Tag: united kingdom

Leading UK Universities Look to Expand Use of Open-Book Exams to Help Grades of Minority Students

Leading British universities are preparing to lower test standards in a bid to help improve the grades of ethnic minorities and poorer students in a major DEI initiative.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are among those preparing to implement “inclusive assessments” such as open-book exams and take-home essays rather than monitored in-person testing in the hopes of cutting the gaps between groups of students, The Telegraph reported.

In its annual Access and Participation Plan (APP) — a yearly report into how a university is seeking to improve the lot of disadvantaged student groups — the University of Cambridge said that traditional “assessment practices” may be responsible for varying performances among groups.

Cambridge said that it would specifically seek to “improve outcomes” for Black and Bangladeshi heritage students. The university went on to cite research from its own academics, finding traditional tests represent “threats to self-worth” for students.

Meanwhile, Oxford University’s APP reportedly said that it would seek to “use a more diverse and inclusive range of assessments” in order to “improve the likelihood” of better grades for students from “lower socio-economic backgrounds”.

The Office for Students (OFS), which regulates higher education in England, has reportedly backed the plans, and other Russell Group elite schools are considering following the example of Oxford and Cambridge.

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Missing the Forest for the Trees: UK to Add More Restrictions on Buying Knives Online After Southport Stabbings

The British government is reportedly planning on banning doorstep drop-off deliveries of knives bought online following the mass stabbing at a children’s dance party in Southport by second-generation migrant Axel Rudakubana.

While critics have pointed to multiple failings of authorities to heed warnings about Rudakubana’s radicalisation, the left-wing Labour Party government appears intent on pinning the tragic stabbing spree — which left three young girls dead and several others injured — at the hands of supposed loopholes in purchasing knives online.

According to The Telegraph, online retailers such as Amazon will be prevented from delivering a knife to anyone other than the person who purchased it to provide a further ID check to prove the buyer is above 18. This will come in addition to a two-step verification, in which buyers must provide identification and a ‘selfie’ picture to verify the ID is theirs.

Rudakubana, who was sentenced to 52 years in prison this week over the Southport stabbings, had reportedly skirted the pre-existing checks by using software to disguise his internet address and identity.

The delivery of the two knives he bought while under 18 was reportedly accepted by an adult at his residence, believed to be one of his Rwandan parents.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that it is a “total disgrace how easy it still is for children to get dangerous weapons online,” adding: “We cannot go on like this. We need much stronger checks – before you buy, before it’s delivered.

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Fury as transgender killer is allowed out of prison for surgery to reduce the size of Adam’s apple

A transgender killer was allowed out of jail to have surgery to make him look more feminine.

Alan Baker – now known as Alex Stewart – is serving life for the ‘wicked and brutal’ stabbing of a man he met on an online dating site.

But it has now emerged the 36-year-old – who is behind bars at HMP Greenock, Renfrewshire – has had an operation to reduce the size of his Adam’s apple.

Last night, critics demanded to know whether the taxpayer picked up the bill for the work.

Susan Smith, of campaign group For Women Scotland, said: ‘We are disturbed to learn a dangerous prisoner was allowed out to seek unnecessary cosmetic surgery.

‘We doubt that a female murderer would be allowed day release for Botox or a nose-job.

‘How was this funded and at what cost to the taxpayer? At a time when resources are stretched both for prison and health services, this looks like a profligate indulgence of a manipulative man.’

Baker, of Bonhill, Dunbartonshire, was jailed for a minimum of 19 years for the murder of father-of-two John Weir in 2013.

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Are the cover-ups and corruption at the power station that’s Britain’s biggest green hoax – and burns 27 million trees a year – finally about to be exposed?

Since it began to change from burning coal 15 years ago, Drax has got through the equivalent of 300 million trees. Most – and currently all – of this wood was imported from North America because we just do not grow enough here. You would have to burn the entire New Forest every two years just to fuel this one power station.

Drax is strangely reluctant to boast about its unique activity. In a lengthy statement released this week to justify its wood burning, its spokesman managed to avoid using the words ‘wood’ and ‘tree’ altogether, preferring to talk about ‘biomass’.

