Tag: united kingdom

London Mayor Sadiq Khan Cites Southport Stabbing to Justify Targeting Online “Conspiracy Theories” and “Misinformation”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced an £875,000 ($1,170M) expansion of his Shared Endeavour Fund, using the tragic mass stabbing and murders in Southport to justify an intensified campaign against what he describes as “online conspiracy theories and misinformation.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced an £875,000 ($1,170M) expansion of his Shared Endeavour Fund, using the tragic mass stabbing and murders in Southport to justify an intensified campaign against what he describes as “online conspiracy theories and misinformation.”

More: Southport Tragedy Becomes Starmer’s Stage for Big Brother Britain

Despite the gravity of the Southport attacks, Khan appeared to frame the event more as a case study for the dangers of social media rather than focusing on the violence itself, saying: “The Southport disorder and chilling hate crime attacks that followed shocked our nation and showed how false information on social media spread like wildfire with devastating consequences.”

The move directs a significant portion of the new funding toward policing online speech under the guise of protecting “vulnerable young Londoners from radicalization and misinformation online.” This expansion fits within the Mayor’s broader £15.9 ($21.31M) million anti-extremism agenda, the largest of its kind initiated by a London mayor.

According to the official press release, the Southport incident highlighted “increased concern about online radicalization and the spread of misinformation,” even while admitting that overall hate crime incidents have been declining across London.

Nevertheless, the Mayor maintains that the numbers, despite dropping, are still “too high,” justifying the fresh wave of funding and monitoring efforts.

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$66M experiment to ‘dim the sun’ to combat global warming gets OK — but critics have called it ‘barking mad’

Sounds like a bright idea.

Scientists have received approval to soon test whether “dimming” the light from the sun will combat global warming — a strategy some critics have recently described as “barking mad.”

Geo-engineers at the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) in the United Kingdom have allocated over $66 million to inject aerosolized particles into the stratosphere to reflect the vital light the sun provides to the Earth in a bid to hedge global warming, the Times of London reported.

The experiment will send high-flying planes to release sulfate particles into the stratosphere, near the lower atmosphere, which would then prevent some of the sun’s rays from reaching the ground by reflecting them toward space.

Proponents of the project suggest that the controversial process could be a cheap way to cool the planet to combat the threat of global warming, according to the TOL.

Small-scale indoor testing could begin within weeks, with the plan’s architects claiming the controversial measures are necessary to avoid a potential “tipping point” catastrophe in the future.

“The uncomfortable truth is that our current warming trajectory makes a number of such tipping points distinctly possible over the next century,” Mark Symes, the project manager at Aria, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, told The Guardian.

“Having spoken to hundreds of researchers, we reached the conclusion that a critical missing part of our understanding was real-world, physical data. These would show us whether any of these potential approaches would actually work and what their effects might be,” he added.

Advocates, including Dominic Cummings, the former longtime chief adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, even allege farms could be aided by less light as crops would suffer less from heat stress, according to the report.

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Starmer to rent out homes to migrants: Government now pleads with landlords to host asylum seekers, with five-year guaranteed rent deal offered – as small boats crossing Channel swamp Britain

The Government are appealing to landlords to host asylum seekers, with private contractors working on their behalf, offering five-year guaranteed rent deals. 

Private contractor Serco – one of three working for the Home Office –  are offering five-year guaranteed rent deals to landlords, with the taxpayer footing the bill. 

Their website states the company is responsible for housing over 30,000 asylum seekers, with an ‘ever growing portfolio’ of over 7,000 homes. 

The firm organised an event at a four-star hotel in the Malvern Hills next month, as part of their drive to house more asylum seekers, according to The Telegraph. 

Serco is said to be ‘looking for’ landlords, investors and agents, with properties in the North West, the Midlands and the east of England to lease for more than five years.

The deal also reportedly includes promises of rent paid ‘on time every month with no arrears’, free property management, full repair and maintenance, as well utilities council tax bills paid by Serco.

Its promotional material claims to prospective clients that the offer is ‘an attractive and competitive proposition within the industry’.

It comes as the number of Channel migrants in small boats surpassed 9,500 this year so far – a third up from the previous all-time high.

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UK to scrap plans for Ukraine troop deployment – The Times

The UK has ditched plans to deploy a military contingent to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, The Times has reported, citing anonymous sources.

The defense chiefs from a number of European NATO states had in recent weeks been discussing sending military personnel to Ukraine, under a so-called “coalition of the willing.” Russia has strongly objected to the prospect of Western troops appearing in the neighboring country under any pretext.

In an article on Thursday, The Times quoted an unnamed source as saying that the “risks are too high and the forces inadequate for” a deployment that had been previously under consideration. According to the publication, “it was France who wanted a more muscular approach.”

