Now, The Poppy Risks Being Cancelled

Poppy sellers have admitted they ‘need all the help they can get’ amid fears the number of volunteers are declining and fewer people are wearing the historic remembrance insignia. 

Organisers told the Daily Mail how years of abuse and ageing volunteers have created a perfect storm, which left them scrambling for help ahead of this year’s Remembrance Day.

There are fears that fewer people wearing poppies and a shortage of younger volunteers coming through could be catastrophic for future appeals.

In a rallying call to the younger generation, volunteers have urged the youth of today to step up amid fears that the typical older volunteers are finding it increasingly difficult to spend weeks dedicating their time in the cold and rain.

The Poppy Appeal is the Royal British Legion’s (RBL) largest fundraising campaign, held annually during the Remembrance period. They also generate funds through gifts and donations, but the poppy appeal is their primary source of revenue.

The poppy serves as a sign of remembrance for the war dead and to raise money for veterans, but it has increasingly become the centre of a debate over patriotism and national pride.

During this year’s appeal, RBL volunteers in Penarth, South Wales, were allegedly met with ‘abuse and threats’ as they put poppies and flags on a lamp post ahead of Remembrance Day.

An inquiry has been launched by police after volunteers said they were ‘subjected to horrendous abuse by mindless left-wing idiots’.

Volunteer Karen Jones said: ‘In a small, friendly town, such as ours, you do not expect poppy appeal volunteers to get abuse when putting up memorial lamp post poppies and flags for the Remembrance period.

‘Our volunteers were approached this morning and met with abuse and threats to come back and take the poppies and flags down.

‘The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal is not political, it is to remember the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that people have “Free Speech”.

Social media is also awash with people noticing fewer poppies around, with some admitting they no longer feel safe wearing the poppy in case they are targeted with abuse.

Those on the left claim the right have ‘hijacked’ the poppy, leaving those wanting to pay their respects to the war dead fearing they look like they are ‘far-right’.

Former UKIP leader Henry Bolton sparked a debate by writing: ‘It’s incredibly disappointing to see how few people are wearing poppies this year. It’s as though people have either forgotten the sacrifice others made for them, or they simply don’t care.’

But replying to him, one user wrote: ‘The poppies have been co-opted by racist wingnuts who decorate their entire houses, lamp posts and vehicles with poppy-related tat and scream “Where’s your f****n’ poppy”. Not surprised people are put off, to be honest.’

Another said: ‘The left have turned the poppy into a far right symbol now.’

And a third shared a picture of a Nazi swastika, which had allegedly been put up on his gate because he had a Union Jack and Lest We Forget poppy flag flying high in his garden.

The RBL says it has distributed 30 million paper poppies and six million poppy pins every year for the last decade. And while it said it would never criticise someone for not wearing the poppy, the public often slams public figures if they neglect to wear the symbol.

When footballer James McClean, who was born in Derry, decided not to wear a poppy because of the British Army’s part in the Troubles, he received death threats. His dissidence each year pursued him throughout his career, and he continues to be the target of abuse.

Stuart Lees, who has been a Poppy Appeal coordinator in Ashbourne for more than 20 years, told the Daily Mail they are ‘very much’ struggling with getting volunteers, ‘particularly the street sellers’.

He said: ‘We’re very fortunate we get help with the local cadets, they come out one weekend. We’ve got some stalwarts that do it every year, but there’s very few up and coming. Everybody’s busy working, that’s the problem.

‘We have struggled in previous years, to be perfectly honest. One or two of our regular collectors are getting quite elderly, and it’s becoming more of a challenge when they’ve got to stand out on the streets for a fortnight. It’s a long slog.

‘I’ve got a couple, but not many. It’s been the same people for the last however many years.

Mr Lees, whose branch raised £32,000 last year, also revealed how his team of poppy sellers have come under abuse from members of the public.

The 65-year-old, who was a fireman for 30 years, said: ‘You always get a little bit of abuse every year. What the year is, what happened, you always get the one, don’t you? So they do get a bit of abuse from time to time.’

When questioned what kind of abuse they get, he said: ‘I wouldn’t like to repeat it. It’s the nastiness, to be honest.  It’s a minority, but some people don’t need room to moan.

‘I think they just like to show their aggression at some people.’

John Dwyer, president of the Royal British Legion’s Nantwich and District Branch, also warned they need more youngsters to step up, but said they are not short of volunteers just yet.

Mr Dwyer, whose branch raised £64,000 last year, told the Mail: ‘We would love to see a lot more young people involved. That would be brilliant. We need more of those. At the end of the day, at some point, the older people, we are going to be running out of them.’

Talking about the impact of the Poppy Appeal, he said: ‘It’s absolutely critical that we do it. The fact the public here respond so well to the efforts of our collectors and want to support the military, it is critically important that we keep this going.’

In a message to the younger generation, he said: ‘Please come and join us and be a part of this wonderful network supporting our military personnel. Military personnel do need that support, I would urge youngsters to think about joining us.’ 

In 2023, 78-year-old poppy seller veteran Jim Henderson claimed he was punched and kicked by a mob of pro-Palestine protesters.

Jim Henderson, who served with the Army in Northern Ireland, said he was set upon while manning a stall at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station.

Mr Henderson, who served in the Royal Corps of Signals, 32 Signal Regiment during the Troubles, said: ‘I was getting shoved backwards, in danger of falling, and one of them stood on my foot and split my toe. 

‘So I thought I had to get the money out of here. So I went down, and as I bent down, someone punched me in the back. And then I got another punch in my side.’

He said that he managed to get up and was rescued by three ladies in red railway uniforms. ‘I’ve never known anything like it,’ he said.

Police subsequently dropped investigations into the apparent attack due to ‘insufficient evidence’.

This year, the number of people wearing red poppies in the run-up to Armistice Day on November 11 seems to have been in decline in recent years.

And some volunteers say they are selling fewer than in the past.

In a survey of towns and cities around the United Kingdom, including locations that were badly bombed during World War II, The Daily Mail discovered that just a small number of customers displayed poppies and that establishments selling them were in poor supply.

Reasons given for their apparent slump in popularity vary from younger people shunning them to difficulties finding volunteers to sell them and even complaints about the new plastic-free poppies made solely out of paper, which were first introduced in 2023.

When poppies were a regular sight on the Western Front, growing in fields that had been shaken up by bombardment and combat, they became inextricably tied to the misery of World War I.

The flowers famously provided Canadian doctor John McCrae with inspiration for his poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, which he wrote whilst serving in Ypres in 1915.

