- “John Swinney set to be next SNP leader and First Minister” – John Swinney is set to become SNP leader and First Minister as his potential rival Kate Forbes ruled herself out of the race, reports the Herald.
- “Kate Forbes has still won a significant victory” – for religion in public life” – Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph says that even though Kate Forbes isn’t going to stand for the leadership of the SNP, Swinney’s promise to include her in a future SNP Government is a major blow for tolerance of Christians in public life.
- “Ireland miraculously discovers its hard border” – Remember when parliamentary legislation to deem Rwanda a safe country was an assault on the rule of law? Well, now Dublin has decreed Rwanda a safe country so it can send asylum seekers back over the U.K. border, says Henry Hill in UnHerd.
- “Migration reality is biting in Ireland” – The Irish have been stitched up like a kipper by that most magnificent of things – reality, writes Rod Liddle in the Spectator.
- “Donald Trump claims immigration has left London ‘unrecognisable’” – Donald Trump claims mass immigration has rendered London “unrecognisable” after Europe “opened its doors to jihad”, according to the Mail.
- “Macron says European nationalists are ‘hidden Brexiteers’” – Emmanuel Macron says that Brexit has “impoverished” the U.K. and failed to solve the country’s immigration problems, reports the Telegraph.
- “Comedians outraged by stand-up’s death threat to ‘Zionist’ woman” – Comedian Dane Baptiste, who has appeared on a number of BBC shows, has sparked outrage for posting a threat on social media to kill a female “Zionist” comedian, says the Times.
- “Governments are beginning to resist ‘disinformation index’” – In the European Conservative, Frederick Attenborough takes aim at the Global Disinformation Index, which has blacklisted a number of conservative and ‘gender critical’ news publishing sites in the hope of demonetising them.
- “Teacher banned over misgendering pupil ‘had free speech right infringed’” – The High Court has been told that banning a Christian maths teacher for misgendering a pupil infringed on his freedom of speech and religion, according to the Standard.
- “Billy Bragg’s attack on JK Rowling highlights the idiocy of woke tribalism” – Instead of judging arguments on their merits, the cataclysmically dim find it much easier to judge the people making them instead, says Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
- “The desire to silence others is unhealthy” – On the Public Substack, Michael Shellenberger, in conversation with Glenn Loury, argues that defending the free speech of those you dislike is the sign of a healthy society.
- “The publisher and the police” – The case of Ernest Moret has drawn attention to a sinister abuse of power, writes Freddie Attenborough in the Critic.
- “Guardian to cut journalists’ jobs as it slides back into heavy losses” – The Guardian has launched a redundancy programme as the newspaper grapples with a sharp slowdown in advertising, reports the Telegraph.
- “CDC found evidence COVID-19 vaccines caused deaths” – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found evidence that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines caused multiple deaths before claiming that there was no evidence linking the vaccines to any deaths, reveals the Epoch Times.
- “The CDC lied; people died” – The CDC knew the Covid vaccines were killing people. But despite that, they lied to the public and told them they were safe, says Steve Kirsch on Substack.
- “Families of people who died after Covid vaccination abandon attempt to sue AstraZeneca” – Families whose loved ones died after taking the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine have abandoned attempts to sue the pharmaceutical giant after being told that they were likely to lose, reports the Telegraph.
- “Turbo cancer in New York” – Cancer cases are up by two-and-a-half times in New York State in 2023 compared to the 2017-2019 baseline, according to Steve Kirsch on Substack.
- “My parents and the sorry state of the NHS” – In the Spectator, Melissa Kite reflects on a recent hospital visit with her father, navigating the complexities of familial bonds and personal beliefs amid the backdrop of the healthcare system.
- “Are antidepressants making you asexual?” – Half of those on antidepressants experience sexual problems, writes Freya India in the Spectator.
- “Why Britain is building the world’s most expensive nuclear plant” – In the Spectator, Sam Dumitriu explains why Hinkley Point has been so expensive and how we can make nuclear power in Britain cheaper.
- “Forget Brexit – Net Zero is the real threat to the car industry” – Extreme green targets pose an existential threat to U.K. carmakers, says James Woudhuysen in Spiked.
