| “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.” |
| VOLTAIRE |
https://www.waterstones.com/author/robert-cook/435753/page/1
March 16th 2024
Evangeline Wilson: Plea for parents to be heard in mental health care
By Dickon Hooper
BBC News, West of England
The parents of a woman with mental health problems who died have called for families to have more of a voice.
Evangeline Wilson, 24, was found dead at her Bristol home in 2022 while on a “period of short leave” from a hospital in London where she was being treated.
A coroner conducting the inquest into her death said she died of cardiac failure due to morphine toxicity.
Her mother Sally Watson said: “We were parents to a young vulnerable woman but our voice was never listened to.”
The West London NHS Trust and Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) offered their condolences for what they called a “tragic incident”.
Known as Evie, Ms Wilson had a complex mental health history including bulimia, depression, self-harm, suicide attempts and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the inquest heard.
Her father Dr Nick Wilson, an experienced GP, described his daughter as “an incredibly energetic, vivacious young woman” who was “incredibly creative” and used her art to express “difficult, dark subjects but also joy”.
Speaking after the inquest, he said: “One big issue is how the different parts of the health system don’t work with each other.
“We struggled for six years trying to support Evie.
“We had to try and unearth information about what was going on. When someone reaches 18 there are difficult issues around consent.”
Ms Wilson had a history of interacting with local mental health services in Bristol, the inquest was told.
She had secured a place to study fine arts at Goldsmiths, University of London, which had been deferred so she could go to the Cassel Hospital, London, which offers residential, therapeutic care, in June 2022.
A few weeks into her stay, she was found intoxicated during a therapy session.
“As this was a breach of her agreement and likely to cause disruption in her treatment, there was a discussion between Ms Wilson and the treatment team and all agreed that she would take a period of short leave,” a spokeswoman said.
At the inquest, coroner Dr Peter Harrowing said she was not considered a risk to herself at this time and that the London hospital had put in place all the “appropriate measures”.
‘No causal link’
Ms Wilson returned to Bristol for a long weekend and AWP was asked to phone her on Saturday and Sunday.
But neither call took place. One because of illness and the other for “reasons not explained”, said the coroner.
The professional asked to make the call did not give evidence.
But Dr Harrowing added: “There is no causal link between [the lack of calls] and [Ms Wilson’s] death.”
Her last contact was with her grandparents on the Saturday at about 21:00 GMT.
They said she sounded calm but wanted more support and that she had planned to return to Cassel the following week “110% committed” to the programme.
Ms Wilson was found dead by police carrying out a welfare check at her flat on 10 July 2022.
Dr Wilson said: “The inquest was the most awful, harrowing and sad experience of my life. Most people don’t have to pick apart the last few days of your loved one’s life.
“It’s extremely hard that we have to learn so many important things after she died. I lie thinking about this, I have just learned all of this too late.
“If I have a message it is about how families and carers [can be] empowered to help.”
Ms Watson added: “We could’ve shared information on the vulnerabilities of our daughter.”
Serious incident review
A spokesperson for AWP said: “We are committed to learning the lessons from Evangeline’s death and addressing the issues raised during the inquest and following our own internal investigations.”
While a spokesperson for West London NHS Trust said: “We strive to give the best possible care to all our patients and have completed a serious incident review jointly with mental health services in the patient’s local area.
“In this review we have identified areas to improve our care and treatment and are implementing these to reduce the risk of tragic incidents like this happening again.”
- If you have been affected by the topics discussed in this article, you can visit the BBC Action Line for help and support.
Follow BBC Bristol on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630
Comment This is a very disturbing and tragic story, testament to the inadequacy of U.K mental health care and the NHS in general. Young people are being driven insane in and by U.K Democracy where nothing is quite what we are told that it is. This story is also very close to my own heart. Sadly, I cannot say more due to ongoing legal proceedings.
R J Cook
Tesco & Sainsbury’s Experience Cyber Meltdown – Hacking Not Blamed In These Very Sensitive Times When Russia Faces War For Existence.
Big Political Egos, NATO Fat Cats with Eager Investors in Ukraine Reconstruction Would Rather Kill Millions In Nuclear War Than Abandon Regime Change Gamble – R J Cook.
Tesco and Sainsbury’s hit with technical issuesBracknell Newshttps://www.bracknellnews.co.uk › news › national › ..Sainsbury’s customers were unable to make contactless payments following an overnight software update and the firm was not able to fulfil the “ …
Supermarket CEO apologises after glitch hits online food …
The Independenthttps://www.independent.co.uk › UK › Home NewsSainsbury’s and Tesco technical issues: Supermarket CEO apologises after glitch … 16 March 2024 … Software error causing issues, Sainsbury’s …
Sainsbury’s and Tesco cancel home deliveries after being …
The Telegraphhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk › news › 2024/03/16 › sAn “error” in an overnight software update has left Sainsbury‘s unable to take contactless payments in stores or fulfil online food orders.
This sort of thing has happened before , when it has been blamed on cyber attacks as we can see below :
14 Aug 2023 — Two Birmingham thieves travelled more than 100 miles to South Wales to scam pensioners out of £25,000 at cash machines. Tariq Sharif and Kai …
Tesco, Sainsbury’s and M&S bans for Southend thief
Southend Echohttps://www.echo-news.co.uk › news › 23547210.tesco…
25 May 2023 — A man has been banned from five major Southend stores after being charged with multiple shop thefts. Work from Essex Police’s business crime …
Share Price Information for Sainsbury’s (SBRY)
London South Easthttps://www.lse.co.uk › … › Sainsbury’s Share News
Pin to quick picks Sainsbury’s Share News (SBRY) · Share Price Information for Sainsbury’s (SBRY) · UPDATE 3-Tesco says $3 mln stolen in cyber theft, resumes …
Both Tesco and Sainsbury’s hit with technical issues
Westmorland Gazettehttps://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk › national › 2…
2 hours ago — Two of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains – Tesco and Sainsbury’s – were hit with technical issues on Saturday. Sainsbury’s customers were …
Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons shoppers warned of …
Daily Expresshttps://www.express.co.uk › Finance › Personal Finance
13 Dec 2022 — Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, and other supermarket shoppers are being warned of a vicious scam which could ruin Christmas.
Tesco and Sainsbury’s scam warning as fraudsters …
Daily Recordhttps://www.dailyrecord.co.uk › … › Financial crime
17 Nov 2022 — The scam emails ask recipients to click on a link to enter a fake draw for a £1,000 voucher – but shoppers have been told to ignore the messages …
March 15th 2024
A repressive obsessive feminised society – by R J Cook
Jake Davison, 22, killed his mother Maxine, 51, and then shot dead four others, including a young girl, in the Keyham area of Plymouth in August 2021.
An inquest into the deaths of the five victims is being held by Plymouth Coroner Ian Arrow at Exeter Racecourse.
On 19 August 1987, 27-year-old Michael Ryan shot and killed sixteen people, including an unarmed police officer and his own mother, before killing himself. The event became known as the Hungerford massacre trivialised by the U.K elite mass media as a spree shooting in Wiltshire and Berkshire.
These patronising media people, like the government, do not want to understand these events which are far more commonplace in the United States. The common element with these two cases is the mother figure, or should I say ‘smother figure.’
Our fake Christian society has been rotting away for years, but still clings to the Mother Mary Immaculate Conception myth. Now it even does a ‘pick and mix’ with the newly favoured Islamic version of religious tyrannical escapism. The pigeons on that one will come home to roost when the message drops that patriarchal Islam will not drop its traditional view of a woman’s place. Feminism is working on that. These two groups feeding off victimhood will eventually fall out big time. At the moment they are united by their common enemy, the white man. Sadly, by the time the penny drops, most white men will have either changed sex, turned gay, been slaughtered or emasculated in a rich man’s war, turned to drugs or otherwise committed suicide. Viagra will not solve the problem.
The British ruling classes have always excelled at feeding and stupefying the masses with religion. But they also like selling junk to them in the highly profitable consumer society. The masses running up debts is like carrots to a donkey combined with heroin to junkies.
So the Incel phenomenon is no surprise to me. Former ‘Love Island’ TV Show host Laura Whitmore recently reprised her sneering dismissive attack on Incels ( Involuntary Celibate ). At no point did she show any interest in why young men are so hostile to their female contemporaries. The likes of Whitmore have a feminist drum to bang along with a righteous and presumptuous social engineering agenda to impose. The issue of men being kicked out of family life if they are not submissive to women, was never mentioned.
There is no doubt in my mind that the mothers in the above mentioned cases, along with a repressive obsessive feminised society which created them, are very much involved with their son’s tragic responses to their hopeless and impossible lives.
R J Cook
Trying to stay alive in a town tormented by drugs, alcohol and suicide
Related Topics
By Dominic Hughes & Natalie Wright
Health correspondent, BBC News
Blackpool has the highest rate of deaths linked to alcohol, drug abuse and suicide in England, a recent study found. BBC News met a team of former addicts trying to turn around the lives of people in the town.
“Hugging my mum again. I’d love that. That would be special.”
Tears are streaming down Paul Earnshaw’s face as he talks to us.
He has struggled for years with alcohol, but is now trying to break free from his addiction.
It is going to be a tough journey.
The road to recovery
The enormity of what lies ahead is sinking in.
Paul is about to start a detox course, followed by what could be up to six months of rehab.
“I need to do it. I won’t let nobody down. I won’t let myself down.”
Sitting on a sofa in the Blackpool offices of the charity Empowerment, Paul is reflecting on where he has ended up.
“I don’t want to be picking a can up every single day, walking around the streets, people thinking, ‘oh, look at him, he’s drinking again, still doing this, still doing that’.
“Nah, I don’t want to do that. I’m 40 years old, I’m not getting any younger. It’s time to move on, it’s time to live my life a different way. It’s an opportunity – if I don’t take it, I’ll never get it again, but I’m taking it, I’m doing it.”
At one point Dave, Paul’s support worker, gives him a huge hug, and for a moment you feel Paul may never let go.
‘Deaths of despair’
Blackpool is a town plagued by too many preventable fatalities linked to alcohol, drug abuse and suicide – collectively described by the bleakly poetic phrase “deaths of despair” by health researchers.
A study of deaths recorded at coroners’ courts across England suggests that between 2019 and 2021, about 46,200 people lost their lives in this way – the equivalent of 42 people every day.
And research suggests Paul’s hometown of Blackpool has the highest rate of these deaths.
In Blackpool the rate is 83.8 for every 100,000 people.
Compare that to the area with the lowest rate, Barnet in Greater London, where the figure stands at 14.5 deaths per 100,000 people.
Steven Brown, a senior member of the Empowerment team, has lived a similar life to Paul, and against the odds, has somehow come out the other side.
“I’m from a council estate in Layton in Blackpool, and I started hanging around with older people, my brother, and most of us started taking drugs, and then a lot of us couldn’t stop taking drugs,” he said.
“I was stuck in that revolving door cycle that I couldn’t get out [of].”
The drugs led to crime, which led to prison, but after more than 20 years spent in and out of jail, a key moment came when Steven went to a prison talk by a former addict who was running a charity for ex-offenders.
“I didn’t know that people recovered. You either went to prison – you got locked up – or you died.
“Having some hope from someone like me, who hadn’t been to college and wasn’t educated – and I knew that they’d walked in the steps that I’d walked in – they was talking my language.
“And it’s that hope of, ‘how have you done it? I want what you have. How do I follow you?’ and I guess that little bit of hope changed my life.”
While he was in recovery, someone told Steven he only needed to change one thing in his life: “Everything – people, places and things.” Steven understood what his friend meant.
Everyone in the Empowerment team has what is known as “lived experience”, meaning they have all lived the chaotic and dangerous lives of the addicts, homeless people and alcoholics they are now helping.
Clean for more than seven years, Steven’s life now could not be more different from the one he left behind – a steady job that he loves, a partner, a child, a home.
Wealthy but unequal
New analysis led by academics from the University of Manchester, the National Institute for Health and Care Research and a consortium of universities and NHS hospital trusts across the north of England, mapped the deaths to local council areas and calculated what factors increased the risk of dying this way.
So being from the north, being white, male and working class, working in a manual job, having a lower level of education – all these are risk factors.
But as report author Christine Camacho explains, these factors combine to become more than the sum of their parts.
“It’s a bit like some of the effects that we saw in Covid where the pandemic exacerbated some of those underlying inequalities,” she said.
And the bad news for Blackpool, a northern seaside town, is that it has a higher rate of these deaths than anywhere else in England.
“The UK is a wealthy country, but it’s also quite an unfair country – our resources are not equally distributed. And deaths of despair are one avoidable consequence of that unequal distribution,” she added.
Breaking the cycle
There are 25 members of the Empowerment charity working in and around Blackpool, trying to offer that tiny bit of hope that transformed Steven’s life.
They operate alongside social workers, the town council and the local NHS, trying to find housing, healthcare and support, and offering practical help for the homeless, including supplying clothing and essential toiletries.
Helping prevent overdoses is also a crucial part of the work, with workers distributing the anti-overdose drug Naloxone, a treatment that Steven says saved his own life more than once.
Support workers also build relationships of trust with people whose lives have descended into chaos.
Kate – not her real name – is now in her 30s, and said: “I started drink and drugs at a very young age, to the point of oblivion sometimes.”
For a while she was in rehab but dropped out and last autumn, she found herself pregnant, homeless and still in the grip of her addiction.
However, Kate’s support worker from Empowerment stuck with her and never gave up.
Kate has been clean for more than 100 days and said: “It was extremely difficult, but I’d just had enough of living on the streets, being around needles in abandoned hotels, it was horrible.
“It was the change and the support from these guys that got me to where I am today, as well as myself. For someone to be there, and to have that support from when I was really bad in addiction, to now being clean, and having someone there regardless of whether I’m there or not, and still trying to support me, is an amazing feeling.
“If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Kate and Paul were both at risk of becoming statistics, but with the help of the Empowerment team they are beginning the long and difficult road to recovery.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care said the government was committed to narrowing the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030.
“Spending on mental health has increased, and our suicide prevention strategy includes early intervention and crisis support.
“We’ve published a 10-year plan for tackling drugs.”
March 14th 2024
Why is it that MPs Get Rewarded For Failure ? by R J Cook
MPs present themselves as heroic defenders of Britain’s precious democracy. They have made the most of two murdered MPs in recent years to present themselves as heroes. One was by a disgruntled working class man who was about to be kicked out of the life long council home he had shared with his mother. His MP, Joe Cox, was vaunted for her previous career helping Third World poor with Oxfam. The other was carried out by a mad Muslim. The Government has presented new guidelines to control what the masses say that might offend the nation’s approved diversity groups. It is all in the name of keeping us safe. This is the government that gives Ukraine Storm Shadow missiles at the cost of £2.2 million each and much more besides. Our political and ruling elite are main cheer leaders for the Ukraine so called war for democracy. It is the reason for the so called ‘cost of living crisis.’ The masses are not supposed to get it. If they do, then anything they say will have them up against the ever tightening rules and laws. The law makers are mainly concerned for their own safety as feral and broken Britain becomes ever more feral with a police force to match.
R J Cook
MPs’ pay will increase by 5.5% from April
By Chas Geiger
Political reporter
MPs will get a pay rise of 5.5% from April, lifting their annual salary to £91,346, Parliament’s pay and expenses watchdog has announced.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) said the decision was in line with the award recently agreed for senior civil servants.
The Consumer Prices Index inflation rate stood at 4% in January.
Last year, Ipsa said a 2.9% increase took account of an “extremely difficult” economic backdrop.
Announcing the latest pay award, Richard Lloyd, chair of Ipsa, emphasised that the independent body’s aimed to make decisions on pay that were “fair… both for MPs and the public”.
- MPs’ pay will increase by 2.9% in April
- MPs’ severance pay to double at next election
- Defeated MPs set to share £2m payout
“Serving as an MP should not be reserved to those wealthy enough to fund it themselves. We believe our decision recognises the vital role MPs play in our democracy and considers the continued economic challenges facing the country.
“We are committed to supporting a Parliament that reflects our society, where people from all walks of life can decide to become MPs.”
Backbench MPs who chair cross-party select committees, such as the Treasury committee and the defence committee, are entitled to an additional salary of £17,354, as of April 2023, which is also set by Ipsa.
Currently, Rishi Sunak receives an additional £75,440 as prime minister, on top of his MP’s salary, taking his total pay from April to £166,786.
Cabinet ministers get an extra £67,505 on top of their MP’s pay, ministers of state £31,680, and the most junior ministers £22,375.
As leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer receives an extra £49,193.
Ipsa was created in 2009, largely as a response to the MPs’ expenses scandal, in an attempt to make payments more transparent and to reach independent decisions on MPs’ salaries.
Previously, MPs determined their own salaries and expenses.
Last August, Ipsa announced that severance pay for MPs leaving Parliament at the next general election – expected later this year – would double. Following this April’s pay award, it will rise to more than £20,000.
Former MPs will receive four months’ net pay instead of two, while they close their office and manage the departure of their staff. Ipsa said the two-month period was not long enough.
Nearly 100 MPs have announced they will not stand again at the general election – including former Prime Minister Theresa May last week.
Related Topics
March 13th 2024
Royal Flushed – A Storm In A Teacup – By R J Cook
Like many British Baby Boomers and children of the 1950s so close to World War Two, I was brought up to believe in the Royal Family. My comics were full of battlefield heroics slaying the dreadful evil Germans. Sunday afternoon black and white war films reinforced the British fact starved mindset. I topped it all off by joining the local Air Training Corps confident in my career choice to become an RAF pilot.
However, a firebrand Welsh teacher who loathed British Royalty, persuaded me to go to university first. My three years at the University of East Anglia undermined my sense of certainty that never returned. The strange death of Princess Diana was the last straw for me as far as I was concerned.
So I have no time for the mealy mouthed official responses to Buckingham Palace issuing a Princess Kate propaganda photograph. To honestly assess the significance of this deliberate deception we have to understand two things. Firstly we need to consider why a picture of this highly privileged young white women, from the most privileged family in the land, who is recovering from undisclosed abdominal surgery, should matter to us. Secondly, having answered the first question and thus deriving any reason why we should care, we should ask why it is acceptable to provide a seriously fake so called recent and suspicious image which can only have been intended to deceive the world’s press. Royalty are the whiter than white hereditary pinnacle of Britain’s political system. This appalling con trick should not be played down as State Broadcaster, the BBC, are busy doing at the moment, hoping that another Royal Cloud will soon pass as World War Three and the Cost of War Crisis focuses peoples’ minds on patriotism, conscription and nuclear annihilation.
Back in the 1990s,when I was under contract to Sutton Publishing, I was shown their large digital scanner and the tricks it could do. The digital world has moved on massively since then and I have seen what even home equipment can do. It surprises me that the Palace, if their experts could not be trusted -in this age of leaks – to do such an important job, why they put their trust in Princess Kate who was not really up to it. Or perhaps she has just been made the scapegoat.
Significantly the Palace has refused to release the original photograph. That is because it is at least two images blended together and probably three because Princess Kate’s head looks as if it has been painted in. There is something wrong with the depth here. But whatever the details, the motive for this deception matters very much. So close in the wake of the Prince Andrew underage sex and multi million pound pay off scandal, doubt must be cast upon a so called democracy run by billionaires, their elite media and police protectors, topped off by the Royal Family and famous love cheat King Charles III.
The world may be moving forward technologically at ever increasing speed, thanks to the nerds and those who finance them, but the same power crazed sex obsessed wealth grabbing lying hypocritical planet eaters are still in control. These small minded hedonists have brought back religious bigotry in the name of a multi faith society – with dire ‘hate crime’ consequences for anyone who offends Islam. This is about divide and fool. There can only be one truth and the western global elite do not want the masses to know what that is. That is why the likes of BBC’s pristine veteran Royal Correspondent Jenny Bond told viewers, last night, that this whole affair is ‘ a storm in a teacup.’ Coming from the BBC, that is as good as an official statement.
R J Cook
March 10th 2024
Migration – Lord Green’s Vindication
The Church Of England is now in the dock for racism and reparations and PM Sunak is busy redefining extremism as all about ostracising the Far Right and excepting Islamists from any association with terrorism because that would provoke racism ( sic ). Caption and image by R J Cook, Appledene Photographics.
In the cacophony of figures and forecasts unveiled during the Chancellor’s budget speech, one number remained conspicuously absent – the total population of the UK.
Official statistics indicate a significant surge in the UK population, climbing from 61.3 million on the brink of the 2008 financial crisis to over 68 million today, marking a 10% increase in just 16 years. Despite economic upheavals like the banking crisis, Brexit, and the Covid pandemic, the influx of people into the country shows no signs of abating.
