Thames Water Is On The Verge Of Collapse

Debt-laden utility giant Thames Water is in a frantic race to secure £1 billion and fend off its collapse, amid reports it might have to be taken over by the taxpayer.

The firm, which serves 15 million people and is Britain’s biggest water supplier, is a staggering £14 billion in debt and is reportedly on the brink of collapse.

So severe is the situation, Government ministers are now considering whether or not to nationalise the business should it fail.

Thames last year suffered its worst leakage rate in five years, with an estimated 630 million litres of water a day escaping from its ageing network of pipes.

And the under-fire utility group has encountered a huge backlash over the amount of sewage being pumped into rivers amid claims leaks have wiped out thousands of fish, with 8,013 spills recorded last year, the equivalent of 22 a day.

The grim statistics, compiled by the website Top of the Poops, saw discharges lasting for 74,693 hours, or more than eight years cumulatively, in 378 locations.

The latest discharge took place last Tuesday at Henley-on-Thames in Oxford, with dead fish being pictured later floating in the river after the release.

Thames has been heavily criticised in recent years for dumping raw sewage. Between 2017 and 2021, the firm was fined £31 million for discharging effluent.

In 2021 it was prosecuted by the Environment Agency for allowing half a million gallons of raw sewage to cascade into a river for 30 hours, in an ecological disaster that wiped out 3,000 fish.

Describing the carnage, Robert Davis, an Environment Agency senior officer who went to the location, said that it was quite horrific. Sewage pollution was bank to bank and there was a foul stench of raw sewage.

He said that when they traced the source they found a waterfall of raw sewage discharging via a pipe into the streams. Amongst the dead fish, Fisheries officers observed hundreds more on the surface, suffering and gasping for oxygen.

Thames has since announced it will be pumping in £1.6 billion into improving its sewage treatment works and networks in an effort to try and halve discharges by 2030.

The firm also proposed controversial efforts to tackle drought in the future, including a ‘recycling’ scheme that would see 100 million litres of treated sewage from the Mogden sewage works being pumped into the River Thames at Teddington, southwest London, every day.

And then they have the audacity to make us have a hosepipe ban whilst they’re dumping sewage into our rivers, and on top of that, they bill us for it as well – there would be riots in other countries, but here in the United Kingdom we just sit back and take it on the chin, like good little serfs that we are.

Our government has failed us and now they expect us to foot the bill for their failure, but while the sheeple walk around with their noses where they shouldn’t be, our government are getting away with it. Time for reform!

No wonder the rich become richer and we the common people nibble from the trough, and everyone’s a winner on the most elite list, apart from the consumer and the taxpayer.

And I wonder how much this company has paid in dividends and bonuses since it was privatised billions, I bet.

All that cash could have been put back into the system, created more capacity, updated the whole network, and stopped sewage going into rivers with no thought for those poor fish or the people of this country because it’s all about profits and not necessities to life.

Martin Lewis Issues A Four-Day Warning To All Consumers

Households in England, Scotland and Wales that pay their energy bills by direct debit have four days to take a meter reading which could save them hundreds of pounds.

Money-saving expert Martin Lewis took to Twitter to urge direct debit customers to take a meter reading before midnight on Friday.

This is because the new Ofgem Price Cap will be coming in from midnight on Saturday so energy rates will fall.

Ofgem’s new price cap is set at £2,074 for the average annual energy bill which is several hundred pounds less than the current price guarantee rate of £2,500.

With energy rates set to fall by about 17 per cent on average, those affected will need to make sure the units are recorded correctly.

If they’re not, householders may end up being charged more than they owe.

Martin Lewis has coined this week as ‘Meter Reading Week’.

For example, he says, if someone used electricity on Saturday, but their energy provider thinks they used it on Thursday, they will be charged at a higher rate.

If they submit a meter reading before the drop at midnight, their energy provider will have the most accurate and up-to-date information on the usage in order to work out the next energy bill.

