A Rare Gene Variant That’s More Common In Amish Communities

According to researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a rare gene variant that typically arises in Amish communities may hold the answer to preventing heart disease.

The study found that those that have this particular gene, known as B4GALT1, seem to have lower levels of heart-damaging cholesterol, as well as a blood-clotting protein called fibrinogen.

Less than one in 10,000 people have this gene, yet amazingly 12 per cent of the Pennsylvania Amish community in Lancaster County carry the gene variant.

Past studies on the gene showed that specific mutations can change one’s cholesterol levels, too much of which can cause obstructed arteries and cardiovascular disease, which remains the leading cause of death worldwide.

Researchers involved in the study claim this is the first time scientists have isolated a gene that reduces two separate yet important heart disease risk factors.

Study leader and University of Maryland School of Medicine assistant professor May Montasser, PhD, in a media release, said that leveraging data from more than 500,000 from the general population, it was found that those who carried the variant had a 35 per cent lower risk of heart disease compared to those who didn’t.

And she said that the genetic variant seems to either repress the synthesis of cholesterol and fibrinogen or stimulate their removal from the blood, which protects the heart, and that this finding could lead to targeted drugs that imitate the action of this variant to keep arteries free of plaque and clots.

The study revealed that genetic samples taken from approximately 7,000 Amish participants, who have been working with the University’s Medical School team since 1995, were sequenced by researchers.

The study finally found a link between having the B4GALT1 gene variant and approximately 14 mg/dL lower LDL cholesterol with 30 mg/dL lower fibrinogen.

The research team studied how the gene variant affected mice genetically altered to carry B4GALT1 based on this connection.

Reports study leader Guisy Della Gatta said that the mouse model, encoding for this gene mutation, also showed reduced levels of LDL cholesterol and fibrinogen, establishing the effect of the variant.

She said this model served as an invaluable tool to unravel the molecular mechanisms that help protect against cardiovascular disease.

Researchers revealed that the reason behind the highly concentrated amount of the rare gene variant among the Amish population stems from their common lineage and homogeneous lifestyle.

It seems that the Amish people have lower cholesterol and better overall health because they actually work hard for a living and aren’t couch potatoes eating processed foods, and they don’t smoke or drink, don’t stress about nonsense and their version of social media is meeting up with their neighbours for supper.

The Amish community have lived this kind of lifestyle for a long time and they don’t know any different, but it works extremely well for them. If we all went back to horses and carts, with no radio, TV, internet et cetera, nobody would last a week because they wouldn’t be able to handle the boredom.

They live a different lifestyle, eat healthier and are more productive, so I’m sure that’s a huge factor.

Amish health is probably more to do with their lifestyle than a genetic sequence. Manual labour outdoors, unprocessed food, family values and avoiding the toxic modern culture of instantaneous gratification and snap chatting. There, that’s saved millions of dollars of research, and it’s absurd to think that scientists have secured millions in funding to find out what’s in plain sight.

COVID Antiviral Pill Could Be Offered To Vulnerable Patients Before Christmas

The first at-home treatment for COVID 19 could reportedly be given to patients before Christmas in an effort to protect vulnerable people from the Omicron strain.

According to a newspaper outlet, Health Secretary Sajid Javid is set to start a national pilot of the Molnupiravir antiviral pill, also known as Lagevrio.

Molnupiravir, which can be taken at home, is for people who’ve had a positive COVID test and have at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, such as obesity, being over the age of 60, diabetes or heart disease.

Under the plans, the NHS is reportedly expected to deliver courses of the tablet to clinically vulnerable and immunosuppressed patients within as little as 48 hours of them testing positive for COVID.

It’s understood that hospitals and GPs have been told a series of COVID medicines delivery units were being established to ensure the treatment gets to patients as soon as possible, once it’s established they have the virus.

It comes after the UK Health Security Agency said a further 26 cases of the Omicron variant had been recorded across the United Kingdom, with 25 of those in England, meaning the total number of confirmed cases of the variant in Britain now stands at 160.

