corruption and clear-cut maladministration and worse… The EA’s legals “went at” the editor and apparently frightened him >>>> canned.
More recently, trying to get some traction (The EA are “all over” the mainstream stuff) I got a story into Private Eye and while I appreciated their attention – The Eye accepted a bunch of lies and went along with wholesale misdirection…..via “right to reply”. I could’ve very trivially destroyed the EA’s claims but wasn’t consulted on the EA’s wholly dishonest response to the *evidence*.
While I appreciate the RoI on the effort put into a story sometimes the will to get to the bottom of a matter attenuates due to pressure of work and … I have to say – laziness and lack of appetite for confrontation.
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aahhh that explains why we see ‘The BBC have contacted the IDF for comment’ in their ridiculous pro-Hamas propaganda and some of their other agenda topics.
They know they will be ignored, but the IDF had the chance to reply.
OFCOM satisfied.
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Oh, it’s worse than that!
We had some truly poisonous busybodies (power crazed traffic warden types) on the local council here – who overstepped the mark on reasonableness and I dobbed them in with the BBC local radio.
The girl reporter (who was also a regional TV stringer) agreed that officials were absolutely, totally out of order / OTT.
The story never made it to public as, according to her – those sorts of stories according to the then BBC editorial guidelines were dropped if the council refused to use their right to reply.
No comment – no story
convenient for the councils eh?
edit:
I don’t get Private Eye these days … they simply don’t expose their reporting on the web. I’d have thought that maybe a 4 week delay or somesuch – but nope – they expose bad behaviour and madness only to the shrinking cadre of dead tree buyers…. bonkers
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Tomo – thank you for posting the 25 minute Carlson interview… for those tired of Kennedy conspiracy theories the Epstein one comes as a Breath of fresh air – which someone may have forcibly removed from him …..
But where is the detailed TV documentary investigation ? The issues ( facts ?) laid out by his brother deserve detailed digging … but is anyone doing it ?
The idea that Epstein was left in an unlocked cell surrounded by other unlocked cells full of unknown ‘inmates ‘ just sets the conspiracy up … and everything else mentioned just smells ….
Carlson asked whether ‘fireign governments’ might have been involved ….. I thought of a Mercedes in a Paris underpass …..
As an aside – whenever the BBC mentions Epstein – they add that he ‘committed suicide in a federal prison ‘… which always sounds like a lie injected for ‘the truth ‘….
Both Maxwell and his brother may well have short lives ….
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Fedup2
The John McAffee business is deserving of attention too.
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The Epstein story increasingly seems to me to actually be two stories.
Story 1 is that Epstein and Maxwell were insatiable sexual perverts who abused underage girls. They were also brilliant socialites and networkers who managed to increase their wealth and influence by pimping these girls to the rich and powerful.
Story 2 is that Epstein and Maxwell seem to have been recruited and used by the intelligence agencies (the CIA or Mossad, or perhaps both) to gather dirt on as many rich or powerful or influential people as possible.
The spooks have no qualms about eliminating their own operatives if their covert activities are jeopardised. The evidence strongly suggests that Epstein was murdered. Maxwell should have been able to get herself a better sentence by naming a few names. But she is obviously terrified to do so. I believe the intelligence agencies feared that Epstein might spill the beans and whacked him but that they are confident they have intimidated Maxwell into silence. These events suggest that Epstein and Maxwell, rather than just being at the head of a paedophile network, were also the tools of a sinister and more powerful force.
The feeling I get is that everyone in the political class, the justice system, and the media understands that probing too deeply into this case could lead to them jumping out of a high window and committing suicide. Hence the curious lack of any real investigation and the reason why finding out any information is like squeezing blood from a stone.
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Ghislaine Maxwell was quite likely groomed/trained for greatness by daddy.
At least Epstein didn’t commit suicide by shooting himself twice in the chest with a 12 Gauge and then hanging himself.
Money, power and politics and gangsters…. I notice that Epstein’s long and profitable relationship with Bill Clinton and their touring the fleshpots of the Far East in Jeff’s Jet doesn’t get much play.
