RIP Sinead O’Connor, A Fearless And Vulnerable Woman

Those tears, those two tears that ran down her cheeks, signalled the arrival on the world stage, not just of a singer but of an artist, a woman whose whole life experience was funnelled into her songs.

We don’t know what or who Sinead O’Connor was thinking of when we watched the video of Nothing Compares 2 U, but we immediately recognised authenticity.

With her head almost completely shaved, her waif-like susceptibility found its flawless match in a song about heartbreak, and the world couldn’t take its eyes off her.

Over the years, that vulnerability alternated with fierce bravery, and both sides of Sinead O’Connor were equally mesmerising.

We mourned with her when she endured pain, and we cheered her on when misfortune came calling and met defiance when it expected surrender, and when her son Shane took his own life at just 17, in 2022, we cried when she cried and wanted to embrace her when she was at her most broken.

It’s a measure of the special affection in which she was held that her death yesterday struck such a chord. It felt like a whole world had gone with her, a world of her own making and one in which her integrity was the only compass she followed.

There were many times she could have taken an easier path, but that would have been too easy. Honesty wasn’t something she acquired, it was built into the very fabric of her being, and she couldn’t ignore it, even if she wanted to.

When she ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in the United States in 1992, and in protest at the first Gulf War, refused to play a festival gig in New Jersey if the US national anthem preceded her appearance, she experienced naked hostility on a level unseen by many artists.

Frank Sinatra, who played the following night, said that he’d like to kick her in the ass, but Sinead, unapologetic as always, said that she couldn’t hit him back because he was like 78 years of age and she’d probably kill him.

Both incidents effectively ended her mass-market career across the Atlantic, but her creativity still thrived, and unapologetic and unbowed, she lived her life on her own terms, musically, romantically, and religiously.

There were times it was difficult to keep up. She married four times and had other significant relationships, and had four children, the first in 1987. She was ordained as a Tridentine priest of the Latin rite, Mother Mary Bernadette, but later converted to Islam.

It’s terribly sad that she’s died. She had the most amazing voice and she was way too young to die.

She was courageous and had incredible talent, and that must have been extremely difficult to live with. She was a tortured soul and now finally rests in peace.

Sinead O’Connor was a force to be reckoned with, but sadly the world hates such strong and powerful women, now she will rest in peace and fly high with her darling son Shane.

Her songs made us face the unpalatable truth, and she challenged the system. Stardom was not her God, and she was too genuine to fit in, and it’s distasteful that when this troubled woman was alive, the media were always less than kind towards her and now that she’s no longer with us, they’ve done a quick u-turn and are now showering praises on her. She lived by her own rules and there’s nothing wrong with that – perhaps some of us should take a leaf out of her book?

I must confess I never liked the song Nothing Compares 2 U, it was a song you could slit your throat to, but I’m guessing it had a lot of meaning to Sinead O’Connor at the time, and now hopefully she’s up there with God singing her little heart out. May your God go with you!

Are You Paying A Premium For Your Essentials?

It was revealed that supermarkets are charging up to 100 per cent more than competitors for the same item from Mr Kipling cakes to Pizza Express pizzas.

Other products found to have large price differences between retailers, such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda, include Nescafe coffee jars and Cadbury mini rolls.

The data puts the emphasis on customers to shop around for the best deals and sign up for grocers’ loyalty schemes such as Nectar and Clubcard for more affordable prices.

It comes after customers discovered a £2.17 difference for the exact pack of Mr Kipling Angel Slices which cost £4.15 at Waitrose but £1.98 at Asda, where they were on sale.

Research by a newspaper outlet looked at a further handful of products, some of which have been highlighted by social media users stunned by the price differences.

One of the biggest variations can be found with the Pizza Express margherita pizza (245g). This is on sale at Sainsbury’s for £6, or £3 with a Nectar card; £5.50 at Tesco, or £2.75 with Clubcard; and £3 at Waitrose to all shoppers.