- “The vegan meats that are worse for you than a McDonald’s quarter pounder” – The Telegraph reveals that many of the vegan alternatives to meat are worse for your heart than the junk food they’re designed to replace.
- “Climate models, catastrophe scenarios and the imaginary climate crisis” – There is no compelling scientific evidence of a human-caused climate crisis or emergency, says Aivar Usk on the Freedom Research Substack.
- “BBC presenter says calling animals by their English names is ‘jarring’” – Springwatch presenter Gillian Burke says she prefers to refer to animals by their traditional Swahili names rather than those commonly used in the BBC’s nature programmes, reports the Mail.
- “Psychotherapy body rows with trans activists over conversion therapy memo” – The U.K. Council for Psychotherapy has raised doubts about banning ‘trans conversion therapy’, according to the Telegraph.
- “Breastfeeding charity bullying claims over call to let in trans women” – Britain’s oldest breastfeeding charity has called in regulators amid claims of “harassment and bullying” over a policy to include trans women in meetings, reports the Mail.
- “Gender identity and the Christian vision of humanity” – In his Psephizo blog, Ian Paul delves into a recent document by Catholic bishops addressing gender identity, highlighting its biblical grounding and contrasting its clarity with the stance of the Church of England.
- “Do many women want to be train drivers?” – In the Spectator, Douglas Murray reacts to news from the BBC that train drivers in the U.K. are – shock horror – “overwhelmingly middle-aged white men”.
- “Australia’s misinformation bill was seeded by the global censorship vanguard” – The Australian Government is seeking to exploit two recent knife attacks to relaunch its misinformation bill after it was put on ice late last year over free speech concerns, says Andrew Lowenthal on Substack.
- “Why Trumpists think the real conspiracy is RFK Jr.” – The more Trump and Biden criticise RFK, the more they risk elevating his credentials, writes Freddie Gray in the Spectator.
- “Gen Z is like a South Park episode unfolding right in front of our eyes” – In 2020, Gen Z kneeled in front of black people to prove that they’re “not racist”. In 2024, they’re kneeling to Allah to show that they’re “against genocide”.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/02/guardian-cut-journalists-jobs-advertising-heavy-losses/
Shocking news. Is Billy short of a few bob or is the Groan not pulling its weight?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/02/macron-says-european-nationalists-are-hidden-brexiteers/
And apparently Brexit has impoverished the UK.
It is not Brexit that has impoverished the country but Brino and the consequent treasonous conduct of our PM’s and their pygmy politician pals.
Since the start of “covid” I have visited a number of EU countries and in all of those countries people have complained to me about inflation and labour shortages. So the “Brexit effect” has been so powerful that it has ruined the whole EU economy!
Says the unliked, unpopular peice of frence shyte!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/05/02/billy-bragg-jk-rowling-tribalism-gender-identity-duffield/
Billy Bragg – “cataclysmically dim.”
Poetry.
Woke Red Tape Strangles Small Business – latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, including your local Reform Party candidate, your local vicar, media and friends online.
https://meduza.io/en/latest/news
What’s really going on?
If you support Putin and Russia, this is what he is putting his soldiers through:
“We were still so cheerful, everything was like a game.” Someone started shouting: “Jump into the trench, a**holes! Why are you standing there?” recalls Andrey.
The group led by Andrei immediately fell apart. He himself jumped into the trench – his colleagues, who, as part of another detachment, had left for positions a day earlier, sat there with “horror in their eyes.”
Two more soldiers took cover near the trench. While Andrei was trying to hide in a trench (one of the assault group sitting there could not move out of fear), a Ukrainian drone dropped a grenade right on these two. Andrei, who managed to climb into the trench, was instantly shell-shocked. Before his eyes, one of his colleagues sitting at the trench had his head torn off. The second one was severely “cut” – he crawled on his hands and knees covered in blood, dirt and fragments…….
….a Ukrainian anti-tank missile flew straight into the position: “This is also such a beautiful sight… A triangle is flying with the wrong trajectory. And “bang!” right in the tank’s forehead. Black smoke, explosion, fragments everywhere,” recalls Andrey.
