A gay-sounding Donald Trump Very very funny!
Saturday 7-Up: Top Stories of 2024
4 hours ago
I am not a sheep, I have my own mind
I have had enough of being told what and how to think
Whilst we are still allowed the remnants of free speech,
I will speak out.
I also reserve the right to discuss less controversial matters should I feel the urge.
'Tony Blair presided over a silent conspiracy to change the face of Britain for ever with mass immigration, an explosive book reveals.He ordered his Labour government never to discuss in public the supposed 'advantages' of the unprecedented influx.But behind the scenes ministers were instructed to wave tens of thousands of asylum seekers into the UK under cover of their being 'economic migrants'.Astonishingly, the minister Mr Blair put in charge of borders ruled against deporting failed claimants because it would be too 'emotional'.Tony Blair presided over a silent conspiracy to change the face of Britain for ever with mass immigration, investigative journalist Tom Bower claims in his explosive new book
The main aim of allowing in millions of people was to make the country 'see the benefit of a multicultural society'. The Blair government did not see its job as being to 'control immigration'.The policy is revealed today in a Daily Mail serialisation of an authoritative biography of the former prime minister by Tom Bower, an internationally-acclaimed investigative journalist.'
'MORE than 30 firms backing David Cameron's campaign to keep Britain in the EU have received handouts from Europe worth £100million, it has emerged. '
'EU membership: The true cost to Britain's economy – and the unrealistic assumptions you need to make the numbers net positive
Many people are surprised to find that, back in the early 1970s, all the studies undertaken before we joined the then EEC pointed to a negative economic impact. This was due to direct payments to Brussels, alongside the effect of the customs union (common external tariff), which raised prices above world levels, most notably in the case of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
So the reasons for joining weren't economic, although Britain was "the sick man of Europe" at the time, and there was a sense that the UK was joining a more dynamic club (how times change).But the bottom line was that the economic impact would be negative.
Fast forward to the present day and what's the economic impact? In order to answer this question one needs to define what the EU is.In economic terms, it is essentially three things. First, it is a bureaucracy with people and policies. Second, it is a customs union. And third, it is a single market. Add these together and they should give us a strong indication as to whether or not the economic impact of membership is positive or negative. So what do we know?'
'The antipathy displayed by many on the Left towards Israel is not an example of anti-Zionism morphing into anti-Semitism, but a sign that anti-Zionism is caused by anti-Semitism, the distinguished British historian Simon Schama argued in the Financial Times Friday.'
'David Cameron's EU reforms are not legally binding and could be overturned by European judges, Justice Secretary Michael Gove has told the BBC.Mr Gove - one of five cabinet ministers campaigning for the UK to quit the EU - told the BBC the European Court of Justice was "not bound" by the PM's agreement until treaties are changed.The PM has said the package is "already legally binding and irreversible".It could only be overturned by all EU states including the UK, he says.'
'Another asks why BBC reporting is biased in favour of Israel... '
' The police in Belgium have retrieved 10 hours of video footage of a Belgian nuclear official from the home of a suspect in the November Paris attacks, Thierry Werts, a spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecutor, said on Thursday.A person close to the investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the footage indicated that a terrorist network involved in the coordinated attacks on Nov. 13 that left 130 dead may also have intended to obtain radioactive material for terrorist purposes.'
'The frontman of the Eagles of Death Metal, the band that was performing at the Bataclan theatre in Paris when 90 people were murdered by terrorists last year, has remembered his terror at encountering a gunman backstage – and argued for universal access to guns.'
'Vocalist-guitarist Jesse Hughes, who is a long-time advocate for access to gun ownership, told the French television station iTélé in a 19-minute, at times tearful interview on Monday that restrictions on guns in France had helped to enable the terrorists.
Asked if his views on gun control had changed after the terror attacks, the member of America’s National Rifle Association said gun control “doesn’t have anything to do with it”.
“Did your French gun control stop a single fucking person from dying at the Bataclan? And if anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so. I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms.'