Last month, the UK became the first country in the world to licence the use of the drug, from Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), in a move described as a game-changer by Sajid Javid, but just over a week ago, England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty warned its use may have to be reconsidered in the light of the emergence of Omicron.

Professor Chris Whitty told a Downing Street press conference that on the antivirals, they were going to have to do a bit of a rethink on the basis of this new variant, just to be sure they’ve got the right indications from it.

He said there’s a variety of ways it could be used in a different way, and what they need to make sure they’ve got the stock of these, what appear to be extremely effective drugs, and that they use it in the most effective way and for the right people.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had previously said the drug was safe and effective at reducing the risk of hospital admission and mortality in people with mild to moderate COVID who were at additional risk from the virus.

However, this is another drug that’s skipped the usual 5-year clinical testing phases, which all seems rather ominous, and if vulnerable people have not been protected by the jab, then what was the purpose of having the vaccine in the first place? And we all know that pharmaceutical companies aren’t there to make you better because they wouldn’t profit from that, would they now?

It’s certainly making big pharma incredibly rich, but is it really keeping the virus at bay or stopping people from dying?

Pfizer reported that the vaccine brought in $3.5 billion in revenue in the first three months of 2021, almost a quarter of its total revenue, which means it’s been Pfizer’s biggest source of income. Yet two initial jabs didn’t work, now the so-called booster which doesn’t appear to have worked and now a pill, what will they think of next? They’ll be putting it in your food next.

And all those people who had their first two jabs, do they actually think that the booster will work better?

The Driving Licenses And Passports Of Middle-Class Drug Users Could Be Revoked

Boris Johnson has announced that middle-class druggies could be stripped of their passports and driving licences under a tough new clampdown on Class A use.

The Prime Minister hit out at ‘lifestyle’ use of Class A by people who believed they were committing a victimless crime by only dabbling at the weekends.

He said he wanted to bring in examples that interfere with their lives as he accused them of being complicit in driving up drug-related crime across the United Kingdom.

Launching a ten-year blitz on county lines drug gangs he said narcotics were causing misery and rejected the notion of liberalising the law.

In a twin-track approach, resources will also be made available to help wean addicts off heroin, crack and other hard drugs.

Talking to a newspaper outlet Boris Johnson distinguished between addicts and social users of drugs, and he said that he didn’t want to stereotype them but he was speaking about lifestyle drugs. Those people who think it’s a victimless crime, and he said that it wasn’t, and that the country was littered with victims of what’s happened, and that they were going to look at different ways of punishing them. Things that would actually hinder their lives so they’ll be looking at taking away passports and driving licences.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab told BBC’s Andrew Marr programme that they didn’t think the so-called middle-class taking of cocaine was somehow okay so that in that sense they were going to be tough.

The Prime Minister is expected to announce millions of pounds in additional funding for the police to tackle the gangs which use children to traffic drugs in provincial towns and cities.

The funding package will build on the success of Project Adder, a police pilot scheme that has already had a real impact in disrupting the county lines operations by allowing forces to dedicate more resources to clandestine operations.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has described the aim of the scheme as cutting the head off the snake of criminal gangs.

The Government announced in July it would establish a new unit to help stop illegal drug-related illness and mortality, as the second part of Dame Carol Black’s Independent Review of Drugs was released.

The first phase of the review, published in February last year, estimated there were 300,000 opiate or crack users in England, and about one million people using cocaine per year.

If the Government are bringing in this policy, then regular drug testing for MPs needs to be brought in as well because it’s not do as I say and not as I do.

And why is this just for the middle classes? Is it so that they can keep their wealthy families and friends safe from the judgement they lay on others?

This might appear a great idea initially, but you actually do have to consider the implications. What will be the next thing the Government curtails when it comes to our freedoms. This is dictatorial control.

Of course, MPs and such don’t consider themselves middle class so they will eliminate themselves as they did from the restrictions during draconian lockdowns, and if they didn’t exclude themselves, MPs, judges, bankers, footballers and celebrities would all be stuffed.