‘We understand that we need to do more to demonstrate that the biomass we use is genuinely sustainable and that we are taking the necessary steps to operate our business responsibly,’ said the spokesman.

Drax is Britain’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, another record the company refrains from mentioning. It produced nearly 12 million tonnes of the gas in 2023, which is significantly more than when it was burning coal.

That is not counting the emissions from the diesel trucks that bring the trees from the forests to where they are turned into pellets; from the diesel-powered ships that bring the pellets across the Atlantic; or from the trains that finally bring the fuel from the Tyne to Drax.

Incredibly, Drax’s 12 million tonnes of emissions are not included in Britain’s carbon accounts. They are deemed to be emitted in Canada and America – even though the combustion happens in North Yorkshire.

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UK Gov’t Wants Sweeping Powers to Spy on Your Bank Account

The UK’s Labour government announced plans this week that would further erode civil rights in the country, this time in the name of “preventing benefit fraud”.

The plans include revoking the driver’s licenses of those convicted of benefit fraud, “early morning raids” by “crack teams” from the DWP, and –  most shockingly – permitting the government access to private banking information so they can take back money they believe they are owed, without the knowledge or permission of the accused.

In their own classically impartial fashion, the BBC reported this as:

Benefit cheats could be stripped of driving licenses

But this isn’t about “benefit cheats”. Even the government’s own figures say that benefit fraud makes up only ~3% of the welfare budget, and this move will only save £1.5 billion over the next five years.

£300 million per year is nothing in government terms. They just pledged 10x that amount, per year, to Ukraine.

They don’t care about the money, they care about power and precedent.

  • They want to be able to take away your driver’s license.
  • They want to be able to monitor your bank account.
  • They want to be able to take your money without your knowledge.
  • They want to be able to search your electronic devices and track your spending.

Maybe it will start with “reclaiming benefits”, but do you think it will end there?

Remember they also want to introduce Universal Basic Income, which would mean – technically – everyone is on “benefits”.

This is clearly a pathway to a “Social Credit” system.

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The UK government knew that COVID vaccine I injuries could cost them $75-300 Billion pounds ($92-369 Billion US dollars)/ The Telegraph reports on the UK COVID Inquiry

What does all this mean? It means that if the US had a similar risk assessment, it was looking at potential injury payouts of probably 1 to several trillion US dollars when it embarked on the vaccination program. Before it injured millions of people.

What kind of nation’s political calculus would put so many citizens at risk, coupled with the risk of blowing up its economy, to roll out an untested vaccine for a disease it was doing its best to hype as much more severe than it was?

Then again, it shut down the economy and printed helicopter money to the tune of 5 Trillion dollars and counting. (I don’t know how much the US government eventually spent on COVID-related programs, but I previously posted a USG website that admitted to $5 Trillion in 2021.). Maybe wasting money was actually one of the goals?

Was the COVID response a medical program or a Great Reset program to weaken or destroy a center of power (independent small businesses) and increase national and individual indebtedness, to make palatable the CBDCs that the European Central Bank plans to roll out this year, and the Reforms to the International Financial Architecture that the UN’s Secretary-General keeps crowing about? Get everyone so indebted they will go along with a debt reprieve and give up their rights to get out from under?

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‘I break the law to buy my child’s life-saving cannabis drug’

Until recently, Jane would have described her family as normal, law-abiding citizens. But that changed last summer, when the full-time mum started illegally buying cannabis oil online for her daughter, Annie.

The 10-year-old has a severe, rare type of epilepsy, resistant to conventional treatments.

At her worst, Annie was admitted to hospital 22 times in 22 months. Doctors warned Jane there was a very real prospect of her daughter dying from a seizure.

Jane says she doesn’t want to break the law – but the severity of Annie’s condition is such that she doesn’t care. We have changed their names to protect their identities.

“[Annie] deserves to be happy. She deserves to have this quality of life,” Jane explains. “And if I’m breaking the law by giving her this quality of life, am I wrong or is the law wrong?”