Where’s The Daily Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans Pritchard when you need him?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Bill_Clinton
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The casual observer might assume the bbc are fundementally opposed to anything the elected government do, and loathe to criticise anything the Labour opposition or Green party do or say.
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Paul Brand of itv thinks there should be an election because ‘people’ he knows want one.
Paul Brand of itv is pure media pond life. When not hanging out bathroom windows with close friends.
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ALL of Shakespear was actually written by a black woman who died in poverty ?
Now I think about it, it all makes sense.
“To be or not to be, das der question innit ?”
“All dis World, iss like a stage or sumfink innit”
“Is dat a zombie knife I got ere ?”
“If Hip hop is der food of luv, stick it on replay”
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Made me chuckle.
Amelia was undoubtedly one of the many highly-educated Black women in Tudor times who enriched the UK’s literary output.
I’ve still got the ‘ Uncle Remus’ I received as a prize aged 8 from my Deptford primary school. Sarf east Lunnon dialect hasn’t changed much in my 60+ years since.
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Lol
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Not generally appreciated Mike Wendling cut his teeth at BBC Pidgin Serious? back in the day, and was responsible for laying the Virgin Queen rumours to rest centuries before Paul Brand.
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The Reddit page questioning that claim is 8 years old
The name is the unmarried name of Æmilia Lanyer
There is no evidence she was black.
“Aemilia Lanyer was the first woman writing in English to produce a substantial volume of poetry designed to be printed and to attract patronage”
Much of Shakespeare’s writing can be attributed to him, cos it’s mentioned in contemporary accounts by other people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia_Lanier
Rich enough to have a portrait painted
and it’s very white
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Furthermore that tweet Bass Player quotes is from 2017
and the account is known to be a Russian troll account
It was in the news.
So the Bass Player account who is just expressing outrage at a well debunked 6 year old tweet is TROLLING too
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That’s nothing.
On Facebook, all pilots are now attractive women and all great scientific discoveries worth mentioning were done by either a woman or someone black.
And all are brought to me by someone who has paid them to do it.
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They have found the flight recorder for MH 370:
“Woss dis button do?”
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Bone!!
Dat am de bass wahwaw.
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CBDCs
https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-steams-ahead-with-controversial-centrally-controlled-digital-euro
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The CIA, Russia, Ukraine and NATO
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/under-the-radar-major-cia-revelations?action=restack-comment&r=yjbos
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https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/03/washington-post-erases-israels-request/
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The other day I glazed over yet another tragic image of a moppet posted on Twitter by either Hummer, Crawghoul or some other propaganda tool.
It did strike me as unfortunate that said toddler was still dressed in combats, which might aid one side more than the other in a firefight.
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You sure that’s not in one of Britain inner cities because if it was the Marxist Tories would never do anything to stop it!
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Paid by UK GOv aid?
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Toady for a change –
Comedy – a piece by extreme wokes about taking a foreign holiday without using aircraft – middle class woke heaven – a lady called ‘kat’ took the 5 and 7 year olds to Slovakia and Croatia last year for a week . She paid hundreds and spent 2 days out of 7 on trains ….
I laughed at the lack on self awareness because tomorrow londonistan will crunch to a halt as the greedy Marxists of the RMT strike and stop the tube . Ladies like ‘kat’ won’t even get to a railway station easily …..
And then ….
Meesh interviews an Indian scientist about their space programme … the inevitable question came – how can India
Pee money at a space programme when hundreds of millions of Indians have no facilities …..
The answer ? How did Isaac Newton do his work whilst London was full of plague ? I’m not sure if meesh was listening but I laughed out loud .
See ? There is comedy …..
I was wondering how much borrowed tax payers ‘ money is thrown at India every year ….?
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https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/tcw-christmas-reads-the-downfall-of-st-david-attenborough/
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Attenborough – the walrus murderer …? Public inquiry …
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Isn’t it something when a member of the swamp dies ? Other media types out grieve each other .. will we ever hear the end of it ?
