Tag: united kingdom

UK Sports Commentator Faces Court for “Malicious Communications” Charges Over Social Media Posts

Free speech supporters are alarmed after former Premier League player Joey Barton has been slapped with charges of alleged “malicious communications” directed towards sports commentator and past England Women’s team star Eni Aluko.

Responding to the accusations, Barton labeled the judiciary as a “banana republic.” A court date has been set for July 30 following a probe by Cheshire Police in England.

Earlier this year, Barton likened Aluko and fellow commentator Lucy Ward to Fred and Rose West.

Fred and Rose West were a British married couple who committed a series of murders, sexual assaults, and acts of torture against young women and girls, including some of their own children, between the 1960s and 1980s in Gloucestershire, England.

After a police investigation into Barton’s contentious actions, charges were brought by the Crown Prosecution Service. The 41-year-old ex-footballer is set to face these charges at Warrington Magistrates’ Court.

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Is this the end of 1p and 2p coins? Treasury orders NO new coins to be minted for first time amid decline in cash payments as officials consider scrapping coppers altogether

The Treasury has made no orders to the Royal Mint for new coins to be minted for the first time amid a decline in cash payments, with officials considering scrapping coppers altogether. 

No new 1p and 2p coins are expected to be ordered in the coming years with proposals being worked on to be put to ministers over the future of the coinage, reported the Evening Standard. 

If the coppers are scrapped it would be the first time a coin was taken out of circulation in 40 years when the half-penny ceased in 1984. 

The 1p and 2p coins’ future has been in a precarious state in recent years with Bank of England governor Mark Carney previously hinting they could be ditched as Britons increasingly move towards a cashless society. 

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New UK Government Signals Potential Backtrack on Plans to Drop Digital ID

It’s been mere days since former UK Labour PM Tony Blair, a globalization extraordinaire, and a (digital) ID cards enthusiast remarked that it might take “a little persuading” for his country’s new government to get with that particular program.

And it seems the new Labour government really only needed a little persuasion – after “rejecting” Blair’s call to implement digital ID cards on July 7, by July 10 there were statements by an influential party figure calling that path “inevitable.”

However, that figure – former Home Secretary David Blunkett – is not a member of the just-formed cabinet, and was with his statements challenging current Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who opposed the idea.

But, Blunkett – who served in Blair’s government – said that “the government would have to streamline (growing digital records) into a single ID.”

Fast forward one week, and it seems Cooper’s cabinet colleague, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle, is starting to reverse course.

Somewhere in the meanwhile, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds first said the government would be “looking at all sources of advice” – only to quickly backtrack and say there were no ID card plans.

All this leaves observers puzzled as to what the government’s actual stance on this important issue is.

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U.K. Manhunt Underway For Colombian Migrant Suspected of Slicing Up Victims, Dumping Them in Suitcases

A manhunt is underway in the United Kingdom for a Colombian man accused of slicing up his victim’s body parts and putting them in suitcases.

Police found remains in a flat in London, linking them to body parts discovered two days earlier near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the southwestern city of Bristol, the BBC reports.

A 34-year-old man had already been arrested in connection with the incident, but was later released without charge.

Authorities have now identified 24-year-old Yostin Andres Mosquera, a Colombian national, as their main suspect. His immigration status in the country remains unclear.

Neither of the two victims have been named, although they are understood to have been known to Mosquera.

“This is a fast moving enquiry with detectives in London and Bristol actively pursuing a number of lines of enquiry,” said Met Police deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine.

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New leftist British PM plans to use emergency powers to RELEASE 40,000 PRISONERS

Newly elected leftist U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is planning to use his office’s emergency powers to release approximately 40,000 so-called “non-violent offenders” in a bid to address overcrowding in England and Wales prisons.

The current prison system of England and Wales has a capacity of up to 88,815 inmates. However, the prison population in the United Kingdom has surged dramatically from approximately 41,000 in the early 1990s to over 87,000 last month due to tougher sentencing laws and court backlogs over the past few decades. (Related: Leftist Keir Starmer becomes new British prime minister, pledges to put “country first, party second.”)

Newly installed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Shabana Mahmood has been informed that only about 700 spaces remain in the male prison estate. If the day comes without intervention, these spaces are projected to reach full capacity by Aug. 1. Additionally, the British think tank the Institute for Government noted a 13 percent increase in the prison population over the past three years, with projections suggesting it could reach 99,300 by the end of next year.

As a temporary measure, a policy introduced last October permits the early release of some less serious offenders by up to 18 days, which was extended to 70 days in May. But then, the current situation needs more immediate action.

In an interview with BBC political editor Chris Mason a few weeks before the election, Starmer admitted that he could not “magic up a new prison on Friday morning” if elected prime minister.

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Israel Lobby Funded Half of New UK Cabinet

Pro-Israel lobbyists have donated to 13 out of Labour’s 25 cabinet members since they were first elected to parliament, Declassified can reveal.

The list of recipients includes Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner,  Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Jonathan Reynolds, who will oversee arms exports to Israel as U.K. trade secretary, is another beneficiary, alongside Labour’s election mastermind Pat McFadden, whose responsibilities now include national security.  

Some of the donations were provided by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a lobby group which takes MPs on “fact-finding” missions to the region.

Reeves, McFadden, Reynolds and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle were recently listed as vice-chairs of LFI.

Other major funders include pro-Israel businessmen Gary Lubner, Trevor Chinn, and Stuart Roden.

