Files Show Jeffrey Epstein’s Death Announcement, But It’s Dated A Day Before

A federal statement announcing Jeffrey Epstein’s death has emerged in recently released Justice Department files, but it bears a date that appears to precede the moment he was officially found dead inside his New York prison cell.

The document, issued by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and dated Friday, August 9, 2019, states that Epstein had already been found unresponsive and pronounced dead.

But prison documents and official reports show Epstein was not found unresponsive until the morning of August 10, 2019, when a corrections officer delivering breakfast discovered him in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan.

In the statement, then–Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: ‘Earlier this morning, the Manhattan Correctional Centre confirmed that Jeffrey Epstein, who faced charges brought by this Office of engaging in the sex trafficking of minors, had been found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead shortly thereafter. 

‘Today’s events are disturbing, and we are deeply aware of their potential to present yet another hurdle to giving Epstein’s many victims their day in Court. 

‘To those brave young women who have already come forward and to the many others who have yet to do so, let me reiterate that we remain committed to standing for you, and our investigation of the conduct charged in the Indictment.’

Epstein, 66, had been held at the Manhattan jail since his arrest on July 6, 2019, after federal prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking minors and conspiracy. 

He pleaded not guilty and was awaiting trial when he died in custody just over a month later.

According to official reports, Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell soon after 6.30 am on August 10 by a corrections officer.

Medical personnel tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead soon afterwards.

The New York City medical examiner subsequently ruled his death a suicide by hanging.

Epstein’s death came amid a deluge of failures inside one of the federal government’s most secure detention facilities.

Prison records reveal that guards assigned to watch Epstein did not perform required checks during the overnight hours before his body was found.

Scheduled rounds at 3 am and 5 am were missed, according to official findings.

Also, cameras positioned outside Epstein’s cell were not working properly that night. 

Investigators subsequently established that at least two surveillance cameras had malfunctioned, leaving vital gaps in visual monitoring of the area. Officials were unable to create a conclusive chronology of Epstein’s last moments due to such shortcomings.

No exact official time of death has been established as of yet.

Because of this, we will never really know if Epstein committed suicide or if he was killed, and with no working cameras, guards that did not check on him, and a press release already drafted before he died, there is nothing to see, but it does seem a little bit suspicious – perhaps he’s still alive and kicking!

Epstein had a lot of dirt on the rich and famous, and if he’d opened his mouth, some people would have been in a lot of trouble, so he could have been murdered to shut him up – suicide, well maybe, but not so sure about that because there are too many ‘maybe’s.’ But we will never know because he’s not here to tell us what happened, whether dead or alive, and now there is no jury to convict him. This will eventually get shelved in some government office, and perhaps that would be the best thing to do because if there is no jury, there is no trial.

Inside The Secret Police Forum: What Officers Think Of The British Public

On an unknown corner of Reddit, rank-and-file police officers have been lifting the lid on life behind the thin blue line.

A picture of fatigue, anxiety, and declining morale emerges from post after post on the Police UK forum.

Contributors express lurking doubts about the fate of policing, with some conceding they are actively plotting their escape routes.

One officer announced they had already quit, while another confessed that, for the first time, they had seriously considered handing in their warrant card after a bruising shift.

Others piled in to agree: staffing shortages, relentless workloads and what they see as a lack of backing from the top are driving many to breaking point.

The frustration voiced online comes as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announces plans to “significantly” cut the number of forces across England and Wales.

Ms Mahmood intends to reduce the current 43 constabularies to 12 ‘mega forces’, which will be more focused on serious and organised crime.

In one post, titled ‘Officially just left the job’, one fed-up police officer states: ‘After several years in policing, I have decided to step away.’

He tells of his ‘complete admiration’ for colleagues ‘resilient and agile enough to carry on in the current climate’ but concedes: ‘I could reel off many reasons as to why I am leaving, but morale is already low enough.’

‘You have done the right thing,’ comes a reply. ‘I hope you now get to enjoy not working night shifts!’