They all escape these sanctions, including being stopped by the police, they’re untouchable, so if they want to sniff a bit of cocaine up their nose, nobody’s going to say a dicky bird.

And I guess there’s no point targeting gutter druggies because they won’t have a car, although they might be driving a stolen one with no insurance, tax or MOT, and they probably wouldn’t have a passport, and I’m sure some of those Bullingdon boys at Eton dabbled in a bit of everything when they were younger.

A Free Speech Law Is Under Consideration By The Ministers

Ministers are contemplating altering the law to protect free speech after the Appeal Court ruled in support of the Duchess of Sussex in a privacy row against a newspaper outlet.

Downing Street said publicly that ministers would study closely a ruling which upheld the High Court’s ruling that Meghan had a reasonable expectation of privacy over a letter written to her estranged father Thomas Markle.

But senior figures in Government went further and told a newspaper outlet that a change in the law may now be required to rectify the balance between the competing rights of privacy and free speech.

Legal experts have said the case could have a chilling impact on free speech.

A Cabinet minister told the newspaper outlet that judges in the case seemed to have gone far beyond what Parliament intended when including a right to private life in the Human Rights Act, and gave too little weight to the right to freedom of expression, which was also included in the law.

The source said the judges had created a privacy law that Parliament never voted for and that MPs never agreed to a privacy law because they knew it would be used by the rich and famous to cover up their transgressions.

The source said that the balance between privacy and free speech was definitely wrong, and if this is what the law says then it needed to change, and that it felt like this was a judge invented law, and that it draws on laws enacted by Parliament but it’s not what Parliament ever intended and it should be changed.

Downing Street also hinted at action, and asked whether the Prime Minister thought the judges were getting the balance right between privacy and free speech, a No 10 spokesperson told reporters that they would examine the implications of the judgement thoroughly.

And that you’ve heard the Prime Minister say before that a free Press was one of the foundations of any democracy, and this Government understands the important role that newspapers and the media play in holding people to account and shining a light on the issue which matters.

The spokesperson said he couldn’t get into the hypotheticals about what action the Government might take, but a Whitehall source said ministers might consider changing the law to protect free speech in light of the judgement.

The source said the feeling of a lot of people in Government is that something has gone too far, and that individual judges are making large pieces of case law without reference to Parliament, and that’s troubling.

In the end, if this goes through, all our private letters and emails will be made public, maybe even recordings we’ve made. Maybe we’ll even have a Snoopers Charter, but do we really want our entire private life on display?

Brainwashing Is Taking Place In Schools

Young children are being used as anti-vaxxer influencers’ to encourage dangerous conspiracy theories.

Pupils denouncing the jab as poison are appearing at demonstrations across the country as well as starring in online propaganda videos parroting their parents crackpot claims.

One ten year old has spoken at a string of anti-vax rallies, sometimes as the warm-up act for Jeremy Corbyn’s brother Piers Corbyn, where she’s praised as a child advocate and ultimate female hero.

Reading from a script with her father nearby, the girl claims COVID was a fake pandemic, that the vaccine contains a virus and anyone double jabbed has a maximum life expectancy of five years. She goes on to say it causes infertility in 80 per cent of girls and women.

Elsewhere, toddlers were being filmed for promotional films in which they were urged by adults to chant ‘no vaccine’ and ‘save our children’.

Online footage was also used to promote an anti-vaxxer group targeting hundreds of schools around the United Kingdom which was exposed by a newspaper outlet.

Medical experts have branded their claims as complete rubbish and said using children to spread lies was wrong.

The revelations came amid growing concerns about the rise of anti-vaxxers spewing dangerous lies and targeting schools.

In an event in Bristol in late October, a then ten-year-old schoolgirl branded the jabs as kill shots and alleged that many people had just dropped dead shortly after a vaccination.

The schoolgirl insisted the pandemic never existed and that in 2020 all the deaths and all the case numbers were false. Hospitals around the world were empty despite what the television told us and they locked us down just so we didn’t look outside.