In one of his tweets, Martin Lewis said that submitting a reading within a few days of the change (many let you backdate a few days too) reduces the risk of their ‘estimating’ going against you (though there’s always the chance a discrepancy could end up in your favour).

Martin Lewis also urged households to take a photo of their meter reading in case they’re unable to submit it to their provider on the same day.

However, he did note that people who have smart meters or are on prepayment meters don’t need to submit a reading to their energy supplier.

In his tweet, he said that it was meter reading week and prices will fall on average 17 per cent across England, Scotland and Wales this Saturday as the price cap drops (more for higher users who have gas, less for lower electric-only users.

He said that with money direct debit, firms estimate your usage, and assign it to a certain period, so submitting a reading within a few days of the change (many let you backdate a few days too) reduces the risk of their ‘estimating’ going against you.

He said to take a picture of the meter for belt ‘n’ braces and please share it with anyone this is relevant to.

The government incompetence is far and wide and they’ve been sitting on their hands with their noses in the trough for far too long.

The most frustrating thing is that much of this was foreseeable and we have highly paid folk making terrible decisions on issues they undoubtedly shouldn’t, and suffer little or no consequence and I for one actually don’t know how to vote in the next General Election because whoever we vote for I feel that it will be like jumping out of the frying pan back into the fire.

And try getting in contact with your energy provider, well, you’ve got more chance of getting a response from God.

But also, the British people are famous for whining ineffectively among themselves but not actually doing anything to ease the problem.

This is all very pointless at this time of year when our central heating is off because of the more hospitable weather, but mark my words, it will go back up in October, which means they’re giving us a sense of false security.

There’s An Asteroid The Size Of Ten Buses Hurtling Towards Earth

A huge space rock bigger than ten buses stacked end to end is hurtling towards Earth.

NASA says the asteroid, scientifically called 2013 WV44, will soar past at about 9 am BST on Wednesday.

The rock is estimated to be up to 524 feet (160 metres) in diameter, which is bigger than both the London Eye (394 feet) and Big Ben (310 feet).

It will be travelling at a speed of 11.8 km per second or over 26,000 miles per hour, approximately 34 times the speed of sound.

Although hurtling towards Earth, it won’t ever get closer than 0.02334 astronomical units or around 2.1 million miles.

Despite being about nine times further out than the moon, the asteroid is classed as a near-Earth object (NEO) and is being tracked by NASA.

NASA said that NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood.

Composed primarily of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due primarily to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago.

A NEO is defined as such when it comes within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) (120.8 million miles) of the sun and hence within 0.3 AU (27.8 million miles) of Earth’s orbit.

Although 2013 WV44 will be at a distance of 2.1 million miles away, this is somewhat close in astronomical terms.

NASA lists it as one of the upcoming close approaches on its online tracker, which compiles upcoming objects that are getting closer and closer to Earth.

An asteroid is defined as potentially dangerous if it comes within 0.05 astronomical units (4.65 million miles) of Earth and is larger than 459 feet (140 meters) in diameter.

Thankfully, 2013 WV44 doesn’t meet those specifications so it’s not deemed potentially dangerous, but could still come within our orbit.

Earth’s ‘Hill sphere’, the region around it where its own gravity is the dominant force attracting satellites, has a radius of 932,000 miles (0.1 AU).

At around 2.1 million miles or 0.02334 AU, 2013 WV44 should enter the Hill sphere.

So, this is no threat to us, which can only be a good thing because Bruce Willis isn’t up to sorting it out these days, and it’s faster than Road Runner or Coyote being shot out of a cannon.

The best that we can do now is get a new booster shot because evidently it protects against COVID and perhaps now even hurricanes and asteroids.

Perhaps they should try to send it to Russia. I’m sure Vladimir Putin hasn’t got a deterrent for that one.

Evidently, it’s hurtling towards Earth, but won’t get near to us, so why even mention it? And if one were to potentially head towards Earth and it was going to hit us, do you think anybody would actually tell us?