The family cannot afford a private prescription, which costs approximately £2,000 each month from one of the many clinics that have been established since the legalisation of so-called full-spectrum medical cannabis – which includes the psychoactive ingredient THC.

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Britain’s Leftist Government Blocks Law Outlawing Cousin Marriages in Effort to Appease Muslim Voters

Britain’s left-wing government has blocked a law seeking to outlaw first-cousin marriages.

As pressure grows on Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his government’s refusal to fully investigate the grooming gangs scandal in which mainly Pakistani men were allowed to groom young white girls, the Labour Party is seeking to shore up ties with their Islamic voting base.

Conservative MP Richard Holden, who proposed the legislation, wrote on the X platform that Labour has blocked any further advancement of his 1st Cousin Marriages Bill, which would outlaw marriages between first cousins that are common within Muslim communities.

Holden explained:

The Government today blocked any further consideration of the prohibition of 1st Cousin Marriages Bill.

They could have let it progress to committee stage when all the details could be thrashed out but they blocked it Labour will block it progressing on the 25th too and whenever I try and bring it back.

It’s sad because it was a Labour MP, Ann Cryer, who raised this issue 20 years ago and was shouted down then.

People will get off on calling me names but I grew up in the Pennine mill towns and I don’t want to see the children of the kids I grew up amongst going through this for another generation.

Thank you to the brave people who’ve reached out to me who are part of the communities where this is prevalent and who hate to see certain elements of the establishment continue to enable terrible practices for – at best – fear of causing offence or thinking it’s better to sweep issues under the carpet – or worse, because when the chips are down they simply don’t care, see it as a way of harvesting votes from gatekeepers, or have some screwed up views regarding cultural relativism.

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The Climate and Nature Bill will destroy the UK economy and end private property

The Climate and Nature Bill has its second reading in Parliament on 24 January 2025. If it becomes law, it will bring in compulsory re-wilding of more than 30% of the UK and place controls on travel and consumption.

“You may think that all the bills that have gone through Parliament already in the last six months have been disastrous and have been an attack on our way of life our culture and our economy. But there’s something else coming up which is as bad or even worse as everything that has gone before. And this is something called the Climate and Nature Bill,” David Kurten said.

“It will destroy the economy, essentially, and it will give the Government powers over your private property …  Because of [something to do with] the climate or … nature then the government can essentially take your property,” he warned.  “Because everything that happens in the country will have to be beholden to the targets in this Climate and Nature Bill.”

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Trans activist convicted for torture, attempted murder removed as UK Women’s March speaker after backlash

The UK Women’s March (UKWM) has removed a transgender-identifying male speaker, Sarah Jane Baker, from its lineup after organizers were informed of Baker’s criminal history.

The march, held in London on Saturday, was intended for “anyone who is an ally of women and believes in women’s rights” to march for gender equality. Marches were held in other cities across the country to “focus on advocating for women’s rights” in response to US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

When Baker was first announced to be speaking at the event, there was immediate backlash. Baker has served time in prison for kidnapping and torturing the 19-year-old brother of Baker’s stepmother. Additionally, the convict was handed a life sentence for attempted murder of a fellow inmate and served 30 years in 29 different male prisons.

The event’s organizers claimed they were unaware of the criminal past when they invited Baker to participate.

“There has been a lot of social media traffic about Sarah Jane Baker speaking at the UK Women’s March in London tomorrow,” the organizers said in a statement, according to The Telegraph. “We would like to clarify that after being made aware of Sarah’s criminal background in interpersonal abuse, UKWM and Sarah have mutually agreed that she will stand down as a speaker at the event.

“She will not be speaking at any UK Women’s March events tomorrow,” the statement added. “We want to reaffirm our steadfast commitment to standing in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, and this decision has been in no way affected by anything other than our stance against abuse, exploitation and violence.”

“This decision was not made lightly, but the safety and well-being of our organisers and participants must always take precedence,” the statement concluded. “We are profoundly grateful to everyone who has offered their support.”

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