Tag: united kingdom

Gunpowder, Treason & Plot

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot…” But what was the plot? Who committed the treason? And where did they get the gunpowder?

It’s a very famous story, Guy Fawkes and his band of Catholics planting barrels of gunpowder under the houses of Parliament in an effort to blow up the building and assassinate the king.

…but did you know that the manufacture of gunpowder was a state monopoly in 1605? And that, in all the investigations following the exposure of the plot, no one ever ascertained how the conspirators had managed to obtain 36 barrels of gun powder?

…or that there are multiple conflicting accounts of how/when/where Fawkes was actually arrested?

…or that contemporary figures wrote that the government knew of the alleged plot months before November 5th?

…or that alleged ringleader Robert Catesby, according to his servant, met with James’ spymaster Sir Robert Cecil at least three separate times in 1605?

…or that this plot was politically very convenient for a “monumentally unpopular” king James I?

These are just some of the contradictions present in the official story, which should remind us that false flags and narrative construction are not new tools, they have centuries of history behind them.

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‘No money would ever tempt me to kill my XL Bully’: Furious dog owners blast government £200 ‘puppy scrappage scheme’ to euthanise their pets – as charities face an impossible task to rehome animals before December 31 deadline

Livid Bully XL owners are refusing to accept a £200 Government handout to euthanise their soon-to-be-banned pets, branding the plan ‘absolutely disgusting’.

The breed will be banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act by the end of the year, following a spate of recent fatal and horrific attacks. 

Owners can apply to have their pets exempt from the crackdown – which means they would have to pay £92.40 for a certificate and the dog would need to be microchipped and neutered, among other rules.

The second option would be to have their dogs put down, with the government offering £200 in compensation to these owners. 

But news of the measures this week triggered fury from Bully owners, who branded the move a ‘puppy scrappage scheme’. 

Fuming Bully XL owner Ashley Oxley from Brighton told MailOnline: ‘No money would ever tempt me into putting my girl down she’s fine the way she is and that’s how it’s staying can’t believe in this generation this kind of brutality is even allowed.’ 

Mother-of-three Dani Harland added: ‘This breaks my heart. I own an XL Bully and I would never ever even dream of putting her down. I find this absolutely disgusting that they [the government] are even offering to pay people money to have their dogs put to sleep.’

The outcry comes as animal charities today warned they face an impossible task of trying to rehome hundreds of Bully XLs stuck in rescue centres before the December 31 deadline, after which it will become illegal to rehome, breed, or sell the dogs.

Mel Kermode, operations manager of Freshfields Animal Rescue in Liverpool, said: ‘It is a desperate race against time to try and save these dogs. The clock is very much ticking,’ 

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Man in his 40s is arrested after ‘dressing up as Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi for Halloween and posting it on Facebook’

A man in his 40s has been arrested after allegedly dressing up as Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi for Halloween and posting it on Facebook. 

Pictures posted by David Wootton show him wearing an Arabic-style headdress, with the slogan ‘I love Ariana Grande’ on his T-shirt, and carrying a rucksack with ‘Boom’ and ‘TNT’ written on the front.

The disturbing Halloween costume which was captioned ‘bet I get kicked out of the party’ caused fury on social media. 

North Yorkshire Police confirmed the man arrested had been released on conditional police bail to allow for further enquiries to be carried out. 

Abedi killed 22 people – some of them children – as well as himself when he detonated his device in the foyer of Manchester Arena at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017. 

In a statement, the force said: ‘North Yorkshire Police can confirm that a man has been arrested after the force received complaints about a man wearing an offensive costume on social media, depicting murderer, Salman Abedi who killed 22 people at Manchester Arena.

‘The man, who is aged in his 40s, was arrested on 1 November on suspicion of a number of offences including using a public communication network to send offensive messages.’

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UK Police Arrest Women Who Attended Gaza Protest Wearing Paraglider-Print Shirts

London police have made the latest in a series of arrests related to the repeated Gaza and Hamas protests in recent weeks, now arresting two women on suspicion of terrorism offences for wearing prints of paragliders stuck to their clothing at a rally.

Two women, aged 29 and 44 years old surrendered themselves to police and were arrested “on suspicion of inviting support for a proscribed organisation” under the Terrorism Act after the Metropolitan Police published their images in an appeal for information. The pair are being held at a police station, the force said.