This is just a scare tactic, although I’m not really sure for what reason. I suppose so they can divert attention from what’s actually going on in the world.

Each day newspaper outlets publish some phoney baloney crisis article as a way of trying to intimidate the less educated people in their audience. This is not a disaster. I can’t hear any warning sirens or see people packing their suitcases to get out of town, not that it would do them any good anyhow. Crisis – no propaganda!

An Elderly Woman Is Trapped Inside Her Apartment, Panicking

A mother says she had to rescue her panicking elderly neighbour who was trapped inside her own flat after a Yodel delivery driver jammed a parcel under her door handle.

Charlie Clarke claims she and her son George, 20, heard neighbour Dee calling for help from the flat below on Thursday.

Dee, who’s thought to be in her 70s, was standing on her raised patio on the ground floor claiming that her door handle wouldn’t turn and she couldn’t get out.

Charlie, 39, ran downstairs to help and discovered a tall box propped up against the door, blocking the handle and leaving her neighbour imprisoned in the flat.

The lash technician moved the package so that Dee was able to leave and the panicked pensioner said that if Charlie wasn’t home she would have contacted the fire brigade.

Yodel today said it was investigating and would take proper action if warranted.

She slammed the Yodel driver for their apparent incompetence and pointed out how dangerous it could have been if there was a fire.

Yodel confirmed they were carrying out a full investigation of what occurred.

Charlie, from Crystal Palace, London, said that it was absolutely shocking. That delivery drivers were so careless and that it was so bad.

She said that it was malicious or just complete carelessness, but that she thought it was just incompetence and that it could have been really dangerous and was definitely a fire hazard.

She said that her son had come in and that Dee was calling her from down on her patio. She said she couldn’t open the door it was jammed.

She told her not to worry and went down. The parcel was in front of the door so she took a quick picture and moved it out the way.

She said that she was still panicking a little bit because she didn’t know what was wrong with the door because the handle was only moving a little bit.

She said that if she hadn’t been in, she would have called the fire brigade but she was fine and she managed to rescue her.

Charlie claims Dee hadn’t heard a knock at the door and the parcel wasn’t even addressed to her.

She also said that the hallway was large so there would have been plenty of space for the driver to leave the package without blocking the door.

This driver should have had a least some basic training. What if the occupant didn’t have a phone or neighbours she could have called? It could have been much more dangerous.

These delivery drivers will leave packages anywhere as long as they’re delivered and they take a picture. Some will enter back gardens and leave packages or in someone elses shed without letting the person who the parcel was for know.

This could have been a serious fire hazard and also the lady was locked in her flat – false imprisonment.

But the point here is, the lady wasn’t even expecting a parcel, it was delivered to the wrong address.

Putting a parcel under a door handle is a big no-no, as is laying it down across a hallway, where people can stumble over it. If the person isn’t in, they should just leave a calling card and take it back to the hub that it came from so that it can be redelivered, preferably to the right person this time! The problem is you require common sense for that.

But this is par for the course for Yodel who employ absolutely useless, thoughtless delivery people.

Snake Warning From The RSPCA

The RSPCA has issued a snake warning as warm weather is seeing the animals become more active and escape a lot more.

The charity announced that calls to its snake hotline are at an all-time high, with the problem especially extreme in summer.

Evie Button, senior scientific officer at the RSPCA, told a newspaper outlet that the warmer they are, the more active they are so that’s why they escape a lot more in summer.

According to Evie Button, last year the organisation received more than 100 calls a month relating to escaped pet snakes.

According to UK Pet Food, the problem has been exacerbated by the soaring number of snakes being kept as pets in the United Kingdom, with the figure up from 500,000 last year to 700,000 this year.

Inexperienced keepers have been advised to pay special attention to their pet snakes due to the rise in escapees. Pythons, boa constrictors and corn snakes are three of the most popular species to keep.