She told teenagers the vaccine was a poison that would ensure they die at a young age and added that it has been said by numerous world experts that if you’re double jabbed your life expectancy is three to five years.

The Bristol demonstration was also addressed by former school governor Francesca Dill who runs anti-vax group Outreach Worldwide, which has targeted more than 100 schools around the country.

Just last week supporters held an Outreach in Edmonton, north London. Hundreds of pupils were faced by the group as they made their way home from school. They were given flyers advising them not to get the jab.

The leaflets contained out-and-out distortions of the number of deaths from the vaccine and falsely implied children were being used as an experiment.

Then again are we not being brainwashed by the media and government? And the Wuhan project really is in full swing now.

The truth is you’re being influenced by social media and the tragic fact is that people today live their lives through social media and believe everything without issue or verification, and isn’t this how the Catholic Church operates? Do not challenge their power or you will go to hell.

The fact is that no one really knows if the vaccines work or not, and this is a bit of a jib-jab project, and it does look like the media are the virus. I believe people need to make their own minds up on their own, either have it done, or don’t, but we certainly shouldn’t be forced into something we don’t want.

Of course, there are a lot of conspiracy theories going on out there, but not all of them can be wrong, and there are lots of extremely educated independent scientists throughout the world that agree with these people but are being discredited because it doesn’t conveniently fit the agenda of our rather too enthusiastically apocalyptic pharmacratic political influencers.

And given that these vaccines don’t demonstrably prevent someone from transmitting or catching COVID, and with no long term health and safety data to rely on, numerous families with naturally healthy immune systems are understandably concerned that they’re being shamed into pumping countless jabs into their arms that might do more harm than good, not to mention the mental health damage that it’s doing, with these oppressive and increasingly apartheidist restrictions, no wonder these people are protesting.

Cat-Calling Women In pubs Or On The Street Could Be Criminalized

Harassing women in pubs or on the street could be outlawed in a proposed crackdown on violence against women.

It was reported that the Law Commission is set to call for the criminalisation of public sexual harassment such as cat-calling and making suggestive remarks.

It will also recommend making encouraging hatred against women a criminal offence, in a Government-commissioned review of hate crimes, but it will stop short of making misogyny a hate crime as it was said to be ineffective and possibly counterproductive in terms of protecting women and sentencing offenders.

A Whitehall source told a newspaper outlet that the commission will call for a public sexual harassment offence, which doesn’t currently exist, and that it believes this fits with other work the Government is doing on criminalising intimate image abuse and will be more fruitful and better in protecting women.

Following the murder of Sarah Everard in March, Home Secretary Priti Patel said crimes such as flashing, verbal or physical mistreatment of women in the street were not low level and could lead to more dangerous crimes.

Feminist campaigner Nimco Ali, who’s advising the Government on brutality against women, said that the new legislation was like seatbelt laws and was necessary to change social standards.

This is not just about men, this is about women as well. Does this mean that when a woman cat-calls a man that should be banned as well?

What about young girls that set up social media pages? Girls that say they’re of age to talk to these men, but it then turns out that they’re not, but the man gets into trouble and nothing happens to the many girls that do this, this is entrapment and should also be against the law, but it’s not, and numerous men end up in prison for crimes of abuse because these girls were allowed on social media.

This is just another smokescreen of power to restrict freedom and human rights – your thoughts, opinions, speech, debate, whistling, it’s all being criminalised, step by step.

Up next it will be: ‘No officer, he didn’t cat-call me, but I felt his male gaze’.

It’s only a matter of time before unsolicited advances towards women will be forbidden.

Could you imagine PC plod sitting in a pub when the local exotic dancer comes on stage and all the men wolf whistle at her? All the men would get arrested and put in prison – anyone would think that there’s no serious crime out there.

Or there will be police officers in nightclubs to spot men who are giving unwanted attention and flirting to women, oh wait, that’s already becoming a reality.

And speaking as a female, there’s nothing better than a wolf whistle to put a smile on your face because most men understand boundaries and respect them, and women can be just as bad, if not worse than men so I hope it works both ways.