Meanwhile, a 200g jar of Nescafe Intense Gold Blend Coffee is available at Sainsbury’s for £8.10, or at Asda for £6.

And a ten-pack of Cadbury Milk Chocolate Mini Rolls is £3.95 at Sainsbury’s or £2.95 at Co-Op.

A six-pack of Mr Kipling Cherry Bakewells is £3 at Sainsbury’s compared with £1.99 at Tesco, or £1.50 with a Clubcard.

And an 880g bottle of Heinz Ketchup, sold at ’50 per cent Less Salt and Sugar’ is £4.50 at Waitrose or £4.25 at Tesco.

A newspaper outlet contacted the supermarkets with higher prices for comment and sources pointed out that comparing a limited number of products over a short time period would not give a true reflection of the price or value consumers can find.

A Tesco spokesman said that with household budgets under continued pressure, they remained absolutely focused on providing great value for their customers and that wherever there were opportunities to pass on savings to their customers they would do so, and earlier this month they cut the price of more than 500 household essentials.

A Sainsbury’s spokesman said that they were acutely aware of the pressures facing millions of households right now and their number one priority continued to be doing all they could to keep prices low for their customers.

Before the cost of living crisis, some people would sneer at people using Lidl and Aldi (peasant stores), but now they have no choice but to use them because they can’t afford to shop in major supermarkets because they’re exploiting the current situation and treating the public for fools.

And the birth rate has gone down dramatically because those of breeding age don’t want any children because of uncertainty, and those that do work and might have degrees might only have one child.

There’s been a downward decline in future prospects for an extremely long time, and people that want to buy a home can’t because they don’t have enough collateral or just get gazumped, so why would anyone want to bring a child into this world where they can’t provide for that child because of the state of the economy?

Yet the government is letting migrants into this country and they get everything given to them on a plate, but if we ask for anything, we’re told to take a hike, so I don’t blame people for not having children, knowing the struggles that they will encounter.

Joanna Toole’s Father Celebrates A Historic Victory Four Years After She And Six Other British Passengers Died On Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

From early childhood, Joanna Toole enjoyed keeping rats in the bedroom of her home in Exmouth, Devon. She said they were extremely intelligent and made good pets.

Other animals she kept included hamsters, a rabbit, two giant African land snails and pigeons, which she trained to fly home.

At secondary school, she discovered some boys tossing stones at a bird’s nest in a hedge. She confronted them, and the boys made up an unkind ditty about her, which spread throughout the school.

For years afterwards, pupils would tease her with the song, but her position was clear, to save animals from unnecessary suffering, even if it meant exposing herself to harm.

When she grew up, Joanna became a consultant to the UN Food and Agriculture Unit. Her passion was ocean conservation, in particular the harm done to wildlife by discarded fishing nets. In March 2019, 36-year-old Joanna was invited to speak on the subject at the UN environment assembly in Nairobi, Kenya.

The night before she left, she had dinner with her partner, Paul, at their home in Rome. He worked at the Irish Embassy, and they’d met at a conference four years before. They were planning to move back to the United Kingdom, get married and have children.

Joanna had a short stopover in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, before resuming her journey on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. There were 149 passengers, from 35 countries, and eight crew members on board.

The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, took off at 8.38 am local time on March 10. A minute and a half later, the nose of the aircraft pitched downwards. A faulty sensor had registered incorrectly that the plane was at too steep an angle and was about to stall. This had triggered new software which had automatically forced the nose down.

The captain, Yared Getachew asked what was going on, at 8.39 am, according to the cockpit voice recorder. The pilots laboured to regain control of the aircraft, but the software kicked in and pushed the nose aggressively down.

The pilots tried again. ‘Pull with me’, urged the captain to his first officer Ahmednur Mohammed, but the automated system overrode them. The recording stopped 23 seconds after the pilots’ fourth attempt.

