Tag: united kingdom

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.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

French Philosopher Banned from Entering UK for Anti-Migration Views

One of France’s most influential living philosophers has been prevented from entering the UK by the British government.

Renaud Camus was due to speak in the UK at a conference this week when his visa was revoked by the UK government, which said in an email to Camus that his presence in the UK was “not considered conducive to the public good.”

Camus is most famous—and controversial—for coining the term “the Great Replacement” to describe the systematic replacement of Western populations with non-Western immigrants. Contrary to mainstream media portrayals of this “conspiracy theory,” Camus has never claimed the Great Replacement is a process being driven by a single group of people.

Instead, Camus blames the Great Replacement on the spread of an attitude he calls “replace-ism,” which strips the individual citizens of Western nations of their unique identity and makes them appear as identical units that are interchangeable with other people from around the globe. Camus attributes the development of this idea to the decline of religion, democracy, industrialisation and mass entertainment, among other factors.

Speaking to Britain’s GB News on Friday, Camus said of the Home Office’s decision to prevent him from entering the UK, “I was sort of amused.”

“I very much like England and, of course, in my idea England has been the country of free speech par excellence.

Keep reading

Why Have No Fellows of the Royal Society Resigned Over Anthony Fauci?

On March 3rd the Royal Society had a meeting to discuss whether it should revoke Elon Musk’s Fellowship. He was appointed a Fellow (strictly, ForMemRS, not FRS, as he is a foreigner) in 2018. The meeting was necessary since not only had two Fellows resigned from the Royal Society, but a few thousand Fellows (all of whom, one supposes, must have what Charles Moore would call Left-wing faces) had signed a letter – after the election of Trump – which complained about Musk’s political incorrectness. Who resigned? Professor Dorothy Bishop of the University of Oxford was first, and Professor Andrew Millar of the University of Edinburgh second. Millar said Musk was guilty of “disinformation”. Alas, the Royal Society code of conduct does not mention either “misinformation” or “disinformation” as offences justifying the disfellowshipping of Musk.

The letter signed by the thousands of scientists alleged the following: Musk had voiced “conspiracy theories”, had criticised Fauci and had made a provocative post about Jess Phillips MP. That was it. The letter was written by Professor Stephen Curry of Imperial College. As well as being an Important Professor, he is an Assistant Provost for Xiversity, Yequity and Zinclusion at Imperial. Obviously, in such a role, Curry found Musk’s politics to be too – spicy, and felt obliged to say so.

Prof Dorothy Bishop, who was the first to resign, in November of last year, wrote the longest criticism of Musk. She complained of his abuse of the “woke mind virus”. She noticed that Musk had posted: “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” This is usually very amusing,  but she of Oxford was Not Amused. She also, a bit more seriously, suggested that Neuralink did not abide by good scientific practice – the only time a scientist cared to allege that Musk’s science was not as ‘scientific’ as it should have been. Musk had also been critical of vaccines. And, taboo of all taboos, he had expressed doubts about climate change. Prof Dorothy Bishop, as I live and breathe, quoted Prof Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann, without any sense of irony or self-doubt. Here is Mann on Musk: “It is sad that Elon Musk has become a climate change denier, but that’s what he is. He’s literally denying what the science has to say here.”

Keep reading

‘We no longer have to pretend that people can change sex’

A landmark ruling from the Supreme Court has confirmed that, under UK law, sex is a biological fact and men cannot become women just by having the right paperwork. Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at Sex Matters, sat down with spiked’s Fraser Myers to explain why this ruling changes everything. After years of abuse and demonisation, the so-called TERFs have finally been vindicated. What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. You can watch the whole thing here.

Fraser Myers: Can you unpack the Supreme Court decision for us?

Helen Joyce: Specifically, it was a judgment about the Equality Act, which is a portmanteau act that rolls all of the country’s anti-discrimination laws into one massive bundle. The trouble was that by the time the act was passed in 2010, we had another law, the Gender Recognition Act, which allowed people to get a piece of paper that changed their sex for legal purposes. The question the Supreme Court had to decide was, is the Equality Act one of those purposes?