'In separate comments to Agence France-Presse, Hughes, a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, said: “I don’t go anywhere in America without a gun anymore. That sucks. And I’m not paranoid. I’m not a cowboy... but I want to be prepared.”'
'The co-chair of a leading student Labour group has quit amid accusations that colleagues "have some kind of problem with Jews".Alex Chalmers said he was leaving the "poisonous" Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) after it endorsed Israel Apartheid Week, due to take place next week.Mr Chalmers claimed fellow students had expressed "solidarity" with Hamas and had claimed accusations of antisemitism were "just the Zionists crying wolf"....In a lengthy Facebook post published following his resignation on Monday evening, Mr Chalmers wrote that he had invested "an extraordinary amount of time, energy, and emotion" in the club.
But it had become "increasingly riven by factional splits, and despite its avowed commitment to liberation, the attitudes of certain members of the club towards certain disadvantaged groups was becoming poisonous".Students had used the term "Zio" with "casual abandon" he wrote.They had also expressed "their 'solidarity' with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians".Mr Chalmers claimed one colleague had claimed that "most accusations of antisemitism are just the Zionists crying wolf"."A large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews," he added.'
'Fury as paedophile campaigner is allowed to join Labour partyA notorious paedophile who once campaigned for sex with children to be legalised has been allowed to join the Labour party.Tom O'Carroll, former chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange (Pie), is understood to have joined after the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader in September.Pie was formed in 1974 to campaign for a change in the law. O'Carroll was jailed in 1981 for "corrupting public morals" and again in 2006 for distributing indecent images of children.'
'When David Cameron set out his plans for a renegotiation followed by a referendum in his Bloomberg Speech three years ago, he said the best way to give effect to the outcome would be a new EU Treaty. Government ministers promised they would secure that before the referendum. They have failed to do so.
Why does this matter? Because any promised changes which are not contained in a new Treaty will not be worth the paper they are written on. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has made clear that the EU Treaties can only be changed by a new EU Treaty. This must be ratified by every member state in accordance with its constitution. Some might have to hold referendums. We would not know the result until several years after we voted.The government contends that a promise to change the Treaties after the poll can be legally binding. That is not the case. The former director general of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union, Jean-Claude Piris, has said that the notion of a binding promise to change the Treaties in the future is "bullshit". Sir Konrad Schiemann, the UK's former judge in the ECJ, agrees with him.'
'... the BBC's treatment of Israel is part of a wider institutional problem afflicting the news department, which is widely perceived to be biased when it comes to any number of issues that don't conform to a liberal or left-wing perspective that dominates the BBC's thinking.'
'A suspect who attacked patrons and staff at the Nazareth Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio with a machete last night was shot and killed by police minutes later, and some indications that the attack may have been motivated by the owner's Israeli heritage.'
'The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has slammed the BBC as "arrogant" and "lacking transparency" in its first report reviewing the broadcaster's Royal Charter.The 65-page document concluded that the broadcaster's governing body, the BBC Trust, had lost the public's confidence and should be replaced by a new unitary board with an independent head.Jessie Norman, Chairman of the Select Committee, said: "The new board needs to address a culture within the BBC that has been widely described as bureaucratic, arrogant and introspective."The report condemned the underhand manner in which former BBC Director of Television, Danny Cohen, orchestrated a 29-signature lobbying letter ahead of Charter renewal."The BBC's website ran, and continues to run, the (lobbying) story as an independent piece of news, without any disclosure in it of the BBC's own coordinating role," said the report."Even after a public newspaper investigation and questions from this Committee revealed the truth, the BBC did not put out an online clarification to this story. The Director-General (Lord Hall) argued that this was simply a case of BBC staff speaking up on behalf of the BBC, when it clearly was not. The Chair of the BBC Trust (Rona Fairhead) refused to accept that the BBC had been in any way at fault on this issue."
'Make no mistake - the vast majority of Palestinians support the depraved message of videos like this, both explicitly and implicitly, by refusing to say a single negative word about them. And that is a message that Western media and politicians simply refuse to acknowledge.'