There are three snakes native to Britain, the adder, which is venomous, the grass snake, which is harmless and typically found in gardens, and the smooth snake.

But according to Sunday Times, there are also around 30 aesculapian, a kind of rat snake native to Europe which can grow more than six feet long, presently living in the undergrowth along Regent’s Canal in London. They live off rats.

In May last year Mark Thomas, 46, was walking along Regent’s Canal when one of the snakes stepped out in front of him. This is very funny because snakes don’t step out, they slither!

He said it was right in front of him, slithering along the canal path.

No one is sure how the aesculapian got to the canal but there’s seemingly one theory that eight were released from a lab which closed down in 1986.

According to Pet Keen, about 100 adder bites are reported in the United Kingdom each year.

Last year shocking pictures captured the horrifying moment an escaped 18 feet long python attempted to enter a house through an open window in Southampton.

The extremely dangerous snake, which weighs 6 stone (38kg) was spotted by neighbours as it made its way across a roof before forcing its way through the upstairs window.

Terrified residents inside managed to use a broom handle to fight off the albino Burmese Python and poke it back out before it fell 20 feet onto the bonnet of a car below.

These kinds of snakes need to be banned as pets as soon as possible. These creatures are not pets and they shouldn’t be locked up in a vivarium, and if they have to escape, they’re not a pet, they’re captive, and this is the same for all caged animals. If I see a bird in a cage from someone’s lounge window, I want to cry for their freedom – one day we will respect animals more.

We are all born to be free, for some that’s not the case! And large snakes should be prohibited as pets, they need a lot more space than their owners can offer.

The United Kingdom is full of snakes, although most of them appear to migrate to Westminster, which should make it much easier to destroy them!

Joking aside, it’s selfish to keep snakes, particularly large breeds. They should be roaming free where they come from and it’s so heartbreaking to see caged animals. There are enough domestic pets in this country without putting other creatures in prison for life.

It’s Imperative That The Floundering Tories Find A Purpose

It hardly needs saying, but this has been another depressing week for the Conservative Party.

More catastrophic economic news, more policy bloopers, more self-inflicted wounds, all conveying a distinct impression that the government is running out of both ideas and steam.

True, the Bank of England’s inability in handling inflation is entirely to blame for the uphill hike in interest rates which will cause financial distress for millions, including homebuyers and struggling businesses.

Unfortunately, the incompetents in Threadneedle Street will not feel the public’s wrath; squarely in their crosshairs will be the occupants of Downing Street.

With the Bank independent, there’s little the Government can do in the short term to rein in inflation.

With the Bank independent, there is little the Government can do in the short term to rein in inflation. Still, it’s a feather in the Chancellor’s cap that he has persuaded mortgage lenders to do more to assist homeowners in trouble with repayments.

He will also tell supermarkets and energy companies to bring prices down as quickly as possible to lessen the crippling cost of living.

Yet while welcome, this is tinkering around the edges. Mere tinkering won’t win the Tories a fresh term in power.

As the clock ticks down to the next election, there’s no doubt the party is in urgent need of a reset. This begins with asking itself difficult questions. What does it hope to accomplish? What are its values? In short, what is its political purpose?

If the Tories believe in property ownership, they must ignore the Nimbys and build more homes.

If they’re genuine about energy security, they should invest in nuclear and start fracking.

If they are the champions of aspiration, entrepreneurialism and growth, why do we grumble under the highest tax burden since the 1940s? And if the Government truly believes in Brexit, it should ruthlessly exploit the enormous opportunities. Yet it couldn’t even send the minister on to the BBC to defend it.

Persuading the public the Tories deserve another term in office will be extremely difficult after a series of scandals and turmoil, but if the economy bounces back and the small boats are stopped, all is to play for.

‘Another depressing week’ the newspaper outlet said – don’t make me laugh. We’ve had decades of being depressed as we watch the Tories and Labour turn this country into a cesspit.