Instead of coalition forces guarding key Ukrainian cities, ports, and nuclear power plants, the grouping now envisages more emphasis on Western military instructors training Ukrainian troops in the west of the country, who would “‘reassure’ by being there but aren’t a deterrence or protection force,” The Times reported, citing an anonymous source.

The softened vision for a Western military presence in Ukraine does, however, reportedly include the coalition’s aircraft patrolling Ukraine’s airspace and Türkiye providing maritime cover.

Additionally, Paris and London want the flow of Western weaponry to Ukraine to continue uninterrupted, according to The Times.

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Actually, “personal beliefs” DO supersede “the public good”

Personal beliefs do not supersede the public good – and vaccination is a public good

The above quote – taken from a headline in the Globe and Mail – is wrong. It is wrong in general and the specific.

It doesn’t matter what “personal beliefs” are being referred to, and it doesn’t matter which particular “public good” is being protected, it is wrong.

It is wrong because “personal belief” is a placeholder phrase for “individual liberty” and “public good” for compelled action.

In this instance, it is talking about vaccination and religious freedom – these causes are often linked and used to sell decreased individual liberty as “common sense” to the “sensible” agnostic majority – but vaccination could be any behaviour, and religion any thought or opinion.

Good sense dictates and history demonstrates that anyone promoting “the public good” at the expense of individual liberty is steering society toward tyranny.

If you don’t believe me, simply observe the language used in this kind of editorial…

Respecting religious freedom is important, but it has to be balanced against other rights.

Freedom of religion was never meant to exempt people from societal obligations…

…we cannot allow those with anti-science beliefs to harm others.

The state cannot tell you what to think, but it can tell you what to do. Especially when it’s for the greater good.

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UK Government To Approve Geoengineering Experiments To “Dim The Sun”

The UK government is “within weeks” going to approve demented geoengineering experiments at a cost of £50 million to reflect sunlight away from Earth, according to reports.

What could possibly go wrong?

The UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) is funding trials in an effort to make the UK one of the world’s leading authorities on geoengineering research, the Daily Mail and others report.

The reports outline that the experiments will focus on Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM), including Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) and Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB).

SAI involves injecting tiny reflective particles, such as sulphur dioxide, into the stratosphere to mimic the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions, while MCB uses ships to spray sea-salt particles into low-lying clouds to enhance their reflectivity.

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Chinese Spies Bugging Park Benches, Pubs Near UK Gov’t Offices: Report

Chinese spies have planted surveillance throughout central London, including on park benches and pubs near Westminster, to eavesdrop on British political figures, a report has claimed.

Government sources have reportedly informed the Mail on Sunday that Chinese bugging devices have been discovered in popular areas frequented by civil servants and government researchers.

Such areas allegedly include the popular Red Lion pub, situated just steps away from the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street. A government source told the paper that the historic pub, which stands on the grounds of a 15th-century medieval tavern, is “full of Chinese agents”.

Other targets of Beijing’s dragnet reportedly ranged from five-star hotels to even benches in St James’s Park, located between Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, and close to major government departments, such as the Foreign Office and the Treasury.

A government source told the paper: “We have been told the Chinese literally have the park bugged, with devices in the bushes and under park benches.”

“Commons researchers are regarded by the Chinese, and other spies including the Russians and Iranians, as the soft underbelly of Whitehall,” said one source.

It is said to be thought that Communist China is particularly interested in lower-level civil servants, researchers and junior staffers to parliamentarians, who Beijing sees as the “soft underbelly” of the UK state. Many such staffers often frequent the Red Lion pub or have lunch in St James Park.

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Trans Activists Call for JK Rowling’s Hanging, Deface Nelson Mandela Statue After UK Supreme Court Ruling

Transgender activists in Britain have not taken well to the country’s recent Supreme Court decision.

Last week, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that the term “woman” can only refer to a biological female.

“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Patrick Hodge, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said as he delivered his judgment on Wednesday.

“Therefore, a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate in the female gender does not come within the definition of a ‘woman’ under the Equality Act 2010 and the statutory guidance issued by the Scottish ministers is incorrect.”

Trans activists responded by taking to the streets over the weekend, where they vandalized a statue of South African leader Nelson Mandela and called for the hanging of the gender-critical Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

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Drug Enforcement Leads To Increases In Violence, Report Published By UK Government Concludes

Drug-related law enforcement is more likely to increase violence than reduce it, indicates a report commissioned by the government of the United Kingdom. Whether the government will revise its drug policies accordingly remains to be seen.

