- “Trump hits UK with 10% ‘reciprocal’ tariffs as he unveils ‘Liberation Day’ onslaught including 25% on all foreign car imports – but Starmer won’t retaliate as EU faces 20%” – Donald Trump imposed 10% “reciprocal” tariffs on the UK last night – but hit the EU and rest of the world even harder as he vowed to stop the US being “pillaged”, the Mail reports.
- “Wall Street stocks drop like a stone” – Within minutes of Trump’s announcement, futures tracking America’s flagship S&P 500 fell 2%, while the Nasdaq dropped 3% — the kind of falls not seen since the start of the pandemic, reports the Mail.
- “Trump just proved Brexit was the best decision Britain ever made” – Britain will escape the punishing levies the US is imposing on imports from the EU, meaning Europe’s manufacturers may even decide to move to the UK, says Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph.
- “With tariffs, Trump wants to restore American industry destroyed by decades of unfair trade” – Michael Lind defends Trump’s tariff policy in the New York Post.
- “The EU’s fury at Trump’s tariffs is hypocritical insanity” – Instead of hitting out at Trump’s tariffs, the EU and its media allies should focus on Beijing’s attempt to take over world trade, argues Joel Kotkin in the Telegraph.
- “Trump’s about to bomb Iran” – In a few weeks’ time Trump will embark on a bombing campaign against Iran, says the Mail‘s Dan Hodges, citing “top Israeli sources”.
- “Musk and Trump humbled in first electoral test” – Despite the Tesla billionaire’s $21 million donation to the Republican candidate, voters elected a liberal judge to maintain their majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a blow to Trump and the MAGA movement, reports the Telegraph.
- “MPs will have chance to veto Chagos deal” – Parliament will scrutinise and vote on the bill to write the surrender treaty into law, a Minister has confirmed, according to the Telegraph.
- “Starmer claims Adolescence is a documentary – again” – Does Prime Minister Keir Starmer understand the difference between fact and fiction? The Spectator isn’t sure after the Labour leader referred to Adolescence as a documentary for a second time.
- “What really scares people about Adolescence” – Ed West masterfully lays out all that is wrong with Netflix’s tendentious new drama in the Spectator.
- “Labour’s welfare crackdown is a sham” – Under Rachel Reeves’s underwhelming welfare changes genuinely disabled people will be receiving less, but it is set to become even easier to claim enhanced Universal Credit if you are feeling a bit down in the dumps, says Ross Clark in the Spectator.
- “Criminals facing 12 months in prison should be spared jail, says Sentencing Council chief” – Lord Justice William Davis, the Chairman of the embattled Sentencing Council, has said courts must consider alternative community punishments for repeat offenders who face under a year in prison, the Telegraph reports.
- “Marine Le Pen is in a race against the clock” – Marine Le Pen has options and is fighting back but time is against her, says James Tidmarsh in the Spectator.
- “COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis paper raises questions about what earns post-publication peer review” – Retraction Watch reports on the highly selective use of ‘post-publication peer review’ that has targeted another vaccine paper that shows significant harm.
- “Crappy critique of my European excess deaths study” – Raphael Lataster continues to be shocked by the prevalence of what appears to be AI junk even in leading science journals as he defends his study on excess deaths and vaccines.
- “Journal Gatekeeping: Lost Faith in Science” – HART says the peer-review system for science and medical journals is broken and trust is gone.
- “We’re still suffering from social Long Covid” – In the Spectator, Luke Tryl says that since Covid people in his focus groups are telling him they have stopped socialising like they used to.
- “Government Seeks Advice on Crimes Against Thermodynamics” – David Turver reports on a new review on carbon capture and a consultation on power from hydrogen which appear to be trying to overcome the laws of thermodynamics.
- “‘Almost everyone is onboard with the green agenda’” – Dr Gary Sidley takes a look at ‘normative pressure’, a ‘nudge’ strategy that’s being widely deployed by governments to convince ordinary people that there’s a climate emergency.