While Westminster seems to have turned a deaf ear to this crucial metric, a handful of MPs and peers, including Migration Watch UK President Lord Green of Deddington, have persistently attempted to raise awareness about its significance. As Iain Martin of The Times astutely observed:
“Someone who deserves credit for predicting this is Lord Green. When the former diplomat founded Migration Watch more than 20 years ago he was dismissed as a racist and mocked for saying that we might have to prepare for an increase in population of two million per decade.”
Martin continues:
“If, as a country, we wanted to do this, he said at the time, politicians should be honest with voters about the implications of adding to the population a number equivalent to a city the size of Birmingham every few years.”
Recent revelations buried within the budget documents shed light on an even steeper rise than previously estimated. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) now predicts an adult population of 57.3 million by the forecast’s end, a million people higher than just four months prior. However, the challenge lies not in merely tallying numbers but in comprehending the profound implications of such rapid demographic shifts – the impact on housing, public services, social cohesion and productivity. As Mr. Martin aptly noted on his social media platform:
| While conventional wisdom touts immigration as an economic boon, enabling labour influx to fuel growth, mounting evidence suggests a more ‘nuanced’ reality. Despite a swelling population, Britain grapples with a productivity crisis, with productivity barely inching up and growth faltering. This raises pertinent questions about the effectiveness of current immigration policies in driving economic prosperity. Over two decades ago, Lord Green forewarned of a potential population surge. His prescient insights now force us to confront the uncomfortable truth: our national policies are conducted in blissful ignorance of the monumental demographic shifts underway. As the discussion around immigration and population growth intensifies, it’s imperative for policymakers to engage in honest dialogue, devoid of ideological biases. Failure to do so risks exacerbating social tensions and exacerbating economic challenges. It’s time for Whitehall and political parties to heed the warnings and engage in a candid examination of the central issue at hand before it’s too late. In a world where numbers rule supreme, ignorance is a luxury we can’t afford. |
| Lord Green speaks out on mass immigration Migration Watch UK President, Lord Green of Deddington, addresses the issue of mass immigration in his recent speech at the House of Lords. His pressing question to the government resonates with us all: How do we confront this significant threat to the future cohesion of our society? |
| Iain Martin, The Times – Here’s the number we can’t afford to ignore “Famously, Britain has a productivity problem. Productivity means producing more economic output with lower inputs, as in less labour and more machinery… Yet in Britain not enough of it is happening. Productivity in the final quarter of last year was 0.3 per cent lower than a year before, according to Office for National Statistics estimates. Productivity is little more than 1 per cent higher than before the pandemic. Growth has been disappointing, with some exceptional years, since the financial crisis — even with a rapidly rising population.” We also liked: Neil O’Brien, Substack – The great immigration disaster |
| MIGRATION WATCH IN THE MEDIA |
| In an article for The Sun, Migration Watch Chairman Alp Mehmet discussed the recent projections by The Office for Budget Responsibility regarding net migration. The forecast for net migration, representing the annual balance of arrivals and departures, has increased by 28% since the previous estimate in the autumn. The OBR anticipates net migration of 315,000 in 2028, significantly lower than the 670,000 recorded last year but still 70,000 higher than the previously assumed figure of 245,000: “Alp Mehmet, from Migration Watch said more arrivals “will mean massive added pressure on services and housing”. He added: “Neither party is being honest about the scale of immigration and its damaging impact on our economy and society.” Former PM David Cameron famously promised to reduce net migration below 100,000. Boris Johnson pledged to get it below 245,000.” Alp was also quoted in The Daily Mail, Daily Express, and GB News. |
| MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD |
| The idealistic belief in an open-door immigration policy as a solution for prosperity and cultural enrichment has been shattered by reality. Recent analyses, like those from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, reveal a grim truth: mass migration isn’t the remedy it was touted to be. Instead of bolstering public services, it strains them, exposing a significant gap between projected benefits and actual costs. The influx of care workers and students exacerbates infrastructure strains and social tensions, rather than alleviating them. With ongoing housing shortages and faltering community cohesion, reevaluating current immigration levels is imperative. To address these concerns, it’s crucial to take action. Reach out to your Member of Parliament and.your concerns are heard. |
| We wouldn’t be able to continue this work without the help of our supporters. If you would like to donate, please click the button below. Our supporters are all as concerned about the future of our country as we are. Some have been kind enough to remember us in their will. If you wish to consider leaving a bequest to Migration Watch UK, or wish to discuss anything else, do please get in touch. Our email is: admin@migrationwatchuk.org |
200 staff employed on full pay for Government rail body… that doesn’t exist
Exclusive
Great British Railways tells i that staff working on other issues surrounding rail as project progress stalls
By Ben Gartside
Senior Reporter
February 25, 2024 12:00 pm(Updated February 26, 2024 9:38 am)
Two hundred staff are employed by the Government on full pay to work for a flagship “Great British Railways” body that still does not officially exist, i can reveal.
Civil servants and consultants have been left “twiddling their thumbs” with some attending as few as one meeting a day because of delays to crucial legislation, sources close to the project claimed.
First put forward by Boris Johnson in 2021, the rail transformation programme was set up to establish Great British Railways (GBR) – a state-owned public body to oversee the train network – but it still has not been formally launched more than two and a half years later.
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The National Audit Office (NAO) watchdog is investigating whether the project is delivering value-for-money and is set to publish in the near future, i has learned.
A Department for Transport (DfT) spokesman said “in reality substantial progress is being made on our plan to deliver rail reform”.
A GBR source claimed that around 200 staff and consultants are employed to work on the rail transformation programme but stressed that only a handful were currently dedicated to the project itself, with the rest helping out with other things at the DfT or Network Rail.
Former prime minister Mr Johnson had planned for the reforms to revolutionise the railways with GBR set to hold responsibility for rail infrastructure and awarding contracts to operate trains, plus improving punctuality and simplifying ticketing.
Read Next
Tory rebel Grant Shapps’s flagship railways project looks set to be scrapped, insiders say
But the project has been slowed by changes of government. i previously revealed that the scheme was set to be scrapped under Liz Truss before it was given a reprieve after Rishi Sunak arrived in No 10.
Legislation for GBR was promised in the King’s Speech in November but a draft bill was only published this week. It is unlikely the legislation will make it on to the statute books before the next general election.
The Government had hoped to launch the organisation officially last year but the delays have seen some staff working on the “transition team” for more than two and a half years.
A Whitehall source said the bulk of GBR was “on the shelf and ready to go” but had been slowed by changes in government and a failure to prioritise it. They said the earliest GBR could be functional would be late 2025, and more realistically 2026.
One insider said that workers have been left with “minimal” to do while they wait for primary legislation to be passed.
They said: “You’ve got a situation where ambitious people are having to sit around and twiddle their thumbs, waiting for legislation to come. Some people have been seconded from other departments, some are even on secondments from other secondments. Minimal work is occurring currently, with some only having one meeting a day.”
“Some staff have considered leaving the project over this, as there’s just so little going on.”
Another said they had quit the organisation, due to the little work being done. They said: “I stopped working there as nothing was happening. It’s not been the focus of ministers whatsoever, as the process has lacked leadership.”
Staff at GBR were trying their best, but had to deal with obstruction from DfT and the Treasury while trying to do their jobs, the source claimed.
They said: “The Department for Transport has a lot of civil servants in Whitehall, already working on and regulating the rail network. The purpose of the reforms was to redesign that model, but it meant that some of those overseeing the reforms were the same people who you may be legislating out of a job.”
Another source close to the project said: “The major error was including the Department for Transport so closely. The Williams review [an independent review of the UK’s railways published in 2021] found the DfT needed to change, and the Government put DfT in charge of completely reorganising their own organisation. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas”.
They said staff on the transition team had decided to cut a number of consultants on the project to try to save taxpayer money when it became apparent the Government had no appetite to progress with the reforms.
Read More https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/staff-full-pay-government-rail-doesnt-exist-2922221
March 9th 2024
Is Britain really in the grip of extremism or mob rule?
Daniel Boffey Chief reporter
Rishi Sunak spoke of a ‘shocking increase in extremist disruption’ – but critics warn voices are being silenced and that the UK’s ‘pluralist tolerance’ is at riskFri 8 Mar 2024 09.40 GMTLast modified on Fri 8 Mar 2024 14.14 GMT
It’s not what anyone would want for a school. As well as educating more than 1,300 children, the teachers at Barclay primary school in Leyton, east London, have been meeting weekly with police to discuss “new evidence of online abuse and criminality”.
A bitter row over whether children may wear pro-Palestinian pins, flags and badges on their uniforms prompted a war of words involving parents, with one protester standing outside the school gates with a placard saying: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. The school even had to close early for the Christmas break amid fears over the wellbeing of staff.
“Do not let the misguided actions of a disaffected few be the reason [the children’s education] is disrupted further,” parents were urged in a letter from the Lion Academy Trust.
To some, the unsettling events at Barclay school, where pupils aged 3 to 11 are taught in what Ofsted described in 2021 as a “friendly” and “outstanding” setting, will be taken as further evidence that Britain has a problem with extremism.
Just as the streets of London are said to have been taken over by protesters threatening “mob rule”, as the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, put it last week, so Barclay school is seen by some as held to ransom by extremists using “malicious misinformation”, as the school has described it.
Another viewpoint is that the events at Barclay school highlight what can happen when people feel they are losing their voice.
The trouble at the school had started when the parents of children who had dressed up in Palestinian colours at a Children in Need day were sent letters threatening referrals to the government’s anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent.
They were told not to use their children as “political pawns”. There were then claims, vehemently denied, that an eight-year-old from a Palestinian family had been “bullied” by staff for refusing to remove a Palestine flag patch from his uniform.
A dark pattern runs through British politics: when the powerful lose control, protesters suffer
Owen Jones
The fact that the school had written to parents in February 2022 to express horror at the events that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to encourage fundraising for humanitarian relief, drew claims of double standards.
But, perhaps more importantly for some parents, events were unfolding in a context where ministers have been making headlines by condemning the pro-Palestine “hate marches”, and most recently condemning “mob rule”.
“The school essentially just made policy up to clamp down [on] pro-Palestinian sentiment of any description,” said one parent, an NHS surgeon who has three children at Barclay primary. “It’s completely from the top. People at Barclay have been allowed to get away with it because it’s endorsed by the UK government.”
Last Friday evening, Sunak made a hastily arranged speech on the steps of Downing Street – an unusual event that signalled gravity and urgency. “In recent weeks and months, we have seen a shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality,” the prime minister declared. “What started as protests on our streets has descended into intimidation, threats and planned acts of violence.”
The comments may have been motivated by death threats against MPs and the recent chaos in parliament over a vote on Gaza – but it was those demonstrating in support of Palestinians under Israeli bombardment that were clearly on his mind. “Don’t let the extremists hijack your marches,” Sunak said.
The intervention seemed to go down well among Conservative backbenchers, and some asked why it had taken so long for the prime minister to speak out. Elsewhere, however, it appears to have prompted a different set of questions.
Is Britain really in the grip of extremists who are “trying to tear us apart”, as the prime minister suggested? Or, instead, is there an attempt to silence certain voices through false conflations of extremism and passionate protest, leading Britain down a dangerous road?
Dame Sara Khan, who was the government’s counter-extremism commissioner and is now carrying out a social cohesion and democratic resilience review for the communities secretary, Michael Gove, is in full agreement with the prime minister that Britain has an extremism problem – but it is nothing new, she suggested.
There was a 2013 government extremism taskforce and a 2015 counter-extremism strategy. Then Khan’s 2021 report, Operating with Impunity, made further calls for action, lamenting the gaps in legislation that allowed neo-Nazi organisations such as Combat 18 to exist and the Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary to allegedly “motivate at least 70-100 people to turn to terrorism”. He was eventually convicted in 2016 for the terror offence of inviting support for the terrorist group Daesh.
But, Khan said, it was vital to be clear about what the government wanted to target – a clarity that was missing in some of the commentary, she suggested.
“I think it’s really important that we don’t conflate those protesters, somehow saying or portraying them as somehow as being all extremists,” she told the Guardian.
“What I’ve been really uncomfortable with over the last couple of weeks is the kind of argument that they’re all Islamist extremists on these demonstrations. I think that’s actually outrageous. Some are not even pro-Palestinian people, just anti-war. There are clearly Jewish people there, there’s a whole range of people there, and to try to frame these demonstrations as Islamist extremism is completely far-fetched and untrue.”
She went on: “It’s about precision of language. If you are not concise about it, you’re just going to further anger people, if you are not listening to what people are saying.”
Claims of rampant criminality at the demonstrations, often attended by hundreds of thousands of people, also appear to be at odds with the facts on the ground. At the last pro-Palestine march in London there were just 12 arrests. This compares with 36 arrests at the Glastonbury music festival in 2023.
According to the Metropolitan police, of the 238 arrests made by police atpro-Palestine protests between October and December last year, only 35 have been charged, while three penalty notices and four cautions were also issued.
Jude Lanchin, a solicitor for Bindmans who has represented 23 people arrested at the protests, said that many of the cases were “questionable and not based on sufficient reasonable suspicion that an offence has actually been committed”.
“Out of 23 cases from October to date, only two of my clients have been charged,” she said. “A number have had the investigation dropped and others are subject to unreasonably long bail periods, although charges are unlikely to be brought. Other clients have been threatened with arrest when their actions clearly do not constitute a criminal offence.”
Sunak had suggested in his Downing Street speech that a dearth of arrests of those at pro-Palestine protests may be due to a lack of rigour by the police.
The Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley this week responded that “to suggest that we are not where the law permits, as the law allows, policing robustly is not accurate”.
The perception of some that the government is seeking to make political capital out of the crisis in Gaza, by drawing dividing lines between those who support the “extremists” offering support for Palestinians, and the rest, has been strengthened by the fact that ministers are expected next week to announce a new definition of extremism, determining the organisations that Whitehall will be prohibited from engaging with.
According to leaked drafts, it will include groups active in “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on intolerance, hatred or violence that aims to undermine the rights or freedoms of others”, including “those who seek to undermine or overturn the UK’s liberal system of democracy and democratic rights”.
It is not a move that Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said he was comfortable with.
Rish! purposefully grips his lectern – but shows he has no grip of the country
John Crace
“If you say a touchstone of British values is, for example, tolerance towards gay people then you end up saying that people who are religiously committed to saying that homosexuality is a sin are extremists,” he said.
“Then you end up creating a situation in which the UK’s … famously pluralist tolerance towards different belief systems is not tolerant towards that belief system. So it’s really hard to try and work out what are the touchstones for British values.”
Among the organisations that the government has suggested will remain in the cold is the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Links were first suspended in 2009 in a row over comments by one its leaders about Gaza. But why aren’t conversations happening now, the organisation asks.
“How can we move past things if you’re not talking to us?” asked Zara Mohammed, who was appointed as the MCB’s first female secretary general three years ago. “I’m a new secretary general, we’re in 2024. What is the issue now? We are the largest and most diverse represented body in the country. Who are you talking to when it comes to Muslims?”
Back at Barclay school, tensions remain high. “There has been no ‘heavy handedness’ towards any religious, cultural or ethnic sector of the broad and diverse community we serve,” a spokesperson for the school said. “The very vast majority of parents are happy to comply with the school’s uniform policy – and only a tiny minority of adults who sought to exploit Children in Need for their political views have caused this disruption.”
Some of the 200 protesting parents have said they are considering taking her children out of the school. Sunak’s comments on the steps of Downing Street had only confirmed to some, they said, that they were not to be permitted a voice.
Sir David Ormand, a former director of GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence, security and cyber agency, who was a key player in designing Britain’s counter-extremism and terrorism strategies in the 2000s, said upset and angst was the goal of the enemies of a multicultural Britain.
“The acid test of Sunak’s statement is, do people now feel less angry?” Ormand said. “Do the people, the communities concerned, feel less frightened [after his speech] and are we all less cynical that the public interest is being sacrificed to party management interests? The answer is probably [he is] failing on all three.”
India Willoughby’s JK Rowling complaint did not meet criminal threshold, police say
Harry Potter author had claimed Willoughby is ‘cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is’ by Kevin E G Perry for The Independent.
Northumbria Police has stated that India Willoughby’s accusation that author JK Rowling misgendered her online did not “meet the criminal threshold”.
Earlier this week, Willoughby, a trans woman and broadcaster, reported the Harry Potter author to the police for calling her a man.
On Sunday, Rowling posted a criticism on X/Twitter of trans women being allowed into women’s changing rooms and mentioned Willoughby in her thread.
The author wrote: “India didn’t become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is.”
In an interview with Byline TV, Willoughby, 58, said of the posts: “JK Rowling has definitely committed a crime.
“I’m legally a woman. She knows I’m a woman and she calls me a man. It’s a protected characteristic.”
Willoughby added that she had contacted Northumbria Police to report Rowling’s comments, which she described as a “hate crime”.
“I don’t know if that’s going to be treated as a hate crime, malicious communications, but it’s a cut-and-dry offence as far as I’m concerned,” she added.
In a statement given to the PA news agency on Friday (8 March), a Northumbria Police spokesperson said: “On Monday, March 4, we received a complaint about a post on social media.
“While we recognise the upset this may have caused, the post was reviewed and did not meet the criminal threshold.
“The complainant has been updated of this.”
After Willoughby announced she had reported Rowling, the author said that Willoughby appeared to have forgotten the Forstater ruling, which “established that gender critical views can be protected in law”.
Maya Forstater successfully brought a case to the Employment Appeal Tribunal to establish that gender-critical views are a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010 in 2021.
Rowling also claimed she was advised previously that she had a legal case against Willoughby for defamation and added that there is no law compelling her to refer to the TV personality as a woman.
She said on X: “Some time ago, lawyers advised me that not only did I have a clearly winnable case against India Willoughby for defamation, but that India’
obsessive targeting of me over the past few years may meet the legal threshold for harassment.
“I ignored this advice because I couldn’t be bothered giving India the publicity he so clearly craves.
“Nevertheless, we must all do our bit to combat hate, so India will be glad to know I’ve taken note of his homophobia, racism and humane stance on immigration.
“Nor have I forgotten India’s shocking transphobia.
“It appears to have slipped what passes for India’s mind that he’s previously called a fellow trans woman a man on this very site.
“Surprisingly for such an eminent legal authority, he appears to have forgotten that the Forstater ruling established that gender-critical views can be protected in law as a philosophical belief.
“No law compels anyone to pretend to believe that India is a woman.
“Aware as I am that it’s an offence to lie to law enforcement, I’ll simply have to explain to the police that, in my view, India is a classic example of the male narcissist who lives in a state of perpetual rage that he can’t compel women to take him at his own valuation.”
Rowling has faced repeated criticism in recent years over her views on transgender rights, saying previously that she would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.
Additional reporting by Press Association
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J K Rowling’s Ever Exrending Fantasy World by R J Cook
Comment J K Rowling is a right one to call India Willoughby obsessive and defamatory. She has deliberately confused transsexuals with transveestites, appears obsessed with the weird idea that modern Western women are so desirable – in spite of so many EDF men needing Viagra – that men will go to any extreme to get into ladies toilets rest and locker rooms to sexually assault and rape them. Every effort is being made to boost rape convictions on the basis that women never lie and that Statute of Limitations must never apply because it may take some women years to overcome their modesty and shyness before complaining. Evidence is no match for a woman’s word.
It seems to me that there should be a whole new approach to CIS males outing themselves as mtf transsexuals, if we are to follow fantasy writer Rowling’s TERF Diktat. Any such gender confused person, presenting themselves as women, should immediately be arrested by the PLODS and put on the Sex Offenders’ Register as people who probably committed historic rape or thought about doing it and intended to do so in the future. Of course, in fairness, women wearing male clothes, short male hair cuts, especially close cropped, should be suspected as lesbian and treated with suspecion if they enter ladies toilets and rest rooms.
Ironically, bearing all of this in mind, it should be no wonder that increasing numbers of men are seeking sex change. Many school boys are told they must control their natural instincts and be more like girls. Too many men are products of broken homes, brought up by divorced or single mothers or running away from modern wives and harridan women. According to modern equality law, these men have no equivalent protection to females protected gender philopsphy and status. With feminist extremists so rampant, there are also many men seeking transsexual women as an alernative to slave status and being a divorce cash cow for modern women who want more laws to protect them from scrutiny, criticism and accountabilty.
Rowling is undoutedly a very clever woman wrapping up this vile attack on white men in general as protecting women from men in women’s clothes. Her persistent utterings and writings on gender are riddled with the same convuluted intrigue, devils , demons and monsters that we find in her epic Harry Potter series about the righteous ones bravely fighting forces of darkness. This is her mindset. She is the author of an ever extending fantasy world where she must never be exposed as the evil one. Anyone who tries will be exterminated or locked up by the power of her magic money and her little narrow minded deferential elves -aka the police.