Images of four people had been published by police on the 27th relating to “Pro-Palestine” protests on October 14th and 21st, with three of those being women wearing print-outs of paragliders taped to their clothes. The fourth was a man carrying a “I fully support Hamas” placard.

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American XL Bully dogs are officially banned following spate of attacks: Owning one without exemption certificate will be a criminal offence from February

American XL bully dogs are now officially banned – with offences established to outlaw the sale, breeding and giving away of the dogs and walking them off-lead.

The ban was promised by prime minister Rishi Sunak following a spate of high-profile attacks earlier this year including the savaging of an 11-year-old girl and the death of a man in Staffordshire at the hands of two of the dangerous dogs.

Defra says that under the new rules, which come into effect from December 31, it will be illegal to ‘breed, sell, advertise, exchange, gift, rehome, abandon or allow XL Bully dogs to stray’ in England and Wales.

From the same date, existing XL Bully owners must keep their dogs on a lead and muzzled in public; the government is advising people to start training their dogs to wear a muzzle and walk on a lead comfortably, if they aren’t already trained. 

And from February 1, owning an XL Bully will be outlawed altogether unless owners register their animal on the Index of Exempted Dogs. The government says it has ‘staggered’ the dates to give existing owners time to prepare for the laws to come in.

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UK GOVERNMENT APOLOGIZES AFTER COUNTER DISINFORMATION UNIT GOT CAUGHT LYING, MONITORING JOURNALISTS’ SPEECH

Those who may have a penchant for English literature, may also be aware of this quote from “The Witch of Edmonton” – “(…) This were a fine reign; To do ill, and not hear of it again.”

But even to those who lack that interest, this might seem like a succinct way to describe some of the ways politicians, and whole national cabinets – apologize, or, “apologize” – regarding certain fundamental mistakes they made/are making.

These do at times read less like apologies and more like, “can we please move on”? Fit for individuals perhaps – but is it ever, for states and governments?

Well, if talkTV host Julia Hartley-Brewer wanted a “formal apology” from the UK government, she has it. You see – the said government is either “sorry” for inflicting pain on Hartley-Brewer, or just upset because their “counter-disinformation unit” (formally – “Rapid Response Unit“) got caught, pants down, spreading actual disinformation.

Who’s to say?

However, who knew being a mere vaccine (Covid, specifically) skeptic (as juxtaposed to “anti-vaxxer”) came to be considered one and the same, equal to “spreading misinformation”? What will happen to science itself? The UK cabinet is aware – right? – that there is no science without skepticism?

In the meanwhile, Julia Hartley-Brewer, as far as the UK government, is no longer a “vaccine skeptic.” She has received an apology. But of far more interest to the general public, that label was slapped on the journalist as she was included in what Big Brother Watch rights group says was “a secret report on vaccine hesitancy sent across UK government recipients – and even to the US government.”

The saddest – or the most alarming part of this story is that Hartley-Brewer could hardly be considered any kind of skeptic to begin with. And yet – she made it to “the list.”

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‘We feel nothing for you but hate’: Victims of ‘sadistic’ paedophile police officer who blackmailed 200 girls into sharing explicit images on Snapchat say they have self-harmed, contemplated suicide and are too afraid to go out – as he’s jailed for life

The victims of a police officer who blackmailed more than 200 teenage girls into sending him explicit images have spoken of the trauma they experienced after being subjected to his crimes. 

Lewis Edwards, 24, who groomed 210 girls aged between 10 and 16 on Snapchat between November 2020 and February 2023, was today jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years.

The South Wales Police officer, who joined the force in January 2021, posed as a 14-year-old boy and forced his victims to make indecent videos and images of themselves, which he covertly recorded.

He then used the recordings to blackmail his victims into sending increasingly graphic and explicit images. He also sent videos of himself performing a sex act.

Some of the girls that were subject to his campaign of abuse told the court of how his crimes had affected them – with many self-harming, contemplating suicide, losing friends and left fearful of going out.

The court heard all but one of the victims were abused while he was a serving police officer, and he targeted one teenager just 17 days after meeting her as part of his duties.

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UK government keeping files on teaching assistants’ and librarians’ internet activity

The government has been monitoring the social media accounts of “dozens” of ordinary teaching staff, including teaching assistants, and is keeping files on posts that criticise education policies, the Observer has learned.