- “The Elephant on Campus” – Dr David McGrogan diagnoses the problem of the university.
- “Glasgow Council faces £1.6 billion in debt while Chief Executive walks away with half a million pay package” – In the Telegraph‘s latest Waste Watch, Dia Chakravarty reports on the shocking case of Annemarie O’Donnel, outgoing Chief Executive of Glasgow City Council, who last year received a jaw-dropping £567,317 in total remuneration, including £209,472 in salary and a staggering £357,845 in pension contributions.
- “Fine, you don’t want to be a mummy. But don’t bring everyone else down” – Too many young people have been convinced that motherhood is a threat to their mental health, says Melanie McDonagh in the Telegraph.
- “The charts that show youngsters are rejecting the Left’s culture wars” – A survey shows that young people aren’t as focused on gender and climate change as you may think, says the Telegraph.
- “Gen Beta’s baby doomsday: Girls born today are set to have record low of just 1.46 children on average – not enough to sustain the population – as they wait until age 36 to start families” – Official projections show completed family sizes in England and Wales tumbling to a population-shrinking average of just 1.46 children per woman, reports the Mail.
- “Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was charged by cops days before crash” – Sex trafficking victim and Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre was charged with breaching a family violence restraining order just days before the bus crash which she initially claimed had fatally injured her, reports the Mail.
- “The messages that ended with couple arrested amid school WhatsApp row” – In the Mail, read the text messages in a school parent WhatsApp group that led to six police officers raiding a couple’s home and arresting them.
- “Blame Birmingham’s absurd equal pay bill for this waste fiasco” – The root cause of the Birmingham bin strike debacle is that the council was bankrupted by an absurd £760 million legal bill for paying ‘male dominated’ areas of work more than ‘female’ ones, says Mark Littlewood in the Telegraph.
- “Hamas ‘has quietly dropped more than 3,000 deaths’ off its Gaza war toll – ‘including 1,080 children’” – Hamas has quietly dropped thousands of deaths from its count of the number of people killed by Israel in Gaza, US-based group Honest Reporting has said.
- “The nations richer than UK’s poorest borough that have had foreign aid” – Among the nations who benefited from Britain’s donations was China, which boasts one of the world’s most prosperous economies, according to an investigation by the Mail.
- “The shame of Sadiq Khan’s Eid message” – London’s Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan published a video online earlier this week to mark Eid that quoted Hamas’s casualty figures as fact. It was an outright disgrace, says Jonathan Sacerdoti in the Spectator.
- “Dr Magnus Jones at PAU!” – Alain Wolf has published the final chapter of his Substack novel telling the story of Magnus Jones, an embattled academic in a campus university. Read the first chapter here.
- “Ex-BBC journalist helped asylum seeker avoid deportation over harsh prison conditions” – Former senior BBC correspondent Owen Bennett-Jones helped a Pakistani asylum seeker avoid deportation by supporting his human rights claim, reports the Telegraph.
- “Tories should let Reform win Runcorn by-election, says Esther McVey” – The Conservatives should let Reform win the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby next month as part of a wider electoral pact, former Cabinet minister Esther McVey has suggested, according to the Telegraph.
- “WHO proposing to cut jobs and slash budget by a fifth, memo shows” – The World Health Organisation is proposing to reduce staff numbers and the scale of its work as it slashes its budget by just over one fifth due to the impact of US funding cuts, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
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Wednesday Morning
New Bath Rd &Old Bath Rd
Charvil Wokingham
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/01/uk-targets-russian-influence-with-new-registration-system-security-minister-says
To Whom It May Concern:
The maximum penalty for failure to comply with the requirements of the political influence tier is 5 years imprisonment.
The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) is a two-tier scheme which strengthens the resilience of the UK political system against covert foreign influence.
FIRS will require the registration of arrangements to carry out political influence activities in the UK at the direction of a foreign power.
Failure to register when required to do so will be a criminal offence. There are also criminal offences associated with carrying out activities which are pursuant to arrangements which have not been registered.