Flirting isn’t encouraging hatred of women.

What this will be doing though is putting more hatred on the average male who apparently should be seen and not heard.

Whistling or showing your appreciation towards a woman isn’t female brutality. In fact, most women spend hours getting dressed, doing their hair and putting their slap on, and they really like it when people notice, it’s called the mating ritual, and it’s been going on for billions of years.

Perhaps Priti Patel should be spending more time dealing with the real problems in our country, uncontrolled migration, rather than things like this.

A One-Bed Flat That Is The Most Depressing

A landlord has taken down an advert for a £300 a month flat after house hunters called it the most dismal one bed flat ever and compared it to Josef Fritzl’s cellar.

An advertisement for the apartment in Bolton, Greater Manchester, was instantly berated by renters after it emerged on Facebook marketplace.

Images of the one bed, one bath property were only taken from one side of the room, showing only half of the space, but no windows were visible, other than what appears to be a skylight in the ceiling.

What can be seen is an unmade single bed against the wall, with a double plug socket next to the bed, with what appears to be the former tenant’s phone on charge and two bottles of water.

The property, which appears to be otherwise empty, elicited dozens of jokes comparing it to a jail cell, with many asking what time the lights went out and what the visiting hours were.

Others were so enraged that they called for the advert to be taken down.

After getting hundreds of comments across the various listings, all were removed the same day.

Commenter Mark Keohane added: ‘F*** me. Even cells have decent windows. You absolute joke ripping people off with this hamster cage.’

Lindita Hope wrote that she’d seen bigger cells.

David Bowen said: ‘HMP Farnworth.’

One commented that they’d seen compounds in better nick in Afghanistan.

Another suggested it was an escape room, comparing it to the popular game in which contestants are locked in usually unpleasant or even horror like rooms and have a time limit to find their way out.

Many users said the property was so bad they felt compelled to request the advertisement to be taken down, while others suggested the tenant should be paid to live there instead.

One commenter wrote that it was disgusting and that the advertisement should be taken down.

Another added that they were having a laugh.

However, while the overwhelming majority condemned the flat, a small number of commenters defended the advert and suggested anyone looking to rent the room could bring their own furniture.

One said that they’ve paid more for a worse-looking room than that and that you didn’t have to use the bed, you could bring your own.

The landlord refused to comment.

But you can tell what type of landlord this is, a greedy unscrupulous one, and clearly knows that there are lots of desperate people out there that would take the room.

That room’s pretty good considering people are sharing garages in North London and it’s been going on for years, and councils look the other way as they have to technically house them if they’re here illegally – this country is unfortunately broken. However, the landlord could have at least changed the sheet, put a nice cover on it and some pillows, perhaps even some pictures on the wall.

However, rogue landlords are illegally carving up family homes to create cramped bedsits and they’re charging renters hundreds of pounds a month, which means that they’re breaking the planning laws.

Landlords are carving up suburban homes into what council officials describe as second-rate box room bedsits, in which entire families would live, paying hundreds of pounds per month in rent, usually coming from the public purse through housing benefit, and this is a blatant abuse of the planning laws.

These people are what they call slumlord millionaires, and this is wrong and it has to stop, and they’re destroying areas by running illegal flats and houses of multiple occupation, but then exploitation is the name of the game.

Virgin Media Is Offline

Virgin Media crashed this morning, leaving thousands of customers complaining of being unable to access the internet, make phone calls or watch TV.

According to Down Detector, which monitors website interruptions, there were 17,100 issues recorded at about 11:00 GMT.

Virgin Media confirmed it was experiencing difficulties, but said they were linked to its TV services rather than Wifi infrastructure.

The company tweeted that they were aware of a problem concerning TV services and they were working hard to resolve it as promptly as possible.

People across the country have reported difficulties, with hot spots in large cities such as London, Nottingham, Birmingham and Manchester.

One Virgin Media customer tweeted the company saying: ‘What’s happening with Broadband in PE4? Lost all connection can’t even contact on phone or app.’