Another writes: ‘It’s a shame, but sadly it’s the only way forward until people can do the job with adequate resources and conditions.’

‘Best decision you’ll ever make. Becoming a police officer puts you in a prison in every aspect of your life. You are literally beneath the public,’ adds a third. ‘Never put yourself in that position.’

In another insightful thread, another unnamed police officer tells how he is thinking of leaving his job – despite being ‘very proud’ of his three-year career on response duties.

‘I’m finding myself changing in recent months. I no longer get that sense of excitement to come into work; the times where I actually feel like I’m making a difference are few and far between.

‘I’m getting snappier with people, getting into petty arguments with suspects where I usually pride myself on being the calm cop who can talk someone down quite well, but the biggest thing affecting me is I’m losing sleep.’

He candidly goes to reveal his worries ‘that I’m worried that the suicidal person I went to will do it or that the domestic abuser ‘is going to end up doing real damage’.

‘I worry about the people I can’t help and whether I’ve done enough for the people that I can. I worry about the scrutiny that is literally everywhere in this job’.

There are also honest discussions about the use of force in custody, with officers debating what is – and isn’t – acceptable, amid concerns that even split-second decisions could subsequently be judged harshly.

What is evident here is that our police force is nothing like it used to be. Law and order is a joke, and there is no vocation to protect people. Our police destroyed that misconception with the rise in thefts, arresting people for their own thoughts and two-tier protest management and diversity pushing, and all respect for our police force has been lost, but it’s not their fault; our government is to blame.

What we need is a no-nonsense police force like in the old days – they would never have put up with all his rubbish. If kids are running about with knives and God forbid guns, they need to be locked up, and not a slap on the wrist and told they are extremely naughty and don’t do it again. If you do the crime, you do the time!

The trouble is, the British public are being treated as the antagonist, but anybody who shouldn’t be in our country and commits a crime, our government and police force turn a blind eye to. Somebody needs to dust off the British Policing manuals from the time before the woke brigade was employed.

Keir Starmer Was Skewered By Piers Morgan

Piers Morgan issued a brutal three-word warning to Sir Keir Starmer about his future in No 10 as tensions rise in government.

On Wednesday, February 4, the Labour leader sparked backlash after telling Parliament he was aware of Lord Peter Mandelson’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him as US ambassador. He added that he was misled about the ‘sheer depth and extent’ of Mandelson’s relationship with the convicted paedophile. 

Since then, Brits up and down the country have called for the UK leader to be removed from office, as his integrity and judgment have come under scrutiny. Never one to miss out on a scandal, the Uncensored host has weighed in with his own opinions with a derogatory post online.

Taking to X – previously known as Twitter – he warned Starmer that his time in office is up. He wrote: “Starmer’s toast. Just a question now of whether the whole Govt falls too. Things are unravelling fast.”

It didn’t take long before fans flocked to the comments to convey their concerns for UK politics online, with one user penning: “It’s been a disastrous govt to be honest. No Labour govt can do justice to the economic growth the UK needs, it must be the Conservatives.”

Another agreed: “Starmer is the worst PM ever, even if you’re a Labour supporter,” as a third echoed: “Worst government that I’ve seen in my lifetime.” Meanwhile, another suggested: “Looks like the Keir Starmer era is speed-running the ‘how not to govern’ playbook. When the toast burns this fast, you start wondering if the whole kitchen’s about to shut down.”

It comes after Labour MPs approved the release of documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to the United States. On Wednesday, ministers and other senior figures in Labour gave the PM an ultimatum that he must sack his controversial chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.

McSweeney pushed for Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador and brought him back into the core of the government. He had endeavoured to restrict the publication of vetting some documents, asserting that details would need to be redacted on national scrutiny grounds.

This provoked accusations within the party that he was engaging in a “cover-up”. Three hours into the Commons debate, Starmer conceded after former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner made it apparent she would support the Tory bid for the independent Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to determine which documents could be published.