Six minutes after take off, Flight 302 nose-dived at 175mph, crashing into farmland, near the village of Ejere, 32 miles from Addis Ababa, killing everyone on board.

Early that morning, Joanna’s father, Adrian, was at home in Devon when he heard about the crash from the BBC News website.

There’d been five planes flying that morning from Addis to Nairobi, and it took until lunchtime before her partner Paul could confirm Joanna had indeed been on the doomed flight.

Adrian said it was like the end of the world. All that promise was cut short and it just seemed so very unfair, and that it should have been him rather than his daughter.

For the past four years, Adrian, Paul and other grieving families have dedicated themselves to proving that the crash wasn’t a random accident.

It was an avoidable tragedy because Being had prioritised profit over safety, concealed critical safety issues and put the flying public at risk.

As the story unfolded the revelation was that Joanna had perished in a death trap and Boeing as yet have not faced justice.

At an inquest held in Horsham, West Sussex, earlier this month, a coroner delivered a verdict of unlawful killing in the deaths of Joanna and humanitarian workers Sam Pegram and Oliver Vick. Finally, the families had their landmark moment, they’d taken on Beoing and won.

For years, Boeing had evaded and spun, with scores of lawyers, advisers and PR fixers, but now the families had an official ruling that a crime which had led to the deaths of their loved ones had been committed.

Vincent Nichol, the solicitor representing the nine British victims said that Boeing was a behemoth, and to go up against them and get a result like this was David and Goliath feeling.

He said that after so many setbacks, Adrian is still processing the news, and at least it will be of some consolation to him, but of course, it will never bring back his daughter or the other victims that died that day.

Sadly, this is what happens when large companies put profit before the lives of people, and they should be prosecuted, but of course, that won’t bring back the people that perished on that aircraft, and unfortunately, Boeing is one of those companies ruled to be too big to fail, and thus will probably never face consequences.

Boeing knew the plan wasn’t safe and knew that their so-called solution wasn’t good enough, but rushed the aircraft into service for fear of losing business, and then attempted to accuse everyone else, greedy!

Big companies like Boeing have always put profit before people. They cobbled together a cheap solution to a problem they created with appalling engineering, and there should be some prison time for Boeing executives responsible for this avoidable tragedy, and crucially someone chose not to adequately advise the pilots of their decision – they intentionally sent everyone to their deaths in the name of greed!

A Total Of 600 Burglaries Occur Every Day That Remain Unsolved

It’s been claimed that almost 600 burglaries are going unsolved every day.

Analysis of Home Office figures by the Liberal Democrats revealed that some 213,279 police inquiries into break-ins were closed last year without a suspect being identified.

According to the Lib Dems, this amounts to 76.8 per cent of all cases across England and Wales in 2022-23, an average of 584 a day.

South Yorkshire Police was said to have the worst clear-up rate with 84.4 per cent of all recorded burglaries unsolved, followed by Hampshire (83.1) and Scotland Yard (81.6).

The Lib Dems say the drop in neighbourhood policing teams and Police Community Support Officers is to blame.

They’re also calling for a statutory guarantee that officers will investigate every domestic break-in, despite a voluntary pledge by chief constables to do so.

The party’s home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said that everyone deserves to feel safe and secure in their homes, but that knowing that so many burglars are getting off scot-free will bring little comfort to our communities.

He said, make no mistake, these were the consequences of the Conservatives constantly sidelining frontline policing, and that enough was enough. The Home Secretary must finally restore proper community policing and implement a burglary response guarantee, and that it was the only way to reverse those criminally bad figures.

A Home Office spokesman said that since 2010 their communities were safer with neighbourhood crimes including burglary, robbery and theft down 51 per cent.

The spokesman said that the Home Secretary does expect to see forces getting the basics right, deterring crime but also catching more criminals.

That’s why he called for every force to send an officer to investigate the scene of every home burglary, which is now happening across the country.

The problem is, the police are too busy painting rainbow flags on cars, learning the macarena and making cups of tea for hippies, or to be fair, they’re too busy walking alongside protestors.