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When Mad Al is sucked down eventually the entire Lobby will be out in the streets lashing their backs.
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The R4 Saturday show just went into a huge advert for this new Radio4 series.
Bet it’s black and very London as usual.
Black, African Brits are one of the UK’s fastest growing communities. In the last census 1.5 million people said they were Black, African and British – that’s three times as many as the Black Caribbean community.
Whether it’s Kwasi Kwarteng and Kemi Badenoch on the front benches of British government, Stormzy headlining Glastonbury, resurgent congregations in Britain’s churches or the stories of entrepreneurs – the impact of Black African Brits cannot be missed.
Over four episodes British Nigerian broadcaster Jumoké Fashola travels the country to ask what it means to be Black, African and British and to explore how African migration is shaping politics, faith, business and culture today.
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Seems Sunday prog is also black
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12pm just ran a trailer for Friday “Cobalt Limelight new five-part thriller
by Eno Mfon and Darragh Mortell,
starring Saffron Coomber and John Pfumojena. Maita goes to see her dad”
seems very black
Also Friday
Angellica Bell meets Nadiya Hussain
BTW the Monday 11:30am show is a repeat from November about child reading
The picture is of a little black girl
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… but few actually left the United States…..
The back-to-Africa movement was a political movement in the 19th and 20th centuries advocating for a return of the descendants of African American slaves to the African continent. The movement originated from a widespread belief among some European Americans in the 18th and 19th century United States that African Americans would want to return to the continent of Africa. In general, the political movement was an overwhelming failure; very few former slaves wanted to move to Africa. The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance.[1] As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the radical abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement
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DT reports that the speaker of their commons – Hoyle – planned to meet the Palestinian ambassador next week which usually means flying the ‘national flag ‘ over their parliament – . There is no ambassador – the UK government does not recognise it . But Hoyle and his gang seem too …. Resign .
I’m surprised the Hamas broadcasting Corp,isn’t crowing about their boy meeting the British speaker ….
BBC seems bored with Gaza porn now …
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TOADY Watch #1 – ho hum, now there’s a surprise
Not the BBC but exposed by the BBC and, no doubt others, ‘officials’ are said to be ‘dragging their feet’ over the compensation for sub-postmasters wronged in the Horizon/Post Office software scandal. The Minister responsible for the Civil Service needs to sack a few high level ‘officials’ in order to “pour encourager les autres”, as the French would put it. All those CSs working from the beach in Portugal, get back at your desks five or six days a week or be terminated with extreme prejudice.
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Up2 – looking at the inquiry website – it’s years and years …
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Get yours today🤔🤔😂😂
https://tapnewswire.com/2024/01/flu-injections-explained-by-dr-ardis/
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How I got famous edition
We open with a style complaint as yesterday our BBC says: Derek Draper dies aged 56, wife Kate Garraway says
What? They didn’t believe her? If further comfirmation were really required our BBC ought to have held off on publishimg the obit.
I guess our national broadcaster is so deep into the habit of cutting and pasting their news updates from Hamas whilst appending that little fig leaf proviso ‘says’ that it’s become a reflex.
Blah-dee blah-blah dee-blah-blah, so and so says – that’s becoming way too common a desk-bound journalistic short cut.
Mr AsI would advocate a reduced quota for that phrasing, along with the now common or garden ‘despite‘ and we certainly don’t want to see any further proliferation of the as yet lesser spotted ‘BBC finds‘ – as in: Prescription drugs sold online without proper checks, BBC finds – trust the boys and gals at the Beeb to hit on some way to score a supply of illicite substances.
But we digress from what is – apparently – today’s big news story.
One likes to alight upon the underlying narratives as revealed by our media’s selection (call it curation) of headline news stories so as to discern what it is our media, via the telling of those stories, would want to tell us about our world – but additionally what the recognition of that agenda at work itself exposes.