In Rowling’s Potter fantasy, the ugly Lord Voldemort represents the worst of men and their Dark Magic Harry defends the good High Magic. He is everything a new female user friendly man should be. In hernew fantasy world, Rowling is the Queen of all women fighting for their freedom, true consciousness and self actualisation in a war against what she thinks men are if they are not reined in by rampant hectoring limiting feminism.
In this new fantasy story, Transsexuals are the ever expanding dark force that all women must heed her warning. The transsexuals so called women, must be outed and not subject to hasassment laws. Their camouflage must be stripped away. Being a woman is the mark of the blessed chosen ones. They are nature’s mothers when not busy with careers and finding themselves. They must lead the way to a New World on the Moral High Ground. Like ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, facing the Wolf who is pretending to be her grandmother, he must be stripped of his female clothing and dealt with as the wild evil male threatening animal that he is.
If what Rowling has said about their being no law that compels her or anyone else to call mtf transsexuals women, then that has devastating consequences for transsexuals. This is effectively a call to anti trans action. It means it is perfectly legal to hound transwomen to suiciide, justify verbal and written abuse – and ultimately give energy and self justification to the type of disturbed bigots who brutally murdered 16 year old trans girl Brianna Ghay last year. Organisations like NHS Tavistock Trust and the London Gender Identity Clinic need to warn their patients or clients of this new risk to their lives as adumbrated by J K Rowling. The law must be urgently ammended to protect trans women from Rowling like bigotry or sex change be totally outlawed with its agencies immediately closed down. If it is accepted that there is no such thing as female brains in male bodies, then those incriminated agencies must forfeit a mass of public money to help their misguided victims cope with the psychologcal, social and material damage to their lives . It is a very simple equation.
R J Cook.
March 6th 2024
February 29, 2024
BBC upholds complaint against Today presenter Justin Webb for saying trans women are males
The executive complaints unit ruling has been discussed with Webb and the Today team.
The BBC has upheld a complaint against Today presenter Justin Webb after he said “trans women, in other words males”.
Webb made the comment during a discussion about new International Chess Federation (FIDE) guidelines on 22 August last year regarding whether being biologically male can give players an advantage in the game.
A listener complained that the comment amounted to Webb giving his personal view on a controversial matter in breach of the BBC’s requirements on impartiality.
The BBC‘s executive complaints unit said, in a ruling published on Thursday, that it was not in a position to determine Webb’s personal opinion on the issue but that it was not necessary to do so in order to judge whether he had breached impartiality rules.
It said: “The ECU understood Mr Webb’s intention in using the phrase ‘trans women, in other words males’ was to underline the question arising from the FIDE guidelines but noted a press line issued at the time included an acknowledgement that his phrasing did not convey an entirely accurate impression.
Deplorable Double Standards by R J Cook
Comment The BBC is the State Broadcaster crucial to the very divided nation’s mythical democracy and shared values. There is no doubt that U.K mainstream media bosses and minions share values – hypocrisy and elite greed being high on their list- which we are legally obliged to accept as our own or face the consequences.
The children of the late BBC news presenter Peter Woods have welcomed Radio 4 presenter Justin Webb into their family after he revealed he was their secret half-brother.
The 64-year-old Today programme host, Webb, made contact with Guy and Susan Woods to inform them before he publicly disclosed he was the lovechild of the respected 1970s broadcaster in a Radio Times article.
London School of Economics graduate Webb, whose radio colleague John Humphrys used to work alongside Woods as a young reporter, said Webb had no contact with his late father apart from a brief encounter at the age of six months.
Woods was already married when Webb was conceived with Gloria Crocombe, a secretary at the Daily Mirror where they both worked. She was sacked for getting pregnant and gave birth in 1961.
Earlier this week, Webb hosted a BBC U.S Presidential Election campaign documentary ( sic ) where , as a matter of opinion, he stated that Trump was lying when he said that the 2020 election campaign was rigged by election tampering. Webb was not constrained to produce evidence for his shared mainstream elite media prejudice. Webb , like his fellow media and political elite ensured Trump was portrayed as an insurrectionist as a matter of fact. There was no mention of Hilary Clinton’s demented 2016 speech to the nation, urging Democrat supporters not to accept Trump’s victory. She even wrote a book. The global western media were at one with their shared values to get Trump and they haven’t stopped. The double standard is deplorable.
R J Cook
March 5th 2024
What would happen if Russia nuked UK?
A concerted nuclear strike by Russian ICBMs would pretty much wipe UK out. Geographically, the UK is a quite small, fairly compact target that wouldn’t take much more than one or two SSBNs’-worth of missiles to saturate.7 Sept 2023
‘I’m asking for it’: Calls for law change to require ‘clear yes’ to sex
Activists want the courts to ask if there was ‘enthusiastic consent’ in sexual violence cases
Campaigners want the law to specify a need for ‘affirmative consent’
CPB Group
Jordan King18 hours ago
People should be required to make sure they have a “clear yes” before any sexual activity, lawyers and activists have said.
A new campaign named “I’m Asking For It” was launched on Monday, calling for the Government to enshrine “affirmative consent” into British law.
This would mean “anything less than a clear, uncoerced, and informed confirmation of consent like ‘yes’ cannot qualify as consent in the eyes of the law”.
Dr Charlotte Proudman, the barrister whose organisation Right to Equality is behind the campaign, said changing the law would shift the focus in sexual violence cases.
She told The Standard: “Instead of scrutinising the actions of the victim all the time, we need to scrutinise the actions of the alleged rapist – we need to look at what they’ve done, what steps they’ve taken.
“A lot of victims describe feeling blamed by the system, disbelieved, some of them are turned away, others feel gaslit.
“That’s because all of the questions are about what they allowed to happen to them instead of: ‘How did he make sure she enthusiastically wanted to have sex?’.”
Dr Charlotte Proudman the barrister behind the campaign
Charlotte Proudman
The current law does require that both people involved need to have given consent but Right to Equality believes “the public isn’t always clear about what consent means”.
Dr Proudman explained the difference between the current law and what she wants to change, when she said: “Affirmative consent is actually making clear that that the question needs to have been asked.
Read More
Unseen photos of Sarah Everard released by her family for BBC documentary
Hunt for man who masturbated in front of woman on Elizabeth Line
“Did she want to have sex? Was it wanted sex rather than assuming it was consensual or because she was there and present and wasn’t too drunk?
“It would put the onus on defendants to show how she consented, if she wanted to have sex, if she was asked if she wanted to have sex, what steps did she take to make sure that she was wanting to have sex and was enthusiastic about it.”
Ellie Wilson, 26, has frequently spoken out about how getting her rapist convicted in 2022 was a “second trauma”.
She was raped by her boyfriend Daniel McFarlane while they were students at Glasgow University and even had a text message and voice recording of him saying he had done it.
And yet, she “felt like she was on trial” and had to prove “that she had adequately resisted”, she told The Standard.
She said: “There was a really brutal defence questioning that made me wonder: ‘Am I responsible for what happened to me because I didn’t say no? Was me crying not enough?’.”
Ellie Wilson waived her right to anonymity to raise awareness about the issues sexual violence victims face with the justice system
Ellie Wilson
Ms Wilson, who is now a justice reform activist, said an affirmative consent requirement would have changed her experience because it would “send a societal message” and “limit the sort of things that defence lawyers can argue”.
The last few years have seen the difficulties rape victims face in this country laid bare, with former Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird saying rape was effectively being “decriminalised” in 2020.
Official statistics from 2022 showed that less than two per cent of all rapes reported to police resulted in prosecutions.
This improved slightly in the year that followed, with the latest figures showing a 2.4 per cent prosecution rate – still just two in 100 alleged rapes resulting in someone being charged.
Dr Proudman believes introducing an affirmative consent model would improve these figures in the criminal courts and in family courts where she often works.
She cited survivors who “had to go through hell” to “prove they did not consent” to get a conviction who “would probably not have had to go through that level of scrutiny” if the affirmative consent approach was adopted. 
The I’m Asking For It campaign was launched on Monday
CPB Group
The UK’s laws on rape and consent are already considered to be progressive as its current definition is penetration without consent, as opposed to a definition which requires force, coercion or threat like in Italy or France.
But it is not just the physical legislation that Dr Proudman wants to change.
She thinks bringing in an affirmative consent requirement would “profoundly” change social attitudes about sex and consent, having knock-on effects in education, the workplace and beyond.
I’m Asking For It is calling on the public to sign its petition so its proposals will end up debated in Parliament – this needs 100,000 signatures.
The Standard has contacted The Ministry of Justice for comment.
Comment The logic of this campaign is to make men automatically guilty because the court is meant to assume that women are never vindictive and never lie. Men need to understand the risks. The law should require no sex between couples who have not known each other for less than one year – properly notarised as an engagement. Sexual activity should be divided into five minute intervals to check on the females comfort level and ongoing comfort. Men should carry a portable black box as the only evidence of enthusiastic consent. A female’s word cannot automatically be taken as truth. It would also create a more stable environment for procreation and family life. These stringent laws would also inhibit home wrecking workplace predators preying on bored, frustrated and resentful married women. Viagra should be banned on health grounds because it is basically a rape drug on the basis that women have a right to sex. Sex is an over rated pastime with women forcing men to perform and indulge their fantasies of desirablity.
R J Cook
March 4th 2024
JK Rowling deliberately misgenders trans activist India Willoughby
Rowling and Willoughby have clashed over trans views in the past
JK Rowling is facing backlash again after deliberately misgendering trans activist India Willoughby.
The Harry Potter author has faced repeated criticism in recent years over her views on transgender rights, saying previously that she would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.
On Sunday (3 March), Rowling shared a lengthy tirade against the idea of trans women being allowed in female locker rooms, writing: “When men – all men, however they identify – are banned from women’s spaces, those who disregard the ban can be challenged, inside the space and out.”
Rowling responded to a Twitter/X user who sent her a video of Willoughby, with the user asking: “Hi Joanne, so you are saying this lady should use the men’s locker room then?!”
In response, Rowling wrote: “You’ve sent me the wrong video. There isn’t a lady in this one, just a man revelling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks ‘woman’ means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist.”
“If India Willoughby is a ‘misogynist’ why did she become a woman? Think,” the user replied.
Rowling wrote back: “India didn’t become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is.”
Willoughby is Britain’s first transgender newsreader and the first transgender co-host of an all-women talk show, Loose Women on ITV.
Willoughby responded to Rowling’s comments on Monday, writing on X: “Genuinely disgusted by this. Grotesque transphobia, which is upsetting. I am every bit as much a woman as JK Rowling. Recognised in law, and by everyone I interact with every day. The debate about whether JK Rowling is a transphobe is over.”https://d-305705762656444584.ampproject.net/2402141842000/frame.html
In a separate tweet, Rowling added: “Accurately sexing trans-identified men who send misogynistic abuse to women is not discrimination. ‘Man’ is not a slur. I know a lot of you think the UN should intervene whenever women bruise your egos, but there is no human right to universal validation.”
Willoughby took the row a step further by later tweeting: “If I ever get murdered, you know who to blame. #StochasticTerrorism.” Stochastic terrorism refers to when popular figures publicly demonise a person or group in such a way that inspires their supporters to commit a violent act against the target of the speech.
This is not the first time the pair have clashed over gender views. In January last year, Willoughby tweeted: “I’m more of a woman than JK Rowling will ever be”.
This was screenshotted and shared by the Harry Potter author, who captioned it with “citation needed”.
Last week, Rowling hit out at Sky News for referring to murderer Scarlet Blake as a woman in its reporting.
How do you solve a problem like Ashfield MP Lee Anderson ? Islam Is To Be Protected As A Race.
| How do you solve a problem like Lee…? Ashfield MP Lee Anderson was suspended from the Tory party on Sunday after refusing to apologise for saying Islamists had “got control” over London mayor Sadiq Khan. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Mr. Anderson’s remarks “weren’t acceptable, they were wrong” and withdrew the whip. As Mr Anderson himself has admitted, his words were “clumsy”. Or, as Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg put it, “infelicitous” but that he should not have had the party whip withdrawn. Meanwhile, the media went into meltdown; what would Lee Anderson do now, would he apologise, will the whip be reinstated, or would he defect to Reform? Fascinating as all this is, whether Mr Anderson should apologise or not and what he does now is a matter for him. All we would say is that we should not allow ourselves to be distracted and diverted away from the underlying issue. As our President and founder, Lord Green, put it in a (unpublished) letter to The Times this week on the public’s concerns about what is happening in the Middle East: “They may also be concerned about the scale of demonstrations on the streets of Britain. One aspect of this is our rapidly growing Muslim population. Since the 2001 census when religion was first asked [in the census], the Muslim population of the UK has more than doubled from 3 million to 6.5 million in 2021. The time has surely come to recognise the wider political and social impact of the large-scale immigration that is now taking place.” What is also clear is that notwithstanding his “infelicitous” language, Mr Anderson reflected the views and sentiment of millions of people up and down the land. What the brouhaha has also highlighted is the stark disconnect between the political class and the everyday concerns and feelings of ordinary people – something Mr Anderson understands perfectly. No doubt Mr Anderson’s ten years in the pits of Nottinghamshire, brings a unique perspective to the political arena. He understands the true duties of a parliamentarian, and he’s not afraid to speak his mind, even if it means ruffling feathers. His directness and honesty are qualities that should be celebrated, not punished. |
| UK immigration system in chaos as foreign workers surge Messrs Sunak and Cleverly are facing a fresh wave of criticism over the UK’s immigration policies after it was revealed this week that a record 1.4 million long-term visas were granted last year. The surge in visas was driven by a staggering 46 per cent increase in foreign workers, with a total of 616,371 work-related visas granted. Almost half of these visas were granted to dependants of workers. The number of care workers granted visas tripled last year to 105,881, as care homes took advantage of lax visa rules to hire from overseas. The Home Office figures for 2023, published on Thursday, also showed that a total of 605,504 students and their dependants were granted visas last year. The Home Office has insisted that the numbers will start falling once a series of measures announced in December take effect. However, Suella Braverman, who was Home Secretary from late 2022 until November 2023, said the government must go significantly further to reduce immigration and avoid putting unsustainable pressure on public services. Ms. Braverman is right. Our legal migration system has spiralled out of control. We were promised post-Brexit that the government would “take back control” of immigration, but instead, they’ve handed the reins to employers, universities, and special interest groups. In 2010 and in every general election since, Conservative governments’ promised to reduce net migration to “tens of thousands.” In 2019 we were told that the new points-based system would control and reduce immigration – Migration Watch said that the loose system being introduced would do the opposite. Hundreds of thousands of visas are being handed out like confetti. The British public feels betrayed by a government good at pulling the wool over the eyes of voters – talking tough but delivering little. People are fed up with being taken for granted and being misled about government priorities. |
| Migration Watch relies entirely on the generosity of our supporters who fund our work. If you would like to help us with our efforts, please click here to donate. |
Britain doesn’t need a sick king The monarch’s divine identity is starting to unravel
| Monarchy Britain doesn’t need a sick king The monarch’s divine identity is starting to unravel TERRY EAGLETON |
| Censorship Centrist McCarthyism is taking hold It is far more dangerous than its Cold War version MICHAEL LIND |
| Weekend report |
| Will Tower Hamlets follow Rochdale? Local politicians are enflaming racial tensions |
How universities killed the academic Flamboyant brilliance has been purged
Is it possible to write a satirical campus novel anymore? Satire requires exaggeration and the pointed introduction of absurdity, but it is hard to see how modern university life could be further embellished in these respects. As usual, there were some classic stories served up this week for civilians to laugh at.
In the Daily Mail we read that policies at Glasgow University and Imperial College London now direct staff and students to avoid the phrase “the most qualified person should get the job” because this counts as a microaggression. Over in the US, yet another professor resplendent in beadwork and buckskin has admitted to falsely claiming possession of Native American ancestry. And an article just out in the Applied Linguistics Review provides a brand new excuse to lazy researchers: the requirement of a literature review in some disciplines imposes “particular configurations of privileged knowledge” amounting to an “enactment of symbolic violence”. Or, at least, that’s what students will be telling linguistics lecturers from now on.
| Campus wars How universities killed the academic Flamboyant brilliance has been purged KATHLEEN STOCK |
March 1st 2024
War Cry by R J Cook
The following reports on PM Rishi Sunak recent Downing Street diktat should alarm any thinking person not looking to profit from the war mongering set up that is western style democracy.
Mega rich English public school and Oxbridge educated Sunak’s smarmy words are meant to persuade the ignorant masses that any one can be anything they want to be in the U.K so long as they work hard and only ever protest peacefully. He boasts the virtues of a multi faith society, rolling back years of struggle to replace religious bigotry and hypocrisy with a secular society. Now those of us who seek to write the truth must pass the sensitivity reader’s test and power of State vested interests.
George Galloway’s not so surprising victory in the Rochdale by election has triggered Sunak’s and Labour leader Starmer’s paranoia that revolution is in the air. This paranoia runs deep in the smug Westminster excuse for democracy and the wider western world of fake democracy. Sunak is setting us up for more laws and lockdown as open war with Russia seems ever more likely.
My only issue with Galloway is that he sees his victory as for Gaza. No doubt that is why the Muslim majority of the 39% who bothered to vote, won him the seat. It is a pity that he doesn’t think his victory is to help some of the poorest, mainly white people, in his new constituency. That attitude is precisely the reason why working class white people across Europe, favour what white liberals patronisingly call ‘the far right.’
As much as Galloway praises multi culture, it should be obvious that Muslims believe that they possess the ultimate truth, as do TERF feminists and their leading voices, like J K Rowling. Rowling’s hate speech empowers those who wish to harm transsexuals. We live in a multi culture where the ‘unis’ , with feminist products, pander to the lowest common denominator.
Meanwhile, Sunak and later Starmer will stifle intelligent protest and dissident journalism, as their ilk have done with Julian Assange, by passing more repressive female empowering laws, and ultimate lockdown, in the run up to the hot war that will put millions of us out of our misery.
R J Cook
Sunak’s attempt to calm tensions – while taking aim at Britain’s newest MP
Leila Nathoo
Political correspondent
This was a hastily arranged speech from the prime minister on the steps of Downing Street.
He had already given his response to the Rochdale by-election – saying this afternoon to broadcasters that the campaign had been one of the most divisive in recent times and praising the Tory candidate’s positive message.
But only a few hours later he decided to take aim at Rochdale’s democratically elected MP George Galloway, saying his victory was “beyond alarming”.
There was tough rhetoric on extremism, warnings of “hostile forces … trying to tear us apart” – but no repeat of the phrase “mob rule” that he’d used in a statement following a meeting with police on Wednesday at No 10.
Instead there was a reference to “small groups” hijacking protests, he was careful to reference both Islamist and far-right extremism, as well as calling out antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred.
There was little mention of policy beyond a message to police that he would back them taking action at protests.
An attempt perhaps to reach out, to calm tensions – and taking on Britain’s newest MP in the process.
Here are some key points from the PM’s address outside No 10:
He used the Friday evening address to warn that democracy is being targeted by extremists.
“Forces here at home trying to tear us apart,” he said.
He warned about the current situation in Britain, in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel.
“In recent weeks and months, we have seen a shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality,” he said.
He also said the victory of George Galloway in the Rochdale by-election was “beyond alarming”.
The PM said the government would set out a framework for policing protests, adding that ministers would back police when they take action.
Britons must face down the extremists, Sunak says
Rounding off his remarks, Sunak says “we must face down the extremists” who he says would “tear us apart”.
The PM says standing up to this kind of hatred will give Britons “a renewed sense of pride”, adding: “This is our home.”
We must move forward together, he says, “confident in our values and confident in our future”.
And with that, the PM leaves the podium and re-enters No 10.
Galloway responds to Sunak statement
We’ll bring you a summary of what Rishi Sunak said soon – but before then, George Galloway has just responded to what the prime minister said about him.
The newly-elected Rochdale MP says he “abhors extremism” and that “change can only come through the democratic process”.
Speaking to Channel 5, Galloway hits back at Sunak for saying he was endorsed by Nick Griffin, former leader of the far-right British National Party.
“I’m not responsible for whoever declares they endorse me,” Galloway insists. “I’ve never met Mr Griffin and have no intention to”.
‘We must not descend into polarised camps’
“It is not enough to live side by side, we must live together united by shared values, and a shared commitment to this country,” the PM says.
He is now turning his attention to directly address people who have been protesting in recent weeks, asking them to not allow the extremists to “hijack” their demonstrations. “We must live together with those who protest – don’t let the extremists hijack your marches.