A campaign for the poppy to be made a symbol of remembrance grew after the war concluded in 1918, and artificial poppies were first sold in 1921 in support of the Earl Haig Fund for ex-servicemen and the families of those who had died.

The British Legion, which became the Royal British Legion in 1971, founded a factory staffed by disabled ex-servicemen making poppies in 1922.

The annual Poppy appeal continues to be the RBL’s largest annual fundraising event, bringing in £51.4 million last year with 40,000 volunteers distributing 40 million poppies, according to the armed forces’ charity.

But that total is still down on pre-Covid levels – the record of £55 million set in 2018.

Sales declined by more than £8 million the next year, to hit £46.5 million in 2019, and fell even further during COVID and lockdowns in 2020 to £27.9 million.

While sales rebounded to £42.2 million in 2021, they seemed to plateau to £39.9 million in 2022 and £41.9 million in 2023 before last year’s uptick.

On Bideford’s pedestrian-only high street in North Devon, the Daily Mail saw barely five customers carrying poppies. Only a few stores were selling poppies, but several have Remembrance Day displays in their windows.

Ray Eyres, owner of Mill Street Butchers, which had a poppy box on his counter, said: ‘I’ve not sold many at all this year to be honest with you.

‘It’s got so bad I’ve started putting my own money in just so the collecting tin isn’t quite so empty. My regulars have all bought them, and I’ve encouraged customers to put their small change in, but that’s about it.

‘I haven’t seen many poppies around town either, I don’t know whether that’s because the weather has been so mild that people haven’t realised it’s November or if everybody just has too many other things to worry about. I hope there will be a sudden rush before the 11th.’

At the town’s Morrisons supermarket, former Royal Marine Captain Derek Sargent, 78, who organises collections for several neighbouring towns, said: ‘You don’t see a lot of people wearing poppies in Bideford, which is a shame.

‘We used to have a lot more collectors, but it’s a sign of the times. People who used to do it have died off and not been replaced.

‘The problem with organising Poppy Day is the closure of the British Legion branches means you lose that network of volunteers to do it, so they are relying on people with no background in the services.

‘I’ve been inundated with people who want to donate, but there’s not enough places to do it. The human element is really important. If you just have a table with poppies on it, you won’t collect a fraction of the money that you would with somebody like me there.’

Mr Sargent insisted that young people were still being taught about the importance of remembrance, with many of the 65 collection kits he distributes every year going to schools.

Torridge – the area surrounding Bideford – played a crucial part in World War II, and nearby beaches, which closely resembled those in Normandy, were used to test amphibious equipment for the D-Day landings.

The area also hosted thousands of American troops and welcomed evacuees from heavily bombed cities. An Honour Roll in the church of St. Mary has the names of 90 men who died during the war.

Only a small portion of shoppers were wearing poppies on Friday morning when a Daily Mail reporter visited the town centre of King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

Most of those sporting poppies were over retirement age, and nobody wearing one seemed to be under 35 years old, despite the town being known for its RAF connections and just 10 miles from RAF Marham, which is home to the UK’s F-35 fighters.

Two residents of King’s Lynn were killed and 13 were wounded during a Zeppelin bombing raid on January 19, 1915, in World War I, and another 57 civilians were killed and 41 were injured in 14 air raids during World War II.

Poppy sellers were on duty this week at tables set up in the town’s Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco stores – but only a tiny number of other shops and outlets had boxes of poppies and collecting tins or jars on their counters.

The only business selling poppies on the High Street seemed to be the Hairshare salon, which was selling them for the first time in more than ten years.

The salon’s manager, Emma Cruickshank, 44, said: ‘We used to have a person come in who would ask us if we wanted a box, and leave us one. They would then come back and pick up the money we collected, but that all stopped years ago.’

Junior stylist Lucy Jaggard, 20, said she arranged for a box of poppies to be supplied to the salon this year after customers last year kept asking where they could buy one.

She contacted the Royal British Legion’s head office, which led her to a local organiser who gave her a link so she could order one online for £4.50.

Lucy said, ‘It was a bit of a process to go through. We always join in the silence every year, and we thought we should sell poppies as well. Customers have been buying them when they leave, and we have got £27.50 so far. We will be sending all the money back to the Legion.’

Retired nurse Bridget Cornwell, 74, who was having her hair done, said she used to sell poppies door-to-door in the nearby villages of Ashwicken and Bawsey until RBL officials put a stop to the practice.

Retired plumber Bob Melville, 75, from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, who was sporting a poppy while out with his partner Sheila Bottesi, 82, said: ‘There are definitely less places selling them. I got mine at a supermarket this year, and it was the first time I made a donation by card.

‘Years ago, they used to push them a bit more, and you had sellers in the street. They were everywhere you looked, and it was great. We can’t forget the people who gave up their lives in wars.’

Kelly Thomas, the assistant manager at the Veterans at Ease charity shop in King’s Lynn, said she had been disappointed about only being given a box of plain paper poppies to sell, rather than a selection including more elaborate metal poppies and key rings.

Kelly said she had developed her own fundraising idea by having a ‘poppy tree’ in her shop, featuring crocheted poppies knitted by a group of women in Downham Market.

The east London borough of Newham, which lost more than 3,000 of its residents during World War Two, either as civilians killed in the Blitz or military personnel, had barely any poppy sellers on duty when the Daily Mail visited.

No poppies seemed to be on sale at Stratford station or in the nearby Stratford Shopping Centre, although staff at both places said volunteer sellers did visit on some other days.

One shopping centre staff member said: ‘The sellers have stopped coming so much in the last few years.’

The middle of the station had a poppy-bordered sign, while staff and commuters could be seen wearing poppies, despite them not being on sale, although there was an evangelist Christian stall and a Save the Children charity appeal outside the station.

A flower seller said: ‘It is mainly old people who wear poppies – younger people don’t tend to wear them now.’

The shopping centre boasted a memorial display paying tribute to Newham residents who fought and died in the war, with their photos and stories emblazoned on big signs, and a silhouette of a soldier, alongside handwritten messages from shoppers, thanking servicemen and women.

Staff said that a brass band was expected to perform at the facility during the weekend, to prepare for the day of commemorations on Remembrance Sunday.

But a flower seller at the centre, whose family have run a stall for 90 years, said he felt Remembrance Day efforts had massively declined in recent years.

‘I asked for a tin. I couldn’t get one. There used to be a man inside Sainsbury’s selling them, but he’s not there any more,’ he said.

‘I remember him, he was a big soldier bloke… You can’t buy poppies anywhere in London now.’