Sadly, criminality pays off in the United Kingdom because even when thieves get caught, they simply get released to commit more burglaries.

The police don’t want any suspects or evidence on who the burglar might be because then it would mean that they have to do some hard work, like trying to trace the offender, so numerous cases are closed before any investigation is carried out.

It actually doesn’t pay to work and have a nice home and the comforts that go with it because if it’s all going to be robbed and cause distress, you may as well leave your front door open. Perhaps they should reduce the police wages and have them work for bonuses.

The police just can’t be bothered to send someone around, take fingerprints and check the CCTV in the area. They just don’t want to do much at all, while we finance them and pay their wages and pensions.

They now don’t even bother to turn up when you report a burglary, they just give you a crime reference number, and burglary is going the way of cannabis possession, the police see it as a non-crime, but when law enforcement picks and chooses which laws to implement, then our country is in trouble, and it’s a great way to let thieves know they’re pretty safe to break into anyone’s home without any repercussions.

In the end, people will start taking things into their own hands if a thief tries breaking into their house, and this won’t end well.

British Banks’ Privacy Policies Provide Them With The Ability To Monitor Customers’ Social Media Activities

The UK’s largest banks were compared to ‘communist China’ after it emerged their privacy policies permit them to monitor customers’ social media.

The four biggest high street lenders, NatWest, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC and Barclays have all declined to deny that they keep track of users’ activity.

The disclosure came days after leading Brexiteer Nigel Farage revealed an internal dossier from Coutts, in which staff justified his account closure by claiming his views ‘do not align’ with the bank’s values.

In a 13-page privacy notice, Coutts’ parent company NatWest says it may gather ‘information that you make public on social media’.

A newspaper outlet reported that Lloyds, which also owns Halifax and Bank of Scotland, can also collect any data from ‘published media and social networks.

HSBC’s privacy notice is able to monitor information ‘that relates to your social interactions, such as your communications via social media, between individuals, organisations, prospects’, while Barclays reveals it can ‘collect information about you, such as from your activities on their social media pages or through the social media’.

Other major lenders, including Nationwide, Santander and Virgin Money, have also said they may check social media in special circumstances or ‘certain situations’.

Metro Bank, which Reform UK leader Richard Tice has accused of closing down his account due to his pro-Brexit views, said it will ‘occasionally obtain information from publicly available sources, such as social media sites.

Nigel Farage said of the findings that he doesn’t want to live in communist China yet increasingly we are. He said that the banks were out of control and need to be brought to heel and that people would be horrified by this.

Tory former minister Gareth Johnson added that this smacks of a big brother approach from the banks, and that he couldn’t see what anybody’s social media activities had to do with their banks.

He said that too often the banking sector seems to have lost its way recently which should worry us all.

Sadly, social media is the rot of humanity, and this is an invasion of our privacy and a bank that spies on us should have their banking licences withdrawn.

Our Government should ban this activity because what we do in our life has nothing to do with them and it’s an invasion of our privacy.

Makes you wonder when the energy companies will also start using the same criteria – this is an extremely worrying escalation indeed.

The simple solution would be to eschew any connection with social media, full stop.

We are being transformed into a totalitarian society. They want to abolish our Freedom of Speech and monitor our use of the open internet, and without actually knowing it we have no human rights.

Banks are now overreaching and have the upper hand and they have an attitude to go with it. It used to be that the customer was always right, even if they were wrong, now the customer is wrong even if they’re right.

And why do banks want to know what you do? Surely, they just want your money! The reason is, data is sold, and it’s an extremely lucrative business selling your data. Individually it doesn’t have a tremendous value, but multiplied by the number of customers, it amounts to serious money.

Some might say that if we’re foolish enough to mouth off on social media then that’s our problem, but it’s called Freedom of Speech and good men fought and died for that right, and as long as your breaking no law what you say is none of their business.