Andrei and those sitting with him on the same armored personnel carrier jumped in fear into a minefield near the road. The second armored personnel carrier “rushed somewhere” – it was knocked out on the same day; Andrei no longer saw the people sitting on it alive.
The damaged tank began firing at the neighbouring landing – then it turned out that it was at its own positions.
Andrei and his group – about 10 people in total – ran into the forest in “utter chaos” and found the infantrymen, who directed them to the command. The authorities again sent the stormtroopers back – on foot, across the field. During this time, some of the fighters escaped – by the end of the mission, only four people remained in the group.
‘…..the assault group reached the road along which the wounded were just reaching. One of them, a private with the call sign Grach, had no fingers on his hand – Andrei remembered how only bones protruded from his glove, “like a chicken’s.” Andrei decided that helping the wounded man was the only way to “*** <hide> from the battle,” and dragged the losing consciousness soldier to the so-called “zero” – the point where the command was based……..
In the dark and without a map, he and the three soldiers who remained with him needed to get to the surrounded dugout……Fox, at Andrei’s request, tried to explain to the regiment commander over the radio that it was impossible to carry out the order. But he demanded that the fighters go on the assault anyway……..
At some point, in the stream of insults coming from the radio, death threats were heard. Andrei and his soldiers were told that they would be “nullified” (that is, killed) if they refused to go on the mission.
‘Not everyone could withstand the stress……On one of the missions, Andrei’s colleague could not stand it and shot himself with a machine gun: “I’m just *** <tired> of living. Tired”……..basically, Andrei says, the bodies of dead stormtroopers are thrown away. They then lie in Lugansk plantings for months.
During the last battle, the assault in the Svatovo area, Andrei was sent sick. In the camp they found him with pneumonia, but the commander still told him to go on a mission. “There was a feeling that they were just trying to finish us off. Just write it off,”
Andrei admits that by the end of October, from what he saw during the war, thoughts about a crossbow were already in his head. This is the name given to a situation where a fighter deliberately injures himself in order to end up in the hospital. He had already begun to look for a trench where he could throw a grenade so that he would only be “lightly cut by shrapnel.”
Refusing to go into battle was risky……Most often, military personnel who refuse to carry out their assignments are sent to the pits. This punishment is applied not only to former prisoners, but also, for example, contract soldiers and conscripts.
In the camp where Andrei’s company was based, there were separate pits for privates and officers.
Most often they ended up there precisely for refusing to go into battle and for drunkenness. “When I saw it for the first time – oh *** <amazing>. Pit. It smells like sh*t. There is a sentry. And there are actually people sitting below. Eyes glow from the darkness,” says Andrey.
For those sitting in the pits, food is thrown from above. Those who are guilty go to the toilet in the same place, in the pit……’
Elizaveta Focht, Ilya Barabanov 02 May 2024
It did not have to be like this.
Some years ago when things changed in Russia and Eastern Europe I was working with the seed trade with exports of seeds to Russia. It was not easy but it was possible. People in the UK seem to get on well with people in Russia, It struck me that at that time we had every opportunity to forge strong trade and cultural links with the new Russia and presumably stemming from that we could build strategic links and alliances. It was with sadness that my naive optimism was dashed and we have ended up in the sorry state we see today.
In my view it is as much the fault of the Western World that we have ended up where we are as it is the fault of Russia itself. Putin as we see him today was in some ways formed in response to the bad diplomacy and miserable statesmanship the western world displayed in its dealings with the new Russia. It is as if we could not live without seeing Russia as a demon state and so we had to ensure it stayed that way and thus we end up with Putin as we seem him today. For sure you can produce endless accounts of horrors and terrors occurring in modern Russia but how much is the western world responsible for creating the conditions that lead to this sorry state of affairs?
Even now it seems that the USA policy towards Ukraine owes little to the need to halt the appalling slaughter and destruction but more to do with ensuring Biden wins the Presidential election. In my view this war is gaining nothing for the ordinary folk of the USA, UK or Europe and we could bring it to a halt very quickly if we wanted to. We could, even now go back to the painstaking task of building trade, cultural and security arrangements with Russia all of which would be the best result for the ordinary people but I suspect the political price of doing this is too high too be acceptable.