“Protest decently,” he says, and “with empathy for your fellow citizens”.
“Let us prove these extremists wrong, and show that even when we disagree we will never be disunited from our common values of decency and respect.”
“I love this country,” the prime minister says, before asking the country to “stand together” and “combat the forces of division”.
Junior doctors’ strike: Thousands more NHS appointments cancelled
By Aurelia Foster
Health reporter
More than 91,000 NHS appointments had to be rescheduled due to this week’s junior doctors’ strike in England.
British Medical Association (BMA) members took industrial action for five days in their 10th strike since last March in a dispute over pay.
More than 23,000 staff were absent due to the strike, NHS England says.
There have now been 1,000 hours of disruption to routine care because of industrial action by junior doctors and consultants, it says.
More than 1.4 million operations and appointments in total have been cancelled because of strike action by health workers including doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals since December 2022.
The junior doctors’ walkout this week affected critical care, neonatal care, maternity, and trauma units in hospitals across England. It meant senior doctors had to be drafted across from other services to staff emergency care.
The NHS’s national medical director Prof Sir Stephen Powis said: “NHS staff worked incredibly hard to keep patients safe and cover striking colleagues, and we are extremely grateful for their huge efforts and for the time and skill that went into the planning.”
The strike was among members of the BMA, which wants a 35% pay increase – a proposal previously rejected by ministers.
Junior doctors have so far taken 39 days of strike action during this dispute.
Nearly half of NHS doctors are junior doctors – a group spanning recent graduates to some who have 10 or more years experience – and two-thirds are members of the BMA.
NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare employers, said it was patients who “bear the brunt” of the dispute.
“It is important to remember that behind every number is a patient who may be living in pain or discomfort waiting for treatment that could turn their lives around,” said chief executive Matthew Taylor.
Pay deal
The union said more strikes are likely unless a deal is made with the government on pay.
Junior doctors received a pay rise averaging nearly 9% this financial year – and during talks at the end of last year, the option of an extra 3% on top of that was discussed.
But those talks ended in early December without a deal being reached.
The BMA says it wants an offer that makes up for what it says has been 15 years of below-inflation pay rises.
The union is balloting members on further strike action, with a result expected at the end of this month.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said: “Now that this latest round of industrial action is over, I once again urge the BMA Junior Doctors’ Committee to demonstrate they have reasonable expectations so we can come back to the negotiating table to find a fair deal that works for the NHS, doctors and patients.”
Junior doctors in Wales also recently held a strike, while in Northern Ireland they are planning to strike in early March.
Earlier, the BMA rejected a pay offer for specialist, associate specialist and specialty doctors in England – very experienced doctors who are more senior than junior doctors, but who are not consultants.
‘I reported my officer ex for abuse and was arrested’
Nicola Goodwin
BBC Midlands Investigations team
- Published6 hours ago
A woman who called 999 to report her police officer ex-partner for domestic abuse ended up being arrested herself and spent 18 hours in a cell.
Eva, not her real name, believes the West Mercia officer set up her arrest to stop her reporting him for both psychological and financial abuse.
Around the time she reported him a female officer he had been in a relationship with made similar allegations against him, the BBC has learned.
West Mercia Police said her arrest was being reviewed but the conduct of the officer in both cases has not been investigated and no criminal offence has been committed.
However, the BBC has also spoken to two other women who had been in a relationship with the officer and both said they had similar experiences of abuse.
In 2022, 15 West Mercia officers faced disciplinary hearings – five for sexual misconduct. Of the 15, three were sacked and four resigned before they were dismissed.
‘Saw me as a slave’
For Eva, things started well with the officer when they met in January 2022 and started a relationship.
Within three months they decided to buy a house together. But almost immediately she said his behaviour changed.
“He saw me as someone that could pay for his lifestyle,” she said.
“He didn’t see me as a human being, he saw me as a slave.”
The following October, Eva ended their relationship but they both had to remain living in the house while it was being sold.
A month later, she reported him to the police for harassing her and abusing her, both verbally and financially.
While the situation she was in was “deeply unpleasant”, the West Mercia force maintained no criminal offence had been committed by the officer.
At the same time, the female officer had reported him for abuse and coercive control.
However, the force said his service was deemed acceptable and no disciplinary hearing was required.
‘I didn’t know what I’d done’
Eva said that in December 2022, she rang 999 after becoming scared, but on the arrival of officers she was arrested on suspicion of assault.
She is convinced her ex-partner used his role as an officer to get her arrested and out of their house.
“I was crying. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve being there. I didn’t know what he said to them,” said Eva.
“All I knew was that he was a monster to do such a thing to me because I didn’t do anything.”
She was later bailed but was told she could not return to their home for four weeks.
The investigation was later dropped when the officer withdrew an allegation he had made against her.
One of the other women the BBC has spoken to about the officer said he should not be in the police.
“They undergo training and they’re aware of what’s expected of them. He shouldn’t be wearing the badge,” she said.
And another of the officer’s former partners has told us that she’s still scared of him.
Police and Crime Commissioner John Campion said he understood some victims of domestic abuse do not feel comfortable reporting their experiences to the police.
Superintendent Mo Lansdale, head of West Mercia Police Professional Standards, said: “We take reports of police perpetrated domestic abuse incredibly seriously and fully investigate all incidents without fear or favour.”
Eva is not reassured. Her ex has since been promoted within the force.
“He uses his power. I don’t think the police helped me,” she said.
“When I phoned asking for help no-one came to help me. They came and arrested me.”
Comment I am all too well aware what lies and criminality West Mercia Police are capable of. It is routine for police bosses to promote dubious officers out of harms way. It is one of their ways of putting two fingers up to the public. They close ranks and are quite happy to destroy lives in the process.
R J Cook
Wayne Couzens: How three police forces botched opportunities to stop Sarah Everard’s murderer
By Judith Burns
BBC News home affairs
The three police forces that the officer who murdered Sarah Everard worked for had multiple opportunities to stop him, but none were taken, an inquiry has found.
There were failures in police recruitment, Wayne Couzens’ vetting and investigations, and “red flags about his unsuitability for office” went unnoticed, according to the Angiolini Inquiry.
Ultimately these failures meant Couzens “could enjoy the powers and privileges” of being a police officer and “he went on to use his knowledge of police powers to falsely arrest Sarah Everard”, said Lady Elish Angiolini in her statement at the launch of the report.
First vetting failure over debt
The first instance highlighted by the report was when Couzens failed to pass his vetting for a full officer post with Kent Police in 2008 due to a large debt. He was already a special constable (a volunteer police officer) with the force and despite not passing the vetting, he was allowed to remain in his role.
- Sarah killer should not have been in Met – inquiry
- How a police officer planned Sarah Everard’s murder
- Wayne Couzens: Did indecent exposure warn of murder?
Second vetting failure two years later
Couzens was vetted again in 2010 when he applied for a full officer post with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary – the armed police force in charge of protecting civil nuclear sites and nuclear materials. Thames Valley Police conducted the vetting and recommended he should not pass due to his financial situation but the recommendation was ignored.
Indecent exposure report
By the time he applied to join the Metropolitan Police in 2018, Couzens had been reported to Kent Police for allegedly indecently exposing himself while at the wheel of a car in Dover in 2015.
The vehicle was identified as being registered to Couzens but there were no charges and despite an entry on the police national database, he was able to pass his Metropolitan Police vetting three years later.
Lady Elish described this as “a grave error”.
“By failing to properly investigate the allegation, Kent Police missed a valuable opportunity to disrupt or even prevent Couzens’ future offending,” she said.
Cyclist reports indecent exposure
In 2020, a female cyclist reported a case of indecent exposure and masturbation in a narrow country lane but with limited investigation, the case was closed.
In her report, Lady Elish said that “had the investigation been more thorough, it is possible that Couzens might have been identified as an alleged sex offender and his offending and policing career disrupted”.
Indecent exposures at McDonald’s drive-through
In 2021, days before Ms Everard was murdered, Couzens twice exposed himself at a McDonald’s drive-through, but again the investigation failed. He used his own credit card to pay and was driving his own car.
Lady Elish said the police investigations into these indecent exposure allegations in 2020 and 2021 “fell below the standards any victim of crime should expect”.
Couzens was only interviewed and charged for these offences after his murder conviction. In the end he was convicted of the crimes at the drive-through and of the offence towards the cyclist.
“Those offences were treated as low-level by the investigating officers. Decisions to close some cases were taken early with minimal investigation,” said Lady Elish.
Five more incidents of indecent exposure not reported to police
The inquiry received evidence of at least five other incidents of indecent exposure which were not reported to police.
“It has become clear that Couzens’ terrible crimes were not committed in isolation but were the culmination of a trajectory of sexually motivated behaviour and offending,” says the report.
The report lays much of the blame at police culture, saying Couzens’ crimes “sit on the same continuum” as sexist and misogynistic behaviour.
Lady Elish warned that without a significant overhaul in policing “there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plan sight”.
Comment It is police routine to close down complaints without investigation or lying that they have done one, dismissing them with the stock phrase : “Your complaint is a vexatious abuse of the complaints system and I am applying to the IOPC for a dispensation.”
R J Cook
| George Galloway |
| Rochdale has already lost this election None of the candidates will save the desperate town |
Rochdale is a terrible place to live. I spent time there in the late Nineties reporting on the grooming gangs and found a toxic mix of self-serving politicians, poor policing, grinding hardship and failing social services. The borough has one of the highest child poverty rates in the whole of the UK, and the council was variously described as “a disgrace” and “not fit for purpose” by unimpressed residents.
Rochdale has one of the highest child poverty rates in the UK
Date published: 06 June 2023
Photo: NSPCC
37% of children and young people in Greater Manchester are living in poverty, the equivalent of a staggering 11 children in a classroom of 30
More than 40% of children in the Rochdale borough are living in poverty, new figures have revealed, making it one of the areas with the highest child poverty rates in the whole of the UK.
The End Child Poverty Coalition launched its annual child poverty statistics for the UK, this week revealing child poverty levels at a local authority and Westminster constituency level.
This research, carried out by Loughborough University on behalf of the coalition, shows that 37% of children and young people in Greater Manchester are living in poverty, the equivalent of a staggering 11 children in a classroom of 30.
In the Rochdale borough, this increases to 40.5% – or 12 children in a classroom of 30 – meaning Rochdale has the 20th highest level of child poverty in the UK.
Of the 20 local authorities in the UK with the highest child poverty rates, four are in London, nine in the north (four in Greater Manchester, four in Lancashire and one in North Yorkshire), with the remaining seven local authorities located in the East and West Midlands.
The Rochdale constituency itself (excluding Heywood and Middleton) has one of the highest 10 child poverty rates in Greater Manchester with 44.8% of children living in poverty – a 5.3% increase from 2015-22.
By comparison, the child poverty rate in Heywood and Middleton is 33.3% – a 2.8% increase from 2015-22.
Across the North West as a whole, the number of children living in poverty has seen a worrying increase in the last 7 years, rising 5.4 percentage points since 2014/15. During this time, child poverty only rose by one percentage point across the UK.
Nationally, the cost-of-living crisis has driven up the number of children experiencing poverty to 4.2 million last year (29 per cent of all dependent children aged 0-19), with an increasing number living in working households. Some 71 per cent of them live in households where at least one adult works.
Commenting on the figures, Graham Whitham, End Child Poverty Coalition spokesperson and CEO of Greater Manchester Poverty Action said: “These new figures are shocking but not surprising. Child poverty rates have been rising in Greater Manchester for a number of years, and government failure to adequately support people means there is no safety net when something like the pandemic or cost-of living crisis hit.
“Crisis responses and temporary sticking plasters are very clearly not working, and the UK government has no plan or strategy to address poverty. We need to see real policy change that protects and supports our poorest households, such as ending the two-child limit on benefits.
“While many of the main drivers to tackle poverty lie with central government, there are ways we can reduce poverty locally. We urge employers across Greater Manchester to pay the Real Living Wage, which reflects the real cost of living in a way that the statutory minimum set by government doesn’t.
“We also encourage local authorities to develop anti-poverty strategies which implement robust responses to poverty, and to use the Household Support Fund to give families money rather than in kind support such as food parcels and energy vouchers.”
Rochdale MP, Sir Tony Lloyd, has signed a signing a Parliamentary motion calling for the government to act on recommendations made by the Child of the North All-Party Parliamentary Groups’ report on Child Poverty and the Cost of Living Crisis.
The report warns that increasing child poverty and cost of living pressures has pushed vulnerable families in the north of England to the edge.
February 29th 2024
They Are The Law – by R J Cook
Fantasy writer turned Crime Writer J K Rowking has an interesting obsession with transsexuals. She is back again, jumping at the chance of portraying all transsexuals as perverts, rapists and murderers. So out she comes with the line that Scarlet Blake’s vile crimes are ‘not our crimes.’ By this she means they are not the sort of crimes a cis female would commit – but all men could. There are too many examples to the contrary to list against this same old Rowling precious bigotry. Suffice it to say that the terrible murder of trans teenager Brianna Ghey is testament to the evil that teen female Scarlett Jenkinson proved capable of.
It is implicit in Rowling’s latest attack on us trans people that all of us are implicated in the case of the Scarlet Blake atrocities. It is also implicit that Rowling sees women as all part of a benign blob at the mercy of a blob of evil violent men. It also appears to be the case that Rowling seems oblivious of the fact that Blake is a member of an ethnic minority. This is because to say so would be the sort of hate crime Rowling needs to avoid. But hate crimes, like the one her attitude spreads and threatens genuine trans females, had much to do with Blake organising and helping to execute in the grotesque murder of young Brianna, are acceptable. The moronic masses with a worthless excuse for identity are vulnerable to the media amplified pronouncements of the person who gave the world ‘Harry Potter.’
Nor does Rowling wish to confront the reality that Scarlet Blake has had no bona fide expert assessment or transsexual treatment. Thus, Blake has unfettered male genitals and the testosterone to go with it. Theresa May and her Scottish PM, Nicola Sturgeon, counterpart trivialised sex change by making it a matter of self identification – effectively defining a delusional state of mind. This suits bigots like Rowling. The success of her dreadful stereotypical violence filled Potter books is testament to the nation and wider western world’s poor literary tastes. Rowling’s crime books also pander to her prejudice where a trans man in women’s clothes makes a perfect suspect. It is very odd that she produces this pulp fiction using a man’s name, Robert Galbraith.
The common element in this tale of the two killer Scarletts is that they are both tales derived from the feral world of feral film and the Dark Net. People like bourgeois Rowling and the TERFS have been laying down the laws of feminism for too long. They feed into an elite run top down system that has brainwashed women into even abandoning or shutting away their sons for careers ( sic ) feeding oversize egos way beyond their brain power and potential. All they see and hear around them has to be shrunk down to fit the lack of space inside their heads. These women date and partner with trophy airheaded men, so desperate that they carry on where their daddies left off, pandering to and making them worse. When women tire of these imbeciles, they make excuses for themselves labelling all men as being the same. In this nightmare world we plunge toward World War Three, our leaders more concerned with the Royal Family’s health scares, policing language and defining laws of social contact in broken societies than what has really gone wrong and why it can only get worse.
J.K Rowling is asserting that all transsexuals must be seen as owning the perverted crimes of Scarlet Blake. Genuine transsexuals are a major threat to feminist egos, feminist poisonous propoganda, cause of offence and competition for the cis woman feninist blob, where they are more than equal and never responsible for their mistakes. Rowling wants all transsexuals identified female abusers & rapists and collectively punished. She defines all that is wrong with feminism, its bigotry and institutionalised intolerance that did so much to inform and motivate the killers of Brianna Ghey. They are not just above the law, they are the law..
February 28th 2024
Emma Caldwell: The final day of a 19-year murder hunt
‘Police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again’
Paul O’Hare
at the High Court in Glasgow
A toxic culture of misogyny and corruption meant the police failed so many women and girls who came forward to speak up against Packer, the lawyer says.
“Instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, while the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again.”
Almost 19 years after Emma Caldwell’s body was found in remote woods, Iain Packer has been jailed for at least 36 years for her murder.
The 27-year-old’s death in April 2005 had been one of Scotland’s most high-profile unsolved murders.
After the jury delivered its verdict, BBC Scotland News revealed that the police missed the chance to catch Emma Caldwell’s killer in the months after her murder because senior officers repeatedly dismissed him as a suspect.
BBC Scotland reporter Sam Poling interviewed Packer twice as part of an investigation which helped pave the way for his arrest.
The trial judge, Lord Beckett, told Packer his actions have had “terrible and enduring consequences” for his victims.
Emma’s mother Margaret Caldwell told BBC Scotland News she could “breathe again” now that her daughter’s killer had finally been found guilty.
Police Scotland has apologised for how the original inquiry was handled by what was then Strathclyde Police.
The writers for today’s live coverage were Paul O’Hare and Craig Hutchison. The editors were Graeme Esson and Paul McLaren.
Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell will be shown on BBC Scotland on Wednesday at 21:00 and later on BBC Two at 23:15. It will also be available on the BBC iplayer.
udge Lord Beckett said Packer “pursued a campaign of violence and appalling sexual mistreatment of a very large number of women”.
He added: “You have caused great harm to so many people as you indulged your pathologically selfish and brutal sexual desires.”
Delivering his sentencing statement, he told Packer that he preyed on the vulnerable and caused “extreme and enduring suffering for so many women and their families”.
“Emma was alone, in the dark, deprived of her phone and miles from any prospect of help,” he said.
The judge said Emma was taken from her family at a time when she was trying to take steps to change her life – adding that she was killed in “truly terrifying circumstances”.
Some police officers have blood on their hands, says lawyer
Aamer Anwar goes on to say Emma was a much-loved daughter and sister and the family’s lives were “torn apart for ever” by the murder.
The lawyer brands Packer “one of the UK’s worst sex offenders” and calls for a full judge-led public inquiry into the original police investigation in 2005.
Mr Anwar says some officers have “blood on their hands”.
He says Mrs Caldwell feels “betrayed” by the original investigation and also highlights Packer went on to carry out nearly 20 attacks after Emma’s murder.
BBC’s Poling praised for uncovering ‘damning evidence’
During his sentencing statement, Lord Beckett credited investigative journalists who reported on the case.
He singled out BBC Scotland’s Sam Poling and told Packer the award-winning reporter had “shone a light on your activities”.
Afterwards, Mrs Caldwell’s lawyer Aamer Anwar praised Sunday Mail journalists Jim Wilson and Brendan McGinty for revealing Packer was a “forgotten suspect” in the case.
Mr Anwar added: “Credit is also due to the BBC’s Sam Poling for her work, that gave us more damning evidence against Packer.”
Comment The police, including their feminist battalions have a weird and dangerous prejudiced attitude to sexual matters. They are institutinally corrupt, promarily interested in their egos, financial rewards, status, promotion and covering up multiple misdeeds including sex offences – which is why Wayne Couzens got away with his perversions and misconduct. His colleagues had given him the friendly ‘The Rapist’ nickname before he was identified as the officer who abducted Lockdown rule breaker Sarah Everard, raping and killing her. U.K Police are ‘rotten to the core’ as vcitimised former Cleveland Chief Constable Sue Sim said after being driven out because of her honesty and determination for reform and real accountability. She was not the kind of officer they dare leave in command.
R J Cook
Ofgem lowers price cap: What does it mean for British energy bills?
Published on 23/02/2024 – 16:13 Share this article
Households in England, Scotland, and Wales will pay 12% less for their energy bills from April, although costs remain historically high.
The British energy regulator Ofgem announced on Friday that it will drop the energy price cap in response to falling wholesale costs.
From April to June, the maximum price suppliers will be able to charge customers will fall to its lowest level in two years.
Compared to the same period in 2023, Ofgem is planning a cut of around 12%, which will bring an annual average household bill to £1,690.
This is down from the current yearly total of £1,928, saving customers an average of £20 a month.
Direct debit gas prices will be capped at 6p per kilowatt hour (kWh) and electricity at 24p per kWh.
To compare this with present prices, direct debit gas is limited to 7.42p per kWh and electricity to 28.62p per kWh.
Whilst this does present a positive shift for customers, energy is still far more expensive than it was before the winter of 2021.
“This is good news to see the price cap drop to its lowest level in more than two years,” said Jonathan Brearley, CEO of Ofgem, “but there are still big issues that we must tackle head-on to ensure we build a system that’s more resilient for the long term and fairer to customers.”
Due to supply shortages caused by the post-pandemic rebound, the price of oil, gas, and electricity started to climb in late 2021, a trend exacerbated during the following year when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The spike in energy prices was a key driver of the inflationary crisis seen in Britain, although prices have now started to fall as markets stabilise and suppliers return to stronger financial positions.