Another shopkeeper, who was sporting a poppy, said: ‘I had a couple come in and ask for a poppy wreath, and we had to say we haven’t got any.

‘I think there should be someone in every market selling them. My daughter had to go to North Weald to get me this one.’

While there was no shortage of people wearing a poppy in Stratford, there were far fewer in other places in Newham.

In Plaistow, at the heart of the borough, a walk up and down the high street revealed only one elderly man and one little boy wearing the symbol.

Few businesses in the area appeared to know where a poppy could be bought, although Plaistow Library had an array of Remembrance Day-related books, along with the In Flanders Fields poem mounted on the wall.

A young man working at the library said he had wanted to buy one himself, but had not been able to find one locally, although his workplace was waiting for a delivery.

Trevor Bruns, a local stallholder and long-time East End resident, said: ‘I’ve been a whelk seller for 17 years and I’ve never been able to buy a poppy here. I would if I could.’

Some are keeping up the grand old tradition. Poppy seller Liam Adam said he was doing brisk business at his stall in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford.

Liam, who has been volunteering for the Poppy Appeal for three years, said: ‘We’ve taken, I reckon, a few hundred pounds this morning or maybe 60 poppies. One person gave £40, that’s a huge donation, and they only got one poppy.’

Yet poppies were few and far between in the Whitechapel area of Tower Hamlets in east London, where scarcely anyone on the high street was wearing one.

Nobody was selling them at one of the local stations, although a foodbank collection and a man was handing out English-language versions of the Quran.

A large Sainsbury’s store off the high street was suggested by the town hall and library staff as a likely ideal spot for poppy sellers.

However, there was no visible in-person presence during a visit; instead, it only showed two cardboard boxes of paper poppies and donation containers.

Even in the main transport hub of Liverpool Street, which sits on the perimeter of Tower Hamlets and the City of London, poppies were not common.

A picture taken from above of a mass of hundreds looking up at the departures board showed only five observable poppies sported on lapels.

This was in spite of the fact that there were six amiable, gregarious vendors positioned at two desks at either end of the train station.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail failed to identify poppy merchants in Leicester.

Grandmother Margaret Wise, 72, who has lived in the city all her life, told of her ‘shock’ and ‘disappointment’ that there was hardly anywhere to buy one.

She said: ‘It is a sorry reflection of how times have changed. At one time, you would see people walking around and proudly showing off a bright red poppy on their lapel, but I’ve not seen any now.’

The retired school dinner lady, shopping in the busy high street near the clock tower, added: ‘I would gladly have bought one, but I can’t see any poppy sellers anywhere. It’s important we remember our country’s traditional values, whatever our religious and political beliefs or ethnicity.’

At the train station, the concourse was bereft of any Royal British Legion poppy sellers.

An East Midlands Railway worker, pointing to a space outside the ticket office near the main entrance, said: ‘Last year we had a table set up for people selling poppies over there, but it’s not here this year.’

He said: ‘I don’t know why, but I presume there is no need for one… It’s a changing sign of the times. Maybe people in Leicester don’t want to wear poppies. You can’t force them to.’

A reporter strolling around the city – which has a population of about 400,000 – saw nobody wearing one.

At the Gourmet Coffee Bar outside the station, a very small box still almost full of poppies had been put on one corner of the counter.

A worker called Cameron, 23, said some travellers had been buying poppies, but not ‘that many.’

He said: ‘I’ve sold some, maybe a few dozen, and customers have been putting a few pound coins in the box or fiver notes.’

Cameron, a former Scout who lives on the outskirts of Leicester, said he had no idea if sales were up or down on last year as he was not working there last November, but he sensed the diverse city was ‘less supportive of British ways.’

Similarly, the Mail spotted very few individuals wearing poppies in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and was unable to locate a single poppy vendor.

Residents said they only ever saw occasional sellers in The Broadway shopping centre, and on Saturdays in the city’s Darley St Market.

Shopper Evelyn Morris, 62, said: ‘There are quite a few on Saturday, but that’s the only time you’ll see them.

‘There’s none in the week but at the weekend you’ll get collectors for the Royal British Legion or kids from the scouts and things like that.’

Poppy wearer Jim Broughton, 76, said: ‘It’s very sad but you hardly see any poppy sellers these days. In fact, it’s rare you see people wearing them. I haven’t seen any poppy sellers in the last few days.

‘I got mine from a volunteer selling in the shopping centre, and he said it was very quiet. I think you get the odd person also selling them in supermarkets.’

The city’s Centenary Square, train terminals, and even the area around the war monument were devoid of vendors.

The Bradford City War Memorial Gardens honour the sacrifice of Polish soldiers in World War II as well as the Bradford Pals during World War I.

Similar findings were reported by the Daily Mail in Blackburn, Lancashire, where there was a Royal British Legion kiosk in the mall, but few people were wearing poppies.

The volunteer seller, who did not want to give his name, said: ‘It’s a lot quieter than previous years. A lot of people just come and give money and don’t take a poppy.

‘A lot of it is contactless, so it’s hard to tell how much people are spending. I think a lot of it is down to the footfall in the town centre. There are less people coming in as a lot of the big shops have closed down.

‘It’s sad – maybe poppies have gone out of fashion, or people are worried about the waste.

‘But it’s a shame as it’s such a good cause.’

During the five minutes that the Daily Mail spoke with the volunteer, three individuals visited the stand.

Poppy wearer June Worthington, 58, said: ‘This is the only stall I have seen in the town centre. There used to be a lot more, such as in the main shopping street or by the railway station.

‘Now you have to go out of your way to find them. I’ve had mine for years, so I just donate online or give money if I do see a stall.’

A spokesperson for the Royal British Legion said: ‘The Royal British Legion has distributed 30 million poppies for this year’s Poppy Appeal, as we do every year.

‘We have more collectors supporting the Appeal than last year, with over 54,000 people generously donating their time across the nation.

‘Last week’s London Poppy Day beat all previous records with £1.478 million raised in a single day in the capital, a 14 per cent increase on last year. 

‘We are grateful for every donation made and every poppy worn and encourage people to wear their poppies as a personal message of thanks to our Armed Forces community.’

Unfortunately, the UK has grown so divided that no one wants to wear a poppy anymore because they are afraid of being attacked.

I would gladly make an online donation, but I most definitely wouldn’t be spotted wearing a poppy in London, but then again, I would never forget the sacrifice our war heroes made for us.

Sadly, we are a very small minority in the UK, and British people won’t wear poppies in case there are negative reactions from other communities.

We are all being dumbed down, and even Christmas is on borrowed time, along with the Easter Bunny.