Sign of the times
I refer to what the one time ‘Artist Formerly Known As‘ Prince termed Sign ‘O’ the Times (1987) – he’d obviously been watching a lot of TV broadcast news…
Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling of a church and killed everyone inside
You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin’ you somebody died
Goodbye Darling Derek – is the banner headline in the BBC online press line-up’s top pick the Daily Mirror.
The term tabloid press pack seems appropriate as herd instinct sets in at the Star, Express, Sun and Times – all go together leading (following?) with this obit as though being corralled into a pen by one man and his dog – the story, mind you, told very much from the widow’s point of view: I held Derek’s hand to the end (The Sun); ‘Rest gently and peacefully’… Kate’s pain at loss of ‘Darling’ Derek (Express); ‘Rest gently now Derek, my love (Star); TV Kate’s tears and tribute… (Mirror)
One wonders if the breaking news of the death of actor and singer David Soul will get similar frontpage screamer headline blanket treatment tomorrow – all told from his old partner, Paul Michael Glazer’s point of view? I jest of course – but there was a time, prior to the great language shift from the familiar husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend formula over to the term partner – when that word was largely understood in the popular imagination to refer to such as that pair of tv show ‘off-beat cops’
It’s general election year when Sir Keir will go through the motions of a contest against his seat-warmer for Number 10, Rishi Sunak. Our media will still attempt to make a show out this dead rubber of a vote in which – due to wet Tory anti-conservative ineptitude – Starmer has been gifted a by. However, we all know the result is about as unpredictable as an ITV 1970s World of Sport wresting bout from Wigan Town Hall between in the blue corner the likes of the masked evil baddie Kendo Nagasaki and in the rainbow trucks some baby-faced young crowd favourite. He might get thrown about a bit but the ultimate result is scripted.
We’ll hear psephological terms banded about such as White Van Man, Essex Man or Mondeo Man – but not so much Wine Aunt, Public Sector Karen, Electric Car Bore or Cyber Nat – so as pollsters prepare to scrutinise their runes and stereotype us into demographic categories – let’s see what it is we’re presented today as the ultimate couple with which we the great unwashed are supposed to identifty and indeed perhaps aspire toward?
Not so long ago it was our NHS doctors and nurses… Bang a Gong, (Get It On) – as Marc Bolan of glamrock band T-Rex might have put it.
The Times spells it out most concisely: Perfect partners – sorry, but that word for me still conjures Starsky & Hutch
As a callow youth I recall a pal complaining that he’d attended a party with a DJ presiding where he had made a request that the DJ play some soul. He was disappointed when the next record on the turntable was none other than the middle of the road pop ballad Silver Lady (1977)
Apologies for that intervening anecdotal comic interlude but that’s how I roll.
The Times goes on to spell out the attributes, the very recipe for the idealised ultimate media couple: Derek Draper, husband of the TV host Kate Garraway and a former New Labour strategist…
But besides all that New Labour guff and the power female TV host… what have they ever done for us…? As the Monty Python team in the guise of ancient Palstinians once famously asked of John Cleese about the Romans.
This aspect may have helped just a tad to garner some of that blanket news media coverage: …as he lost his long battle with Covid… (Express); …dies after long battle with Covid (Mirror); …battle against Covid (Sun) …long battle with Covid (Star)
And as that thought rings in our ears echoing resoundingly through the media of our popular press – retrospectively justificatory of the great Lockdown policy fiasco – we have just enough time for a couple of calm down dears – care of the formerly serious newspaper The Times
How I got famous? I flaunted my cellulite
Get fit with Joan. Meet the gym bunny aged 77
In the FT the cosmopolitan Janan Ganesh asks: Why is Britain cosmopolitan – oftentimes one tends to ponder a similar question: …in London, the proportion of social housing occupied by immigrant households is close to 50%, up from 40% ten years ago. This implies that the majority of new allocations over that period have gone to immigrant households (Migration Watch)
And finally, the left-leaning ‘i’ newspaper – our pound shop Guardian – and that’s direct from the horse’s mouth: Significantly cheaper than The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph
Our own general election being a foregone conclusion, the ‘i’ frets about – what is from their point of view – adverse swingometer movement across the pond: Politics UK preparing secret dossier on Trump 2.0
That won’t be the first: Christopher Steele: super-spy or dodgy dossier writer? The secret world of the man behind the leaked Trump document… Some say the ex-MI6 man is solid… Trump says he has produced ‘fake news’ (Independent, February 2017)
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“ As a callow youth I recall a pal complaining that he’d attended a party with a DJ presiding where he had made a request that the DJ play some soul. He was disappointed when the next record on the turntable was none other than the middle of the road pop ballad Silver Lady (1977)
Apologies for that intervening anecdotal comic interlude but that’s how I roll.”