'A novel form of the "urban heat island" effect might contribute to why the far north is warming faster than the rest of the globe, a study of five Arctic cities finds.Sunlight can heat dense building materials. When night falls, buildings will release some of their solar energy into the air. This helps explain why urban centers tend to be a few degrees warmer than nearby rural areas."We decided that our Russian Arctic cities should also show this phenomenon," says Mikhail Varentsov, a climatologist at Lomonosov Moscow State University. But indoor heating — not the sun — would be the major heat source, at least in winter, when the sun shines little if at all. To test that idea, he and colleagues set up weather stations to collect data in the five cities north of the ArcticCircle for about a week during the polar night (with 24 hours of darkness). Apatity, with a population of about 59,000, showed the strongest effect. Its city center was up to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than outlying areas. Murmansk, with more than 300,000 residents, showed a similar, but smaller, in-town increase of about 3 degrees Celsius. Varentsov shared his team's findings January 28 at the international Arctic Frontiers conference.'
'The NHS has been left 'on its knees' by uncontrolled migration from the EU, a leading cancer expert will warn tomorrow.Professor Angus Dalgleish, the principal of the Cancer Vaccine Institute, says the NHS is being bled dry of resources by health tourists denied care at home.Cancer treatment can cost £200,000 and, under Brussels rules, Britain has to offer it to all EU nationals.Professor Dalgleish says this partly explains the NHS's £3billion deficit. He will also claim the Government has hindered progress into key disease areas 'by blindly adhering to EU directives'.'Our membership of the EU is putting an intolerable strain on our NHS,' Professor Dalgleish, a melanoma expert of global renown, will tell a conference.'The NHS is on its knees and could collapse completely. NHS Trusts were not prepared for the millions of EU migrants who have poured into Britain because the Government estimate was nowhere near the reality.'
'Over the course of what was probably no longer than an hour, my history was denied, the murder of my people was justified, and a movement whose sole purpose is the destruction of the Jewish homeland was glorified. Statements were made justifying the ruthless murder of innocent Israeli civilians, blatantly denying Jewish indigeneity in the land, and denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered. Why anyone in their right mind would accept these slanders as truths baffles me. But they did. These statements, and others, were met with endless snaps and cheers. I was taken aback....When I heard that among my peers that "the Jews are oppressors and murderers—How can you care about students of color on campus when they're murdering our people abroad?"—it quickly dawned on me that it wasn't that they don't like us because we're pro-Israel—they don't like us because we're Jews. '
'Former Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath said in an interview earlier this month that he often asks Westerners whether Arabs have to "hijack your planes and destroy your airports again" to make the world take notice of the Palestinian cause.'
'Philip Hammond has warned less than half of the migrants entering Europe are fleeing the brutal war in Syria.More than a million people are expected to try and get into Europe this year but speaking on a visit to refugee camps in Jordan the Foreign Secretary said many were economic migrants who should be sent home.'
'Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, declared the EU is committing a "ritual suicide" by letting so many people in. He said the country could volunteer 300 guards at the Schengen zone's external borders.He condemned Jean-Claude Juncker's quota system to share out migrants as "nonsense" and a "complete fiasco"."If it takes until late 2016 or 2017 for Europe to set up its planned border and coastguard force, the EU will have killed itself"
'Frans Timmermans says official data shows majority of refugees are economic migrants, as Slovakia declares Europe is 'suicidal'Six in 10 migrants arriving in Europe are economic migrants with no right to asylum, one of the EU's most senior officials has disclosed.Frans Timmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission, said that the majority of those coming to the EU are not fleeing war or persecution.Many are Tunisians or Moroccans who were joining the migrant trail through Turkey, he said, and they must be deported if the public is to consent to aiding asylum seekers."It's about 60 per cent of all asylum seekers," he said, citing internal figures held by Frontex, the EU border agency. "These are people that you can assume have no reason to apply for refugee status."'