On the face of it, the answer seemed to be yes, because there’s a line in the Gender Recognition Act that says ‘for all purposes’. But if that’s the case, you turn sex-discrimination provisions into something that applies to two mixed-sex categories, because there are men in the women bucket and women in the men bucket.

Women have been fighting for years to get this fixed. We wanted sex-discrimination provisions to work for women under the Equality Act the same way they had done before the Gender Recognition Act.

Keep reading

Germany wants the UK to hold its hand while it starts WWIII

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz doesn’t officially take office until May 6, but that hasn’t stopped him from hitting the press circuit like it’s demolition day. Apparently, he’s got some lost time – and infrastructure – to make up for. 

In a chat with Germany’s public broadcaster, ARD, he floated the idea that Kiev, which seems to rank higher than Berlin on his priority list, needs to “get ahead of the situation” on the battlefield and “shape events” instead of playing defense. The event he seems most eager to shape? Oh, just the Third World War, apparently. Because he pivoted straight to the Kerch Bridge – mainland Russia’s lifeline to the Crimean peninsula – like it’s been living on borrowed time.

Merz said that “if for example, the most important land connection between Russia and Crimea is destroyed, or if something happens on Crimea itself, where most of the Russian military logistics are located, then that would be an opportunity to bring this country strategically back into the picture finally.” Cool, cool. Which picture would that be, exactly? The one labeled “Catastrophic Misjudgments of the 21st Century”?

Probably. Which is why Merz needs a useful idiot to ride shotgun alongside him in the doltmobile to share in any responsibility for the eventual mayhem when things inevitably go pear-shaped.

Keep reading

UK proposes ‘no-fly zone’ over Ukraine

The idea of ​​a “no-fly zone” over part of Ukraine has been revived in British military and political circles, sparking heated debate about the implications of such a move. According to sources close to the UK Ministry of Defence, the proposal would ban air traffic in airspace east of a line that would link Belarus to the Black Sea, including areas east of Kyiv and Odessa. However, the details of how this would be implemented remain unclear, raising questions about its feasibility and political risks.

According to the authors of the idea, the “no-fly zone” should create a “deterrent effect” by limiting the actions of Russian aviation without directly involving NATO in military operations. However, experts point out obvious difficulties: to ensure such a ban, not only airspace patrols would be required, but also active measures, including intercepting Russian aircraft, suppressing air defense systems, and neutralizing missile launches. Such actions, covering territories from Belgorod to Crimea, would effectively mean a direct military clash with Russia, which excludes the possibility of rapid de-escalation.

The proposal, made against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, is seen as an attempt by London to strengthen its role in supporting Kyiv without becoming overtly involved in the fighting. Analysts say the British initiative is aimed at Western allies rather than Moscow, and is aimed at maintaining political influence at a time when NATO is seeking to avoid direct confrontation with Russia.

Keep reading

Digital ID Dangers: Whistleblower Alleges Massive Security Failures in UK’s GOV.UK One Login Digital ID System

UK’s digital ID scheme, GOV.UK One Login, allegedly contains a host of serious vulnerabilities affecting security and data protection, that are “built in” and present in the system since its launch.

These claims come from a whistleblower, a security expert who worked for the Government Digital Service (GDS, a part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology). The most grave consequences stemming from the flaws – that the whistleblower first pointed out through proper channels in 2022, only to be ignored – would include data breaches.

Another threat from more than half a million system vulnerabilities that they said were identified is identity theft. At this time, some three million people in the UK use the system to access 50 government services.

The security expert, whose identity has not been revealed in reports about the brewing scandal, asserted that thousands of vulnerabilities identified were rated as either critical or high.

The whistleblower’s account of the events suggests the authorities went for a slapdash approach to setting up the digital ID infrastructure, not only from the technical but also from the policy point of view.

“Basic” governance and risk management were not in place, according to the source, while the £330 ($436.70) million in funding arrived thanks to the business case that featured “misleading claims” regarding the quality of the scheme’s security.

And when the decision was made to outsource development to Romania, it came without GDS CEO’s approval, and without consultation with the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC).

Keep reading