Massive Multi-Agency Response To 911 Call From Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard Estate

A frantic search has been launched after a paddleboarder went missing in the water off Martha’s Vineyard, near Barack Obama’s sprawling $12 million estate.

The man, 43, vanished while he was out on the water in the vicinity of Turkeyland Cove with another paddleboarder, and a joint agency search was underway at Edgartown Great Pond to locate him.

Eyewitnesses told police they saw the man go under the water, and briefly reappear while labouring to remain afloat, before submerging again.

It’s understood that the 911 call and dispatch address for the incident came from Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard home. It’s unclear if he was staying at the estate.

The US Coast Guard, Edgartown Fire, Air Wing, detectives, and Duke’s County Sheriff’s Department are all part of the recovery mission, which continued on Monday.

They were using divers, boats with side scan sonar in a bid to find the paddleboarder.

Detectives were also on the scene, as well as USCG helicopter units.

A command post has been set up at Wilson’s Landing, which is across the narrow Cove from Barack Obama’s estate.

Massachusetts State Police said that after several hours of searching, efforts to locate the missing paddleboarder were unsuccessful and the operation was paused to allow dive teams, flight crews, and other responders to re-equip and assess next steps.

They also said that search assets were resuming operations and that the search would again include marine assets, such as divers and boat crews deployed side scan sonar and aerial support from MSP and USCG helicopter crews.

They also added that members of the MSP Underwater Recovery Unit and the Massachusetts Environmental Police were joining the agencies and units’ search operations.

A dispatch call from Sunday night said that Edgartown Fire and Water rescue personnel, 79 (79) Turkeyland Cove Road. For a 40-year-old male, possibly drowning.

Edgartown Police said in a statement that EPD was assisting multiple agencies in searching for the missing adult male paddleboarder in Edgartown Great Pond, and they asked for people to stay away from the location so that emergency responders could conduct their search.

The rescue mission was just yards away from former President Obama’s Massachusetts seven-bedroom home, a 6,892 square foot mansion right close to the water.

The pond is actually a really calm area and extremely weird that someone would struggle in the water unless, of course, he had a medical emergency or perhaps there was a shark.

The article was about a man that had gone missing while paddleboarding. However, people wanted to focus more on Barack Obama having money and living in a 12 million property. Which was more significant, the man who’s presumably dead now, or the former President of the United States?

And I very much doubt it was the Obamas that called the emergency services, and I would be extremely surprised if they were looking out of their windows curtain twitching. Clearly, someone saw the man go under and went looking for a phone.

So, this had absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama, other than the fact that he happens to live nearby, but it keeps the trolls fed and watered!

There’s A Possibility That Sadiq Khan’s Much-Criticised Expansion Of The ULEZ Scheme Will Be Scrapped 

Sadiq Khan could be forced to ditch his planned expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) after being dealt a fatal blow to Labour in last week’s Uxbridge by-election.

The Mayor of London is now being told by the party’s top brass to think again about the much-hated scheme which has sparked protests from people living in locations where it’s set to be introduced.

Sadiq Khan, who previously said the ULEZ was the right way to deal with pollution in the capital, has indicated he could look again at the policy and is in constructive listening mode.

It comes after party leader Sir Keir Starmer phoned the mayor and told him to consider changing course after it was beaten by the Tories at the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election by 495 votes.

Labour had been in pole position to flip the seat after the resignation of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but angry voters made their views on the capital’s Labour mayor by re-electing a Conservative MP.

A Labour source told a newspaper outlet the Mayor has promised to review the policy after discussions with Sir Keir Starmer, adding that it was clear that Sadiq Khan was going to be reviewing it.

It would be a humiliating step down for Sadiq Khan, who’s been relentless in his defence of the scheme and previously said clean air was a human right, not a privilege.

His flagship policy, which will see the £12.50 daily charge on older, more polluting vehicles extended into outer London, came under fire from his party bosses only hours after the dust settled from the by-election in the northwest of the capital.