The Sacrifice He Made Is Worthless

Although he has a chestful of medals and a proud record as the country’s oldest poppy seller, Alec Penstone insists he is not a hero.

‘The heroes are all the dead ones. The heroes are the ones we left in the Arctic and on the Normandy beaches,’ the 100-year-old says from his home on the Isle of Wight.

But, in the eyes of the millions of proud Britons who saw him give a damning appraisal of the state of the nation on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Friday, the D-Day veteran, who fittingly was born on St George’s Day, absolutely deserves the label.

He told shocked presenters Kate Garraway and Adil Ray that the sacrifice of the lost men of his generation ‘wasn’t worth’ what the country has become.

‘What we fought for was our freedom, but now it’s a darn sight worse than when I fought for it,’ he added on TV.

Now, as his words continue to fuel debate online, Alec has explained his point of view at length in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily Mail.

‘It was my own personal opinion, but evidently it touched a chord with very many people. My daughter has had so many messages from all over the world,’ he says.

The widower – who is also a veteran of the Arctic convoys that took vital supplies to Russia in the Second World War – is filled with grief and outrage about what he sees as Britain’s decline.

‘I don’t know what the hell we fought for and [why we] lost so many wonderful men. The country has gone to rack and ruin,’ the grandfather-of-two continues.

‘There are too many people with their fingers in the till. Faith in our country was the best thing [when he was young].

‘But nowadays there’s too many people that just want their own little corner and bugger everybody else.’

Rather than his anguish being fuelled by any kind of hostility, Alec stresses: ‘I’m not against foreigners coming into the country provided they behave themselves.’ 

His fears for the state of the country echo a major study this month that discovered that eight in 10 Britons feel the nation is divided, up five percentage points from two years ago and 10 per cent since 2020.

Researchers from King’s College London and Ipsos Mori conducted the survey, which also revealed that half of the respondents believe Britain’s “culture” is changing too quickly, up from a third.

One particularly striking finding that chimed with Alec’s lament was that nostalgia for Britain’s past increased in every single age group, even among 16 to 24-year-olds.

Almost a third of people in that age bracket wanted Britain to return to how it ‘used to be’, up from 16 per cent in 2020.

Asked about his opinion of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill and how he feels today’s politicians match up to him, Alec says: ‘I admired him. He was a leader. And he made sure what needed to be done was done.

‘There is no comparison whatsoever to the modern leaders. In this world today, it is every man for himself.

‘I’ve got no feelings for any of them.’

During his appearance on Good Morning Britain, which came ahead of Remembrance Sunday today, Alec was treated to a rendition of Vera Lynn’s wartime hit We’ll Meet Again by all-female troupe the D-Day Darlings.

Typically, though, he was dismissive of his own actions after his war service had been explained.

‘I cannot see anything that I’ve done, specially that wouldn’t have been done by other people of my generation. I’m just one of the lucky ones, I’m still alive,’ he told the ITV presenters.

Alec urged his taxi driver to slow down so he could give a salute as they passed the Whitehall Cenotaph on the way home from his filming.

On several occasions, he has been part of the parade of veterans who form the heart of the Remembrance Sunday service at the London monument each year.

This time, though, he is staying at home and laying a wreath at his local memorial instead.

We should be giving this man a knighthood because what he had to say makes a lot of sense, although I’m sure he wouldn’t want a knighthood.

Our children of this generation have no idea what it was like to fight in a war; they just look through rose coloured glasses. There was war, intense poverty, ration cards, and air raid shelters. Our men were coming home with arms and legs blown off; it was nothing short of a miracle that they even survived.

I wasn’t in the war, but my mum used to tell me stories about being in the air raid shelters as young as 6 years old. Women giving birth to their babies down there. We are not hard done by; we are extremely blessed to be here because if Hitler had invaded England, it would be a whole new ball game.

The trouble is, we have been given too much, and our children have no appreciation for what they have. Now it’s just the norm, and our government just want to take, take, take.

Things have changed, but we should never forget what was before, because if there was no before, there wouldn’t be a now.

What we don’t want are invaders that don’t belong here; otherwise, we may as well have let Hitler in!

Grim Milestone For Shabana Mahmood

More than 10,000 small boat migrants have reached Britain since Shabana Mahmood became Home Secretary, after 2,000 crossings in only four days.

The grim milestone has been achieved under Ms Mahmood more quickly than under any of her predecessors since 2022.

There were 621 arrivals on Thursday, 648 on Friday and 503 on Saturday, followed by an as yet unconfirmed number on Sunday, thought to be about 380.

It means approximately 10,100 Channel migrants came to Britain in Ms Mahmood’s first 66 days in charge of the Home Office.

Under her predecessor, Yvette Cooper, it took 74 days to reach the same milestone.

She was moved sideways to the Foreign Office by PM Sir Keir Starmer after failing to get a grip on the Channel crisis.

Under Tory home secretaries, the 10,000 points took 171 days under James Cleverly and 583 days under Priti Patel.

Only under Suella Braverman was the 10,000 mark reached more quickly, in 43 days in 2022 – the year which saw a record annual number of migrants amid a wave of Albanian arrivals.

One government source told the Daily Mail the timing of the mark being hit was ‘unfortunate’ as Ms Mahmood is said to be creating 10,000 asylum housing places in old army barracks and other places.

The pace of arrivals seemed to be driven by gangs deploying larger boats – dubbed ‘mega-dinghies’ – with many now carrying close to 100 migrants, insiders said.

Traffickers have been able to obtain the dangerous bumper-size vessels despite Labour’s promise to ‘smash the gangs’.

Meanwhile, since Labour’s flagship ‘one in, one out’ returns deal with France was announced in July, there have been 17,609 confirmed arrivals across the Channel.

But so far, only 94 migrants have been deported, while a further 57 have been brought into the UK under the reciprocal terms of the deal.

Since Labour came to power last year, 61,968 Channel migrants have reached British soil, not including Sunday’s figure, which is supposed to be about 380 but is yet to be confirmed by the Home Office.

The ‘one in, one out’ deal was flung into disarray last month after it emerged a small boat migrant came back to Britain after being deported.

The Iranian man’s ridiculous back-and-forth journeys saw him arrive here on August 6 – the day the deal with France came into force, and removed from Britain on September 19.

He later slipped out of a migrant shelter in Paris, where he had been accommodated, and headed back to the northern French coast, re-entering Britain on a small boat on October 18.

The unknown man was eventually removed – for a second time – 18 days later, on November 5.

Other migrants deported under Labour’s scheme are also said to have made their way back to the French coast to attempt a second crossing.