Any shred of respect we had for this man is gone. Now we want him gone before he does any more damage to our nation, and please take Rachel Reeves with you. However, we all know that they are all on the gravy train.

I had hoped that Keir Starmer would be a good fit for the position when he was elected prime minister, but it has become more and more clear over time that his interests lie with himself rather than the nation, and I fear the end is near for smash the granny leader.

Keir Starmer earns an amazing six-figure sum yearly from the taxpayer. Perhaps we should tell him it’s a ‘benefit’, and that he’s been paid too much, and now we are taking our money back, including all those lovely extras he gets, along with his cabinet ministers, and that if he did not pay it back he would be put in the stocks and have eggs thrown at him – but hold on, that wouldn’t work because all his mates would all gather around believing they were missing out on the freebies.

How Starmer can keep a straight face when he says that he’s done nothing wrong is beyond me, and I’m surprised that Starmer can still breathe because his nose is never out of the trough.

People in public service should never be allowed to accept gifts, especially if they’re used for personal gain by the benefactor.

Nurses and doctors are not supposed to receive gifts from patients because it could be seen as an inducement that may affect professional judgment, and the same should apply to politicians and other civil servants also.

Lilia Valutyte: A Little Girl Murdered

A schizophrenic Lithuanian killer who stabbed a nine-year-old in the heart at random while she played with a hula hoop in the street has been convicted of murder.

Lilia Valutyte was killed by Deividas Skebas, 26, in the town centre of Boston, Lincolnshire, outside her mother’s embroidery shop.

Harrowing video footage caught Lilia’s final moments as she cheerfully played in the street with her friend, before she was savagely attacked.

 

Skebas approached the pair shortly before 6.20 pm on July 28, 2022, stabbing Lilia once in the chest.

Lilia’s mother, Lina Savickiene, cradled her daughter as she died.

In a victim impact statement read by her husband, Aurelijus Savickas, the grieving mother said: ‘During these nine years we lived life fully, we visited many places, we didn’t stand still.

‘This is not something you recover from. Sometimes, terrifying thoughts overwhelm the mind, and during this trial, there have been many, many more.

‘Why her? Why us? The questions remain unanswered. Nothing will bring our child back, the pain will not disappear, and the tears shed will not wash it away.’

Skebas had admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility but was convicted of murder by a jury at Lincoln Crown Court.

Prosecutors demonstrated that he was aware of his acts and took precautions to evade detection. Two days before the murder, CCTV captured him purchasing a knife, stalking the neighbourhood, killing Lilia, and then running away.

After the killing, Skebas said he had ‘the power to resurrect’ Lilia if the police contacted ‘his controller in Nasa’.

Christopher Donnellan KC told jurors: ‘This deliberate murder was clearly a wicked act. He knew his conduct was wrong. He knew he was killing a child.’ 

There was no argument that Skebas, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, killed Lilia, but the jury had to determine what his state of mind was at the time of the attack. 

Mr Justice Choudhury did not address the defendant, who watched on a link from Rampton high security hospital, after he adjourned the case for sentence on February 25. 

Mrs Savickiene added: ‘From the bottom of our hearts, we thank those who were not afraid to stand by us and support our family during the hardest time. 

‘No matter how strong we may appear, there are moments when all we need is to know that we are needed and not alone.

‘Your presence meant more than words can express.’

Mr Savickas became Lilia’s stepfather when she was three, he said in his statement.

‘From that moment we walked our journey together,’ he said.

‘Becoming her stepfather was new for both of us, but I loved her as my own and always tried to be there for her.’

He said she was a ‘beautiful soul’ with a ‘strong character’.

He added: ‘Lilia, you will always live in our hearts, you are forever loved, forever missed.’

During the trial, defence barrister Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC told the jury Skebas was ‘quite obviously deluded’.

He said clinicians treating the killer doubted he will recover.

Skebas was transferred from prison to Rampton Hospital in December 2022.