Sir Keir Starmer said we are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour Party end up on each and every Tory leaflet.

And the civil war, brought on by fears in the party that its green policies could cost it at the next election, has exposed rifts over how it deals with its big-spending green policies.

Now some of Sir Keir Starmer’s top advisers, including his director of strategy Deborah Mattison, have claimed their predictions the ULEZ expansion would lose votes have come true.

One party insider told a newspaper outlet that at the start of the campaign, there was a lot of talk about it (Ulez) being scrapped.

They said that of course, this time last year, Deborah was among those who wanted Labour’s logo to be turned green so they could understand why Sadiq was a bit bemused by being told that by her.

Labour and the Tories have simply deceived us at every turn. They had no intention of controlling immigration or delivering on Brexit.

Taxes are at their highest levels and law and order in our major cities are gone.

They’ve stripped our armed forces and our public services are fundamentally broken.

Sadiq Khan has said that he won’t be ditching his despised ULEZ expansion and will find ways of financially supporting people to buy new electric cars, I wonder where this money will magically emerge from, presumably the taxpayer yet again.

Who does he think he is? But as we all know absolute power corrupts!

The ULEZ was never about the pollution narrative, it was always about the money.

We all know that the only way to prevent pollution is to take old cars off the road and replace them with new greener cars.

You pay your £12.50 a day but that doesn’t take the old cars off the road, they still remain a permanent fixture, which is still pumping out harmful pollution, so they’re taking your £12.50 a day on the pretence that your money will make the air cleaner – poppycock!

And what about the trains and factories that are still pumping out pollution? On the tubes, poor ventilation in tunnels and platforms means that travellers are exposed to heightened levels of particulates during their journeys, and while tube trains aren’t emitting any CO2, these particulates are still incredibly damaging to your lungs. In fact, researchers discovered that pollution in tube stations is up to 30 times higher than on busy roads.

In fact, the deeper the London Underground lines, the more harmful the pollution, and a scientific paper published by researchers from King’s College London in 2019 discovered the air in tube carriages was 18 times worse than the roadside air above ground.

Crooks Are Sticking Fake QR Codes On Car Park Payment Machines In Order To Trick Motorists Into Sending Them Money

Conmen are ripping people off across the United Kingdom by putting fake stickers on car parking payment machines to trick motorists into sending money.

The stickers and posters pose as genuine parking apps but if anyone scans the bar code on their mobile phone or visits the website, they’re directed to an app run by fraudsters.

People, thinking they’re making a genuine payment, will send the cash instead to the conmen who will then withdraw small sums of money below £50 so the victim is less likely to notice.

Parish councillor Maria Grasso, 67, told The Times that she fell for a scam at Upper Warlingham railway station car park in Surrey.

After catching the train, she received a text from a company called Mediacraze.com to say she’d signed up for a media streaming service.

When she dialled the phone number that was listed on the website to cancel, it was dead and it was then that she discovered she’d been scammed.

She said that criminals are very clever. They only take a small amount of money each month, and if you’re not the sort of person who religiously checks their account, this can go unnoticed for a very long time.

QR, or Quick Response codes are small, jumbled boxes of black and white squares, which work much like a barcode. When used legitimately, they can be extremely helpful.

You simply point the camera on your smartphone at the QR code and it directs you to a website automatically without you having to tap the details into your browser.

This is when fraudsters attach a phoney QR code over a real one to snare unsuspecting victims.

Some motorists on the Isle of Wight fell prey to this crime last year when a phoney QR code was stuck on parking meters in a council car park.

It’s difficult to determine a bogus QR code from a real one, which is a key reason why people are particularly vulnerable.

Stephen Burke, product director at the cyber security company Titan HQ, believes a detailed look at the placing of the code offers clues as to whether it might be a scam.

He said that you should always take a close look at any QR code to see if there are indications it has been plastered over a real one, perhaps on different paper or is peeling off.