The Tories really couldn’t find a purpose even if they tried, which of course, they won’t, and I really can’t think why people would vote for them again.

And as for Rishi Sunak, he’s not a leader, he’s a technocrat who’s a cross between a 6th-form prefect and a provincial accountant.

It’s been year after year. Prime Minister after Prime Minister, and they still show they’ve no clue and in the meantime their incompetence and problem avoidance is why everywhere you look there’s debt, decline, waste, inefficiencies, and things to be avoided, more than ever on Universal Credit, more migrants that we can cope with and more arriving on mass every day.

Inflation, interest rates, taxes, GDP debt, cost of living, everything has gone up because we have a rudderless government that makes a lot of noise but does nothing.

The Tories have been fully endorsed as a clown show for the last 13 years, and we definitely don’t want them for another 13 years, but if you believe the propaganda which numerous Tory voters will, then that will be the end of a country, well, what country we have left!

Smuggling of migrants

The smuggling of migrants is indeed an international problem, with a considerable number of countries impacted by it as origin, transit or destination points.

Profit-seeking criminals smuggle migrants across borders and between continents, and assessing the actual size of this crime is a complicated matter, owing to its covert nature and the difficulty of identifying when irregular migration is being facilitated by smugglers.

The smugglers take advantage of the enormous number of migrants willing to take risks in pursuit of a better life when they can’t access legal channels of migration. Therefore, smuggled migrants are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

Their safety and even their lives are constantly put at risk because many have suffocated in containers, died in deserts or drowned at sea while being smuggled by profit-seeking lawbreakers who treat them as goods, and as the crime is a clandestine one, accurate global figures are hard to come by.

However, it’s estimated that two of the main smuggling routes, leading from East, North and West Africa to Europe and from South America to North America, generate around $6.75 billion a year for criminals, although the global figure is likely to be much higher.

The smuggling of migrants is the facilitation of crossing borders illegally or living illegally in another country with the aim of making a monetary or another material gain.

This crime is usually committed by organised criminal networks, which take the opportunity to make enormous profits from an illegal activity involving little risk of detection.

The profits of the smugglers vary widely, and full-time professional criminals are involved in smuggling migrants around the globe – some of those criminals are specialised in smuggling people and some are not.

There’s evidence of both smaller and larger, more organised groups and networks operating as smugglers in all areas, although this differs by region and route.

There are also many smugglers who operate legitimate businesses and are involved in the smuggling of migrants as opportunistic carriers or hospitality providers who prefer to look the other way in order to make some additional cash. Crooked officials and other people may also be involved in the process.

Human trafficking and migrant smuggling are low-risk, high-profit criminal enterprises that utilise increasingly sophisticated methods and technological means to expand their reach.

They’re also linked to other crimes including illegal money flows, corruption, document fraud, trafficking in illegal goods, cybercrime and terrorism, and human trafficking and migrant smuggling are two different crimes yet they can overlap as they both profit from vulnerable people.

Victims of this widespread form of trafficking come mainly from developing nations, and some are forced to work in labour-intensive jobs such as agriculture, mining, fisheries or construction work, or kept in domestic captivity.

Some victims are even forced to carry out a range of criminal activities, which in turn yield more revenue for criminal organisations.

Those activities can include theft, drug cultivation, selling fake goods, and recently also fraud which is usually conducted through the misuse of technology. The victims often have quotas and can face harsh punishment if they don’t perform satisfactorily.

In numerous countries, waiting lists for transplants are extremely long, and criminals have taken this opportunity to manipulate the distress of patients and potential victim donors.

In the last decade, the process of globalisation, and the multiple crises affecting other parts of the world through, economic hardships, armed conflict, terrorism and climate change, have caused the most vulnerable people to migrate to look for safer living conditions.

And with this, we’ve seen an upsurge in the activities of organised criminal networks that facilitate irregular migration, by supplying fraudulent travel documents, organising transportation and circumventing official border controls because criminals like to make an enormous profit.