These arrangements will need to be registered within 28 days of being made with the foreign power.
Political influence activities include communications to senior decision makers such as UK ministers (and ministers of the devolved administrations), election candidates, MPs and senior civil servants.
It also includes certain communications to the public where the source of the influence is not already clear, and disbursement of money, goods or services to UK persons for a political purpose
‘At the time of his arrest in August 2016, Cottrell had already been working for UKIP, though Farage told the BBC that this was in an unpaid volunteer position. Cottrell’s LinkedIn says he “served as a treasurer and head of fundraising of the United Kingdom Independence Party during the EU Referendum Campaign in 2016”.
Cottrell returned to Farage’s side after serving his jail time…….working as an ‘unofficial’ fundraiser for the Brexit Party.
Today, he is still frequently pictured alongside Farage despite having no official role in Reform.
His mother, Fiona Cottrell, an aristocrat who dated King Charles in the 1970s, donated £500,000 to the party in the run-up to last year’s election.
Cottrell has also made in-kind donations to the Reform leader worth around £25,000 over the past year. He spent over £9,000 on a trip by Farage and a Reform staff member to the National Conservatism Conference in Belgium last April and more than £15,000 on Farage’s flight to the US for Donald Trump’s inauguration in January of this year.
Cottrell incorporated Geostrategy International Unlimited in the UK and the US last month. The company has no website, no social media, or any other online footprint, though Cottrell’s lawyers told OpenDemocracy that “once it is launched, it will offer services as a full scope political strategy and polling company”.
Cottrell appears to live in Montenegro, a known hub for cryptocurrency and related technologies.’
‘Cryptocurrencies have long played a role in Russian election interference and disinformation. According to TRM’s Redbord, these were the six most high-profile cases involving the use of cryptocurrencies since 2016:
Disinformation campaigns funded via cryptocurrency typically involve a network of facilitators—including exchanges, domain registrars, hosting providers, payment processors, digital marketing agencies, deepfake producers, social media amplifiers, and “articles for hire” services.’
https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/blog/the-crypto-election-crypto-disinformation-and-presidential-politics
‘Italian local legislator Stefano Valdegamberi penned an op-ed decrying the EU’s decision to designate Russia a terrorist state as “a serious mistake” that “foments conflict by denying historical truth.”
But what Valdegamberi didn’t mention was that he had long been collaborating with a secretive Russian lobbying group with a direct link to the Kremlin.
Since at least 2014, that group had designed plans to channel cash to European politicians to help it legitimize Russia’s occupation of Crimea and promote pro-Moscow policies inside EU countries.
Details of the group’s activities have come to light via hacked and leaked emails belonging to its coordinator, Russian parliamentary staffer Sargis Mirzakhanian, who ran the “International Agency for Current Policy” in the years following the annexation of Crimea.’
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/kremlin-linked-group-arranged-payments-to-european-politicians-to-support-russias-annexation-of-crimea
Notice that it is selective and politically driven. Gates, Soros snd EU interference will not be declared.
‘The definition of “foreign power” includes all non-UK heads of state, governments or local governments, government agencies or authorities, or political parties.’
It could cover Gates and Soros if they don’t watch their step.
‘…..where a person is acting at the direction of specified foreign powers or entities that have been assessed as posing a potential risk to UK safety or interests.’
“Government Seeks Advice on Crimes Against Thermodynamics”
David Turver fighting the good fight against state-sponsored energy-crime. As summed up by JXB, commenting on the Sceptic’s gas-boiler article yesterday:
“It helps to understand that Physics and Economics have been abolished when it comes to Net Zero.”
Sooner or later, Nemesis will take issue with that.
Today’s discussion point for dummies:
‘General Valery Zaluzhny, the former ZSU top commander, was giving a talk in Europe somewhere this week and the discussion came around to Russian strikes against Ukraine spilling into Romania, and more generally, how effective he think NATO’s Article 5 is at protecting a country in the Atlantic Alliance.