How much longer will this craziness continue before someone takes action? Nobody appears to care enough to halt the criminal collapse that our nation is on the verge of.

I have never known the UK to be so dangerous as it is now. There are so many no-go zones, and people are feeling less and less safe. I would even go so far as to say that it’s worse than the war years, at least people knew what to expect; everything is so random, and you just never know what’s waiting for you around the corner.

With more and more families being directly affected. It’s only a matter of time before some father with nothing left to lose takes direct and brutal action against the source of the problem – politicians.

Government doesn’t care, the evidence is there time and time again, and with governments before. Not one of them is there for us, or this once amazing country, as can be seen ‘now’. They are there for no one but themselves. I used to believe that society as a whole would wake up one day, sadly, I believe this country has had it.

BBC TV Licence Fee To Be Raised By £5.50 to £180

The TV licence fee will rise by £5.50 to £180 a year in a bid to ‘help keep the BBC on a stable financial footing’, the Government said today in another cost-of-living blow.

Viewers reacted with anger after the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) revealed the 3.12 per cent rise from £174.50 would come into force from April 1.

The hike was calculated using the annualised average of the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation rate from October 2024 to September 2025, which was 3.14 per cent. 

Viewers bombarded social media with outrage at the rise, as some claimed they simply would not pay, while Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said: ‘The BBC has a death wish. 

He told the Daily Mail: ‘With families facing soaring bills and taxes, it is indefensible to demand more money for an institutionally biased BBC. Reform UK would overhaul a national broadcaster that is clearly unsustainable in its current form.’

Senior Conservative MP Nigel Huddleston, the shadow culture secretary, added: ‘It is increasingly difficult to see how the BBC can justify any rise in the licence fee when serious questions remain over its impartiality and governance.’

The new licence fee is higher than the streaming fee for Netflix in the UK, which costs between £5.99 and £12.99 a month, equating to £71.88 to £155.88 a year.

Prime Video costs £8.99 per month or £95 a year as part of an Amazon subscription; while Disney+ is £5.99 to £14.99 a month, the equivalent of £71.88 to £149.90 a year.

The cheapest annual cost of subscribing to Netflix, Prime and Disney+ combined is currently £238.76 a year, which is only £58.76 or 33 per cent more than the licence fee. 

Mr Huddleston added: ‘At a time when households are under real financial pressure from Labour’s economic mismanagement, asking people to pay more for a service that is losing trust is simply not credible. Pushing through another increase will only accelerate this decline.

‘Instead of demanding more from struggling families, the BBC should be focusing on getting its house in order.’

William Yarwood, media campaign manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, also said: ‘Taxpayers will be rightly furious that the licence fee is going up.

‘After a year in which our state broadcaster brought itself into disrepute on what seemed like a weekly basis, it is shocking that bosses thought an increase in fees was even remotely appropriate.

‘Only more reason for Lisa Nandy to tell the Beeb that their days of relying on a TV tax to fund their operations are coming to an end.’

News of the price increase comes after the BBC was revealed to have lost more than £1 billion in a year as a record one in eight households refused to pay the fee.

The BBC licence fee should be discarded because we watch it via our provider – in my case, my Sky provider – and besides, it’s all full of repeats and woke rubbish, and the BBC are not helping themselves because now, more people will refuse to pay it.

You do not have to let TV inspectors into your dwelling unless they have a search warrant. If they do not have a search warrant, you do not have to permit them entry to your home. However, this does not mean they will not go away and come back with a search warrant – by then the offending TV is gone, or the plug is cut off.

Also, I’ll never understand how the BBC have the cheek to raise the licence fee, when numerous people want it scrapped – perhaps it’s one last hoorah before their closure.

Taxi Ban For Asylum Seekers

After it was discovered that migrants had travelled great distances at the cost of taxpayers, a restriction on asylum seekers using taxis to get to doctors’ appointments went into effect.

In one case, an asylum seeker billed the Home Office £600 for a 250-mile journey to see a GP for a check-up on his knee, according to a BBC investigation.