Being pretty smart, I figured out that the anecdote must have dated post 1977. If your pal was as callow as you, aren’t you a bit juvenile to have such trenchant views about society and, more particularly, Al Beeb?
Only joking.
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As to my age… My lips are sealed – to paraphrase Terry Hall of Fun Boy Three and Jane Wiedlin, guitarist of the Go-Go’s – but I sense I’m giving away too many clues.
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AISI, the Sun newspaper, usually omitted from the BBC Blog, has a front page picture of Derek Draper a.k.a. married to Kate Garraway looking unnaturally healthy in a hospital bed. Maybe it is because Kate is holding Derek’s hand.
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There was a time when obituaries were sad and respectful. Check the Times frontpage pic of the pair – for a moment there I thought we had a Beeb publicity shot for Strictly’s first ever necrophile coupling. I wouldn’t put it past them.
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When the other cheek puckers up.
https://x.com/guardiannews/status/1743515376036745335?s=20
Swearing is becoming more widely acceptable, linguistics experts claim
Hatcher
@Hatcher_00_
Normalizing decline, one article at a time
Toenails yawn better get Amol to up his cussin’ skills our he is toast.
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The derek draper show rolls on ( yes I know it’s sad when someone dies – done the caring – know what it is ) – but apparently plucky Kate faces a £700 000 tax bill over a closed company they owned …. I’ve only read the headline because I don’t have an interest in what should be a private sadness…. So I might be wrong – but I can feel a ‘go fund me ‘ thingy coming on for wealthy people …. The film rights must be up for bidding …. ( no apology for my cynicism)
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Due sympathy is of course due.
Oh, and almost overlooked in today’s papers: ‘Thank God assisted suicide wasn’t an option when my mother was dying’ Camilla Tominey (Telegraph)
That deserves a newly constituted and rarely applicable well said dear from Mr AsI… despite Esther
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Unless it’s a death duty problem, why should anyone be concerned about a possible £700k tax bill for either Mrs Draper or the estate of the late Del Draper? It’s not as if they couldn’t afford decent tax advice and you are only due to pay tax if you have made profits.
I followed his despicable political activities at the time, and those of his fellow liar who got Catholic God after participating in a Mad Al lie factory under Bliar, on Guido.
No sympathy whatsoever from me.
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Nice guy, eh?
https://order-order.com/people/derek-draper/page/8/
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Peter – I share your view but chose a ‘moderated ‘ version – but a bad week for the Far Left – Batman pilfer draper dead – as well as a fraudulent Tory MP giving up the lie ….
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FOOC : Israel, Guatemala, The Philippines, Greece and the Faroe Islands
– Tom Bateman has switched post from Middle East to Washington
“After the assassination of a senior Hamas leader this week, there are now concerns the conflict will widen.”
strange wording .. cos Hamas widened the conflict on Oct 7th
Guatemala : moves to stop President-elect taking office
Philippines : a Catholic priest and a forensic pathologist are exhuming the remains of victims of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Rueters did the same story 2 years ago
Greece : government* is paying people 500 euros to live in the remote tourist island of Antikythera
* audio said the church not government
Faroe Islands : residents are trying to conserve their land and traditions in the face of an influx of tourists.