Two weeks ago, this newspaper revealed how the Department for Education is monitoring the social media activity of some of the country’s leading education experts. Now evidence has emerged that the monitoring is much more widespread, covering even the lowest paid members of staff.

Ordinary teaching and support staff said this weekend that they were “gobsmacked” and angry after discovering that the department had files on them. Many outraged educators have rushed to submit subject access requests [SARs] compelling the DfE to release any information it holds under their name, after discovering there were files up to 60 pages long about their tweets and comments challenging government policy or the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.

Nikki Cleveland, a higher-level teaching assistant and primary school librarian, who mainly posts uncontroversial children’s book reviews, discovered from a SAR that the DfE had a file alerting colleagues to tweets from her complaining about lack of funding for school libraries and about Ofsted. She said: “I was gobsmacked that I was even on their radar.”

Cleveland expressed anger that while the department was flagging tweets about schools struggling to balance their budgets, meet the growing needs of pupils without enough staff and deal with unreasonable demands from Ofsted, “nothing has changed”.

“The whole thing makes me even more cynical that no one in the government or the DfE cares about what is happening in schools on a day-to-day basis,” she added.

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Why should I be at risk of jail for saying a trans woman is not a real woman?

This is what it has come to. J. K. Rowling says that she will stand up for women’s rights even if it means being sent to prison.

And if the Labour Party comes into power, the Harry Potter author might very well end up behind bars quicker than you can say Avada Kedavra!

Because Labour, in all its wizarding woke wisdom, has promised to make attacks motivated by hatred of a victim’s gender identity into what the courts call an ‘aggravated offence’.

This move would bring ‘transphobic abuse’ into line with assault and harassment motivated by hatred on the grounds of race or religion, which are punishable by up to two years in prison.

But it is all relative, isn’t it?

It all depends on who you are and what you believe in, rather than what you actually do and say. Under these laws, the pro-Palestinian supporters who were tearing down posters of kidnapped Israeli children in London this week should be jailed.

Yet somehow — call it crazy intuition — we all know that these people are not going be jailed, don’t we? However, in the brave new world of Prime Minister Starmer — Expelliarmus! — the person who would be jailed would be J. K. Rowling.

Under a Labour government, expressing the belief that a person’s sex is immutable and that a trans woman is not a woman would be a crime.

Yet how can holding this view be against the law or deemed to be motivated by hatred, when it is merely propelled by common sense, biology and what the vast majority of us believe to be true? Yet here we are, swirling in this perilous dogma, fighting for women-only spaces and sex-based rights, heading into a future that might criminalise us for doing so.

Under the carapace of progressive thinking, Lisa Nandy and all the headbangers in the Shadow Cabinet who support this nonsense are only making matters worse.

For instead of encouraging a middle ground, where transgender people can live happy and confident lives in society, all it does is polarise opinion and encourage extremism.

Replying to a post on Twitter/X, Rowling said: ‘I’ll happily do two years if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex. Bring on the court case, I say. It’ll be more fun than I’ve ever had on a red carpet.’

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Labour Party to Make ‘Misgendering’ a Crime in Britain with Up Two Years in Prison

The left-wing Labour Party in Britain is reportedly planning on making ‘misgendering’ someone a crime with up to two years in prison.

In a move that would introduce compelled speech laws, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is preparing to create new hate speech legislation that would punish people for referring to someone with the “wrong” gender pronoun.

According to a report from the Mail on Sunday, a Labour government would seek to elevate misgendering an “aggravated offence” putting it on the same level as assault or harassment motivated by race or religion, which comes with up to two years in prison.

Responding to the report, Caroline Ffiske of Conservatives for Women said: “Thousands of women dispute the notion of ‘gender identity’ and particularly the idea that it should be prioritised over biological sex.

“We have serious and legitimate concerns over being expected, in the workplace, when using public services or in private life, to refer to a man as ‘she/her’.

“Is there a risk with this policy that a woman could be accused of harassment for correctly sexing a man and then for that to be treated as an aggravated offence?”

Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox added: “You can take your pronouns and your compelled speech and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

“Looks like anyone who isn’t clinically insane is going to be spending some time in chokey with our new Labour overlords in power from next year.”

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