Following this, the Home Secretary initiated an immediate assessment and announced that the system had now been discontinued.

Under new rules, taxis can still be utilised for rare circumstances such as disability, severe illness or pregnancy. Any journey where a taxi is used will now need sign-off from the Home Office.

Taxis can also be used for asylum seekers travelling between accommodation, but this is still under consideration by the Home Office. 

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the BBC: ‘I have ended the wasteful use of taxis for medical appointments to protect the taxpayer’s purse.

‘I will stop at nothing to remove the incentives that draw illegal migrants to Britain to restore order and control to our borders.’

One taxi driver said his firm would do around 15 daily drop-offs from a south-east London hotel to a doctor’s surgery around two miles away.

He claimed that these journeys alone would cost the Home Office £1,000 a day.

Another taxi driver, named Steve, said that firms would purposely increase the mileage on trips by dispatching drivers from areas further away from the pick-up.

He said that while working for a subcontractor, he was sent from Gatwick to Southampton ‘more than once’, driving more than 275 miles a day with half of his journey without a passenger in his car.

It comes after figures released in November revealed that an average of 15.8 million had been spent in a year on taxis for asylum seekers.

A total of 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 after crossing the English Channel, the second-highest annual figure on record, 9 per cent below the all-time high of 45,774 in 2022.

The total for 2025 was 13 per cent higher than the figure for 2024, when 36,816 migrants made the journey, and 41 per cent higher than 2023’s total of 29,437.

For much of 2025, the number of arrivals was operating at the highest level since data on Channel crossings was first published in 2018.

But the rate slowed during the last two months of the year, and there were extended periods when no migrants arrived, including a 28-day run from November 15 to December 12.

The basic reality is that they shouldn’t be here in the first place, especially if they arrived illegally, but our government don’t care, and they have destroyed this country, and they only care about themselves, and don’t overlook all those soldiers that fought for Britain during World War II, they must be turning in their graves. It’s just a mass takeover, and so very sad because all of our beautiful history and British heritage is being eroded.

These migrants are taking over everything. NHS waiting lists, Accident and Emergency departments in hospitals, and almost all of them are non-English speaking people screeching into their mobiles. Our system is being abused, but our government is allowing this to happen to our once-great country.

They disrupt everything. They take over everything, even our buses, and God forbid an elderly person needs a seat, they don’t stand a chance, and these people are always on their phones, which is on speaker phone, so you can hear their entire conversation, even though you can’t understand it, and if they go to places like the A&E department, they bring their whole family along as well, taking up seats that other sick people could sit on.

Labour Pays Hospitals £3 million To Remove Patients From Waiting Lists

Ministers have been ridiculed for paying hospitals £3 million a month to remove patients from waiting lists, making it appear that the NHS is treating more people than it actually is.

Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting have frequently bragged about Labour’s triumph in cutting the number of patients waiting for treatment since they came to power.

But new analysis of NHS figures suggests hundreds of thousands are being deleted from lists without receiving the treatment they were waiting for in a process known as ‘list cleansing’ or ‘validation’.

It involves paying consultants to trawl their backlog to look for patients who may have died or no longer need or want the procedure they were waiting for.

NHS England paid hospital trusts a total of £18,818,566 for validation exercises between April and September last year.

The organisation said trusts were paid about £33 for each patient removed from the list, indicating more than half a million were deleted through the validation process in six months alone.

A source in the last government told The Times that Rishi Sunak had vetoed a plan by the NHS to conduct a similar exercise when he was prime minister because it involved paying the organisation for ‘doing something it should be doing anyway’.

They added that ‘artificially’ reducing the waiting list gave a misleading impression of the NHS’s performance.

Experts also warned of the risk of patients being taken off lists when they still needed care.

Two weeks ago, the prime minister claimed figures showed that NHS waiting lists were down by ‘more than 86,000’, which was the ‘largest fall in a month for over two years’.