“The available evidence suggests that drug-related law enforcement activities are of limited effectiveness in reducing violence,” states the report, which was prepared by the research organization RAND Europe and published by the UK Home Office on March 27. “Indeed, more studies demonstrated an association between drug-related law enforcement activities and increased violence than decreased violence.”

The findings, which echo earlier evidence on the subject, are less startling than the fact that the UK government published them. The report references a prior review on the impact of drug-related law enforcement activity on serious violence and homicide, which, it notes, “found that increasing drug law enforcement was unlikely to reduce drug market violence alone and risked exacerbating it.”

The report urges British police forces planning drug-related law enforcement actions to “consider the risk of increased violence,” particularly related to the removal of leaders of trafficking groups and drug seizures.

“The counterproductive nature of drug law enforcement has been very obvious for a long time,” Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, told Filter. “The war on drugs has fueled an arms race between law enforcement agencies and organized crime groups—ensuring only the most cunning and  violent crime groups prosper.”

Nonetheless, he continued, “It is welcome to see the systemic failure of the enforcement model confirmed by academic work commissioned and published by the Home Office itself. It certainly makes it a lot harder for them to ignore.”

The Home Office, which is responsible for areas including public safety, policing and border security in the UK, did not respond to Filter’s request for comment on whether it would act on the report’s recommendations.

Former police officers are among those who have long warned that the disruption of drug markets increases violence, as trafficking groups fight over resultant power vacuums when established hierarchies are disturbed by seizures and arrests.

“For years I’ve been arguing that no police activity in drug markets reduces the size of the market,” Neil Woods told Filter. A former undercover police officer, he changed his mind about the drug enforcement actions he once participated in. He now chairs the Law Enforcement Action Partnership UK, which campaigns to end the drug war.

“This kind of study should not just be of niche interest, it should inform policy,” he said. “We are talking about the very fabric of security and safety in our society.”

Police disruption of drug markets also increases the risk of overdose among people who use drugs, Woods added, citing a 2023 study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, which illustrated this. In what has been described as “the drug bust paradox,” the arrest of a person’s source of drugs can lead them to experience withdrawal and hastily seek a new source—who might provide drugs that are adulterated or of higher potency.

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The hilarious meltdown of men who think they’re women

I’ve found my soundtrack for spring: the caterwauling of fellas in dresses following yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling. It’s delicious. They’re raging about the ‘fascism’ of no longer being allowed to get their knobs out in the women’s changing room. They’re agonising over where they’re supposed to take a shit now. Their Adam’s apples are getting a mighty fine workout as they wail into the void about being ‘erased’ by ‘transphobes’. It’s the sound of men being stripped of their entitlements by women who’ve had enough of their crap, and I am so here for it.

No sooner had the Supreme Court said what even the Neanderthals knew – that men are men and women are women – than these blokes were fuming. First out of the traps was thin-lipped loon India Willoughby. He branded the court’s decision ‘evil’. Yes, it is apparently wicked and immoral to say that if you have a todger you’re a fella. Willoughby spent the day furiously doubling down on his delusions of womanhood. ‘I have always been a woman’, he said. Tell that to the jizz you sired your kid with.

It’s a ‘grim day’, they cry. The ruling threatens trans people’s ‘safety’, they say. That’s big talk from a movement that expects female prisoners to live cheek by jowl with rapists and girls to share changing rooms with hulking blokes in ill-fitting bikinis. There are dark mutterings about ‘fascism’. Munroe Bergdorf shared a post saying: ‘There is no trans debate. There are trans people and there are fascists who wish to dominate and eliminate trans people.’ Dude, it’s not fascism to say women should be free to seek rape counselling without fearing there’ll be a weirdo in a boob tube listening in.

Imagine the colossal levels of self-regard it must require to think it’s ‘fascism’ when you’re politely asked to use the right loo. It’s amazing how many of these ‘literal women’ sound like entitled men. Slandering TERFs as ‘fascists’ has been all the rage for ages, of course. Professor of gibberish Judith Butler calls gender-critical feminism ‘one of the dominant strains of fascism in our time’. It used to be alt-right wankers who called feminists ‘feminazis’. Now it’s nonbinary wankers. Two cheeks of the same arse.

Trans folk are hilariously cosplaying as civil-rights activists. The Supreme Court ruling is ‘very bleak’ but ‘we will carry on’, said Shon Faye, as if his march into women-only spaces were akin to MLK’s march on Selma. There are dire warnings about the ‘elimination’ of ‘transwomen’. Fellas, listen: no one’s saying you can’t exist. We’re just saying you can’t exist in women-only spaces. You can wear women’s clothing if you like – you just can’t take it off in front of actual women who’d rather not see your moobs and balls. It’s not complicated. It’s certainly not fascism.

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