- “Trump set to back Starmer’s Chagos deal” – Donald Trump has suggested he will approve Keir Starmer’s deal to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius, reports the Telegraph.
- “Vance clashes with Prime Minister over Britain’s ‘infringements on free speech’” – In the National Review, David Zimmermann reports on J.D. Vance schooling Keir Starmer on free speech at the White House.
- “US praises Starmer’s defence spending hike ahead of crunch Trump talks” – US officials have praised the UK’s commitment to increase spending on defence to 2.5% of GDP, and the PM’s offer of troops for any Ukraine peace deal, says the Mail.
- “Trump says Ukraine deal ‘soon or not at all’ after Starmer talks” – Trump has suggested that a Ukraine peace deal will come “fairly soon or not at all” as he hailed “special” Keir Starmer during an extraordinary White House visit, reports the Mail.
- “Macron has ‘no mandate’ to send European troops to Ukraine, says Meloni” – Giorgia Meloni has clashed with Emmanuel Macron over an Anglo-French plan to deploy European troops to Ukraine as part of a post-war deal, reveals the Telegraph.
- “France set to lift ban on police stopping migrant boats at sea” – The French Government is set to lift a ban on stopping migrant boats at sea for the first time in an effort to reduce illegal Channel crossings, according to the Telegraph.
- “In two-tier Britain, tweeting is now a worse crime than beating up a voter” – Disgraced MP Mike Amesbury will spend just 10 weeks behind bars, while childminder Lucy Connolly was jailed for 31 months over a tweet, writes Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
- “The reformation of the Labour Party” – Labour seems to have realised there is no future in hand-wringing, virtue-signalling liberal-leftism, writes Rod Liddle in the Spectator.
- “More than half a million sick benefit claimants have never worked” – More than half a million people claiming benefits for health reasons have never had a job, reports the Mail.
- “The problem of Britain’s idle generation” – If we want to prevent an idle generation from becoming a forgotten one, ministers will have to act – and fast, warns Michael Simmons in the Spectator.
- “BBC admits serious flaws over Gaza documentary” – The BBC has admitted to serious and unacceptable flaws in the making of its Gaza documentary, saying public trust in its journalism has been damaged, reports LBC.
- “The British state is even more broken than it looks” – The British state appears increasingly unable to work out the costs of its policies, says Sam Ashworth-Hayes in the Telegraph. And until that’s addressed, there’s little hope of improvement.
- “Peter Hitchens and Sarah Vine go toe-to-toe in our new podcast” – The lurch towards far-Right politics is because communities are feeling “angry and unheard”, says Peter Hitchens on his new Daily Mail podcast.
- “Who’d dare join the SAS now?” – In the Spectator, Mary Wakefield wonders who’d still join the SAS when soldiers are now hounded for following orders.
- “Buckingham University’s shameful treatment of Professor Tooley” – The disgraceful treatment of James Tooley, the Vice Chancellor of Buckingham University, shows that even the soundest universities are vulnerable to woke capture, writes Simon Heffer in the Spectator.
- “The terrifying moment hammer-wielding bike-jackers attack cyclist” – The Mail has video of the terrifying moment a Regent’s Park cyclist had his £4,200 road bike robbed by hammer-wielding thugs during a morning ride.
- “BMW’s Oxford retreat signals deep trouble for UK carmaking” – In the Spectator, Martin Vander Weyer warns that BMW’s retreat from Oxford isn’t just a bump in the road – it’s a flashing red light for the entire UK car industry
- “Andrew Tate flees to Florida but DeSantis says ‘you’re not welcome’” – Britain is considering submitting an extradition request to the US for the Tate brothers, reveals the Telegraph.
- “Why Trump is backing free speech absolutist Tate” – The self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate, fresh from house arrest in Romania, appears to be reaping the rewards of his Trump connection, writes Eleanor Steafel in the Telegraph.
- “What Europe gets wrong about the far-Right” – In the Spectator, Douglas Murray skewers the Left’s habit of branding any Right-wing party as the next Third Reich – while ignoring why voters keep voting for them.
- “Israel offered Mahmoud Abbas 94% of West Bank in 2008, former PM Ehud Olmert reveals” – In a new documentary, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert reveals a 2008 peace offer that would have granted 94% of the West Bank to a Palestinian state, according to the Jerusalem Post.
- “Palestinians blew their best chance for peace” – In the Spectator, Stephen Daisley argues that by rejecting Ehud Olmert’s 2008 peace offer, Mahmoud Abbas condemned his people to decades of suffering.
- “Megyn Kelly reveals she’s battling devastating Covid vaccine injury” – Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly has sensationally claimed that she was injured by the Pfizer Covid vaccine, reports the Mail.
- “Federal workers fired to improve efficiency – media outraged; federal workers fired for not complying with an unethical vaccine mandate – media silent” – The media’s outrage over federal layoffs for efficiency is loud, but its silence when workers were fired for resisting an unproven vaccine mandate is deafening, says Prof Vinay Prasad on his Substack.