She wasn’t a suitable candidate to be Home Secretary, in my opinion. I want Sadiq Khan and other members of our government to be British, and given her background, she frankly isn’t the type to do anything about the biggest challenge this country has encountered since 1939.

Like all the promises that Keir Starmer made, they were all barren promises and lies.

What a mess our government is—one out and thousands in.

I write about this day in and day out, but people can’t be bothered anymore – these migrants just keep coming, and we are quickly becoming a minority in our own country.

The most distasteful sight of the weekend was seeing Starmer laying a wreath at the Cenotaph, while our country, which these men and women died to protect, is being invaded.

Keir Starmer is a pitiful excuse for a Prime Minister and is complicit in permitting this to continue, and he should hang his head in shame and resign now!

No Poppy: Meghan Markle

Meghan Markle did not wear a poppy to Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday party because they are not widely available in America, sources close to the Duchess have told the Daily Mail.

Meghan attended the flashy James Bond-themed bash at Jeff Bezos’s 165 million mansion on Remembrance weekend with the commemorative symbol noticeably missing from her glamorous ensemble.

Harry, meanwhile, had one pinned to his tuxedo, which he obtained after donating to the appeal during his recent visit to Canada, where he met with some of the country’s oldest veterans.

Sources have told the Daily Mail that Meghan was unable to visibly honour the war dead as poppies are not widely available in the States, unlike in Commonwealth countries.

The mother-of-two, 44, has previously been pictured sporting a poppy during Remembrance alongside her veteran husband Harry, who served two Army tours in Afghanistan. 

Last year, the Sussexes both wore poppies attached to their lapels as they issued a joint video about online violence against children. 

In 2023, the Duchess sported a poppy brooch as she and Harry visited United States Navy SEALs in San Diego.

People across the world can buy a poppy from the Royal British Legion’s website, but would have to pay £28 for postage to get it shipped to Montecito. Or better still, just make your own.

It comes as royal author Tom Bower told the Daily Mail that securing an invitation to Jenner’s birthday bash would have been a ‘big plus’ for Meghan.

But he said, ‘It’s noticeable that Harry is unable to stage the rictus smile which actress Meghan always displays for the cameras’. 

He told the Daily Mail: ‘He looks fed up being paraded, one day at a sports match and on another day at a celeb party.

‘Clearly, he is now worried what revenge his brother might one day carry out against himself and his ambitious wife.’

During her 2024 video message, Meghan wore a five-petalled poppy, traditionally worn by royals.

In 2021, she had a poppy attached to her outfit as she joined The New York Times DealBook Online summit in New York City.

Photographer Calla Kessler posted a picture on social media at the time of Meghan with her poppy and said she had asked her about why she was wearing it.

‘I asked her about the poppy. It’s for Remembrance Day, to honour armed forces members,’ she said. 

Last week, Prince Harry wrote a Remembrance Day essay on the ‘banter’ and ‘bravery’ that makes him proud to be British.

The Duke of Sussex voiced his pride at the ‘stoic spirit’ of self-deprecation and humour of ‘us Brits’ and said how the UK will ‘always be the country I proudly served’, despite departing for the US in 2020.

He said the ‘banter of the mess, the clubhouse, the pub, the stands’ are the ‘things that make us British’ and ‘I love it.’

The Royal, who is now living 5,500 miles away with Meghan and their two children in Montecito, paid homage to Britain ahead of Remembrance Day.

He reflected on the privilege of serving alongside soldiers from all four corners of the UK but warned how easy it is for veterans to be forgotten ‘once the uniform comes off’.

Harry called on people to remember ‘not only the fallen, but the living’ who carry the ‘weight of war’ and urged them to knock on veterans’ doors and ‘join them for a cuppa…or a pint’ to hear their stories and ‘remind them their service still matters’.

In a personal 647-word piece titled The Bond, The Banter, The Bravery: What It Means To Be British – By Prince Harry, the Duke acknowledged that although he ‘currently’ lives in the US, ‘Britain is, and always will be, the country I proudly served and fought for’.

He described Remembrance as ‘not simply a minute’s silence’ but ‘a call to collective responsibility’.

Harry voiced concern that, around the world this Remembrance Sunday, ‘peace for those lucky enough to know it, feels more fragile than ever’.

He told how he is ‘moved’ each year by the strength of the children of fallen military heroes supported by the Norfolk-based Scotty’s Little Soldiers charity, and praised the courage and camaraderie seen at his Invictus Games competition.

He concluded with: ‘Remembrance isn’t confined to one weekend in November.

‘It’s a lifelong commitment to empathy, gratitude, and action; to be kinder, more united, and braver in protecting what those before us fought to preserve.

‘So, as we bow our heads this weekend, let us remember not only the fallen, but the living – those who still carry the weight of war in body and mind, and the families who bear its memory in their hearts.

‘If you live near them, knock on their door. If you see them around, shake their hand.’

Oddly enough, the US participated in WWII, which should be reason enough for Meghan to wear a poppy, but then you shouldn’t wear one if you can’t wear it with pride.

Poppies are sold in the US via various organisations, mostly for fundraising and remembrance.

The American Legion Auxiliary and the US World War One Centennial Commission sell poppies to raise money for veterans, though the practice is less widespread than in countries like the UK.

Let’s say you decide not to wear a poppy while your husband, a former soldier, is wearing one. Saying you can’t acquire one while standing next to your husband, who is wearing one, is insulting to the public’s intelligence.

It’s Six Months In Prison For The Woman Who Harassed Madeleine McCann’s Family

A woman who harassed the family of Madeleine McCann and claimed to be the missing girl has been condemned to six months in jail.

Julia Wandelt, 24, from Lublin in Poland, was found guilty this morning of harassing the McCann family by sending emails, leaving voicemails, and turning up at their residence in Rothley in Leicestershire, between June 2022 and February this year.

The judge told Wandelt her “pestering” and “badgering” of the McCanns was “unwarranted” and “unkind”.

She told the defendant: “They were entitled to refuse to engage with you, particularly in the sad circumstances in which they live with the disappearance of Madeleine.

“They have suffered from that disappearance of their young child for many years; they are entitled to their privacy and to get on with their lives in the best way they can and to decide with whom and with whom not they will engage.

“Your constant pestering, badgering and eventually attendance at their home address on a dark evening in December was unwarranted, unkind, and as the jury have now found, criminal.”

Madeleine went missing in Portugal in 2007, and the case has never been solved.

Julia Wandelt was told that she was convicted of a “summary offence”, which meant she could only be imprisoned for six months.

Mrs Justice Cutts told her: “You have served more than that in the time that you have been on remand awaiting your trial.