However, if you are unfortunate enough to get scammed by these criminals, it should be the councils who run it that should be held accountable for any loss that you incur. It’s their machine and they have a duty to either make sure we can pay with cash or some online app, and even that’s not foolproof because if people want to scam you, they will find a way around it.

This is why cash is best and we need to stop this digital erosion of our lives and stick to what works and what has worked for decades. If it’s not broken, why try to fix it?

However, the simple solution to stop this problem would be to make car parks and places to park free, but of course, it’s another way for the government to make money. But of course, money isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. It’s just something we’ve been conditioned to believe for an extremely long time.

It just starts off as a bit of plain paper that the Bank of England just prints on, puts a few famous people on and then puts that you have to pay the bearer. Oh, and of course, some serial numbers.

Paper money actually has no intrinsic value, its worth is determined exclusively through supply and demand, and then it’s declared legal tender by government decree.

Basically, you’re being conned!

However, when it boils down to it our whole lives are a con, and we are being taxed, taxed, taxed through the nose while the Bank of England pumps out worthless paper money that’s worth nothing, we may as well be using Monopoly money, and then saying it’s worth something.

This Town Is So Filthy, You Can See It On Google Maps

According to families living in a squalor neighbourhood, a neglected town in Birmingham is so dirty that heaps of litter can be seen on Google Maps.

Photographs of Newton, just north of the city centre, show plastic bags, crisp packets and takeaway boxes strewn across roads and pavements while bins overflow.

According to Birmingham Live, Matt Bond, who has lived in the town with his family of six for 20 years, fears nothing will be done as he says people are dumping unwanted litter all over the place.

Venting his frustration at a local ward meeting, Mr Bond said: ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever gone on Google Maps and Googled our area from an aerial point of view. It looks like a waste ground, it really does.

He said that it was absolutely disgusting and embarrassing.

He added that people are just dumping stuff down the alleyways and all sorts, and he said what goes on in people’s minds.

Mr Bond claimed the extent of the rubbish left lying around was devaluing his property, adding that this was the frustration. It was communication. That they’ve been there for 20-odd years and still they can’t get anything done.

Another resident, Valerie Simpson, said that they weren’t even emptying the bins, they were just overflowing. That the bins weren’t emptied at all, and that there was rubbish everywhere.

She added that they live there and they have to live around squalor. That there was fly tipping everywhere and it was the first thing she speaks about every month at the meetings and nothing is happening about it.

She said they’ve got money there but they don’t put that to good use and they want the place tidied up.

In answer to the residents’ complaints about the litter and fly-tipping in Newton, councillor Ziaul Islam said that he was aware of all the problems surrounding fly-tipping and the rubbish on the streets and he was working with the authorities to put a stop to it.

He said that he was doing his best but that it was the same across several parts of the city.

He said that he was also fighting to restore the community centre and he would be in dialogue with the council leader, John Cotton.

Most Brummies that were born and bred there were brought up to be hard-working, decent, respectful people, they don’t choose to live like this, but between the dirty younger fast food generation and the most useless council in history, the once great city has become a rubbish tip.

Sadly this is happening in places with a considerable influx of non-native people and a once posh part of the city has now become the biggest slum area, largely due to new people who like to leave their filth everywhere, and it’s only going to get worse as our councils and government aren’t doing anything anymore.

Councils need to aggressively target those causing the littering and need to enforce a cleaning programme with bins that are emptied regularly. However, it’s also for the residents and businesses to play their part, rather than expecting the council to do everything, but the councils need to take the lead, play their part and demand that locals play their part.

It’s the same in certain parts of Bradford, Blackburn and Luton is no better.

Sadly, the UK is filthy, yet we pay the highest taxes of all. There’s no authority over the companies that are paid to clean the streets, no checking their work, and counsellors in charge are never held to account and nobody is ever fined. We have anti-littering laws in the United Kingdom which are never enforced and it’s disgraceful.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started