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When the Guatemala story was running – it sounded like another third world political system – the US …
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Yes ‘there is this popular guy, but the old establishment is using the courts to keep him out of office’
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Danes of my acquaintance told me that there’s a tradition that every visitor to the Faeroes takes a piece of rock away with them, the purpose being to ensure that the islands disappear.
Trivia – islanders supposedly can’t buy alcohol without showing proof they’ve paid last year’s income tax 😕
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https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/debating-the-climate-with-ben-pile
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Yesterday someone made various criticisms against this website.
I don’t know if they have any merit, but I do sometimes wonder what a casual newbie who dropped in here would make of it.
Sometimes I feel there’s a lot of rather inconsequential in-house chatter, with some of the regulars making a lot of posts.
May I humbly suggest more quality and less quantity, so that a few well-aimed criticisms of the BBC and related matters stand out and hit home.
My concern is that the casual visitor may not be able to see the wood for the trees, and leave, never to return.
Just a suggestion from a well-wisher.
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Vlad – I gave up trying to focus the discussion on the BBC – but have sort of got Fedup trying – same for those repeated comments . Part of the issue ( not problem ) is that some people – including me – limit their consumption of the BBC but still want to raise issues – another issue is the BBC omission of issues which come up but do not fit the BBC narrative .
As a website not dependant on hits – with no commercial motivation maybe people can read it or not ….
As for the troll who popped up – I’ve invited them and anyone else who wishes to defend the BBC – or indeed evidence its’ ‘balance ‘ and objectivity – to input the site … but so far silence – which as far as I’m concerned supports my view about its’Far Left anti British anti judeochristian agenda …
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I understand. I believe it’s quite legitimate to raise issues and publicise events that the BBC does NOT cover. After all, that, too, constitutes BBC bias, by omission.
‘Repeated comments’ may be due to bloggers not reading all the earlier comments and therefore unaware that the point has already been made previously. Personally I don’t think that’s a problem, as most readers, too, will not have read all the earlier comments. So for them it’s not a repeat.
My only other suggestion was about too much chit-chat, in-jokes and in-house banter that may be obscure or incomprehensible to new visitors.
Just one question: there used to be a meter showing the number of vistors on this site. Could that be re-instated, and what are, say, the daily numbers of visitors?
Keep up the good work.
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Dasha Burns of NBC, a BBC TNI partner, has this on her bio:
What’s not getting covered?
Presumably that is why her having her pert buttox handed here by Ramaswamy was a not a huge feature by BBC N. America?
Most likely she was kind when Musk took apart Wendy’s hit team?
‘Professional’ courtesy.
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I had to track that down that post
There was a followup at 6:30pm from Scroblene https://biasedbbc.tv/blog/2024/01/02/midweek-3rd-january-2024/comment-page-3/#comment-1272062
And the initial post was a page earlier at 5:00pm from Pollyanna https://biasedbbc.tv/blog/2024/01/02/midweek-3rd-january-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-1271947
” zero meaningful analysis of any broadcasting output”
I reject that of course
Page 4 of the Daily Mail 2 months ago was almost certainly based on my post 9 months earlier about BBCwales using a photohopped black hand on its election box photo
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“That’s Life”
as Polyester would say
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I’ve been holding my breath waiting for the Pollyanna to return and make her case for the BBC …. Maybe it’s an annual visit just to share a little seasonal cheer ….
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Polygon, it seems
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good one ))
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No wonder feted by the bbc:
2009:
“Derek Draper quits LabourList website in wake of Tory smear email scandal.
Shamed Labour activist Derek Draper has quit the campaigning website he runs following his part in the dirty tricks plot orchestrated from Downing Street.
Draper, a former adviser to Lord Mandelson, issued a statement last night admitting that his continued involvement with LabourList was damaging the site’s efforts to compete with its Tory rivals.
It is the second time he has had to quit frontline Labour politics. In 1998 he was embroiled in controversy over lobbying.