‘These aren’t just numbers – it is thousands of people getting the care they need,’ he said.

However, this reduction was only achieved by removing thousands of patients from the waiting list via the ‘validation’ process.

In November – the month that Starmer was referring to – 346,300 were removed from NHS waiting lists. This was 82,000 more than the month before and almost the entire claimed drop.

However, NHS data also shows hospitals carried out about 10 per cent fewer operations and appointments in November than they did in October, indicating fewer people were being treated.

Sarah Scobie, deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust think tank, said: ‘The balance between referrals for treatment versus treatment delivered hasn’t changed much over the past few months, so it’s likely that a big proportion of recent waiting list reductions have happened due to reasons other than the NHS boosting activity.

‘One example of this is data cleaning exercises. A lack of transparency about this can sometimes create an illusion that the NHS is delivering more care than it is.’

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund think tank, said the NHS ‘reasonably regularly’ opts to ‘cleanse’ the waiting list, which is accounting for a large drop numbers.

But she stressed it is not a sustainable long-term strategy and said the government must do more to cut waits.

Ms Woolnough told Times Radio: ‘If people no longer need treatment, they may choose not to have treatment, their condition may have resolved, or they may have died whilst waiting on a list.

‘Bearing in mind, our waiting list for elective care stands at 7.3 million, and that’s over six million people waiting for care, it’s a legitimate exercise to do.

‘I think the question … is the Health Secretary, are the Government, over-claiming?

‘And this is no long-term strategy.

‘These exercises are kind of one-off that you do reasonably every few months, but they’re no substitute for increased activity levels to actually bear down on the wait list.’

She said list cleansing needs ‘to be handled incredibly carefully’ to ensure legitimate patients are not removed, adding, ‘it’s no substitute for increasing activity levels, really bearing down on the wait list.

‘This is the Government’s flagship policy to fix the NHS,’ she added.

‘It’s promised to re-meet the constitutional standard, this is the big promise, to make sure that the vast majority of people on a wait list are seen within 18 weeks, and it’s nowhere near that.

‘The dial has to shift, whereas at the moment there’s a very incremental decline, partly driven by this validation exercise.’

Wes Streeting is a liar, but should anyone be surprised by that? I suppose not. Starmer warned us not to trust Farage with the NHS; perhaps it should be Starmer who can’t be trusted.

Let’s be honest: everybody with an NI number is aware that Labour’s promises to have reduced waiting queues were wholly untrue, but nothing in this corrupt third-world country shocks me anymore.

Our government are worse than we realise. The system is broken – the NHS is broken, unless you’re a migrant, of course.

NHS hospital waiting lists are going up, they’re not going down – don’t believe the lies, but like everything else, our government want to paint you a pretty picture, but it’s lies, lies and more lies.

NHS To Cover Petrol Costs, Parking Fees And Train Fares

Families of young cancer patients who have been left hundreds of pounds out of pocket on petrol costs, train fares and parking fees will now receive money towards travel expenses from the government.

On average, families spend approximately £250 a month trekking to the hospital to see their poorly child, which has caused some to cut back on necessities, like food and heating, to cover the cost.

However, it has now been announced that the NHS will set aside £10 million each year to recompense these families for travel costs.

About 4,000 children and young people are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK, with many facing long trips to 13 specialist centres across the country.

The money will be made available to all children, teenagers and adults under the age of 25 undergoing treatment, regardless of their family income. 

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘When a child is diagnosed with cancer, their family’s only focus should be on helping them recover and getting them well, not on whether they can afford the petrol or bus fare to get to their next appointment.

‘Our plan will leave no family out of pocket while their child goes through cancer. It doesn’t matter what you earn if your child needs treatment; we will help you get them there.

‘When a child is fighting cancer, their family should never have to fight the system too.’

Emma Wilding experienced first-hand the financial hardships of cancer treatment when her son Theo was diagnosed with Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in October 2024, when he was only five months old.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital is 45 minutes from their home, meaning the family was forced to spend hundreds of pounds on petrol and parking costs.