Since November, wholesale gas prices in Britain have fallen by 40%, meaning that lower costs for suppliers can be transformed into smaller bills for consumers.
- European natural gas prices plummet: Is the energy crisis finally over?
- UK consumers face 80% rise in energy bills from October as regulator raises price cap
When announcing the new price cap, Ofgem also said that it is aiming to give prepayment customers a fairer deal.
Prepayment meter (PPM) customers, who pay their bills on a pay-as-you-go basis, are usually charged higher rates than those paying by direct debit.
Sometimes these meters are forcibly installed if customers fail to pay their energy bills, as they are therefore charged for their consumption ahead of time.
In November, Ofgem said that the cost of living crisis had raised concerns over these kinds of payment systems.
“PPM customers currently have the highest proportion of disabled, chronically sick and low-income customers of any payment method,” the regulator said.
“At present, they pay slightly lower unit rates but higher standing charges than Direct Debit (DD) customers, driven by fixed operational costs.”
Ofgem announced on Friday that in order to support PPM customers, standing charges will be altered so that those with prepayments meters will save around £49 per year, whilst direct debit customers will pay £10 more.
The regulator is also planning to add a temporary annual charge of £28 to the bills of consumers who pay by direct debit or standard credit.
This is to manage the £3.1 billion of debt that customers owe to suppliers, although individuals using prepayment meters will not be impacted by the extra fee.
The exemption reflects the fact that PPM customers don’t build up the same level of debt because they top up their credit as they go.
February 26th 2024
Thatcher Privatisation Legacy.
UK water company dividends jump to £1.4bn despite criticism over sewage outflows Payments include internal transfers between complex web of holding companies © FT montage/Bloomberg UK water company dividends jump to £1.4bn despite criticism over sewage outflows on x (opens in a new window) UK water company dividends jump to £1.4bn despite criticism over sewage outflows on facebook (opens in a new window) UK water company dividends jump to £1.4bn despite criticism over sewage outflows on linkedin (opens in a new window) current progress 15% Gill Plimmer in London May 8 2023 318 Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Britain’s privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540mn the previous year, despite rising household bills and a wave of public criticism over sewage outflows. The figures, based on a Financial Times analysis of the 10 largest water and sewage companies’ accounts, are higher than headline dividends in the year to end March 2022. This is because several have layered corporate structures with numerous subsidiaries, only one of which — the operating company — is regulated by Ofwat. Maintaining dividends means less money is available from customer bills for investment in critical infrastructure such as sewage treatment and water mains. The complex arrangements enable providers to distinguish between internal dividends — payments between intermediate holding companies in the group — and external dividends to private equity, sovereign wealth and pension funds, which own the entire water and sewage business including the holding companies. The byzantine structures are one reason Ofwat is concerned over transparency in the sector. It is updating licence conditions so it can block dividends from April 2025 if the company looks financially vulnerable. It will also require boards to take account of environmental and customer targets when they decide to make payments. Flow chart showing corporate structure of Thames Water and Anglian Water
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2013/12/perceptions_of_green_tariffs_0.pdf
Is UK renewable energy Subsidised?
Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps said the funding will help grow the economy and secure skilled jobs. Credit: I T S via Shutterstock. The UK Government will pour an additional £22m ($27.86m) into its latest renewable power subsides, taking the total budget to £227m for this auction.3 Aug 2023
UK boosts latest renewable subsidies round by £22m – Power Technology
This study indicated that even if consumers are willing to pay extra for green electricity, most of them were not ready to pay more than 10–25% of their average electricity bill, which corresponds to around 10–25 PLN per month.
Do Consumers Want to Pay for Green Electricity? A Case …
Search for: Do consumers want to pay for green electricity case study from Poland?
Why is green electricity so expensive UK?
Under the ‘marginal cost pricing system’, the wholesale price of electricity is set by the most expensive method needed to meet demand (usually burning gas).
Energy giant BP has reported its second highest annual profit in a decade, despite it being half the level it announced in the previous year. Profits were $13.8bn (£11bn) in 2023, down from the record $27.7bn in 2022 when oil prices soared in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.6 Feb 2024
BP reports second highest profit in a decade
6 February 2024
By Nick Edser
Business reporter
Energy giant BP has reported its second highest annual profit in a decade, despite it being half the level it announced in the previous year.
Profits were $13.8bn (£11bn) in 2023, down from the record $27.7bn in 2022 when oil prices soared in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The price of oil fell back last year, which has cut profits at all energy firms.
However, BP said it was stepping up its plans to return cash to shareholders.
The results are the first released by BP since the company announced Murray Auchincloss as its new chief executive.
Previous boss Bernard Looney resigned last September after admitting he had not been “fully transparent” about his past personal relationships at the firm. BP’s board said Mr Looney had committed “serious misconduct”, resulting in him forfeiting up to £32.4m in pay and benefits.
The fall in BP’s annual profits echo the results from rival Shell, who last week said profits fell to $28.2bn last year, down from $39.9bn in 2022.
However, excluding 2022’s results, BP’s annual profit figure was the biggest since 2012.
In the final three months of 2023, BP reported profits of $3bn, which was higher than expected, and its shares were up more than 5% by Tuesday afternoon.
The company also said it planned to increase returns to investors during the first three months of the year through $1.75bn of share buybacks. It has also committed to $3.5bn of buybacks over the first half of 2024.
BP said it expected “underlying production from oil production and operations to be higher” this year, but output from gas and low carbon energy to be lower.
The company came under fire last year from environmental groups after it scaled back plans to reduce the amount of oil and gas it produces by 2030.
Reacting to the latest results, campaign group Global Witness criticised BP’s policies.
“Shareholders should want to protect their long-term positions. That means demanding a rapid clean energy transition for companies like BP. These reckless shareholder payouts do the opposite,” said Jonathan Noronha-Gant from the group.
However, last week, the Financial Times reported that one investor group – BlueBell Capital Partners – had called on BP to scrap its targets for lower oil and gas output altogether, calling them “irrational”.
But speaking to analysts on Tuesday, Mr Auchincloss said: “We just disagree with them if I’m honest.
“We are very happy with the direction of travel, and the shareholders at the top tier are happy as well.”
Susannah Streeter from Hargreaves Lansdown said the priorities of BP’s new boss had been made clear.
“Although on appointment he pledged that BP’s strategy to transition from an international oil company to an integrated energy company was unchanged, the big share buy-back announcement shows the immediate focus is on boosting the share price and returning value to shareholders.”
Nick Butler, a former head of strategy at BP, told the BBC’s Today programme there had been talk that the company could be a takeover target.
“The real defence against takeovers is performance and if that’s going to be the new chief executive’s focus I think we can be a bit more optimistic about the company,” he said.
British Gas has announced its profits for 2023 increased 10-fold to £750m. The supplier said the jump from £72m in 2022 was due to regulator Ofgem allowing it to recover losses of £500m it racked up in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.15 Feb 2024
Why are British Gas profits so high?
The big increase in earnings came after the regulator, Ofgem, raised the energy price cap and allowed the company to recoup some of the costs of having to sell energy below wholesale price to its 10 million customers during the energy crisis.15 Feb 2024
How are energy companies making record profits?
Producers are recording these gains, due to Supply and Demand. If a commodity is in high demand, prices rise, and in turn so do profits. Of course, this is not just the case for Energy, but also tradeable commodities including Crude Oil as well as in demand products across the Globe.
Why is British Gas losing customers?
British Gas has lost 100,000 customers as families rebel over an 18 per cent increase in gas tariffs and 11 per cent rise in the price of electricity. At the same time, millions of families are rationing their use of heat and light for fear of running up bills they will not be able to afford.
Energy bills: How are Labour and the Conservatives proposing to help households?
How do Labour and the Conservatives’ plans differ?
Household energy bills are set to fall to their lowest point in two years, with Ofgem announcing this week it will lower its price cap by 12.3 per cent.
The regulator’s new price cap, which will come into effect in April, will see the average household gas and electricity bill fall from the current £1,928 in England, Scotland and Wales to £1,690 – a drop of around £20 a month, or £238 a year.
Ofgem said the drop would see energy prices reach their lowest level since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which caused a spike in an already turbulent wholesale energy market, driving up costs for suppliers and customers.
While this is considerably lower than the record high of £4,059 for an average bill in early 2023, prices still remain well above the average of £993 which households were paying two years prior.
So with bills still nearly double what they were three years ago, and turbulence in Ukraine and the Middle East liable to keep wholesale prices high, what are the major parties proposing to help households with the cost of energy?
The Conservatives
The government has sought to shield households from some of the most severe price rises with its Energy Bills Support scheme, which provided a £400 discount, but that came to an end last June.
To help fund this, ministers had implemented a windfall tax on the profits of fossil fuel companies, after facing mounting pressure to do so. Ministers said last June the tax had raised more than £2.8bn, and saved a typical household nearly £1,500 on energy bills.
But experts warn that the government’s tax relief loophole for new North Sea projects has made it cheaper for companies to extract harmful fossil fuels.
In October, the government’s Energy Act also received royal assent, which the government says incentivises the energy industry to invest in low-carbon heat pumps, and includes powers to deliver a planned smart meter rollout by 2028, which ministers claim could save households £5.6bn.
The new legislation also expands Ofgem’s remit, allowing the regulator to set rules on excessive energy pricing and adds a specific mandate for it to support the government meet its legal obligation to get to net zero by 2050.
But it was also reported by Politico this week that the government is considering plans to raise household energy bills to help pay for a new £20bn nuclear energy plant in Suffolk, Sizewell C.
Labour
While energy policy has been a key plank of Labour’s offering in recent years, Sir Keir Starmer has drastically scaled down his party’s plans by ditching a policy of spending £28bn a year on environmental projects.
The party’s plans to cut energy bills by giving 19 million people warmer homes in a decade could now take up to 14 years to achieve, Sir Keir said earlier this month – with Labour now promising to insulate only 5 million properties by 2030.
The party is now set to spend £23.7bn over the course of the next five-year parliament, on top of the £10bn a year it says the government has already committed to.
Labour has also pledged to enforce a “proper” windfall tax on energy companies, matching the rate imposed by Norway, which it claims would raise £10.8bn over five years, earmarked for green investment.
Sir Keir has previously pledged to create a new publicly owned body called Great British Energy, which would invest in clean energy, including “by making the UK a world leader in floating offshore wind”.
Labour claims its plans would take hundreds of pounds off annual household energy bills, and would “rebuild Britain’s industrial strength by creating half a million new jobs.
What is going on with energy prices in the UK?
There’s an energy crisis across the globe, with a number of major issues causing price volatility. Here’s all you need to know.
2023 has seen energy prices stabilise after some extraordinary price volatility in 2022. Even so, prices are still double what they were at the start of 2021 – for context, while energy prices have increased by around 100% during that time, the rate of inflation over the same period has been about 11%.
And while a price cap has been in place for households since 2019, there isn’t one (and there never has been). Instead, the government introduced a couple of discount schemes. The first was the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This ran for six months from October 1, 2022.
This scheme was replaced by the Energy Bills Discount Scheme on April 1, 2023. This will run until March 31, 2024. But funding for this scheme was cut dramatically and prices haven’t gone beyond the required threshold since December 18, 2022 – months before the scheme even kicked off.
As a business owner and householder, there are two things you need to consider:
- The energy price cap will increase by £94 from January 1, 2024 – up from £1,834 to £1,928 per year. But remember, it’s the unit rates that are capped, not the final bill. If you use more energy than the average household, you’ll pay more than the cap level.
- There is no price cap on business energy. Although business energy rates might be falling, prices aren’t capped and government support has been cut considerably since April 1.
Energy prices reflect the live market and move weekly. A drop in wholesale prices has seen rates drop by 50% since October, but we can’t predict or guarantee how prices will change in the future.
Ofgem has said that: “in the medium term, we’re unlikely to see prices return to the levels we saw before the energy crisis”, so securing your rates today can still protect you against market volatility.
But what exactly do current wholesale rates mean for the cost of your business energy bills? Why have energy prices been so volatile and why are they levelling off after a rapid fall in rates at the start of 2023? Let’s take a closer look.
Why are we seeing falling energy prices?
Energy prices rocketed as we entered the second half of 2022. But a relatively mild winter across the UK and much of Europe, coupled with the energy-saving efforts of homes and businesses worried by the prospect of unaffordable energy bills, helped to cut demand and caused a drop in prices across 2023.
The energy market has also calmed down a bit after the shocks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the closure of Nord Stream 1, and other infrastructure issues that saw prices rocket. This has been helped by European countries cutting their reliance on Russian gas by filling storage facilities with liquified natural gas from across the globe.
Prices continued to fall as demand naturally decreased across spring and summer, but they’re still around twice as much as they were at the start of 2021. Wholesale prices are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, and the experts at Cornwall Insight, energy market intelligence analysts, have suggested that prices might not return to pre-pandemic levels this decade.
So, while wholesale prices have fallen, energy is still very expensive.
Alex Staker, Head of Commercial Operations at Bionic, explains why these price drops aren’t always passed on to customers: “It’s to do with the way energy is bought and sold and the risk associated with this process. To be able to offer fixed rates, energy suppliers need to buy power in advance of selling it to customers. This means the rates at which they have bought wholesale energy to sell today might differ from the current wholesale rates.
“Suppliers also need to factor risk into their price calculations, in much the same way as finance providers factor risk into the prices they charge for credit.
“Energy suppliers are continuously buying energy to make sure there’s enough to cover demand. If demand exceeds supply then they need to buy more at current market prices to cover the shortfall. But if supply exceeds demand, then suppliers need to sell the excess energy back to the grid – if the day-ahead price is lower than the price they bought the energy for, then they’ll lose money.
“When the market is so volatile, the risk to suppliers is greater and so prices go up. And this is also part of the reason why it can take time and a consistent run of lower rates for any price drops to be passed on to customers.”
As you can see from the graphs a bit further down the page, prices have been very volatile for the last 12 months and prices could continue to vary dramatically for as long as the market remains so unpredictable.
How much are wholesale energy prices right now?
The latest Ofgem and ICIS forward delivery contract rates (which are the wholesale prices that suppliers typically pay for the energy they supply to customers) for gas and electricity are:
- Wholesale gas costs around 135p per therm* (around 29 kWh)
- Wholesale electricity costs around £120 per MWh* (1,000 kWh)
To get an idea of how much prices have dropped recently, we need to take a look at the day-ahead contract rates. These show how prices change in the spot market (where energy is bought and sold to meet demand) and influence the forward delivery contract rates.
According to Ofgem and ICIS figures, the latest day-ahead contract rates are:
- Wholesale gas costs around 84p per therm* (around 29 kWh)
- Wholesale electricity costs around £90per MWh* (1,000 kWh)
What are the latest rates?
The rates your business is charged for energy will depend upon the size and type of your business, as well as the amount of energy you use and when and how you use it. The location of your business will also have an effect on the rates you pay.
To give you an idea of how much business energy rates currently are, here are the average business gas and electricity rates based on business size.
Are energy prices still rising?
After a steep increase in wholesale prices during December 2021, prices remained volatile across 2022 and into 2023. But since December 2022, the overall trend has been that prices are falling. There’s no guarantee this will continue, so we’ll keep monitoring the market to keep you up to date.
The graphs below from Ofgem’s wholesale market indicators show how volatile gas and electricity prices have been over the last few years. Although prices dropped across 2023 and are no longer as volatile, rates are still around double what they were in early 2021.
Source – Ofgem and ICIS
But what has been behind this unprecedented price volatility?
What causes energy price volatility?
Supply and demand are also big issues when it comes to price volatility. When energy is in short supply then prices tend to go up, but will usually drop again when supply levels are greater. And it’s the same with demand – prices go up when demand is high but usually fall again when demand is less.
Price volatility has been a big issue over the last year or so because normal supply and demand issues have been coupled with a series of global events that have pushed prices up further. For instance, the role the pandemic has played in causing huge global supply and demand shocks can’t be underestimated. Neither can the impact of the war in Ukraine.
Price volatility is always a concern for energy suppliers, which is why they typically trade on futures markets to help increase certainty about supply and prices for consumers. This means suppliers canbuy or sell a set amount of gas or electricity at a specific price, for settlement on a specific date in the future.
But prices have been so volatile that suppliers have found it more difficult to trade in this market and may have to provide extra collateral to cover the risk of supply shortages. This has seen some suppliers pull out of providing prices when rates have spiked.
We’ve seen some huge variations in the rates our tech-enabled experts have been able to quote for business energy. And with no commercial cap in place, suppliers have increased out-of-contract gas rates by an average of 180%, and out-of-contract electricity rates by an average of 130% since August 2021.
The reason energy suppliers are currently quoting such high rates (that’s if they’re able to quote any rates at all – some have had to temporarily pull out of the market) is that wholesale energy prices are currently at record high levels.
Here’s why these wholesale rates affect the price we all pay for gas and electricity:
- Suppliers buy energy from the wholesale market and then sell it to domestic and business energy customers
- When wholesale prices go up, energy suppliers increase their rates to cover the extra costs and we’re all hit with higher energy bills
Switching to a fixed-rate deal will protect you against any mid-contract price rises, but you’ll probably find your rates will rise at the next renewal.
An increase in wholesale energy prices is nothing new – market prices are always going up and down – but prices are currently so high and so volatile that it’s difficult to predict how much they will be from one day to the next, never mind in 12 months.
This situation is helping to drive up inflation and fuel fears of a coming recession. You can find out more about this in our blog on small businesses and the cost of living crisis.
government has introduced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme to help business owners with soaring energy costs. Here’s more on that along with details on what’s happening with energy prices.
Why are energy prices so high?
Supply and demand issues are pushing up wholesale energy prices (that’s the amount your provider pays to the energy generators for the gas and electricity they supply to your business). And it’s these rising wholesale costs that are the biggest factor in the energy price spikes we’ve seen this year.
Although we’re all feeling the effects of rising energy prices at home and at work, it’s a global issue that’s been caused by some far-reaching and unexpected reasons. The conflict in Ukraine is currently having a huge impact on what was already a big problem with energy prices (more on that below), but the following issues have also combined to inflate energy rates:
- Supply shortages – Gas shortages across Europe, caused by a prolonged cold winter between 2020 and 2021, drained natural gas storage.
- High demand – High demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Asia has led to lower LNG shipments to Europe.
- Closure of Nord Stream 1 – This huge pipeline transported gas from Russia to Germany. It closure has massively reduced the amount of gas that can be channelled to Europe and has helped cause natural gas prices to surge to their highest levels since early March. After first limiting its capacity to just 20%, Russia has now completely closed the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, causing a European supply shortage that’s pushing up prices.
- Infrastructure issues – The postponement of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is an $11 billion link across the Baltic Sea with the capacity to send 55 billion cubic metres of gas a year directly from Russia to Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Although the pipeline is complete, Germany stopped it from going live in response to the Russian invasion. To highlight how much of a global issue this is, fire damage at Freeport LNG’s Texas planthas also had an impact. This has limited the amount of liquified natural gas being imported to Europe. The plant is aiming to be back up to 85% capacity by late November.
- Life after lockdown – An increase in demand as lockdown restrictions eased across the globe. There’s more on that below, in the section titled: How has the pandemic affected energy prices?
As you can see, this is a global issue. Unfortunately, the UK is experiencing its own unique problems too.
Why have UK energy prices been so high?
We’re in the midst of a global energy crisis that is pushing prices up for everyone. But to make matters worse, the UK is also suffering from the following issues that are affecting supply, storage, and the prices we’re paying for power:
- Lower renewable energy generation – Low winds, coupled with outages at some nuclear power stations, mean that a higher percentage of our electricity generation is using gas during its production. If you’re on a green energy deal that provides 100% renewable electricity, you’ll still see your rates increase. This is because the way the UK energy system works means that the price of renewable energy is tied to the price of gas – if gas prices go up, so do renewable energy prices.
- Fire at a National Grid site in Kent – This knocked out a power cable that runs between England and France and is used to import electricity from the continent. This isn’t expected to be fully back up and running until 2023.
- Low gas reserves – The UK has some of the lowest gas reserves in Europe, which means there’s almost no way of stockpiling gas to use it when needed. Capacity is equivalent to roughly 2% of the UK’s annual demand, compared with 25% for other European countries and as much as 37% in Europe’s four largest storage holders.
- Insufficient government support – Although the government’s £15 billion support package will see households credited with £400 over six months from October, this won’t have as big an impact as measures taken in other European countries. France, for instance, has capped electricity price increases to 4% until the end of the year.