- “The world… re-Imagined” – On Substack, Bill Rice Jr. envisions a ‘Great Awakening’ where citizens begin to realise the devastating truths about Covid vaccines.
- “Nurses win battle to name trans colleague who was in their changing room” – NHS nurses have won a legal battle to name a biologically male trans colleague who used their female changing room, reports the Telegraph.
- “Oscar committee members abstaining from voting due to woke nominees” – Oscar voters believe the awards may be on their way out, as DEI rules lead to woke, niche movies being nominated over big box office successes, according to the Mail.
- “‘I did not have sexual relations with those children, on that island’” – A satirical video has surfaced of Bill Clinton reacting to news that Pam Bondi is releasing the Epstein client list.
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Thank you Toby for a cracking ‘taster’ into what is becoming an extremely invidious subject. Although I fell out with the Catholic Church many years ago and my anti-stance has hardened these last 2.5 years I remain a Christian and very much support Christian beliefs. I have nothing to say in favour of Islam and it is unquestionably, diametrically opposed, I believe to the Christian way of life. So I agree the undermining of Christianity seems to have been matched by the growth of wokery and the results are bad and getting worse.
The trans / alphabet brigade are very much a minority within a much larger group of people but unfortunately make far too much noise. The vast majority of trans people would I am sure prefer to live quiet lives under the radar.
If the Church went back to basics and ensured the Christian basics were reasserted once more a firmer push back against wokery might commence. Unlikely I know and especially with their current hierarchy.
The wokery infecting our society is evil and unless stopped will grow. It is certainly a nasty element in the push to break apart our society and like all other attacks we must resist and stand up for basic common sense.
“After a brief flurry of feminine freedom towards the end of the last century, once again men are the self-appointed experts on everything female.”. A “brief flurry”?. “towards the end of the last century”?. Not a single word of blame goes to the swivel-eyed loons that are ‘progressive’ women. We’re into the 9th decade of increasingly aggressive feminism and it’s no coincidence that life is becoming increasingly shite. Men must give up their masculinity and women must be more masculine (so few people seem able to see the bizarrely obvious double speak). Where could this campaign possibly end? Men wanting to be women, and women wanting to be men. Suck it up Julie, you’ve got a lot to answer for. Get comfortable in that bed.
Why has she got a lot to answer for?
Look up her previous rants about men. This woman absolutely hates males – hates with a venomous passion. That hatred has consequences – 60+ years of consequences.
Yes, I’m blaming womem like Julie; I’m just saying it out aloud. You sometimes have to dig deep to fnd the roots of a problem.
Well I don’t know anything about her. And I don’t even know if a word exists which is the female equivalent of ‘misogynist’. But I do like men, as long as they aren’t tossers. Women can be complete tossers too. What I will agree with this woman on is her opinion of a man being appointed as “Period dignity officer”. No idea what that job entails but it does sound like something straight from a Babylon Bee skit. I can imagine JP having a lot of fun with that one too.
“Rise of the New Puritans”.
For some time I have been imagining members of this new cult asking (in a “Southern” drawl): “Are you woke? Do you accept woke as your personal…” etc.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
Four hundred years ago, one could say that the difference between the Catholics and the Protestants was that one set wanted to follow rules, while the other set wanted to think.
The same two sets exist today. Instead of it being Protestants and Catholics, what should it be? Sceptics and Wokesters?
I don’t know. Some Catholics are very sceptical. Have you read The Song Of Bernadette? And some Protestants for that matter are not very sceptical ( the clergy at Durham Cathedral?).
Note that the religious tend to not fall for the wokerati tricks — and the more religious they are the more they’re immune.
Perhaps society needs a religion, and in the absence of any of the traditional theologies people will get suckered into ‘belief’ in whatever is being pushed by the media.
Depends what one means by religious. I tend to consider some of the atheist cults as religious. And by the way, I don’t particularly buy the distinction that the atheist crimes of the 20th century were not in the name of atheism .Even if they were not specifically in its name or about converting the world to atheism, it won’t make much difference to their many victims, but I suppose the likes of Dawkins have to try and distance their religion from these crimes, and I suppose some are bound to buy it. Meanwhile, the maxim that if people cease to believe i n God, they don’t believe in nothing but rather in anything, seems to have a lot of truth in it. Innit? No coincidence that there is a big interest in “the aliens” in post Christian towns in South Wales.
If I say I have no idea about any gods and just want to focus on doing what I believe is the right thing for myself and those I love, what does that make me?
A Christian.