Last night he said that he regretted describing plans to smear top Tories with lies about their private lives as ‘absolutely totally brilliant’.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178193/Derek-Draper-quits-LabourList-website-wake-Tory-smear-email-scandal.html
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Watch him lying on TV
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Saz off after the long break when nothing happened.
https://x.com/BBCsarahsmith/status/1743617142791049534?s=20
Leaving behind the blue skies of Scotland as I’m heading back to D.C.
Sure Lurch mind the stor… hit pieces.
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https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1743617654449979769?s=20
BBC hits back after receiving 900 complaints over ‘biased’ King Charles documentary
‘Hits back’… adds one to the column under ‘we get it about right’ blow offs from anonymous droids.
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Glynn Simmons: Freedom ‘exhilarating’ for man exonerated after 48 years
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67878504
‘Black people are about 7.5 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder in the US than white people, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.’
Black people commit about 1.4 times as many murders as the 75% white population of the USA despite only being 13.6% of the population.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/251877/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-race-ethnicity-and-gender/
That’s (75/13.6)*1.4 = 7.7 times as likely to murder somebody as a white person.
So if their wrongful conviction rate is only 7.5 times, they are in fact LESS likely to be wrongfully convicted and the system is racist towards white people if anything at all.
Another WHOPPING lie by omission from the BBC.
Well done Madeline. Another excellent example of a racist BBC reporter.
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John,
Likely arithmetic was not the strongest subject.
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“Sadiq Khan promised zero days of tube strikes as Mayor – but next week will be his 140th.
The London Mayor has been branded an “utter failure” after his promise to end TfL strikes has been left in tatters.
In 2016 as Labour’s candidate for London Mayor, Mr Khan pledged to ensure there would be “zero strikes” on public transport were he elected.
He also branded the then-mayor Boris Johnson’s record of 35 strike days “a disgrace”.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1852461/Sadiq-Khan-zero-strikes-pledge-slammed
17 likes
What you will never hear on the bbc I suspect:
“Bank worker wins £490,000 payout after being unfairly dismissed for using the N-word in anti-racism training session – and says middle-aged white men are ‘bottom of everything’.
It left the woman leading the exercise apparently so ‘badly distressed’ that she had to take a week off – a ‘key reason’ for the decision to dismiss Mr Borg-Neal for gross misconduct.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12933351/Bank-worker-wins-490-000-payout-unfairly-dismissed-using-N-word-anti-racism-training-session-says-middle-aged-white-men-bottom-everything.html
A bloody week off work after hearing what she probably hears in bloody rap songs every day.
Excellent:
“This week, he was awarded almost £500,000 in damages. Added to Lloyds’s legal costs and tax, the bank has a bill of nearly £1million.
The payout is the culmination of a two-year battle to clear his name after working for the bank and its affiliates for 30 years.
He told The Telegraph: ‘I often wonder if I wasn’t a white middle-aged male would I have had to go through everything I went through. There is no way of telling. You are bottom of everything.'”
27 likes
2023 Britain is pathetic
cos people can’t simply begin the discussion about the news story by giving the simple context
during a diversity training session, he quoted an imaginary person using the n-word in a question about a hypothetical situation
— should he reprimand a black employee for using the n-word in a conversation?
— he was fired for gross misconduct, with nary a thought given to his 27 years of unblemished service.
The actual judgement was back in August “The bank’s actions in imposing disciplinary action for gross misconduct were disproportionate and unreasonable given the nature of the complaint against a long-serving employee with an unblemished.”
It’s onl the compensation that has just been decided.
4 likes
At GW Towers, fresh pineapple is not considered an essential.
https://x.com/sadiqkhan/status/1743677576449556817?s=61
It’s heartbreaking that the cost-of-living crisis is forcing families to go without essentials.
Alongside the @FelixProjectUK and @MayorsFund
, we’ve delivered over 1.3 million meals to London families over Christmas to give them a helping hand.
Pizza toppings for the home delivery from Dominoes?
8 likes
Beggars belief does it not ?