- Issues with the energy market – 28 UK energy suppliers have gone bust since 2021. This is largely down to many of them having a business model that couldn’t cope with an increase in wholesale prices. And when suppliers go bust, consumers help to absorb the cost through higher bills. For instance, when Bulb ceased trading, it was such a big supplier – providing power to around 1.5 million homes and businesses – that the government placed it into ‘special administration’ instead of going through the ‘supplier of last resort’ process. Initial estimates suggested this process would cost £2.2 billion over two years, but figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show that an extra £4.6bn has been spent on handling the company, which will bring the total to £6.5 billion. This could add as much as £200 on to annual household energy bills.
Why are renewable energy prices so high?
If you’re on a green deal that offers 100% renewable energy, you might be wondering why your prices are shooting up even though no gas is used to generate it.
It’s all because of the way the UK’s energy system works. Although renewable energy accounted for almost half (45.5%) of the UK’s total energy generation in the first three months of this year, we still rely on gas-powered plants to generate some of our electricity.
And that’s where the pricing issues come from. Energy prices are set using a system called ‘marginal cost pricing’. In short, this means that the most expensive type of energy is used to set the price for all types of energy, including renewables.
Even if you’re on a plan that delivers 100% renewable energy, the price of your electricity is set not upon the cost of wind or solar generation, but on the cost of the last source used to meet demand. As gas-powered stations are used to top up electricity demand in the UK, so the cost of gas-powered electricity is used to set the price of all electricity.
So, when gas prices spike, you can bet that electricity prices won’t be far behind.
The system is under review until October 22, but one thing that might have gone under the radar in the Prime Minister’s energy cap announcement was that renewable and nuclear power is to be moved off marginal pricing and onto Contracts for Difference. This will mean the cost of renewable and nuclear-generated energy will no longer be tied to gas prices. Instead, generators will get a fixed, pre-agreed price for the low-carbon electricity they produce during the time the contract is running.
This de-coupling of costly global fossil fuel prices from electricity produced by cheaper renewables should help ensure consumers benefit from cheaper prices when switching to lower-cost, clean energy sources.
Will energy prices go down in 2024?
It’s hard to predict energy prices at the best of times, but the current market volatility makes it impossible to say whether energy prices will go down this year.
Forecasts from Cornwall Insight, energy research and analysts, suggest that energy prices could remain high into next year and even into 2024.
Should you fix your energy prices in 2024?
Fixing your energy rates is the only way to bill stability in an unstable market and protect against future price rises. Although we can’t predict what energy prices will do in 2024, market volatility calmed significantly in 2023 and prices dropped across the year. If the market stabilises and there are no more shocks, we could see prices slowly rise again as they tend to during ‘normal’ inflationary conditions.
If you’re unsure what to do, give our energy experts a call on 0808 253 7018. We only need your postcode to run a price comparison of rates from our panel of trusted UK suppliers.
What if you can’t afford to pay your energy bills?
If you can’t afford your business energy bills, you must speak to your supplier as soon as possible to sort out a repayment plan. If you don’t work something out with your supplier within 30 days of your missed payment, they can start action to disconnect your energy supply.
For more information, check out our guide to business energy bills.
Has the conflict in Ukraine pushed up energy prices?
As outlined above, there are many reasons why energy prices are currently so high. The conflict in Ukraine has pushed rates up even higher.
This is because energy prices are affected by things that are happening across the globe – anything from a conflict to a natural disaster in a country that produces oil or gas can affect how much we pay to heat our homes and power business here in the UK.
One of the main reasons why this conflict is having such an impact on our energy bills is because of how reliant Europe has become on Russian gas. In 2021, Europe sourced more than 40% of gas imports from Russia and conflict with Ukraine could seriously disrupt this supply and push up prices. Although the UK isn’t as heavily reliant on Russian gas, it does import almost half of its from Europe. This means any price hikes for European supply will have a knock-on effect for the UK.
The situation is causing panic in the energy market. Wholesale gas prices have risen by as much as 33% and some suppliers have temporarily pulled out of the market. Securing your rates today is the only way to protect your business from any future price changes.
And then there’s the geopolitical situation to consider. For a concise breakdown of the current state of affairs, check out this piece in The Guardian.
How has the pandemic affected energy prices?
Let’s quickly go back to the first lockdown of early 2020, when a drop in demand saw energy prices drop to their lowest ever levels. Although wholesale prices had been dropping since hitting a high of £67.69 per Megawatt-hour (MWh) in September 2018, things bottomed out at just over £24 per MWh in April and May last year – at the height of the first lockdown.
Prices have been steadily increasing since then. By September 2020, wholesale electricity costs were £45.30 per MWh and prices are now well past pre-pandemic levels:
- Wholesale gas costs more than 271p per therm (around 29 kWh)
- Wholesale electricity costs more than £257 per MWh (1,000 kWh)
An increase in demand is a big driver behind the price hikes.
A greater need for energy since the crash of March and April last year has seen gas prices increase more than five-fold and return to pre-pandemic levels.
For the wholesale electricity market, there has been a reduction in available power supplies compared to last year which, combined with higher gas prices, has led to an increase in the wholesale price of electricity.
An increase in network and policy costs is also pushing prices up.
Higher electricity distribution and transmission costs have driven a rise in network costs, as has an increase in policy costs, such as the Renewable Obligation (RO). For reference, the RO is a levy placed on all licensed electricity suppliers to encourage them to source a proportion of the electricity they supply from renewable energy sources.
The pandemic has also seen more energy suppliers hit by ‘bad debt’. This means many have lost money because customers simply haven’t been able to afford to pay their energy bills.
For more information on the types of things that can affect energy prices, check out our guide on how to compare business energy tariffs.
Will the energy price rises ever end?
Although it’s difficult to predict exactly what will happen in such a turbulent energy market, the chief executive of Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, has suggested there was “no reason” to expect gas prices would come down “any time soon”. He even suggested that “high gas prices will be here for the next 18 months to two years”.
The government is coming under pressure to step in and help consumers by way of a VAT cut or a lowering of other charges not directly linked to the wholesale price of energy. Trade bodies, including the Chamber of Commerce and NFRN, have been urging the government to give financial help to business owners in the form of cuts to VAT on energy, a commercial energy price cap, and a Government Emergency Energy Grant for SMEs – essentially Covid-style support for this latest crisis.
What can you do to keep your business energy bills low?
The only way business owners can currently shield themselves from out-of-contract rates and any potential future price rises is to lock in existing rates as soon as possible.
To get a quote tailored to meet the needs of your business, give our tech-enabled experts a call on 0808 253 7018 or pop your postcode in the box on our business energy page and we’ll give you a callback.
If you want to help cut your business energy bills, it also helps to think about how and when you’re using gas and electricity. So, consider the following:
- Assess when you’re heating your premises
- Switch appliances off
- Pay attention to the weather
- Install a smart meter to save
- Be mindful of water costs
- Turn off lights when not in use or fit light sensors
- Encourage all staff to be energy-aware
- Draught-proof your building
- Go paperless as much as you can
- Request an energy audit
For more detailed information, check out our blog on how to save business energy (and money).
But you also need to be realistic. Even if you put in place all of the energy-saving measures possible and cut your usage right down, there’s still a minimum amount of energy you need to use to keep your business running, so you might still feel it on your balance sheet if your energy rates rise.
Can I predict my energy bill?
You might think that, in theory, you could predict your energy bill before you receive it. But it’s more complicated than just figuring out how much energy you have used because taxes and levies are also added into costs.
To find out more about how to read your business energy bill and calculate costs accurately read our guide to understanding business energy bills.
Things to think about when choosing an energy deal
Not all business energy tariffs are the same – if you choose the wrong one, your business will pay too much for gas and electricity.
And because signing up to a business energy deal means you’re locked in for the duration of the contract, you could be paying too much for anything up to five years.
This might leave you wondering whether it’s worth bothering at all – here’s why it definitely is worth comparing business gas and business electricity deals.
If you’ve never switched business energy suppliers, your current provider will have you placed on an expensive ‘out of contract rates’ deal, which can cost up to twice as much as contracted rates (even more in the current market).
When switching, you’ll need to bear in mind that the rates you’re offered will depend on things like the amount of energy you use, the location of your business premise, and whether or not your business is in good financial shape – a poor credit score could see you paying higher rates, as your business is seen as a higher risk.
It’s also worth knowing that business energy suppliers don’t offer dual fuel deals, so even if you agree to a gas and electricity deal with the same supplier, these will still be two separate energy contracts.
How to switch business energy suppliers
The quickest and simplest way to find the best business energy deals is to speak to the tech-enabled human experts at Bionic.
Just give us your business name and postcode and we’ll use smart data and our own expertise to find the best business gas and business electricity tariffs for your business in a matter of minutes.
To get started, pop your business postcode in the box at Bionic.co.uk, or give us a call on 0800 086 1326.
Our business energy experts will then search for the best deals from our panel of trusted and quality UK energy suppliers, then help you choose the right energy tariff over a short call.
You just then need to decide which deals you like best, and we’ll take care of the rest. And there’s no need to worry about renewals either, as we can find you the best deals year after year.
https://bionic.co.uk/blog/noticed-energy-prices-have-fallen-over-past-few-months/
By Les Roberts, Senior Content Manager
January 10th 2024
February 25th 2024
Post Office hires ex-police to check its investigators in Horizon scandal
By Lora Jones
BBC News
The Post Office has hired investigators, including some ex-police, to look at its own staff’s previous work investigating the Horizon scandal.
The new team will look at allegations against current and past employees involved in the prosecution of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.
Concerns about conduct have been raised during an ongoing public inquiry.
A spokesperson said it was aware of the human cost of the scandal.
Relevant findings from the internal investigation could be passed on to authorities, including the police, or acted upon by the Post Office itself.
A Post Office spokesperson said that it takes “any allegations of wrongdoing extremely seriously and investigates through established procedures including the involvement of relevant authorities as appropriate”.
The Post Office scandal has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted due to faulty software.
Incorrect information provided by a computer system called Horizon, developed by Japanese firm Fujitsu, meant that sub-postmasters and postmistresses were prosecuted for stealing money.
Many of those convicted went to prison for false accounting and theft. Many were financially ruined and some caught up in the scandal have since died or taken their own lives in the following years.
- Post Office scandal: The Horizon saga explained
- Scandal victims set to be cleared by law
- Governments should ‘regret’ Horizon scandal – Cameron
An ITV drama triggered renewed public interest in the matter and fresh government action.
The government recently confirmed it would clear the names of hundreds of people wrongly convicted under new legislation.
The law is expected to come into effect by the end of July and will apply to convictions in England and Wales.
It will apply to convictions meeting specific criteria and is expected to clear the majority of victims, while the public inquiry led by retired judge Sir Wyn Williams is ongoing.
During the public hearings, several former sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have described their own experiences and feeling intimidated by investigators.
One ex-Post Office investigator recently denied he and colleagues behaved like “mafia gangsters” towards wrongly accused sub-postmasters.
As first reported by the Times, a new team has been put together to look into its own investigators who questioned and prosecuted the branch managers.
The newspaper reported that four former detectives are interviewing persecuted postmasters and mistresses, trying to learn about how they were treated by the Post Office employees who built cases against them.
‘Righting wrongs’
A Post Office spokesperson said: “We are acutely aware of the human cost of the scandal and we are doing all we can to right the wrongs of the past, as far as that is possible.
“We are looking at specific allegations that have been made during the public inquiry about both current and past employees who may have been involved with the prosecution of former postmasters or sought the repayment of shortfalls caused by previous versions of Horizon under old contracts that previously existed with postmasters.”
The spokesperson said the firm had “rightly” been criticised for past investigation practices.
The new team will include experienced criminal investigators recruited to look at the quality of a number of past investigations due to some of the allegations coming up in the inquiry.
The spokesperson added that it was hoped as much information as possible would be shared with former postmasters.
A bitter row broke out earlier this month between Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Henry Staunton, the former Post Office chairman.
He said he had been told to stall compensation pay-outs but Ms Badenoch said the claim was “completely false”.
On Sunday, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said he “probably should have said sorry earlier on” in relation to his role in the Post Office scandal.
Sir Ed served as post office minister under the coalition government from 2010 to 2012, and has since apologised to victims.
Asked why it took him so long to apologise, Sir Ed told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I probably should have said sorry earlier on, but it is a huge scandal and our hearts go out to those hundreds of sub-postmasters and their families who were treated appallingly.
“The key thing now is to make sure that those exonerations happen quickly, that they get the compensation quickly and that they get to the truth with the inquiry.”
Oliver Dowden declines to say whether Lee Anderson’s comments Islamophobic
The deputy prime minister has declined to say whether Lee Anderson’s comments were Islamophobic and said the MP would have kept his role had he apologised.
On Saturday Mr Anderson was suspended as a Conservative MP after refusing to apologise for saying London Mayor Sadiq Khan is controlled by “Islamists”.
Oliver Dowden told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Mr Anderson was not “intending to be Islamophobic”.
Labour has renewed its criticism of the Tory party’s response.
In a letter to the prime minister, Labour said it was right to suspend Mr Anderson “after his disgusting racist and Islamophobic remarks”.
Mr Khan, mayor of London, has already said the comments were “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist” and that they “pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred.”
On Friday Mr Anderson prompted fury after he said: “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London, and they’ve got control of Starmer as well.”
He later added: “People are just turning up in their thousands, and doing anything they want, and they are laughing at our police. This stems with Khan, he’s actually given our capital city away to his mates”.
On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Dowden was asked repeatedly whether he would say those comments were Islamophobic. He declined to do so, but said: “I share concerns about how it could be taken that way.”
He went on to say: “The fact it could be taken that way is the reason why the [Conservative] chief whip asked for an apology”.
He added that he understood that Mr Anderson’s comments “have caused offence”.
But he defended how the party had handled the situation, adding that asking him to apologise for the remarks was “the appropriate step to take”.
Mr Anderson said he had accepted the party had “no option” but to suspend him, given the “difficult position” it put the government in. However, he has not apologised for what he said.
On Sky News, Mr Dowden said while Mr Anderson’s comments were “wrong”, he declined to be drawn on whether they were racist.
Fellow Tory MP and former Conservative cabinet minister Sir Robert Buckland told the BBC Mr Anderson’s remarks were racist.
“It crosses a line. It was repugnant,” he told Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme.
On Laura Kuenssberg’s programme, former cabinet minister Therese Coffey denied there was a “hierarchy of racism” within the Conservative Party, when asked by Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester.
Ms Coffey added that “swift action” had been taken against Mr Anderson, and the party had taken steps in this area following a review published in 2021.
Appearing on GB News, also on Sunday, Mr Dowden said he could not rule out that Mr Anderson could be restored as a Conservative MP if he does apologise, but said it was a matter for the party’s chief whip.
Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth, who wrote to the prime minister on Sunday, called this “extraordinary” and said it suggested the Conservatives were “not taking the threat of Islamophobia seriously”.
‘Deafening silence’
On Saturday, Mr Khan not only criticised Mr Anderson for his comments but also condemned Mr Sunak and his Cabinet for what he called a “deafening silence” on the matter.
Following the MP’s suspension, the mayor of London said he was still unclear why the prime minister had not yet condemned the remarks.
Mr Sunak released a statement on Saturday evening saying there had been an “explosion in prejudice and antisemitism” since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel adding that protests in recent weeks had been “hijacked by extremists to promote and glorify terrorism”.
However, he did not specifically address the comments made by Mr Anderson nor his suspension.
Mr Anderson, who has been the MP for Ashfield since 2019, will now sit as an independent MP in the Commons.
The former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party resigned from that role last month to rebel against the government’s legislation to revive its Rwanda deportation scheme.
Mr Anderson made his original comments on GB News on Friday during a discussion about how the Metropolitan Police has handled pro-Palestinian protests in London.
During the interview, he was also asked about former home secretary Suella Braverman saying in the Telegraph that the demonstrations showed Islamists were “in charge” of the country.
In his BBC interview, Mr Dowden told Laura Kuenssberg Mrs Braverman’s comments were “in a different category” to Mr Anderson’s.
“I don’t believe that what Suella has said crosses the line in the way that Lee Anderson’s comments do,” he said.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it welcomed Mr Anderson’s suspension, but raised concerns the action was taken “for refusing to apologise, not for making the racist remarks in the first place”.
Writing to Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden, the MCB secretary general called for an internal investigation.
Zara Mohammed said: “Our view is that the Islamophobia in the party is institutional, tolerated by the leadership and seen as acceptable by great swathes of the party membership.”
On Sunday, Mr Khan posted again on social media criticising Mr Sunak’s statement, saying it had failed “to mention anti-Muslim hatred at all”.
“These are just the two most recent examples of enabling anti-Muslim hatred in the Conservative party,” he wrote. “In recent months we’ve seen a terrifying spike in hate towards Jewish and Muslim communities.
“Racism is racism. There should be no hierarchy. Now, more than ever, we should be seeking to bring our country together. There must be zero tolerance for the politics of division.”
Related Topics
- PM warns of hatred in politics after Anderson row
- Published10 hours ago
- Tories suspend MP over ‘Islamists’ comments
February 24th 2024
February 23rd 2024
New Clear War by R J Cook
Britain is key to western democratic mythology. The Russian Revolution is key to the British hatred of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The delusions of Britain’s military high command and deluded veterans are key to the warmongering mentality. They are also key to understanding the arrogant patronising style of the posh girls and boys who front the BBC – which broadcasts across the U.S.A – and Sky News.
These people are totally out of touch with the masses that they expect to provide the canon fodder and do the burning alive in the almost inevitable nuclear holocaust. When Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher began her lightning war ( Blitzkrieg ) on Britain’s social fabric in 1979, she was welcomed as a feminist icon. Like a giant cluster bomb, the poisonous fallout from her policies and pronouncements devastated the existing socio economic structure, triggering the rewriting of history that has never stopped. That is how we got to the point where Julian Assange was set up as a rapist when he was and still is a political prisoners. Democracies do not take political prisoners and lock up the opposition, as the snug self righteous Democratic establishment are doing with Trump.
That giant cluster bomb sucked U.S President Regan into its draught bringing us globalisation and George Bush’s plan for rolling wars and a New World Order. It seemed to be working well when the Berlin Wall was undermined and fell down. Drunken Boris Yeltsin was supposed to secure Russia for the west, helped by his understudy and former KGB senior officer Putin. The asset stripping Russian oligarchs were welcomed by the City of London and as Tory Party donors.
Meanwhile, Thatcher’s cluster bomb had devastated State Industries, profits going to the City of London and foreign investors. She quelled a modicum of unrest by facilitating the Falklands War. The 1985 Miners Strike came next, with police tranformed into a new Police State Militia. The term working class disappeared from the BBC and other mainstream media vocabulary. New anti union legislation effectively banned Trade Union activity through powerful new capitalist favouring laws. The working classes were deskilled and turned into Chavs of Modern Britain. The same happened in the U.S.A. Here, in Hilary Clinton’s words, they became ‘the deplorables.’
But it is these desperate people who are expected to answer the call up for another rich man’s war. That is an expectation rooted in the mythology of the last two Imperialistic World Wars. However, much in Britain has changed as the mindless soporific autophagous culture with its massive brainwashing factory schools. Thatcher abolished exchange controls to free investment capital to roam the world for maximum return.
The wealthy elite now had their hyper lucrative financial new world order that saw the death of the British motor industry and so much else. Britain became a service based economy with Thatcher’s hopes pinned on an information technology boom. Reality was fast food and imported manufactured goods from a new world of slave labour. Inevitably many slaves realised that they should follow their exports and get better pay working in burger bars, hospital cleaning, emptying bins and selling drugs. The age of mass immigration, homelessness, low wages and high prices had dawned.
When the indigenous population started to go insane, women were taught to find themselves and men were kicked out of the home, mainstream media went on overtime teaching us all the virtues of sexual diversity and religious tolerance. They do this as if nothing else mattered, because it never did to the ruling law making elite. Their solution to disquiet was ever more laws and police. This was like building a machine with opposing parts.
Conflict was and still is built into the system. If that socio economic manchine was likened to a bus, its passengers would get nowhere because they are not supposed to. The powerful landowning and wealth dominating elite need it this way. The white working class gained the new elitist put down that they are ‘privileged white males.’ Black Lives Matter ( BLM ) became the nomenclature for the western world’s underdogs with working class male whites blamed for the cruelty of the slave trade – which could not have worked without the connivance of rich powerful Africans who they had herded into stockades waiting for the white man’s ships to arrive.
These sailing ships were crewed by unwilling press ganged sailors under the same officer class who clamour for World War Three. Here they expect Britain’s dumbed down drink and drug sodden or religiously hallucinating masses to fight for them. They will be ordered to fight under the same tattered ‘freedom’ banner and the rainbow warrier flag where old blood curdling arguments between Muslims, Jews,Transsexuals and TERF feminists will be subjugated to the greater good of keeping the likes of King Charles III in the style to which they are accustomed. The fact that any post apocalypse survivors will return to a life even more squalid than the ones they were forcibly removed from, is not supposed to occur as they rally to the flag, marching off the cliff to the beat of martial music.