The total value of the donations amounts to over £600,000.

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Lead Candidate to Stop Illegal Boat Migration Said He Was Proud to be “Woke”

The lead candidate to be put in charge of stopping illegal boat migration to the UK previously said he is proud to be “woke” and also chastised Suella Braverman for using “horrific” rhetoric to describe migrants.

Ex-counterterror chief Neil Basu is set to become the UK’s Border Security Commander under the new Labour government.

But Basu’s previous behavior suggests he is a leftist and may have little enthusiasm for limiting illegal mass migration.

Responding to former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s speech where she said it was her “dream” to see illegal immigrants deported (as they should be under the law), Basu reacted with fury.

“I find some of the commentary coming out of the Home Office inexplicable,” said Mr Basu.

“It is unbelievable to hear a succession of very powerful politicians who look like this talking in language that my father would have remembered from the 1968. It’s horrific,” he added.

Basu also said that as head of counter-terrorism, he had to deal with some “disgusting and very real” threats from the “far-right” and that diversity and inclusion were “two of the most important things for policing.”

“Are you alert to issues of racial and social justice? Yes, I am. And if that is the definition of woke, I’ll wear it as a bumper sticker every day of the week,” he said.

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Keir Starmer faces renewed scrutiny over allegations he protected Jimmy Savile

As the UK’s new, MI6-aligned prime minister takes power, questions are resurfacing about how key files on infamous British pedophile Jimmy Savile disappeared under his watch.

In October 2012, a documentary exposed how veteran British media personality Jimmy Savile sexually abused vulnerable, underage girls throughout his lifetime. This led to an eruption of reports of abuse, spanning decades, and official inquiries into multiple institutions to which Savile was linked. Today, the full extent of his crimes, and the total number of his victims, is unknown. It has nonetheless been confirmed that the BBC, NHS, British police, and many journalists had full knowledge of his pedophilic and necrophilic perversions well before his death.

Along the way, there were multiple “missed opportunities” to stop Savile’s industrial scale sex crimes. Most substantively, in 2007, police made contact with a number of women who had come forward to testify they were assaulted and raped by Savile, leading to the star being grilled by police about the allegations. That investigation was however shut down, and never publicly acknowledged. Details of how the probe was torpedoed didn’t emerge until much later, implicating both investigating officers and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

The CPS was at that time led by Keir Starmer, now His Majesty’s Prime Minister. As previously documented by The Grayzone, Britain’s new premier has a deep, long-running relationship with London’s national security establishment and security and intelligence apparatus, as well as the elite Trilateral Commission. He helmed the CPS when the Service protected MI5 and MI6 spooks from prosecution for torture, and connived to sustain a bogus rape case against Julian Assange.

The CPS destroyed key emails related to this subterfuge, which served to keep the WikiLeaks founder holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy while facing extradition to Sweden, when prosecutors in both countries knew the charges had no substance. During this time, the Service also shredded all records of Starmer’s four trips to Washington DC. It may be no coincidence that every file held on Savile by the CPS also disappeared in breach of basic protocol.

To say the least, Starmer has clear, grave questions to answer about what he knew about Savile’s crimes, and the role he and his then-agency played in insulating the serial pedophile and necrophiliac from justice. The same British media that has fueled Starmer’s ambitions has aggressively shielded him from critical scrutiny on the matter. What follows are the dimensions of a very British coverup.

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BBC presenter calls for Trump to be assassinated

BBC presenter David Aaronovitch has called for the “murder” of former US President Donald Trump in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Aaronovitch later deleted his message following a backlash, claiming it had been “satire.” 

Aaronovitch, the voice behind the British state broadcaster’s Radio 4 program ‘The Briefing Room’, tweeted on Monday: “If I was Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security.”

The post was accompanied by the hashtag #SCOTUS, indicating that the comment had been triggered by Monday’s confirmation from the US Supreme Court that former presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for their official actions.

Aaronovitch was forced delete the post after an online backlash, and claimed in a follow-up message that he had been accused of inciting violence by “a far right pile.” The presenter insisted his tweet was “plainly a satire.”

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SAS war crimes inquiry obtains huge cache of new evidence, BBC reveals

The public inquiry into alleged SAS war crimes in Afghanistan has obtained a previously deleted cache of data that could hold crucial evidence, the BBC can reveal.

The files were permanently erased from a server by a UK Special Forces contractor in 2016, during a murder investigation into the SAS.

But the public inquiry team has now secured backups of the server – part of a Special Forces communications system codenamed “Sonata” – believed to have been created before the files were erased.

The backups are likely to contain information about SAS operations on which members of the elite regiment were suspected of unlawfully killing unarmed Afghan detainees and civilians.

A spokesperson for the inquiry confirmed to the BBC that they had obtained the backups, adding: “We now hold the relevant material and are exploring a technical solution to retrieve and review the data to determine its relevance to the investigation.”

The spokesperson said the inquiry team was approached during several days of hearings about computer evidence last December by someone offering them access to the backups, but the inquiry declined to comment on the source of the offer.

This is the first time backups of Sonata have been obtained by investigators outside UK Special Forces, which blocked previous efforts by the Royal Military Police (RMP) to copy the server.

To the dismay of the RMP investigators, a contractor hired by UK Special Forces (UKSF) during the murder investigation ran a program on the server in 2016 designed to permanently erase previously deleted files.

This process, known as “zeroing”, flew in the face of explicit instructions the RMP had given to UKSF that no data should be tampered with before the server could be copied.

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