“It’s a sentence I impose on you today.”

She was also made subject of a restraining order against Kate and Gerry McCann because she poses a “significant risk of the harassment of the McCanns in future”, her trial judge has said.

Since she received a notice of deportation, the Home Secretary, not the trial judge, will determine what happens next.

Julia Wandelt has been claiming to be Madeleine McCann for nearly two years. She said she first started to believe she was Madeleine in June 2022.

She began publicising on social media in early 2023, comparing images of herself as a child to Madeleine.

Her posts went viral, and on 27 March 2023, she emerged on the popular American talk show “Dr Phil”, where she reiterated her assertions.

The Crown put forward “unequivocal scientific evidence” from a forensic expert that shows Wandelt does not match Madeleine’s DNA profile, and she has no familial link to the McCanns.

Wandelt told Leicester Crown Court she had childhood memories of being with the McCann family, including playing ring-a-ring-a-roses and feeding Madeleine’s younger brother Sean, as well as memories of being abducted and abused.

It has now been established that Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann – DNA testing says so, and evidently, this lady is an extremely troubled woman.

Sadly, though, this lady genuinely believes that she’s Madeleine McCann, and clearly, she is seeking answers to something. Still, she clearly needs some serious therapy before she comes out of prison and pursues another missing child.

Or maybe she simply thought of becoming Maddie to gain notoriety and wealth.

Madeleine McCann had a blemish in one of her eyes, so it was rather evident from the start that this woman was not Maddie. You don’t actually have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

Sadly, Madeleine McCann will never be found because the probabilities of a missing person being found are the highest in the first 24 hours, with about 75-80 per cent of missing adults and children found within this timeframe. The odds fall significantly with each passing day, though the first 72 hours are deemed crucial for a thorough investigation.

POLL OF THE DAY

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of being a Leader in Name Only after No 10 sources told The Mail on Sunday the PM was being ‘bullied’ by the Treasury into introducing a mansion tax in the Budget. 

According to the source, the premier was opposed to introducing the measure, out of concerns it would generate negative headlines about ‘little old ladies’ being turfed out of their homes, but was ignored.

Torsten Bell, the Treasury minister who is effectively writing the Budget for Ms Reeves, is understood to have claimed that ‘some form of mansion tax has to happen’.

Sir Keir Starmer has been told that he needs to impose the charges on homes with £2 million or more so that they can placate the party’s Left-wing.

He has been told the move is necessary as a ‘distraction tactic’ to ‘sell’ the Budget on November 26 as an attack on the wealthy rather than ‘working people’.

A No 10 source said: ‘Keir argued privately that a mansion tax would be unfair on little old ladies who lived in large houses which have increased in value over decades but who did not have the disposable income to pay a new charge.

‘He also said that it would raise relatively little money in return for all the political hassle.

‘But Torsten was adamant that it has to happen in order to sell it to the backbenches, and Keir has basically been bullied into agreeing.’

However, Keir Starmer couldn’t have lost control because he would have needed it in the first place, which he apparently did not.

He is a dishonest and unprincipled politician who has consistently lied and used political ploys.

He never has any answers, but is content to lie through his teeth to get himself out of a sticky situation, but he was so frantic for power that he made pledges to get himself elected – but don’t they all do that?

Starmer made manifesto promises and systematically violated every one of them. He’s probably the worst Labour leader that there has ever been, and if there were a contest for the worst Labour leader, he would have succeeded, and to be honest, he probably couldn’t even work a TV remote controller.

From the beginning, he has been weak and cowardly, and now he is even more so.

It’s like a chimp’s tea party, and just when you believe it can’t get any worse, it does.

Living in the UK these days is a terrible experience. It’s not the UK where I grew up; immigrants who rape our women and children have wrecked our culture. Do you truly want to raise your kids here?

Every day Starmer is Prime Minister, he is destroying our country, and I dread to think how much worse it’s going to get with his stupidity over the next few years.

Why on earth did anyone believe that a British-hating, wimpy, human rights lawyer was good prime minister material? But people did, and that’s why a lying and wily fox has the job, and he’s now running the asylum along with all the other lunatics who are nodding and agreeing without a speck of common sense between them.

Keir Starmer needs to resign. Surely he must realise that people want him out, or is he really that stupid?

Let’s face it, Labour is a despicable party, with a despicable ideology, and with those two things put together, they are the British-hating party.

In France, Rachel Reeves’ Pay-Per-Mile Plan Will Tax British Motorists

British drivers travelling abroad will be effectively taxed twice under Rachel Reeves’ new pay-per-mile scheme.

The Chancellor is expected to announce a new levy for electric vehicle (EV) drivers in the upcoming budget.

I believed the idea of introducing electric vehicles was so that they would be more environmentally friendly, but now she wants to tax drivers as well, even more tax on top of more tax and more on top of that, and in France as well. I wasn’t aware that we were in the EU anymore, so how can she put a tax on our cars when they’re not even in the UK? Something’s not quite right here!

We already pay UK Vehicle Excise Duty, so why is she taxing us even more per mile? And how is she getting away with it? There is simply no justification for introducing an overreaching and bureaucratic charging regime, which is going to seriously inconvenience people.

The tariff will also apply to drivers when they are driving on foreign roads.

Motorists visiting France would pay the new tax on top of the ‘péage’ tolls, which exist on French motorways, effectively taxing them twice.

On average, a 1,530-mile trip from Calais to Nice would cost an additional £45.90. 

Critics of the new policy said that the fees applying on non-UK roads was ‘unfair and a huge flaw’.

The average EV driver will pay an extra £250 per year by 2028 under the new tax.

In the meantime, hybrid vehicles will also be subject to a new, albeit reduced, fee.

The Treasury will reportedly make the case that the new tax is required to cover falling fuel duty revenue as more and more vehicle owners go green, with up to six million extra EVs expected to be on the roads by the time the scheme is introduced.

Reeves will also argue the move will be fairer as petrol drivers already pay £600 a year on average in fuel duty.

It will also help the Treasury raise an estimated £1.8 billion by 2031 and help plug a fiscal hole caused by the green transition due to the loss of revenue from petrol cars. It seems like they want their cake and they want to eat it.

Edmund King, president of the AA, told The Telegraph: ‘You would effectively be paying tax twice – to both the French and UK Government.

‘I can’t really see any practical way around it. It would be pretty bureaucratic to have to check your mileage at Dover and have it stamped on some kind of certificate to say you’re leaving the country for two weeks.

‘There are already concerns about the extra checks at the borders, so I think it would be a nightmare. It seems EV drivers would have to pay double taxation.’