Zaluzhny is known for a well-developed sense of humor and this is what he said: “There is no Article 5. They called me from Romania, and they asked not to say that the Russians were sending Shahed drones against us [Ukraine] that were hitting Romania. The Romanians said ‘Why are you jamming the Russian drones? They’re flying into our air space!’.”
“I told them ‘Shoot them down yourselves, you have 40 F-16s standing by, why are you asking me to defend NATO?… The Baltic countries understand that there is no Article 5 of NATO [on collective defense] and never was. Poland understands this, where periodically our missiles fall, then Russian ones. Romania understands everything….’
Article 5
‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary….’
‘unknown” armed men in uniforms without identification marks seized the buildings of……the Government…….and hung russian flags on them.’
Would that constitute an armed attack under Article 5?
https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/sea-eagle-snatching-live-lamb-captured-on-film
According to those keen on the reintroduction of these birds all over Britain, the taking of live lambs by Sea Eagles never happens….now shown to be complete nonsense.
Any deal between Reform and the Tories would cost Reform half its members snd half its votes longer term.
an unsolicited favour from them could do similar damage to Reform short term from which they would not recover. Who needs a deal -Tories but nine should be given a moment’s consideration.
I am a very lukewarm member of Reform and the Rupert Lowe debacle has pushed me to the edge but any deal with any faction of the Uniparty and I’m out.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/watch-starmer-claims-adolescence-is-a-documentary/
Whats that saying ‘Lights on but nobody at home’ – whether he’s wearing a jacket or attempting to look as if he means business with his shirt sleeves rolled up, he always gives me the impression he is somewhat ‘challenged’!
“What really scares people about Adolescence” …article behind a paywall…
Among the many things people ought to be scared about that Ghastly Communist Propaganda series is its ATTEMPT TO SEXUALISE CHILDREN and justify PAEDOPHILIA.
Met terror cops urge parents not to miss warning signs of Adolescence style radicalisation
Some comments from the public:
— “What strange media messaging, wishing for 13year old boys (as portrayed in the show) not to be incels (involuntary celibates aka virgins).
Why would a media full of questionable characters wish to rail against the virginity of young teen boys?”
— “Terror cops obviously not good at their jobs, if they believe boys like Jamie are the threat.”
— “Labour is pulling some strings at RICU, the 77th Brigade and all the Blairite quangos to astroturf media consensus, before introducing a new set of laws which probe yet further into our lives. We’ve seen it before many times. Notice that all mainstream media on Left and Right are coming out with the same views over this show … which advocates 13year old boys to not be incels (involuntary celibates aka virgins), which is a rather odd rallying point. ”
*******************************************************************************************
Dan Wooton points out the race-swapping agenda of this Adolescence drama based upon the real-life murder of an Ethnic African 15year old girl by an Ethnic African Muslim 17year old boy Hassan Sentamu OVER A TEDDY BEAR.
NO WHITE PEOPLE WERE INVOLVED.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer sparks outrage by endorsing Netflix teen murder drama Adolescence – YouTube
Elianne Andam: Teenager found guilty of murdering 15-year-old girl – BBC News
“Marine Le Pen is in a race against the clock”
Brazilian Patriot and former President Jair Bolsonaro, ousted by Communist electoral fraud, who survived an assassination attempt by Communist Supporters of Marxist Traitor Lula, and is being targeted by the corrupt judiciary just like Le Pen, said:
“This ruling is clearly Left-wing Judicial Activism. Wherever the Right-wing is present, the Left and the System will work to get their opponents out of the game,” Bolsonaro said in an exclusive interview with Reuters.
“Here and in France, this is pure Lawfare,” he added. “It looks like this movement is spreading around the world. The Left has found an easy way to perpetuate itself in power by using Judicial Activism.”
‘Judicial activisim’: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro responds to Marine Le Pen case
“WHO proposing to cut jobs and slash budget by a fifth, memo shows” …”DUE TO THE IMPACT OF US FUNDING CUTS…”
Great news— and all thanks to the DOGE!