R J Cook
February 22nd 2024
British Peoples’ Thoughts On British Democracy
Comment posted by JackNapier, today at 10:49JackNapier
10:49
Focusing people’s attention on external enemies to keep them distracted from domestic corruption and low standards of living.
It’s how most dictatorships function.
A
Reply posted by Agree percentage, today at 11:06Agree percentage
11:06
to JackNapier
Agree percentage replied:
Sorry, are you describing Russia or the UK?
T
Reply posted by Tobias Sekund-Home, today at 11:14Tobias Sekund-Home
11:14
to JackNapier
Tobias Sekund-Home replied:
This perfectly describes the UK.
“Putin bad, don’t worry about rampant child transgenderism, open borders and grooming gangs.”
S
Reply posted by strider, today at 11:16strider
11:16
to Agree percentage
strider replied:
Whataboutery
And I’d put money on you using the same word when someone points out Labour do the same things as the Tories.
N
Reply posted by None Of The Above, today at 11:22None Of The Above
11:22
to Agree percentage
None Of The Above replied:
How can anyone compare Russia to the UK. In the UK we can vote out the ruling government, you can’t in Russia, Putin won’t allow it, you end up dead, poison, threw in prison, or all three
B
Reply posted by Biggles, today at 11:54Biggles
11:54
to Tobias Sekund-Home
Biggles replied:
People in the UK can demonstrate peacefully and protest against government decisions. There is no censorship/imprisonment for contradicting the government.
Yet in Russia everyone is under the state thumb and forced to spout the government propoganda.
A
Reply posted by Arcangel, today at 11:57Arcangel
11:57
to Agree percentage
Arcangel replied:
Yes
A
Reply posted by adi, today at 12:06adi
12:06
to None Of The Above
adi replied:
You can vote out the ruling government for another ruling government having the same agenda. Power in the UK is simply more camouflaged behind procedures. I think the only real difference maybe is a bit of more independent judiciary system and public administration… but these are in decline as well
E
Reply posted by Eponymous Cowherd, today at 12:19Eponymous Cowherd
12:19
to Agree percentage
Eponymous Cowherd replied:
Yep. We’ve screwed up the country, let’s blame the EU.
Nope, that didn’t work, blame migrants.
Dammit, still not working…
N
Reply posted by NoneOfThese, today at 12:32NoneOfThese
12:32
to JackNapier
NoneOfThese replied:
You’re right and I agree with the sentiment.
But, worryingly, there are signs that certain democracies have begun using similar distraction tactics.
C
Reply posted by Chris, today at 12:32Chris
12:32
to Tobias Sekund-Home
Chris replied:
“Stop The Boats! Don’t worry about food banks, ambulances and PPE corruption”
M
Reply posted by Mark, today at 12:56Mark
12:56
to Agree percentage
Mark replied:
Take away the labels and you could describe the UK’s CCTV police state, political police commissioners, spying on its own citizens, secret courts, etc and you would be forgiven for thinking I was describing Russia.
B
Reply posted by Besford, today at 12:58Besford
12:58
to JackNapier
Besford replied:
As practiced by Johnson and Truss.
B
Reply posted by Besford, today at 12:59Besford
12:59
to None Of The Above
Besford replied:
But we can’t do it soon enough!
B
Reply posted by Besford, today at 12:59Besford
12:59
to Biggles
Besford replied:
Are you completely sure about that?
Y
Reply posted by Yorkshireman, today at 13:04Yorkshireman
13:04
to Tobias Sekund-Home
Yorkshireman replied:
How would you know, over there in St Petersburg?
M
Reply posted by macster, today at 13:05macster
13:05
to JackNapier
macster replied:
Yep, remember the invasion of the Falklands, trouble at home in Argentina solution, invade somewhere preferably small & close by
M
Reply posted by macster, today at 13:13macster
13:13
to Chris
macster replied:
So your all in favour of unmanaged illegal immigration & the burden that may place on public services & security, have the recent murders & acid attack etc passed you by
B
Reply posted by Billy Goat Gruff, today at 13:19Billy Goat Gruff
13:19
to Tobias Sekund-Home
Billy Goat Gruff replied:
Those are not the major issues. The first one is a figment of your imagination.
B
Reply posted by Billy Goat Gruff, today at 13:20Billy Goat Gruff
13:20
to Agree percentage
Billy Goat Gruff replied:
In Russia Kier Starter and Angela Rayner would have had unfortunate ‘accidents’.
B
Comment posted by BWhit480, today at 10:43BWhit480
10:43
“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.” – JFK
In this case put up a wall can be changed to “jailing and/or poisoning dissidents”.
- AReply posted by Arcangel, today at 10:56Arcangel10:56to BWhit480
Arcangel replied:
“Freedom isn’t free
No, there’s a hefty ****in’ fee.
And if you don’t throw in your buck ‘o five
Who will?”
C
Comment posted by Cheesoid, today at 10:50Cheesoid
10:50
The sanctions imposed by the West simply aren’t harsh enough. We
Protesters speak out at UK demonstrations against Gaza genocide
WSWS reporting teams spoke to some of the protesters at Saturday’s national demonstration in London, and other UK cities against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
UK workers suffer massive income losses since 2010
In the decade and a half since 2010, the social counterrevolution carried out against the wages and conditions of millions of workers has seen a gilded elite amassing more wealth than ever before.
Berlin recall election: The decline of the SPD
The massive loss of votes by the Social Democrats is the just deserts for their right-wing policies of military rearmament, war, xenophobia and social cutbacks.
February 21st 2024
The Receiver who EVICTED the Beach family and SOLD Padd Farm to HER FRIENDS at less than HALF VALUE
GETS AN AWARD!
Louise Brittain
The Receiver who EVICTED the Beach family and SOLD Padd Farm to HER FRIENDS at less than HALF VALUE
GETS AN AWARD!
Insolvency Professional of the Year: Louise Brittain
How can this be possible?
Link to article HERE
Are you a Farmer or Land Owner?
WARNING – What happened to this Land Owner could happen to YOU
Pensioners EVICTED by Receiver Louise Brittain to make way for new owners – The Receiver’s FRIENDS!
Above is 70-year-old Mr Beach, being rushed by armed riot police after threatening to ‘blow himself up’ rather than let his family home and investment of 36 years be taken away from him by the Receiver and sold to her friends at a fracton of its value.
Below is Mr Beach being led away in handcuffs.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BstuJhHv06A
After, Mr Beach stated:
“The Police treated me with respect”
Unlike the Receiver, Louise Brittain, who
“Goaded me to blow myself up”
| Padd Farm sold at HALF market value The Receiver was, by order of the court, instructed to put Padd Farm on the OPEN MARKET. However, Receiver Louise Brittain accepted an offer from ‘her friends’ of LESS THAN 50% of the property value! The new Padd Farm owners made an unconditional offer to purchase the property in 2018 from the Receiver. The Receiver, Louise Brittain, freely admitted NOT actively marketing the property. Therefore the new owners are by definition ‘friends’ or at least ‘associates’ of the Receiver. According to the Receiver, Louise Brittain ‘her friends’ made the ‘highest offer’ to purchase Padd Farm which was coincidentally ‘HALF ITS MARKET VALUE’ The Receiver, Louise Brittain, instructed Matt Brumpton from agents SIA to market the property. But shyster Matt Brumpton devalued the property instead (CLICK HERE) and didn’t even circulate the opportunity to investors – How else can one purchase 32-acres of prime real estate in the UK’s most expensive area to buy land at less than HALF PRICE! Just goes to show its ‘who you know’ and not ‘what you know’ that matters. In addition to the manoeuvring and backroom deals – Shyster Matt Brumpton from estate agents SIA received £120k+ and, wait for it, the Receiver, Louise Brittain, received £666k from the sale of Padd Farm to her friends. Bank Details: It was stated in ‘open court’ that the Receiver, Louise Brittain: “Cannot transfer what remains from the sale of Padd Farm to Mr and Ms Beach as the Receiver does not know where to send it”. Any other normal person would simply ask for bank details, right? The Receiver knows very well Mr and Ms Beach’s bank details as she previously CONFISCATED Mr and Ms Beach’s banked pension monies and their son’s disability payments. Now 2022 and six months on. It is without a doubt that the Receiver is deliberately withholding funds due to Mr and Ms Beach from the forced sale of their home. This is to prevent the pensioners hiring legal representation and have the Receiver exposed as a CROOK. Or is there something even more sinister going on? What do you think? Add a Comment at the bottom of this page. Mr and Ms Beach: Mr and Ms Beach were housing homeless families sent to them by Runnymede Borough Council. The council were paying Mr and Ms Beach housing benefit payments (Click Here) for decades. However, some smart arse at the council decided the payments were ‘illegal’ and Mr and Ms Beach should be prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. In which case, for the council to be funding ‘illegal activity’ the council are just as guilty – you would think. But apparently not… The State will be using this case as a ‘precedent’ alowing councils to ‘entrap’ UK citizens into taking housing benefit payments on behalf of thier tenants – then claim the payments back through the courts with a huge profit. Outrageous! What do you think? Is this some sort of temporary front or work-around for Runnymede Borough Council to carry out their ‘master plan’ which is to build hundreds of new homes on Padd Farm and Hurst Lane? What do you think? Add a Comment at the bottom of this page. |
But it’s not all over yet!
↓
HM Land Registry
Are investigating this matter
↓
Padd Farm Conspirators
↓
Mr Paul Turrell
Chief Executive at Runnymede Borough Council
Mr Nick Prescot
Leader of Runnymede Borough Council
Mr Mario Leo
Corporate Head of Law at Runnymede Borough Council
Ms Louise Brittain
Enforcement Receiver at Wilkins Kennedy (Azets Holdings)
Mr Russell Compton
TRM Land Ltd (Director of and purchasers of Padd Farm)
Mr Robert Mark Love
TRM Land Ltd (Director of and purchasers of Padd Farm)
Mr Ben Hall
Solicitor at Baron Grey Solicitors
Mr John Hardy QC
Barrister at Three Raymond Buildings
HHJ Moss (retired)
Judge at Guildford Crown Court
Master Eastman
High Court Master
Dr Ben Spencer
MP for Runnymede and Weybridge
This website is designed to help the reader understand the collective grounds of a ‘conspiracy to defraud’ committed by the above-named people. Conspiracy to defraud is an offence under Section 5[2] of the Criminal Law Act 1977.
Conspiracy to defraud involves two or more people planning to dishonestly deprive another person of something that belongs to that person. The offence of conspiracy to defraud is the agreement to do the fraud NOT committing the fraud and carries with it a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.
Some of the above-named are also guilty of ‘fraud by abuse of position’ which is an offence under Section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006 which also has a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.
THE FRAUD IN A NUTSHELL
The above-named have conspired to obstruct a multi-million-pound property sale in order to acquire the property at below market value to make a gain from its resale and its redevelopment for themselves.
Significantly, instead of the owners of the property, Mr and Ms Beach, receiving a contractually agreed amount due by way of a deed of sale registered at HM Land Registry. Evidence provided proves that the above-named have conspired to manipulate the sale so that co-conspirators can be placed in a position to pay just a fraction of the agreed amount, not to Mr and Ms Beach, but to OTHER co-conspirators, leaving Mr and Ms Beach with a substantial loss of equity and the loss of thier farm.
Some of the above named have colluded from the outset while others have been introduced at a later stage. Most of them hold privileged positions but ALL have the same goal, which is to profit directly, indirectly or as a favour to others so that they can benefit at a later stage.
THE FRAUD
Pensioners Mr and Ms Beach own a 32-acre estate named ‘Padd Farm’ in Surrey. Their farm is in the ward of Virginia Water which, apart from Central London, is the UK’s most expensive area to buy land and property.
Having invested in their property for over 30 years and now pensioners ready to retire. In July 2016, Mr and Ms Beach sold their 32-acre estate subject to planning permission being granted to the new owner to build homes.
The contract of sale included an ‘overage’ or ‘uplift’ clause where further amounts would be payable to Mr and Ms Beach’s family if additional planning is granted for more homes on the remainder of the land regardless of who the owner is at any time during the next 125 years.
Terms of the ‘Contract of Sale’ also known as the ‘Option Agreement’ were agreed between Mr and Ms Beach and the directors of TRM Land Ltd, who are the property purchasers.
The contract was witnessed, signed, sealed by conveyancing solicitors from both parties and registered at Her Majesty’s Land Registry.
Officers and other senior staff at Runnymede Borough Council (RBC) subjected Mr and Ms Beach to a torrent of unwarranted enforcement notices claiming breaches in planning regulations and their whole family to a number of discriminatory legal actions. Including the rental of caravan accommodation where RBC were one of Mr and Ms Beach’s customers. Income of which the council now claimed was ‘illegal’ CLICK HERE.
Despite the council paying Mr and Ms Beach for emergency accommodation for years, Mr and Ms Beach were prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 for ‘receiving’ rental payments from RBC. Notwithstanding their defence of ‘entrapment’. Mr and Ms Beach were made liable to a manifestly excessive confiscation order of over 1.2 million pounds.
The indictment period for offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is a maximum of 6 years. The total income from caravan rental for a period of 6 years, even if Mr and Ms Beach included the rental payments from RBC CLICK HERE, are nowhere near £1.2 million.
Therefore, the confiscation order was a manipulation and a manoeuvring by the co-conspirators including that of HHJ Moss, who as a Crown Court Judge knows very well that the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is ‘not’ to be used as a ‘punishment’. Nonetheless, HHJ Moss granted the manifestly excessive confiscation order with just RBC being present at the hearing (without Mr and Ms Beach nor their legal representatives being present).
Whilst the prosecuting authority (RBC) were aware of the pending sale of Mr and Ms Beach’s property, Padd Farm – where there was more than enough equity remaining in the property to cover the inflated confiscation order and the accruing interest. RBC nonetheless demanded Mr and Ms Beach should be ‘imprisoned’ for not paying the confiscation order.
Mr and Ms Beach were sent to prison for a combined 13 years.
While Mr and Ms Beach were in PRISON. On the 18 May 2018 RBC applied to Guildford Crown Court for a ‘Receiver’…
…Mr Ben Hall from Baron Grey Solicitors visited Mr Beach in prison to have Mr Beach sign a document where it was guaranteed that his [Mr Beach’s] interest in the ‘Contract of Sale’ or ‘Option Agreement’ would be protected – on the condition Mr Beach did not object to the council’s application for a Receiver.
It later transpired that this was just a ruse as solicitor Mr Ben Hall altered the document to mean something completely different. Mr Beach’s wife, Linda, also while she was in prison strongly opposed the application to appoint a Receiver. Which was totally ignored by the co-conspirators.
HHJ Moss on the 18 May 2018 appointed a ‘Receiver’ with a known controversial working history: Louise Brittain. Conversely, the court issued an order where it specifically states the Receiver, Louise Brittain, MUST:
“Dispose of Padd Farm in accordance with the 2016 registered Option Agreement”
While Mr and Ms Beach were still in prison. The Receiver, Louise Brittain, visited Padd Farm and proceeded to lock up buildings and gates to prevent people from coming in and out. The Receiver threatened Mr and Ms Beach’s commercial tenants with legal action or the removal of their equipment if they did not vacate the farm immediately. Innocent tenants who had nothing to do with the proceedings were forced to relocate their businesses. Resulting in business interruption for the tenants and a loss of commercial rental income for Mr and Ms Beach.
The Receiver, Louise Brittain, also confiscated Mr and Ms Beach’s banked pension monies and their son’s disability payments leaving their disabled son with nothing to live on, nobody to look after him and nowhere to live.
Six months into the 13-year combined prison sentence. High Court judge HHJ Goose determined the prosecuting authority (RBC) did not follow procedure and therefore sending Mr and Ms Beach to prison was ‘unlawful’. On the same day, 9 August 2018, Mr and Ms Beach were released from prison.
Soon after Mr and Ms Beach were released from prison. The directors of TRM Land Ltd (the purchasers of Padd Farm) proposed to pay just a fraction of the agreed amount instead of the originally agreed amount due to Mr and Mrs Beach.
Mr and Ms Beach reminded the purchasers that they had carried out multiple surveys and presumably their due diligence which resulted in their offer to purchase Padd Farm as detailed in the ‘Contract of Sale’ or ‘Option Agreement’.
In addition, the contract was varied (amended) in January 2018 to allow the purchasers, TRM land Ltd, to own the farm ‘outright’ subject to the initial payment. The ‘overage’ or ‘uplift’ where around a further 82.5% for 20 acres would be payable to Mr and Ms Beach’s family during the next 125 years remained unchanged.
In any event. Despite property prices going up since entering into the 2016 agreement. Mr and Ms Beach have not asked for an increase in sale price. They reminded TRM Land Ltd that the whole point of registering an ‘Option Agreement’ at HM land Registry is that all parties know exactly where they stand, especially the sale price.
It is important to note that RBC in their January 2018 SLAA (Strategic Land Availability Assessment) have determined Padd Farm as ‘vacant’ or ‘derelict’. This report was published ‘before’ the council (RBC) applied for a Receiver on the 18 May 2018 and ‘before’ the Receiver evicted Mr and Ms Beach’s commercial tenants. A clear indication that RBC and co-conspirators were working towards their own agenda.
In the full knowledge that Mr and Ms Beach’s purchasers, had conducted numerous pre-planning obligations, such as surveys, plans and public consultations in preparation for a planning application in August 2019 which would trigger the sale of Padd Farm (and a substantial payment) towards the end of 2019. The Receiver, Louise Brittain (pictured), suddenly made an application to Guildford Crown Court for the court’s permission to SELL Padd Farm on HER TERMS. This was heard on 18 July 2019.
This is despite previously on 18 May 2018 the Receiver, Louise Brittain, was DIRECTED to continue the sale of Padd Farm under a COURT ORDER of the same date. Extracted here:The Receiver must deal with or dispose of the Land at Padd Farm registered at HM Land Registry in accordance with the ‘Option Agreement’ between Daniel Charles Beach, Linda Mary Beach and TRM signed on 7 July 2016 and varied on 25 January 2018.
The Receiver’s 18 July 2019 application stated Louise Brittain (the Receiver), received an unconditional offer to purchase Padd Farm suspected to be from a ‘Scaffolding Company’. Extracted here:
The amount of £1.95m is ‘conveniently’ equal to Mr and Ms Beach’s debts, including the trumped-up and exaggerated confiscation order granted by HHJ Moss (now retired). No marketing had been taken place therefore by definition the party making the offer must be somebody known to Louise Brittain (the Receiver) or her agents.
Mr and Ms Beach were sent copy correspondence from their purchasers’ solicitors. Their purchasers (TRM Land Ltd) formally objected to the Receiver’s 18 July 2019 application to remove Mr and Ms Beach as property title holders and confirmed that the final planning application will be submitted to the council during August 2019 when upon its approval at around the end of 2019, the ringfenced amount to cover the purchase will be released to the Receiver for distribution. Extracted here:
Mr Beach went to the 18 July 2019 hearing at Guildford Crown Court confident that the Receiver’s application would fail as there is no provision in the 2016 ‘Contract of Sale’ or ‘Option Agreement’ to replace Mr and Ms Beach as the beneficiaries of the sale. In any event, Mr and Ms Beach stated their case by way of a Witness Statement.
If the Receiver’s application succeeded it would mean the ‘Scaffolding Company’ would benefit when planning permission is granted by the council (RBC) plus potentially an additional 82.5% of 20 acres INSTEAD of Mr and Ms Beach who would end up with NOTHING. Which would be outrageous and damn right criminal!!!
Not being able to afford legal representation. A McKenzie friend accompanied Mr Beach to the 18 July 2019 hearing for the purposes of moral support and quietly making suggestions.
HHJ Moss refused Mr Beach the assistance of a McKenzie friend and made Mr Beach sit by himself where the jury normally sit. Nonetheless, Mr Beach stated in open court that Padd Farm is worth a lot more than what the Receiver, Louise Brittain, is suggesting selling it for and in addition, to do so would be a breach of the previous order made on the 18 May 2018.
During the actual 18 July 2019 hearing. Barristers representing Louise Brittain (the Receiver), RBC and TRM Land Ltd were negotiating with each other and dashing in and out of the court room. Presumably to make private conversations or to make telephone calls.
Presiding judge HHJ Moss was eventually told that between the Receiver, RBC and TRM Land Ltd an ‘agreement has been reached’. Details of which will be sent to the court ‘at a later stage’.