The scheme would be aligned to the annual payment of vehicle excise duty (VED), which affects all UK motorists and EV drivers have had to pay the charge since April. 

The new element is being described as ‘VED+’ and being framed as a way to get motorists of green cars to pay more each year.

EV drivers will have to calculate the number of miles they will drive in the year ahead and pay a fee.

If they fall short of that sum, drivers don’t have to fret because the funds can be carried over to the following year, and if they drive more miles than estimated, they would need to top up their payment.

Ministers have been debating pay-per-mile taxes as a long-term substitute for fuel duty for decades, but they now want you to pay extra.

The 52.95p per litre levy on petrol and diesel presently raises £25 billion a year, with an extra £5 billion made from the VAT. 

However, repeated polls have revealed that road-pricing is extremely unpopular among motorists and has been branded a ‘poll tax on wheels’ which amounts to an extra ‘stealth road tax’.

But critics warned any hikes on drivers would be ‘disastrous’ amid a cost-of-living squeeze and because it would threaten to stoke inflation.

The Treasury did not rule out a 3p tariff for overseas mileage.

A spokesman said: ‘Just as it is right to seek a tax system that fairly funds roads, infrastructure and public services, we will look at further support measures to make owning electric vehicles more convenient and more affordable.’

Concerns have also been raised that the tax could be extended to all cars.

On top of this, Reeves is also contemplating ditching the 5p a litre Fuel Duty relief in her Budget this month, in what would be a £2 billion to £3 billion raid on hard-pressed drivers.

This woman is totally mad, and she is the most despised Chancellor of all time. And she appears to want to destroy everyone’s livelihoods, except foreigners and illegal migrants. She needs to give her head a little wobble.

They just want your money. Everything they say is just some form of platitude or vilification, and all they care about is taking as much of people’s money as they can get, and they’re all sociopaths and thieves, and they are deplorable – in the end, you will own nothing and have no privacy.

What else is she going to tax? Perhaps she will tax our faeces – every time we plop one out in the toilet – we shouldn’t give her any ideas, but then at least she would have to pay for her own shite.

SHAMEFUL!

An 83-year-old grandfather was forced to lie on his family’s camp bed in A&E as he endured a ‘shameful’ 12-hour wait for help.

George Morris, from Torrance near Glasgow, started shivering and shaking as his health deteriorated during the arduous wait to be seen by ‘frazzled’ doctors.

The pensioner had been sent to hospital for blood tests by his GP last Sunday amid fears that he had a severe infection and heart ­problems.

Last Sunday, the pensioner’s general practitioner referred him to the hospital for blood tests due to concerns of a serious infection and cardiac issues.

In a last-ditch effort to alleviate the retired training manager’s agony, distressed relatives brought a camp bed to Hairmyres Hospital in North Lanarkshire after he spent hours sitting on a plastic chair in the waiting area.

It was Mr Morris’s second visit to the hospital in 10 days, having already spent nearly 20 hours on a chair at Glasgow Royal Infirmary the previous week for the same infection.

His enraged family has now challenged First Minister John Swinney regarding the condition of Scotland’s NHS.

Daughter Claire Leckie, who was with her father at Hairmyres, challenged the First Minister to come and spend the night in an A&E waiting room himself – and said her father’s experience is indicative of the health system’s sorry state.

She said: ‘I took this picture because it could be anybody – anybody’s grandpa, dad, mum… This is the face of the NHS. John Swinney needs to see for himself.

‘As a family, we feel very strongly that we don’t want our experience to turn into a political football. I really don’t care who’s in charge. It’s not about that. It’s about showing what is happening to people.

‘The staff there are working their socks off to keep people comfortable, but the nurses and the doctors are frazzled, and it was chaos. ‘When we arrived, it was like something out of a disaster film. There were people queuing out the doors and standing up against the walls because there were no seats.’

Secondary school teacher Ms Leckie, 53, managed to locate a wheelchair for her dad to sit in when they arrived about 8 pm, but he could not sit comfortably and was shivering and shaking.

After an initial blood pressure and temperature check at about 10 pm, they were returned to the waiting room. Eventually, Ms Leckie asked her sister to bring a camp bed as the grandfather of three could no longer sit down.

She said: ‘He was shaking so much they weren’t able to get blood from him, we had to hold him still.

‘They said we had to wait for it to be analysed, and the waiting time had gone up to 14 hours. Dad was so unwell. He couldn’t sit in the wheelchair or those plastic chairs any more. He already had to do it for almost 20 hours at the Royal Infirmary the week before.

‘My sister contacted the local MSP, who replied saying they had invested £22 ­million in the NHS. That’s all well and good, but I want to know what’s going to happen if your dad pitches up at A&E next weekend – how is it going to be any different?

‘I understand there’s a log jam for beds, but there needs to be some system whereby dad and others like him can be made comfortable until we can get them where they need to be.

‘There were four ambulances waiting to offload patients, and there’s nowhere for those patients to go. The system is completely broken.’

Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie, said: ‘John Swinney should not need an invitation to see this crisis for himself – it should keep him up at night.

‘This is a heartbreaking and utterly shameful story.

‘No one, least of all an 83-year-old man sent to hospital on the advice of his doctor, should be left lying on a camp bed for 12 hours because our NHS is at breaking point.

‘Frontline staff are doing their very best in impossible circumstances, but they are being failed by a government that has allowed our health service to fall into chaos. Scots deserve a health service that treats them with dignity and care, not the scenes from a horror movie the SNP think is acceptable.’

Scottish Tories health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: ‘This harrowing case is the clearest possible evidence of the SNP’s catastrophic failure to run Scotland’s NHS.

‘An 83-year-old man forced to lie on a camp bed in A&E is not just unacceptable – it is a national ­disgrace. I’m truly upset to see this, and it is shameful that after 18 years in charge, this is how the SNP treats our elderly. John ­Swinney and [Health Secretary] Neil Gray should hang their heads in shame and see for themselves the misery their neglect has caused.’

Lise Axford, chief of nursing ­services at University Hospital Hairmyres, said: ‘We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Mr Morris and his family for the length of time he waited.’

She said NHS Lanarkshire’s emergency departments were ­facing ‘sustained pressure…with exceptionally high numbers of people attending A&E, resulting in longer waits for patients.’

Ms Axford added: ‘We fully recognise these challenges and remain committed to improving patient experience, supporting our staff and reducing waiting times.’

Health Secretary Neil Gray said: ‘I am sorry that George Morris and his family’s experience fell short of the standards we expect. 