She said: ‘When Theo was going through treatment, we had no choice but to pay out for fuel and parking at the hospital, as we had to be by his side. 

‘However, at a time when our household income had gone down, this was a struggle financially.

‘Sat on the ward, I met so many other families also struggling with these costs, many travelling much further away from hospital as well.’

Victoria Ward, from the Isle of Wight, was diagnosed with Lymphoma at 21 and had to travel via ferry for treatment at Southampton General Hospital.

The return ferry ticket alone could cost anywhere between £80 and £200 at peak times, alongside a taxi to the hospital. The costs forced her to give up her flat.

Miss Ward said: If I was having my chemo in the morning and my clinic was 8 am during rush hour, a taxi could be anywhere from £12 to £15 just to go up the road. 

‘The parking alone would cost us £20 to £23 a go. As much as people say “it’s only £20”, that £20 is my week’s food.

‘It was a case of I either keep my own safe space or die. I was previously homeless a year or so before I started my cancer treatment, so my flat was my achievement, so it was sad giving that up, but it had to be done.’

Would it not be a more suitable system to start by rescinding the exorbitant fees that NHS car parks charge to patients and families? Is it just me who thinks charging for parking at hospitals is morally wrong?

All maladies that need hospital treatment are a financial grind, especially the life-threatening ones. Yes, the taxpayer may have to pay for it, and they may constantly complain about it, but they must keep in mind that one day they may find themselves in the same situation—grovelling off the taxpayer.

Radio And Website Licence Fees May Apply

The contentious new ideas being considered by BBC executives would compel British citizens to pay a license fee to access its news website or listen to its radio programs.

With fewer customers paying the charge annually, the company is presently considering other methods to finance its operations.

Another possibility being considered is extending the fee so viewers would be charged to stream shows on external services such as Netflix or ITV. 

A third change could involve introducing a model where wealthier households pay more, in turn subsidising the licence fee for lower-income families. 

The Daily Mail reported in November that one in eight households now say they do not need a TV licence, leading to losses estimated at up to £550 million.

Over the past decade, the cost of the licence fee, which must be paid to watch ‘live’ television or iPlayer, has soared to £174.50.

However, some BBC bosses have complained that below-inflation increases in recent years have held them back.

They are lobbying for a new deal before 2027, when the royal charter that governs the BBC is due to renew.

It is understood that one possibility discussed at a board meeting on Wednesday was to spread out the cost of the licence fee by increasing the number of people who need to pay it.

This is intended to reduce the average cost per family while raising more money overall.

An insider told The Times: ‘Our priority is ensuring the BBC is sustainable as a universal public service beyond just the next few years.

‘That shouldn’t mean the price for ordinary households goes up. We’re very sensitive to that pressure.

‘Ministers have set out an ambitious agenda of what the BBC should be, and we are open to all ideas that, as the consultation says, ensure the organisation “not just survives, but thrives” in this competitive media landscape.’

At the moment, British citizens who watch ‘live’ television or any show on BBC iPlayer are required to pay the license fee.

It is not necessary, however, to visit the BBC’s website, listen to podcasts, or tune in to any of its radio channels.

Last year, angry Brits spoke to the Daily Mail about why they are no longer paying their licence fees amid a series of scandals at the broadcaster. 

Former Tory MP and ex-BBC staffer Matthew Offord revealed that he quit paying his licence fee after standing down from his post.

Many people now won’t pay for a scandal-plagued, woke, anti-Semitic organisation.

Your TV licence is not a contract, but it is still a legal requirement in the UK to have one if you watch or record television broadcasts, even though you have not entered into a contract with the company.

However, they are extremely crafty because, if you watch the channels on your TV for which you have entered a contract, they take advantage of you in that way.

I believe that the BBC are going to lose more money this way because people will simply not watch these channels. Why don’t the BBC make it subscription-based like Netflix and Amazon Prime? Let the population decide rather than forcing people to pay for the old boys’ brigade who are riding the gravy train.