After enduring the gruelling cost of the Ukraine war, in my view, whatever Putin’s grandiose dreams, Russia will not want to engage in more military action if they can avoid doing so. We need to show them that the future lies in cooperation, collaboration and good trade. Perhaps I am again being too naive in believing this is possible as I fear there are too many vested interests who would see no power and profit in such an approach.
U.S. strategy, as set out by the U.S. defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, is to weaken Russia so that it can no longer engage in the invasion of neighbouring countries.
Like it or not, that strategy is going well.
Talks are taking place:
‘Ukraine’s peace summit in Switzerland will be held on June 15-16, based on an agreement between Kyiv and Bern….’
But not with Russia. This is why:
‘Our approach comes from reality, and from the experience that we (have) gained… Between 2014 and 2022, we had almost 200 rounds of talks with Russia in different formats, with mediators and bilaterally…….But nothing worked. It ended up in the large-scale invasion (of 2022)’
Dmytro Kuleba
”.But nothing worked. It ended up in the large-scale invasion (of 2022)’”
Is he saying that the original Istanbul agreement did not happen? The story I have heard is that Ukraine and Russia were on the brink of an agreement when a certain ex UK P.M. stepped in and pushed Ukraine into battle mode. I have no means of verifying that story but if there is any truth in? it then the above statement is a little misleading.
We know precisely what Putin’s plans are from documentary evidence from within the Kremlin.
‘Some commentators assume that……If peace was possible in the war in Donbas…….it’s possible in the battle for Ukraine; if diplomacy had been pursued more vigorously, the war could have been averted.
In fact, the logic of Russia’s behaviour regarding Ukraine and the ‘collective West’ more broadly is driven by territorial expansion and the opportunistic use of violence.
The Minsk Accords, concluded at gunpoint after Russia’s military interventions in Ukraine in summer 2014 and winter 2015, weren’t a magic recipe for peace, but a tool of Russian military-diplomatic pressure whose meaning and use changed over time…..
Instead of a roadmap to future peace, the Minsk Accords had largely become a military-diplomatic tool in the hands of Russian leadership to legitimise regime change and the dismemberment of Ukraine……
Russia’s ‘security guarantees’ proposals published in December 2021 were little more than a diplomatic and ideological smokescreen. Even moderate Russian commentators admit this was an ultimatum meant to justify the invasion rather than honest diplomacy.
Russia’s foreign minister insisted all provisions, including the rolling back of NATO infrastructure to the 1997 borders, should have been met “as a package” within an impossible time frame of weeks not months, and that the Kremlin might decide not to trust even the “written guarantees”.
Given that NATO didn’t have a mechanism for such written guarantees – and even if it had had it, it would have been impossible to adopt it within weeks – Russia’s proposal didn’t sound like a bona fide negotiating position. Nevertheless, the US and Europe made efforts to take Russia’s security preoccupations seriously, agreeing to make concessions in the areas of arms control and limitations on military exercises. Additionally, Joe Biden promised Putin that no missiles would be placed in Ukraine – the concern cited by Putin months before the invasion.
Putin’s aide reached an agreement about Ukraine’s non-accession to NATO with Zelensky before the invasion, but the Russian leader rejected this deal…….
The Kremlin started preparing for a regime change and dismemberment of Ukraine in early 2021, which corroborates our thesis that Russia’s proposals couldn’t have been made in good faith…..’
Volodymyr Artiukh, Taras Fedirko
‘While the 9th Directorate of the FSB’s Fifth Service Department for Operational Information prepared for the occupation of Ukraine from July 2021, the 11th Unit of the Department for Operational Information, responsible for Moldova, was assessing plans for the next round of operations under the direction of Major General Dmitry Milyutin. In November 2020, the FSB’s strategic objective in Moldova was to bring about ‘The full restoration of the strategic partnership between Moldova and the Russian Federation’
FSB Outline of Operational Aims and Means, 21 November 2021.
‘…..the Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a subdivision of Putin’s Presidential Administration……was established five years ago.
The rather innocuously named directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighboring countries that Russia sees as in its sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.’
That’s it.