6 likes
That Sadiq Khan self promotion tweet went out to city of 9 million people
It got just 40 Likes
Sadiq continues the tradition of not allowing replies to his tweets.
quote tweet “And yet you’ve raised council tax 70% and pummelled them with ULEZ. ”
People mock Sadiq for his photo of them delivering pineapples to the poor at Xmas
5 likes
4 likes
from order-order.com
22 likes
Hello BBC, recognise the sentiment?
13 likes
I’ve thought for a long time that an advanced civilisation will inevitably self-destruct when their society reaches a point where the ‘useless in the real world’ far-Left in their number can survive and practise activism to change how society progresses from what has evolved though nature to be their own theoretical ideal world.
I seems to me the West has reached that point and our displacement by those who still live by the barbaric laws of nature is under way. We preach love and understanding while they cut our throats (or blow us up).
And in a few hundreds of years, the same will happen to them.
11 likes
I admire your idea it will take 100’s of years. The buggers have been killing each other for decades, if not centuries.
6 likes
Well, they will keep killing each other and anyone who threatens them moggie until the Left reach a point they can tell them it’s not nice and we should just be good to each other.
That’s when the next lot – who don’t share that opinion – ‘displace’ them.
7 likes
I’m not sure that there was a Socialist element in ancient Rome, but the fall of that civilisation really does parallel ours, and it appears to come when decadance and the elimination of want allow fools to start to think lunatic thoughts.
Mostly alas these fools are women and societies which repress women appear to function better than those which do not.
In Genesis 3 vs 16 God commands:
To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
But today we no longer give God the respect we should and have forgotten his commands – that is not a good state to be in.
8 likes
They let the barbarians in to their society
“barbarian invasions, the movements of Germanic peoples which began before 200 bce and lasted until the early Middle Ages, destroying the Western Roman Empire in the process. Together with the migrations of the Slavs, these events were the formative elements of the distribution of peoples in modern Europe.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/barbarian-invasions
10 likes
Mishal gets back up.
https://x.com/twattranslator/status/1743617688071483520?s=61
Translation:”if I want to call a black person the N word, I should be allowed too. It’s only letters forming a word….”.
5 likes
Always use the English word for Black. Do not use the Latin word for Black because it is a denigratory foreign word used by a landlocked African Nation. The BBC should not denigrate people using the word “de-nigra-te” because this word also has a root in the derogatory Latin word for Black. This is why all Black people on the BBC speak English at all times.
6 likes
Not proving a great weekend for hole digging.
https://x.com/konstantinkisin/status/1743577601141018905?s=61
https://x.com/marinapurkiss/status/1743680839781630160?s=61
2 likes
Biden – “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-America.”
Response “Agreed.
Swear your allegiance to your rightful ruler, King Charles, and your previous insurrectionary activities will be forgiven.
Long live the King.”
“Idea for the NHS triage system…
“Do you support the striking doctors?”
“No”
“Back of the queue, Sir””
Ambulance strikes: Elderly woman died after spending hours on the floor waiting for help, paramedics reveal
Ambulance workers begged the public to only call in an emergency, revealing that they received calls for issues including toe nail infections and prescriptions queries
https://inews.co.uk/news/ambulance-strikes-elderly-woman-died-hours-floor-waiting-help-paramedics-2160946
2 likes
Another Saturday, another takeover of Central London by pro-Hamas, terrorist-supporting demomstrators while the police look on gormlessly.
The BBC don’t even bother reporting it; just part of living in a vibrant, diverse, third-world city captured by islamists.
R.I.P. Britannia.
15 likes
History – doomed to repeat it ….
A reader in Bradford recalled asking a West Yorkshire officer on the street that day why the various “Muslim community leaders” weren’t being arrested for incitement to murder. The officer said they’d been told to “play it cool”. The calls for blood got more raucous. My correspondent asked his question again. The policeman told him to “F— off, or I’ll arrest you.”
http://www.steynonline.com/6296/the-churchill-bust
8 likes