Without seeing or knowing anything of what was agreed between the co-conspirators, HHJ Moss (now retired) and without giving any consideration to the terms of the 2016 registered ‘Option Agreement’ or even the 18 May 2018 order protecting Mr and Ms Beach’s interests which he [HHJ Moss] granted himself – HHJ Moss ‘granted’ the Receiver’s 18 July 2019 application a week later by signing an ambiguous court order – Heavily bias towards the Receiver and TRM Land Ltd’s terms.
The 18 July 2019 order (signed a week later) allows Louise Brittain, the Receiver to dispose of Padd Farm to an ‘anonymous’ party for an undisclosed amount and the ‘anonymous’ party to then sell Padd Farm to TRM land Ltd for just a fraction of the agreed price. As long as TRM Land Ltd secure planning permission (any planning permission) from the council (RBC) before January 2022.
How would the Receiver know the ‘anonymous’ party who are initialy paying £1.9m for Padd Farm would ‘want’ to sell Padd Farm to TRM Land Ltd at less than the original price – if it was not pre-agreed? A clear and illegal pre-arrangement by the co-conspirators.
Mr and Ms Beach say the co-conspirators named above have colluded to:
Acquire property title at well below market value.
Make a further gain from its sale to TRM Land Ltd.
Make an even further gain from its sale by TRM land Ltd to Runnymede Borough Council.
Runnymede Borough Council have already had an electrical sub-station bordering Padd Farm in Hurst Lane installed. A brand new electrical sub-station costing around £5m capable of powering about 1500 new homes. Currently unused and waiting to be connected to new homes. When Mr and Ms Beach made enquiries about it. The council had no record of an electrical sub-station in Hurst Lane nor any record of Hurst Lane being dug up to lay the massive cable! Not even a planning application. Isn’t that strange?
Officers at RBC have access to unlimited public funds to finance their manoeuvrings. Therefore, Mr and Ms Beach say the co-conspirators are taking advantage of their privileged or fortunate positions to conspire to commit the fraud using the courts as ‘cover’. A suitable idiomatic would be: ‘Fraud in Plain Sight’.
PREMEDITATED ‘CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD’ BY THE RECEIVER
It came to light that ‘prior’ to the 18 July 2019 hearing (The hearing where Louise Brittain, the Receiver, applied to sell Padd Farm to a ‘anonymous’ party). The Receiver had ALREADY AGREED with Mr and Ms Beach’s purchasers that in return for their cooperation, TRM Land Ltd would only need to pay £5.59m for Padd Farm instead of £9.5m + 82.5% of 20 acres which is contractually due to be paid to Mr and Ms Beach.
This is evidenced in the Receivers Skeleton Argument dated 11 July 2019 which was used at the 18 July 2019 hearing. On the last page it states that up to £5.59m is payable under the option. Extracted here:
Six months before the Receiver’s 18 July 2019 application to sell Padd Farm to her friend or so called ‘anonymous’ party: on 4 January 2019. Mr Russell Compton of TRM Land Ltd proposed to Louise Brittain (the Receiver) that the initial price he originally agreed to pay to Mr and Ms Beach by way of the ‘Contract of Sale’ or ‘Option Agreement’ should be REDUCED from £9.5m to £5.59m.
£5.59m, you will see is the same amount the Receiver, six months later at the 18 July 2019 hearing is expecting to receive from the sale of the property to Mr Russell Compton of TRM Land Ltd – as evidenced in the extract above.
Subsequent conversations between Louise Brittain and Mr Russell Compton of TRM Land Ltd must have taken place to include the ‘overage’ or ‘uplift’ of 82.5% of 20 acres as this amount is ‘included’ in the Receivers Skeleton Argument as ‘Total payable under the option – up to £5.59m’. Illustrated in the extract above. A 20 acre ‘bonus’ for TRM Land Ltd if they align themselves with the other conspirators. Happy days!
It is therefore clear that at the very least the Receiver, Louise Brittain, on behalf of the ‘anonymous’ party, had agreed with Mr Russell Compton to accept £5.59m from TRM Land Ltd instead of the contracted £9.5m + 82.5% of 20 acres Mr Russell Compton had agreed to pay Mr and Ms Beach by way of the 2016 registered ‘Option Agreement’.
It is also clear that this arrangement was on the condition TRM Land Ltd allowed the terms of the 18 July 2019 court order to be compiled [written] by the co-conspirators which allows Louise Brittain, the Receiver to first sell the property to a party of her choice at well below market value.
To take advantage of the £5.59m deal and to loosely comply with the original 2016 ‘Contract of Sale’ or ‘Option Agreement’ and perhaps an attempt to remain undetected by the authorities. TRM Land Ltd had to have ‘approved planning permission’ before January 2022 in order to activate the option and pay just £5.59m for Padd Farm.
Therefore, to be in a position to pay just £5.59m. Mr Russell Compton of TRM Land Ltd produced an alternative planning application consisting entirely of social housing.
A planning application consisting entirely of housing association homes is more likely to be ‘approved’ by the council as opposed to the original plans which are.
Remember, these plans were due to be submitted to the council in August 2019, with the option activated (£9.5m paid to Mr and Ms Beach) towards the end of 2019. But the Receiver, Louise Brittain, had to stop this from happening. Hence the sudden 18 July 2019 application by the Receiver.
Using the 18 July 2019 court order (signed by HHJ Moss on 26 July 2019). The Receiver, Louise Brittain, went on to apply for a ‘Writ of Possession’ from a Master at the High Court in London. This would allow the Receiver to evict Mr and Ms Beach and sell the estate to it seems either the ‘anonymous’ party who may be the ‘Scaffolding Company’ or Runnymede Borough Council or Council Officers masquerading as a clandestine organisation.
If indeed Runnymede Borough Council are the ‘anonymous’ party offering to buy Padd Farm for just £1.9m. The council would simply wait until the contract between Mr and Mrs Beach and their purchasers, TRM land Ltd, runs out and is void in January 2022. A council asset which at that stage would be free and clear of any encumbrances, ready to be redeveloped into luxury homes and acquired for just £1.9m. Clever – but illegal.
Mr and Ms Beach informed Master Eastman that the Receiver is breaching a previous court order and supplied evidence that Louise Brittain, the Receiver, together with other co-conspirators have secretly agreed with TRM Land Ltd a much lower sale price if first the property is sold to an ‘anonymous’ party.
Despite explaining to Master Eastman that a Receiver is ‘duty bound’ not to make a profit for themselves or any interested parties, such as TRM Land Ltd or RBC, whilst other parties, such as Mr and Ms Beach suffer a loss. Master Eastman on the 10 November 2020 issued a ‘Writ of Possession’.
On several occasions Mr and Ms Beach have asked Master Eastman and his office to release his ‘ruling’, which would explain his reasonings to why he decided to issue the requested ‘Writ of Possession’. To date this has been refused. The ‘Writ of Possession’ issued by Master Eastman is currently under appeal and Mr and Ms Beach are waiting for a hearing since January 2021.
In spite of the overwhelming evidence proving that Louise Brittain (the Receiver) had agreed with TRM land Ltd they can pay just £5.59m for the entire 32 acres. Astonishingly, in her response to Mr and Ms Beach’s appeal, the Receiver has denied it. Part of clause 6, extracted here:
UPDATE
Mr and Ms Beach’s appeal against the ‘writ of possession’ was granted by Mr Justice Bourne on 10 June 2021. However, unbelievably, for a High Court Judge to grant an appeal for an extension against a ‘Writ of Possession’ does NOT to supersede the writ of possession itself. In other words, the eviction can continue. WTF – who makes these rules?
BACK STORY
Mr and Ms Beach (both pensioners) own a 32-acre farm in Egham Surrey. Their estate just happens to be located in the ward of Virginia Water which, apart from Central London, is the UK’s most expensive area to buy land and property.
Mr and Ms Beach purchased the property back in the 1980s. Over the years, they were granted planning permission by Runnymede Borough Council (RBC) to build a bungalow, commercial buildings and extensive hard standing areas.
In the 1990s Mr and Ms Beach decided to install all that is required to have caravans on Padd Farm. Mr and Ms Beach also invested in their own caravans which they made available at a low-cost to accommodate the less well of members of the community.
Mr and Ms Beach were renting caravans directly to the council (RBC). The council paid the rent straight to Mr and Ms Beach. This continued for more than a decade upon which it was decided to formalise the caravan site based on the following grounds: (1) There were no recorded objections to the caravan site for a period of 10 years therefore the granting of planning permission should be automatic. (2) The council themselves (RBC) were renting Mr and Ms Beach’s caravans and therefore by definition already granted use of the caravans for accommodation purposes.
However, RBC disagreed and refused the application. In addition, RBC served 48 [forty-eight] separate enforcement notices alleging various breaches in planning regulations in regard to the said caravans and other areas of the farm.
To date – all has been delt with. Either by the council withdrawing the notices or Mr and Ms Beach complying with the notices or completing legal proceedings in relation to the notices.
Leaving just ONE Notice containing three indictments which are as follows:
- The use of caravans for accommodation without planning permission
- The erection of a small shower outhouse without planning permission.
- A single-story extension to a detached garage without planning permission.
The majority of the £1.2m ‘confiscation order’ was based on alleged ‘illegal’ income obtained from the combination of the above indictments. As you can see, they only income that could be obtained is from the rental of caravans where most of the caravan income was received from RBC in the first place!
Despite Mr and Ms Beach declaring income to HMRC via their Chartered Accounts and having paid all taxes in the proper manner. Mr and Ms Beach are victims of ‘entrapment’ and as to the £1.2m; RBC simply added ALL income received at Padd Farm during a six-year period. Hardly ‘illegal’ income!
Claim against Louise Brittain, the Receiver
On 3 March 2021 Mr and Ms Beach applied to Guildford Crown Court pursuant to Section 62(3)(a) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to make a claim against the Receiver for the losses suffered as a consequence of Louise Brittain interfering and preventing the sale of Mr and Ms Beach’s estate to TRM Land Ltd and the loss of commercial rental income since the appointment of the Receiver. Confirmation was received from Guildford Crown Court and a hearing date is set for July 2021.
PRIVATE PROSECUTIONS
Being mindful that the conspirators hold privileged positions who so far have been using the judicial process as ‘cover’ for their criminality. Mr and Ms Beach have decided to privately prosecute the people involved in the hope that they can rely on other members of the UK criminal justice system.
ACTIVITY IN THE FRAUD (IN BRIEF)
Mr Paul Turrell, Mr Nick Prescot and Mr Mario Leo (Officers at RBC):
Served 48 [forty-eight] separate enforcement notices alleging various breaches in planning in the hope some will stick.
One did stick and prosecuted Mr and Ms Beach under Section 285(1) of the Town and County Planning Act 1990 where there is no defence whatsoever.
Prosecuted Mr and Ms Beach under the Proceeds of Crime Act for receiving payments from Runnymede Borough Council (RBC) and then upgraded the prosecution to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Exaggerated the level of alleged illegal income Mr and Ms Beach received during the indictment period which resulted in a manifestly excessive confiscation order.
Disregarded legal protocol by engineering Mr and Ms Beach to be imprisoned for 5.5 and 7.5 years respectfully. After 6 months, High Court judge HHJ Goose deemed to have Mr and Ms Beach imprisoned for the non-payment of a confiscation order before a successful application for a Receiver as ‘unlawful’ and Mr and Ms Beach were released from prison.
Conspired with the Receiver and Mr and Ms Beach purchasers, Mr Russell Compton. to acquire their estate at a fraction of its market value (see Louise Brittain entry).
Mr Ben Hall and Mr John Hardy QC (Solicitor and Barrister):
Taking advice from barrister Mr John Hardy QC. Mr Ben Hall assured Mr Beach that he and Mr John Hardy QC had secured Mr Beach’s interests in the sale of Padd Farm by negotiating a clause which he had added to a court order. The clause ‘guaranteed’ that if Mr Beach does not oppose the council’s application to appoint a Receiver – income from the sale of Padd Farm would be protected (i.e., Mr and Ms Beach would receive the agreed sale price of £9.5m + 82.5% of 20 acres).
After being sentenced for 7.5 years for the purported non-payment of the confiscation order. Some 4 months later. Mr Ben Hall ‘High fived’ when he visited Mr Beach in prison and informed Mr Beach of the good news and asked Mr Beach to sign a hand-written document confirming that his interests were protected – on the condition Mr Beach does NOT oppose the council’s application to appoint a Receiver.
Six months into Mr Beach’s imprisonment (Linda, his wife was also imprisoned). High Court Judge HHJ Goose determined that imprisoning Mr and Ms Beach ‘before’ an application for a Receiver was ‘unlawful’ and they were released.
There were no copying facilities in prison. Having just been released from prison. Mr Beach asked Mr Ben Hall for a copy of the hand-written document which he signed in front of him when Mr Beach was in prison. Mr Beach was astonished to see that Mr Ben Hall had ‘altered’ the document to mean something completely different.
Mr Ben Hall added a couple of words changing the document to read he will ‘try’ to protect Mr Beach’s interests and not ‘guaranteeing’ his interests in the sale of Padd Farm. Mr Ben Hall made Mr Beach sign this disclaimer under false pretences knowing he can change it later to suit himself and the other conspirators.
Mr Beach would NOT have signed on a ‘maybe’. Mr Beach previously made it clear that he would object to the council’s application for a Receiver unless his interests were protected.
HHJ Peter Johnathan Moss (Judge – Now retired):
Mr and Ms Beach were not legally represented at a trial by jury and therefore totally relied on their paper defence bundles.
Without any prompts from the prosecution whatsoever. HHJ Moss demanded Mr and Ms Beach take out most of their defence from the bundles. Including evidence proving that RBC were making rental payments to Mr and Ms Beach which the council were saying was illegal income.
Rendering their defence useless and leaving the jury with defence bundles that were totally unusable. Mr and Ms Beach were of course found guilty on all counts. In any event, HHJ Moss allowed the prosecution under Section 285(1) of the Town and County Planning Act 1990 where there is ‘no defence whatsoever’.
At the confiscation hearing: HHJ Moss was aware Mr and Ms Beach had planning permission to receive a legitimate rental income from commercial areas of Padd Farm during the entire indictment period (6 years).
During this period, Mr and Ms Beach also ran a successfully ‘buying and selling’ business from Padd Farm. All activity of which recorded by chartered accountants and income tax paid as recorded by HMRC. However, HHJ Moss was told by RBC’s barristers that ALL income received by Mr and Ms Beach was illegally gained and granted RBC a manifestly excessive confiscation order of over £1,200,000.00
HHJ Moss ignored the fact that the prosecuting party (RBC) were the biggest contributor of illegally gained income and deflected previous legal precedents where only the profit should be deemed as illegal income. HHJ Moss even allowed income to be taken into consideration which was ‘outside’ the 6-year indictment period.
£1,200,000.00 over the indictment period of 6 years equates to £16,666,66 per month. A level of income Mr and Ms Beach can only dream of. But HHJ Moss made it real by abusing his privileged position and granting the excessive confiscation order ‘in Mr and Ms Beach’s absence’ and ‘in the absence of any type of legal representation’ for Mr and Ms Beach to argue differently. To be clear HHJ Moss granted the confiscation order with just the prosecuting authority (RBC) present at Guildford Crown Court.
The Receiver, Louise Brittain, applied to Guildford Crown Court to have Mr and Ms Beach replaced as property title holders by selling the property to an organisation who made an offer at well below market rate.
Mr and Ms Beach purchasers originally objected as they only needed an extra month to submit a planning application which the sale was subject too.
However, they (Mr and Ms Beach’s purchasers) withdrew their objections when RBC’s counsel and that of the Receiver’s counsel put forward to the purchasers that if they first allow the sale of Padd Farm to an ‘anonymous party’. That ‘anonymous party’ will accept a much lower amount compared to what they agreed to pay Mr and Ms Beach. On the condition that the interim purchaser was to remain ‘anonymous’ until the sale has completed.
During this hearing Mr Beach objected to the proposed sale price of £1.9m suggested by the Receiver, Louise Brittain. Which by the time the confiscation order and other debts were paid would leave Mr and Ms Beach with ‘nothing’. Mr Beach stood up in open court and told HHJ Moss that his property is worth far more than what Louise Brittain is proposing to sell it for.
Nevertheless, HHJ Moss agreed to a court order which there was no draft and no details. Sometime later a court order was received which was signed by HHJ Moss a week or so after the hearing. An order containing ‘redaction clauses’ and where the interim purchaser of Padd Farm can remain ‘anonymous’ until the sale is completed.
Ms Louise Brittain (Receiver):
A Receiver is duty bound NOT to make a profit for themselves or any interested parties (such as the council) whilst other parties, such as Mr and Ms Beach suffer a multi-million-pound loss. Even if Mr and Ms Beach are subject to receivership.
This Receiver was appointed by RBC and HHJ Moss while Mr and Ms Beach were in prison. Mr and Ms Beach did not object to the appointment on the condition that their interests were protected. Mr Beach’s solicitor assured him that would be the case, but he simply LIED (see Mr Ben Hall entry).
The appointment of the Receiver was meant to ‘accelerate’ the sale of Padd Farm. However, Mr Louise Brittain had another agenda. That is to sell Padd Farm at well below market value to a friend or colleague.
But Louise Brittain was appointed after the 2016 the contract of sale or ‘Option Agreement’ therefore terms and conditions of the contract of sale still stand, right?.
Not according to Ms Louise Brittain (The Receiver), RBC (Mr Mario Leo and Mr Nick Prescot) and Mr Russell Compton (TRM Land Ltd). Who conspired together and agreed that if the Receiver were allowed to sell Padd Farm to an ‘anonymous party’ as an interim owner. Mr Russell Compton’s company (TRM Land Ltd) would only need to pay the ‘anonymous party’ £5.59m – instead of the agreed £9.5m + 82.5% of 20 acres which are the amounts agreed with Mr and Ms Beach as per the contract of sale or ‘Option Agreement’.
This attempted fraud was seemingly agreed prior to a court hearing which was ultimately presided by HHJ Moss who agreed to a court order allowing the fraud (see HHJ Moss entry).
In effect, the sale of my property was STOPPED by these clandestine agreements.
This Receiver has a chequered history (Google: Louise Brittain Controversial Liquidator) or Click Here.
Mr Russell Compton (Property purchaser):
Tried to re-negotiate the terms of the contract of sale upon Mr and Ms Beach’s release from prison. Mr and Ms Beach’s reminded him that he had carried out his due diligence in terms of surveys and valuations before he made his offer to purchase. Purchase amounts which are recorded in the contract of sale logged by deed at HM Land Registry.
In any case, land prices had gone up and Mr and Ms Beach have not asked for an increase. The whole point of the contract of sale called an ‘Option Agreement’ is that all parties know exactly where they stand.
It has transpired the Mr Compton then negotiated the sale price directly with the Receiver, Louise Brittain and possibly RBC. Taking advantage of Mr and Ms Beach’s predicament which is typical of a ruthless land developer.
In order for land developer Mr Russell Compton to enjoy the 80% discount as promised by Louise Brittain, the Receiver and RBC. Mr Russell Compton would need to have planning permission passed by RBC.
Mr Russell Compton abandoned the original planning application overseen by Ascot Design architects and hired Nexus Planning to submit an alternative planning application consisting entirely of social homes or affordable homes, in the hope of a swift approval. Which was submitted to RBC on the 22 April 2021. The alternative planning application is specifically designed to take advantage of the £5.59m offer made by Louise Brittain and RBC.
Master Eastman (High Court Master):
Upon application by the Receiver (Louise Brittain) on the 10 November 2020. Mr and Ms Beach enlightened Master Eastman of the attempted fraud and specifically asked Master Eastman to confront the Receiver and ask on what grounds did the Receiver make an alternative deal with Mr and Ms Beach’s purchasers.
After many requests by Mr and Ms Beach for the written ‘ruling’ from the 10 November 2020 hearing. Bearing in mind that a defendant has the right to an explanation for a judge or a master’s decision (the ruling). This was refused unless Mr and Ms Beach paid £921.60.
Dr Ben Spencer (MP):
Having presumed that Mr and Ms Beach’s MP will act in the interests of his constituents. Mr and Ms Beach send Dr Ben Spencer, MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, several emails and letters asking for his intervention and assistance.
Dr Ben Spencer initially took an interest in Mr and Ms Beach’s predicament. However, after Dr Ben Spencer discussed the matter with the other co-conspirators, Dr Ben Spencer decided he could not help his constituents after all.
The moral of this true story is if you have something valuable, there is always somebody who wants to take it from you.
Anonymous 1 week ago.
https://www.paddfarmstory.com/index.php
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