The Delay In HS2 Construction Will Cost Taxpayers More Than £360 Million

According to internal estimates, a planned delay to HS2 by ministers will cost taxpayers more than £360 million.

In March, ministers announced they were delaying by two years the construction of a high-speed section between Birmingham and Crewe in a bid to save money.

It’s the latest controversy to hit the high-speed rail project, which has been beset by delays and spiralling costs ever since being announced.

It’s been dogged by criticism over its finances. A budget of £55.7 billion for the entire project was set in 2015.

But the target cost has ballooned to up to £71 billion, excluding the eastern leg which was axed in 2021.

This would have taken trains from Birmingham to Leeds and pushed the project’s cost to potentially more than £100 billion.

The finished line will eventually link London with Birmingham and Manchester, but the latest delays mean high-speed trains won’t reach Manchester until at least 2040.

The Department for Transport said that large infrastructure projects had to be funded sustainably.

They said that over the next two years, spending would remain within the annual budgets and some targets of the projects would be re-phased to ensure they’re delivered in the most cost-effective way for taxpayers, as the government set out in Parliament in March.

However, the funds being used were funds that were supposed to go to our local authorities to fund the community, hence why everything has risen exponentially year after year.

Most people can’t afford train fares now and now this is being built to save 20 minutes to get to London, why? Any thoughts if anyone will be able to afford a ticket?

Seventy-one billion which instead could have gone to the NHS – what a complete waste of taxpayers’ money.

This is an astonishing waste of money for a vanity project when it could be used on something more useful, and we the taxpayer are paying for these vanity projects, and if the rail unions continue to strike, what’s the point of having an extremely costly rail line with no trains to run on them?

Our Government keep saying they’re short of money, but then they give us this unwanted white elephant railway and this should be stopped immediately.

And who’s responsible for these delays? And why does the taxpayer have to suffer the additional costs if the contractors are at fault?

Of course, they will use some cockamamie excuse or they’ll blame it on COVID or some other failure as the contractors and consultants cream off their slice of a bigger money cake.

However, they dare not stop the construction because if they do it will be political suicide, and it will also demonstrate that it was never that great to start off with.

They created a monster that no one dare talk of. However, someone from the media should do a freedom of information request so that we can conclude this debacle so that the money can then help British citizens instead in this land of ours.

Once again, it’s politicians frittering away taxpayers’ hard-earned money and acting like headless chickens, but then they can’t be trusted to do anything properly, but you guessed it, they’ll do their best to reward this failure as well.

This is the biggest white elephant in history – unnecessary, rather useless and definitely meaningless, and it was a major government project which is going to be late and way over budget, and this is a project which should never have seen the light of day, and it’s a black hole for taxpayer money.

Not Very Dis-Crete!

The Obama family has been spotted visiting the Acropolis in Athens, with the former president cosying up to his missis.

Barack Obama, 61, was pictured fondling his wife’s buttocks during the visit to the ancient site on Wednesday.

The former first lady sported a flattering khaki jumpsuit and white cardigan, with her husband looking comfortable in white chinos, trainers and a simple blue shirt.

The loved-up couple were joined by their two daughters Malia, 24, and Sasha, 22.

Malia was wearing a long brown dress and black ankle boots, and Sasha trainers, jeans and a purple top paired with hoop earrings.

The Obama family was in Greece for an Obama Foundation event and seems to have taken some downtime to see the popular attraction.

The Foundation was hosting 100 changemakers from across Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe for a week-long leadership and cultural experience in Athens.

The Foundation’s website states that during the week, leaders were trading ideas, workshopping solutions, and building meaningful connections.

It said that from Athens, Greece, to the South Side of Chicago, they were committed to investing in the next generation of emerging leaders, and that President Obama was too.

Barack Obama has spent time with the attendees, listening to the challenges leaders face and learning about the opportunities to advance their work.