Agnostic I suppose if you don’t claim to know for certain. Nonetheless, there are likely to be other things that you do believe for certain without having seen. These may or may not include “aliens” (as I said), the origin of life, the provenance and age of fossils, whether or not Scottish shrimps are really likely to remain unchanged for 300 million years if molecules to man can allegedly happen in 4,000 million years (according to “the science”), whether T-rex DNA is really likely to survive for millions of years, where matter came from and how much there is and why, what the mind is (atoms arranged in a certain way (which would mean you could theoretically be duplicated and thus one person with two bodies), your own atoms (even though almost all are replaced over a life time), your own DNA (which would mean identical twins were one person with two bodies), or perhaps the dwelling place of the soul), whether the “big bang” is scientific (the universe came from a dot and the dot came from nothing and that idea gets printed in a journal as “science”), how much space, time and matter there is and why (if they are infinite, could anything happen (if so, why isn’t there more than one of me, and if not why not, how much of them is there and why?). why the missing links that Victorian amateur naturalist fretted about remain missing (and what said naturalist would have made of the stunning discoveries of DNA and the mindboggling complexity of the cell), about whether macro-evolution can happen by random chance despite lack of proof and seeming statistical impossibility (amino acids to protein, an eye forming etc.), and why the many natural laws (and many conditions of the unique planet Earth in its unique solar system) just happen to be perfectly calibrated to allow life to exist.
My point is that, whilst atheists and agnostics and “nones” might traditionally be considered as non-religious, they may very well be believers, simply arguing on essentially philosophical grounds that their belief is more reasonable than other beliefs (as indeed most people do to be fair).
And I should add that those atheists who place themselves at the centre and effectively make gods of themselves are effectively atheistic satanists (man made god is a key definition of this). Christians on the other hand aspire to love their enemy and do good to those that hate them. This is a very difficult thing, but very commendable (and to be fair, some atheists and agnostics try to do this. Always worth learning from other beliefs as our old friends the Amish have shown us with “vaccines”).
Which athiests make gods of themselves? So now they’re satanists?
And loving your enemy is commendable, doing good to those who hate you?
Sounds like being stuck in an abusive relationship to me and makes somebody a massive mug.
Just more sanctimonious cobblers and further proof that those of us without religion and happy in our lot seem to really rub the devout up the wrong way. The fact we do not feel we are lacking in the slightest and can have a fulfilling existence without subscribing to organized belief systems really gets up some noses doesn’t it?
Loving your enemy= treating them with respect and recognizing their humanity and agency; not snogging them and giving them your wage packet.
What has characterized all the lockdown protests and resistance movements (e.g trucker protests) has been their decency, kindness and good behaviour.
The religious are not, on the whole ‘rubbed up the wrong way’ by atheists. What rubs many of us up the wrong way is the mealy-mouthed caving-in of some of our own leaders -like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Kudos to the Canadian pastor who roared at the cops who tried to close his church.
Why on earth would you treat your enemy with respect?? What humanity? Surely if they had any they wouldn’t be considered your enemy? No offence but I’m not someone who enjoys being treat like a doormat because I get to polish my halo and earn some brownie points before I reach your pearly gates. Nope. Treat others as you want to be treat yourself. Simple as.
But I do agree with that Bishop, and the pope actually, being utterly disingenuous in their preaching, and the Polish dude totally rocks. Got all the time in the world for people like that. His video went viral for a reason.
It makes you a decent and compassionate human being, and you do not have to belong to any particular club to be one of those. We aren’t living in primitive times where our very life depended on choosing a side.
“We aren’t living in primitive times where our very life depended on choosing a side.”
We have come very close Mogs. In places like Canada, New York, Australia and the others with ‘vaccine” mandates, for many they really did have to pick a side.
I am an Atheist, i.e. I do not believe in God(s), Angels, Archangels, etc.
That is all being an “Atheist” means.
To construe “not believing in God” as “believing in nothing” is illogical.
To construe “not believing in God” as “believing in anything” is merely puerile.
BTW Christian Cults have been murdering each other throughout history.
There’s always the English Divine Liturgy. Mar Mari Emanuel would get me back into a church.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i1QgjDenQ_s
“Note that the religious tend to not fall for the wokerati tricks”
Well that is a mile off the donkey’s nose. I come from a large and committed family of Catholics and unfortunately they have fallen for the scam hook…
Two churches I know well – Catholic and Baptist. C1984 believers up to their eye balls.
There are smaller groups within Christianity standing up to the nonsense (including that Canadian pastor and certain Catholic groups), however it is hard to think of leaders of any of the major Christian denominations who have made a stand, and many of them inspire little (or no) confidence. What I would say is that the Church is better than its leadership at any given time, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I trust Christ, even if I do not trust some Christian leaders so much.
I’m not alone in being both not religious and impervious to woke claptrap. Society “needs” religion like it needs mask mandates or a harnfull novel injection. All examples of completely unnecessary belief systems in order to live as a decent human being in a functional and civilised society.
But what people will use to virtue signal to the max nevertheless.
Ok… Except for “the child-raping of the Catholic Church”. I am aware of the scandals that prompted Ms Burchill to smear the whole Church in this way, but child rape is NOT part of the (Catholic) Christian religion.
“Far safer to kick the Christians instead” indeed.
I think I’ve spotted a typo in “…bullying cults…”