Another added that the entire TV was down. ‘Glasgow, what’s going on?’ And asked if they’d been hacked, and was their personal information safe?

One customer, Alex MacLeod, tweeted: ‘Can you inform us what is happening with TV signal in Perth? I have no TV and can’t get onto the website. It also appears to be down. Tried phoning but can’t get through.’

Down Detector gets networks status updates from numerous sources including social media and reports submitted to its website.

Virgin Media also experienced a blackout last week, with more than 2,000 customers reporting a problem with their internet connection.

When it works Virgin Media is great, but that’s when it does work.

Virgin Media is ridiculous and not fit for purpose, yet the company have the audacity to bump up their prices every year while their service gets worse.

I’m not really sure why it’s called Virgin Media anymore because Richard Branson doesn’t own any part of it. He used to own three-quarters of Virgin Mobile, but now he gets paid £8.5 million each year for the use of the Virgin brand name.

Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company, which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom, and it’s now owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint enterprise between Liberty Global and Telefónica.

This country has become a farce. Nothing works properly and you get ripped off on everything. You work long hours for very little money and the money that we earn buys little to nothing and those products that we do buy have diminished in size with each passing year. Even confectionary has got smaller over the years, on the premise that they will make you fat. Boris Johnson should take a look at himself in the mirror sometimes, he might not like what he sees.

And we should expect to see a lot more of this. Electricity, internet and phone networks will all be down on a weekly basis now that we’re in this new green economy – it’s called the new normal.

If companies can’t provide you with the service that you pay for then you should be entitled to compensation while it’s not working, but it seems that they’re not accountable for anything, but they’ll tear you a new anus if you owe then even a penny.

Virgin Media is shocking and when you contact them, well, you’ve got more chance of contacting the man on the moon, but the moment you cancel your direct debit you get bombarded by them. I actually had an incident where I cancelled my sim card because I didn’t need it anymore. The chap on the other end of the phone wanted to know the ins and outs of why. I asked him to turn my sim off at midnight – guess what, he turned all my services off and when I complained they offered me a £10 goodwill gesture!

Downing Street Throws A Lockdown Party For ‘The Gazelle’, Dominic Cummings’ Protégé

It was reported that one of the boozy lockdown bashes held at Downing Street over lockdown was a leaving party for Dominic Cummings former aide Cleo Watson.

The Prime Minister and his Downing Street staff are accused of breaking COVID rules by hosting three celebratory parties in 2020.

On November 27, Boris Johnson is said to have given a speech at a crowded leaving do for a senior aide, who a newspaper outlet named as Cleo Watson, nicknamed ‘The Gazelle’.

The 32-year-old was one of Dominic Cummings protégés but has now left No 10 to write an erotic political thriller about the lewd goings-on in Westminster.

At the time Britain was in the grip of the second lockdown, with all indoor social gatherings forbidden unless they involved a single household bubble.

Friends of his former communications chief Lee Cain denied the event was for him, saying that he left in the first week of the month.

Then, on December 18, Downing Street staffers allegedly held their own celebratory party featuring a Christmas quiz and Secret Santa. At that time, London was subject to Tier 3 restrictions, with indoor gatherings banned and the rule of six outside.

According to a newspaper outlet, at each of the two parties, there were 40 or 50 people jammed cheek by jowl into a medium-sized room.

A source also alleged there was a third, smaller gathering on November 13, the night Dominic Cummings walked out.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson didn’t deny the gathering had taken place but he said that at all stages, the rules had been followed.

The Prime Minister’s press secretary added that they didn’t recognise that account, as they’ve said COVID rules had been observed at all times.

Asked which parts of the report were being dismissed, she said that she wasn’t going to get into individual aspects of speculation.

Separately, a spokesperson described it as total nonsense and maintained that Mr and Mrs Johnson had held parties in their private flat.

Sir Keir Starmer questioned Boris Johnson on the claims at PMQs and he asked if a party was held on December 18 as reported.