Are the world’s problems not always our problem and our fault?
Steve, please don’t answer him, it’s like stroking a stray dog he’ll just follow you home!
Zero contribution, effort…….
Well done, two keys pressed…….except that the second one was finger trouble……..
You don’t appear to have any fingers, either…only (calloused) thumbs…….
It won’t stop him/her. It has a compulsive obsessive disorder and will continue to keep posting excerpts from stuff it read. It is almost always recycled opinion from obscure sources.
More vapourings from you. We may need nut zero after all…….
I wasn’t talking to you.
You weren’t talking….only emitting….
Meduza, based in Latvia and run by dissaffected Russians. Wikipedia says it doesn’t have a good track record in the field of prediction and gives as an example that 5 days before the Russian attack on Ukraine, Meduza said the attack wouldn’t happen.
2022 – Meduza banned by Putin
2022 – Meduza wins the Fritt Ord Prize for courageous, independent and fact-based journalism
‘Our average [age] of our readers are 24 to 35, this is the youngest and the most advertising-friendly audience… So our audience is the most “dangerous” audience for the Kremlin because they are activists who stand against fake elections.’
Am I right in thinking that Fritt Ord is Norwegian for Free Word? It smacks of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.
Well done for claiming to be thinking. More evidence required……..
I am assuming that Norwegian is similar to Swedish which I am reasonably fluent in. Do you disagree oin the translation, or do you think Fritt Ord is a Norwegian jopurnalist?. Surely you must have an opinion. Oh, no. I forgot, you only ever copy and paste.
Still no evidence…..only emissions…..
I’d like to say the mask has slipped with these Nazi-like psychopaths on the campuses in America, but the universal symbol of the Mongtard is still well and truly in situ, because the pretense that they’re hiding their identity from anyone at this point must be upheld at all costs. Certainly well funded, as well as an abundance of obligatory face jockstraps we’ve got matching tents, they’re all wearing hard hats now and nobody’s sitting round the camp fire eating beans, I’ve seen them tucking into a veritable banquet over there, in an encampment which now resembles a summer camp. Honestly, all they need is fire arms training and you’ve got yourself a perfect replica of what we know goes on in Gaza at these Jihadi training camps for kids, courtesy of UNRWA. I wonder if somebody strapped suicide vests to these hate-filled puppet clowns how many would willingly go self-detonate in the nearest shopping mall. Okay, a bit far-fetched, that. A gun would surely suffice;
”After Oct 7, the National Students for a Democratic Society celebrated the Hamas murders, rapes and kidnappings. Florida State University’s SDS chapter called it, “a brave assault.”
How would the SDS view a similar assault on America? We already know.
The Weatherman plan for conquering America depended on a coordinated mass invasion of Marxist and Communist nations along with domestic terrorism and riots.
The Neo-Nazi Left doesn’t just want to see Hamas invade Israel and kill millions of Jews, its genocidal leaders want to see it and other Islamic terror groups invade America and kill millions of people. That’s why the Left is fighting to keep the border open so that every enemy force from drug cartels to terrorists can come across, set up shop here and take down the country.
That is the truth that must be told.
We make a fundamental mistake in not calling the Left what it is and exposing the true horror of its plans for all of us. And when we fail to do that, then we’re surprised at what comes next.
Why do we call it the Neo-Nazi Left? Because its goal is to impose a socialist state through the mass murder of millions of people, particularly but not exclusively Jews. Much as in Nazi Germany, those people include political dissenters and anyone else they see as standing in their way. What Stalin and Hitler failed to accomplish, they hope to achieve through many of the same methods.