In all honesty, I find it impossible to watch any terrestrial TV these days due to the mind-numbing amount of garbage they produce.

If you want to watch it, then by all means pay for it. If you don’t want to watch, then don’t, and the same applies to radio.

The TV licence fee was originally intended to pay for infrastructure and programmes. This was back in the day when you only had a couple of channels, now we have all kinds of subscription services, and private companies that deliver the infrastructure, but generally when a tax is introduced people just get used to paying for it and that is seen as money forever, and it’s simply never taken away, even if it ceases to be functional.

The BBC doesn’t really deliver the infrastructure anymore, and it now has competitors. The reason was that it was about ‘live’ TV because of the infrastructure, mostly, the means by which it was transmitted.

When it was created, there were none of these streaming services, and so it’s impossible that they can be deemed to come under the licence requirement, ‘live’ or not.

Snow In Florida!

A powerful snowstorm is bringing chaos to parts of the country not accustomed to perilous cold conditions.

More than 35 million Americans were under severe weather alerts as a bomb cyclone, a kind of ‘winter hurricane’ that causes fierce winds when air pressure decreases quickly, swept in. 

States including the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia have been worst impacted, with snow seen falling as far south as Tampa, Florida. In central Florida, temperatures as low as the high teens are possible. At this time of year, thermometers are more typically hitting the 70s.

There has been havoc on the roads, with North Carolina alone suffering 750 car crashes on Saturday, according to the highway patrol.

Around 100 vehicles were left stranded in the snow along a northbound section of Interstate 85 north of Charlotte, North Carolina, where more snow fell in a single day on Saturday than the city has seen in two decades.

A late afternoon crash involving a car and a tractor-trailer led to only one lane being open along the road near Kannapolis. That in turn caused long traffic jams just as heavy snow began accumulating on the highway, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol said.

Snow fell so fast that it caused tractor-trailers and cars on I-85 to become stuck, stranding drivers.

‘Once they’re blocking the interstate, everybody stops,’ North Carolina State Highway Patrol 1st Sgt. Christopher Knox told CBS 17. ‘We’re just limited in what we can do because of the interstate not being physically passable.’

‘It sounds like initially it is not necessarily a 100-car collision, but it’s just traffic that is stopped because we’re having to remove a vehicle that is blocking the roadway,’ Knox said.

The latest misery came about a week after a monster storm hit a wide swath of the United States, killing more than 100 people and leaving many communities still struggling to dig out from under the snow and ice.

Heavy snow fell in North Carolina and neighbouring states Saturday, with authorities advising residents to stay off the roads and warning that oceanfront structures were under threat as a so-called ‘bomb cyclone’ strengthened off the coast.

A winter storm warning was in effect for all of North and South Carolina, parts of Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and Kentucky, as well as southern Virginia.

The area near the North Carolina and South Carolina border closest to the coast is where moderate to heavy snowfall is most likely until about 1 am EST, with up to an inch of snow per hour falling.

Southern states aren’t equipped for snow or ice. They don’t brine, salt or sand roadways, and motorists often have no experience driving in these situations, so it’s not surprising that there have been numerous casualties and deaths.

We should also spare a thought for those with solar panels that will now be covered in snow, now generating zero electricity, and all those wind turbines frozen with ice, generating zero electricity. There are billions of dollars invested in these technologies, with zero electricity being generated. I bet the kids are having a blast, though?

It’s a lot of snow if you’re not used to it, so I hope everyone stays safe.

People talk about Global Warming, but it’s not, it’s climate change because climates change, and it has been doing so for billions and trillions of years. It’s just the natural order of things.

But just to make things a little more light-hearted. “A businessman is away on a work trip and he phones his wife, ‘We have snow here.’ Wife, ‘Yes, I got 8 inches last night, and it was fantastic.'”

I do hope nobody snorts coffee all over their keyboard!

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