Boris Johnson evaded the question and told the Labour leader that all guidance was followed completely.

Sir Keir Starmer said the COVID rules at the time said that you mustn’t have a work Christmas lunch or party and that Boris Johnson was taking the British people for fools.

It seems that now, it’s do as I say and not as I do, and all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others!

At least when Matt Hancock got caught violating the rules, he resigned, all Boris Johnson can do is lie, and what about the police outside guarding No 10, did they just turn a blind eye to all the goings-on?

At the end of the day, when you think about it, we the British public are allowing the few to govern the many, so how weak are we to let them get away with it?

This is the Prime Minister of the country who makes the rules and forces them on the common people but doesn’t follow them himself and I’m amazed at how many people support him when he’s selling you lies – this country is doomed!

And Boris Johnson actually makes Guy Fawkes look great, after all, he was only destroying the Houses of Parliament, Boris is destroying the whole country.

What Boris Johnson should do is just admit that he broke the rules, and now he’s just digging a huge hole for himself, but of course, he still expects the people to take notice of him.

The Police Are Accused Of Being Soft On E-Scooters

Britain’s biggest police force will no longer routinely seize e-scooters being ridden illegally on public roads.

The Met will instead seize them only from repeat offenders or when needed to keep the public safe, a move that was slammed by MPs and campaigners who branded the vehicles death traps.

The force has seized 3,637 privately owned e-scooters this year, but anyone stopped while riding one illegally will now have the law explained to them rather than see their scooter instantly seized.

Peter Bone, Conservative MP for Wellingborough, said the new approach to enforcement beggars belief, and he added they should be hardening their position on e-scooters, not softening it, that they were a menace and a danger, and that if someone is riding them illegally they should be confiscated.

Sarah Gayton, a street access campaign coordinator at the National Federation of the Blind, said there was no excuse for riders not to understand the extremely clear law prohibiting the use of privately owned e-scooters on public roads.

She said the police should just take them from people who are riding them illegally, then people would quit riding them illegally, and that the accident rate amongst young people was terrible.

At least six people have died in accidents involving e-scooters since July 2020, with about 200 riders severely injured.

Scotland Yard accused retailers of marketing the vehicles without making consumers knowledgeable of the laws.

Commander Kyle Gordon, head of roads policing, said it’s especially unhelpful that retailers, completely knowledgeable of the risks they’re creating, continue to profit from marketing machines prohibited for use on public roads without adequate guidance.

He said that he was calling on retailers not to exploit their customers in the run-up to Christmas.

The thing is if retailers weren’t permitted to sell these e-scooters, then people wouldn’t purchase them because they wouldn’t be on sale, and if it’s illegal for people to ride these illegal e-scooters, then it should be illegal for shops to market them and they should also be fined for selling them.

Sadly e-scooters are here to stay and they will increasingly become part of our everyday life unless our Government stop these shops from selling them, but of course, they’re an inexpensive, eco-friendly mode of personal transport so people, particularly young people are going to want to own one.

These scooters are extremely hazardous to pedestrians, especially the elderly for whom a collision could be deadly, and illegal e-scooters don’t have any tax or insurance, so there is no come back on the person using one, but for the person who’s been hurt or even killed for that matter, there’s no personal injury claim to be had.

These e-scooters are often ridden/driven at high speed on the pavement and pedestrian areas and I for one don’t like them because being disabled I could be knocked over by one at any given moment and have had them flying past me and quite honestly it takes the wind out of my sails as they go past.

Next, the police won’t be prosecuting bank robbers, they’ll just be stopping them and explaining the law.

Our police are supposed to uphold the law, they’re not supposed to choose which laws they hold up, and we’re becoming a nation of doing what you like, where you like when you like.

This is a dereliction of duty. I mean, how difficult would it be for the police to remove an illegally ridden e-scooter. Just stop the rider, and if it’s illegal, seize it there and then, put it in the boot of the police vehicle, problem solved. But no, the police have now effectively validated an illegal and hazardous activity, so we should be seeing some more injuries or even worse.

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