What is happening at Columbia University, Yale and many other schools is not an aberration, like the Weathermen plans to kill 25 million Americans, it’s the truest expression of an ugly extremist movement that has learned nothing from its worst crimes in the twentieth century.”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-neo-nazi-left/
Haha, this is funny. But it’s always the way, no matter the context, isn’t it? Misfits and oddballs unite to feel more normal, thereby merely magnifying their inherent anti-social weirdness and psychopathy. We see it across all the agendas currently;
https://twitter.com/NiohBerg/status/1786208813516747234
What they need is the ONS to re-baseline the data. Problem solved
“Turbo cancer in New York” – Cancer cases are up by two-and-a-half times in New York State in 2023 compared to the 2017-2019 baseline, according to Steve Kirsch on Substack
I do wonder what’s going on at The Daily Telegraph. This is the rag, along with The Times and Spiked, that I had a subscription with until 2020. I dropped the Times very early on in the madness as they, rather bizarrely, turned on a sixpence and went full-on cluck cluck gibber gibber my old man’s a mushroom, within about ten minutes of Boris announcing we were all to be held captive in our own homes. The DT were a little slower getting to the same fully matured state of boggle-eyed lunacy as the Times, but they got there sure enough, shadow-banning myself and others in the process for refusing to join in with latest fad of frothing at the mouth and summoning the Gods of big state and big pharma while wearing our underwear over our face. Yes, the DT leaked a few pieces questioning lockdown over the years, but nothing ever about the ‘vaccine’ and their public opinion was clear – lockdown and ‘vaccine’ should get together and have beautiful babies. As for the ‘brave’, ‘anti-establishment’ Spiked… I’m not even going to go there. Complete tossers, the lot of them.
Anyway, I’ve gone off on one; what I meant to question was that the DT is now, beyond doubt, the only mainstream outlet raising questions. Why is that? My guess is they’re playing a willing part in the game of divide and conquer we’re so obviously in the midst of. Wondered if anyone else had any thoughts.
I do enjoy a good unexplained downvote; it lets me know childhood is still alive and kicking… Me not like horrible man, me downvote. Where’s my warm milk and rusk this morning? MUMMY!
Re story in The Critic about use of Section 7 of the Terrorism Act.
The lawyer wrote [Section 7] “should, therefore, never be used for public order policing, “especially now that some leftwing and single-issue campaigners were the responsibility of counter-terrorist police”.
So he is saying the Mep should take it easy in order not to upset the left. Presumably the rest of us remain fair game for the outrageous actions in this case.
I recommend you all read The Crtitic article. In general it is an excellent magazine.
It’s perfectly OK to chop 100s of thousands of birds and bats to peices in the name of climate change using silly windmills, but, if you trim your hedge, you face jail time!
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/garden/1894765/Garden-banned-cutting-hedges-May
“Guardian to cut journalists’ jobs as it slides back into heavy losses”
The Communist climate wrag isn’t making money? Well well, I do declare! Can’t imagine why?
“BBC presenter says calling animals by their English names is ‘jarring”
Ffs!
Isn’t a rose just as sweet by any other name?
“Gen Z is like a South Park episode unfolding right in front of our eyes”
Is there a tea towel shop near by?
This just in from UCLA. I think the good guys are wearing them down. They’re showing signs of battle fatigue now. More Soros funding required, STAT!
https://twitter.com/JoshWalkos/status/1786198035145355653
I am sure there is help within the NHS for Billy’s new condition. They could call it “The Billy no mates Bragg syndrome”
Maybe obtain a diagnose privately as a matter of urgency. You can afford it Billy as a champagne socialist.
Anyone heard any news about the eurovision song contest this year?
“John Swinney set to be next SNP leader and First Minister” – “John Swinney is set to become SNP leader and First Minister as his potential rival Kate Forbes ruled herself out of the race, reports the Herald.”
There’s something strange going on here. Some reports say that Kate Forbes is much more popular among Scotland’s voters generally than Swinney, so she could actually win a general election representing the whole country.
But Swinney was chosen because he is more popular with SNP voters, and with the Green Party, who don’t like Kate Forbes’ sensible views on Net Zero. Is he the same John Swinney who once had a high position in Friends of the Earth in his youth, and will he suddenly shift into Net Zero madness to please the Green Nutters?
The Greens and Labour also don’t like Kate Forbes’ honest, outspoken Protestant views, but prefer John Swinney’s Catholic-but-flexible-don’t-rock-the-boat views. He criticised her Biblical Christian views on sodomite marriage, to the delight of the wokesters.
This is exactly how the Hindu Billionaire became PM, by all the other candidates withdrawing. How is that democracy? And what is the real reason Kate Forbes withdrew?