Another downtime has included an evening of traditional Greek experiences at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre.

In a tweet posted to his account on Tuesday, the former President said that Michelle and himself began the @ObamaFoundation to support the next generation of leaders creating sustainable change in their communities, and he said that this week he’ll be joining their Obama Leaders in Greece where they’ll share ideas and dive deeper into the work they’re doing.

Barack Obama and Michelle first met in 1989 when working for the same law firm.

The couple has both talked at length about their enduring marriage and the challenges their relationship has endured over the years, especially in relation to living high-profile public lives.

The couple was in the White House from 2009 through to 2016. Since then, the couple has authored books, created documentaries for Netflix and trekked the world.

This is no big deal, most hubbies have fondled their wife’s derrière, but most of them aren’t followed by the press. However, some people might find it shocking that a man with two adult children still cares about his wife, and would express his feelings like this.

His love for his wife is extremely sweet indeed and why should he save this for private moments? It just means they have a life and they’re living it. Mrs Trump wouldn’t even let her husband hold her hand.

And as long as Michelle doesn’t mind, then it’s acceptable, plus it’s none of our business, and it’s always satisfying to see a couple who have been together a long time to still be affectionate because sustained romantic affection and feeling are a rare thing these days, and it’s good to see the warmth they still feel for each other.

EU Set To Approve The Use Of Spyware To Uncover Confidential Journalist Sources

The European Union is set to approve new laws that would let governments spy on journalists in the name of national security.

Press freedom campaigners warned that the legislation would expand legal loopholes that would let governments install spyware on journalists’ phones and computers, including British journalists operating in the EU.

The draft legislation, which has now been agreed upon by Brussels ambassadors, extends the national security exemptions beyond those covered under terrorism and threats to national security.

It would let EU governments use a broad array of crimes, ranging from murder to theft to music piracy, as a legal reason for using intrusive surveillance software on journalists.

Press freedom advocates warned the last-minute changes demanded by France could unlock the doors to all types of abuses.

All 32 crimes listed in the EU arrest warrant, alongside any offence that could lead to a prison sentence over five years, could be used under the new draft law.

It would also let EU governments exempt themselves from spying on reporters if it was an overriding requirement of the public interest.

Campaigners lashed out at the draft law as they warned it could pose a threat to the freedom of the press and have a chilling impact on whistleblowers.

Julie Majerczak, Brussels director at Reporters without Borders, said that the possibility of monitoring journalists in the name of national security was an open door to all sorts of abuse.

Renate Schroeder, director of the European Federation of Journalists, condemned the dangerous loopholes and said the exemptions dealt a blow to media freedom.

She said it put reporters even more at risk and would create a chilling impact on whistleblowers and other sources.

EU ambassadors will now take the draft legislation to the European Parliament, with a view to pounding out the final text.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, welcomed the agreement by the bloc’s member states and called for the draft legislation to become law shortly.

Commission official Vera Jourova, who proposed the law last year said it was a major step towards 1st ever EU rules to protect media pluralism and freedom, and that we should all do more to protect journalists, and she said that she hoped the Parliament could work quickly and that they get a final deal soon.

This only tells us one thing. Perhaps the EU has dirty little secrets and doesn’t want them exposed to the masses, as the United Kingdom becomes more communist by the day!

And where is the line drawn between national security and the suppression of dissenters and freedom of the press?

Eventually, there will be spying everywhere, on your phone, on your computer, if it’s not being done already. There will be no need for warrants, no need for a judge to approve it. Just random spying on the people. They will record what you say, what’s on your PC and text messages on your phone.

George Orwell was on the right path. He might have been a bit of an optimist, but he certainly knew something was amuck.

They call it national security, but in fact, it’s an EU dictatorship. Can you hear the jackboots parading through the streets of Brussels?

Don’t think for one moment that we in the United Kingdom are safe from these dystopian measures, and our slavish administration will readily adopt them.

Big brother is watching you!

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