‘We are doing everything we can to reduce long waits of this nature.’

Unfortunately, the reason our NHS Health Service is in this state is because there are currently too many foreigners living in our nation, and we just cannot accommodate them. A visit to any A&E department will demonstrate this, but we dare to complain, well, that’s another story.

It’s truly disgusting, and going to visit your A&E department now seems like a death sentence, and it definitely is if you’re over 65. And some people might laugh at my remark, but it does appear that when you reach a certain age, nobody gives a damn about it. You’ve done your bit for society, and you are of no use anymore.

However, it’s evident that our government only serve themselves, and we peasants mean nothing to them.

This man was fortunate to have family members who could provide him with something to lie on, but many would have died while they waited.

However, our health sector is unable to handle the hundreds of additional migrants that Keir Starmer is bringing into our nation. All illegals should be evacuated in large numbers by our government, beginning with those without documentation, but Starmer must go first!

Parents Do Not Want Their Children To Learn About Islam In Religious Education

Parents are pulling their children out of school religious education lessons because they do not want them taught about Islam, the Church of England said yesterday.

Some Church officials said they hope to shield their children from learning about any faith but Christianity, and others have a particular intention to keep children from any knowledge of Islam.

They pointed towards far-right political groups and some minority faith denominations as activists who are attempting to ‘exploit’ the legal right of parents to remove their children from school RE.

In order to encourage students to understand how to coexist with people from all backgrounds, CofE officials asked for the removal of the right of withdrawal and the mandatory inclusion of RE in school schedules.

The accusation against parents who remove children from RE classes comes against a backdrop of heightening arguments about the future of religious education teaching.

The subject is not part of the compulsory National Curriculum and, alongside sex education, is the only subject from which parents can withdraw pupils.

CofE school inspection chief Derek Holloway said: ‘Through RE teacher social media forums and feedback from our RE advisers, I am aware that some parents have sought to exploit the right to withdraw children from RE lessons.

‘This is seemingly because they do not want their children exposed to other faiths and world views, in particular Islam. Anecdotally, there have also been some cases in different parts of the country of parents with fundamentalist religious beliefs also taking a similar course.

‘This is not confined to any one particular religion or area of the country.’

Mr Holloway added: ‘To enable all to live well together, there is a need for all pupils from all backgrounds to receive a broad and balanced curriculum that includes high-quality RE.

‘Sadly, and dangerously, the right of withdrawal from RE is now being exploited by a range of interest groups, often using a dubious interpretation of human rights legislation. The right of withdrawal from RE now gives comfort to those who are breaking the law and seeking to incite religious hatred.’

School RE lessons are supposed to teach children not just about Christianity, but also to provide them with a background on the beliefs and history of all the major faiths.

Parents have a legal right to withdraw their children from RE under a 1998 education law.

The CofE, which has 4,700 schools including 200 secondary schools, strives to encourage ‘deep respect for the integrity of other traditions’ in RE.

Mr Holloway said the subject ‘does have a contribution to make to combating extremism and to community cohesion, but these are not its core purpose nor its main aims.’

He said the teaching of RE should not be confused with the daily act of worship, which schools are required to offer to pupils. In most schools, this is a Christian assembly, and parents are entitled to withdraw their children from the act of worship.

There are no figures on how many parents remove their children from RE classes, although CofE officials said the figure is thought to be small. The subject is popular at GCSE, with more than 250,000 children taking the exam at 16.

Critics of religious education said parents should continue to be able to remove their children from classes.

Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said: ‘The fundamental problem is that RE is a confused subject area, still sometimes taught in a biased or partisan way.

‘If the subject was reformed to be genuinely educational and non-partisan study of religious and non-religious worldviews, the right to withdraw may no longer be necessary. But until such time, the right of withdrawal is required to protect parental rights and freedoms.’

There is undoubtedly a compelling case against religious instruction in schools, but if it does occur, it should be honest and refrain from indoctrinating kids into thinking that all religions encourage harmony and love.

Although I don’t practise religion myself, I admire others who do. However, I only have a little time on this planet; therefore, I would prefer to live my life as I see fit. All that counts is that I am a nice and decent person, and that holds for everyone, regardless of background.

Religious education is not part of a child’s curriculum at school. Faith is a private belief, and not a mythical God like creature that will send you to burn in hell if you misbehave, but if you want to frighten a young child half to death, that would be the way to go!

Everyone has the right to practise their religion, but as time has gone on, I’ve realised that it’s most likely all fiction because of our incapacity to deal with death. As a result, we must believe in something. However, anybody who sermonises outlandish claims and uses religion as a justification for carnage, cruelty, or slavery does not have a sound mental footing, but then history is a gory place, and it seems that all the problems in the world stem from religion. Perhaps it’s time to ditch it altogether and maybe introduce core values closer to home.

Prisoner Release Backfires On Lammy

David Lammy is encountering a Cabinet backlash over his ‘cowardly’ and ‘incompetent’ handling of a mistaken prisoner release.

The Justice Secretary’s unwillingness to respond to questions in the House of Commons about the release of an Algerian national has drawn criticism from other ministers.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was incarcerated at HMP Wandsworth for trespassing with the intent to steal. He was previously found guilty of indecent exposure.

It is known that Kaddour-Cherif, who is currently at large, is being deported since he overstayed his visa and is not an asylum applicant.

During Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Lammy, the Deputy Prime Minister, declined to confirm Kaddour-Cherif’s release.

He has also been criticised for not returning to Parliament later to state the details of Kaddour-Cherif’s mistaken release.

During a round of radio and television appearances on Thursday morning, Alex Davies-Jones, a junior minister in the Ministry of Justice, was left to answer questions on the scandal.

One Cabinet minister told The Times of Mr Lammy’s response to the mistaken prisoner release: ‘It’s cowardly. He should have fronted up and owned it.

‘I still don’t understand why he didn’t confirm it or make a statement in the Commons. He left it to a junior minister to do the broadcast round. The handling is terrible.’

Another Cabinet minister told the newspaper the row had brought into question Mr Lammy’s political ‘judgment’ and his ‘aggressive manner’ in the Commons.

A third minister said: ‘The PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] are deeply unhappy. They think the way he has handled this is awful. Why can’t he just hold his hands up?’

A senior Government source said: ‘It feels less like a contempt [of Parliament] issue, more just rank incompetence and frankly pretty dodgy.’

A manhunt for Kaddour-Cherif is ongoing. But another prisoner, Billy Smith, 35, who was also accidentally released from the same prison on Monday, has handed himself back in.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that he was ‘angry and frustrated’ by ‘intolerable’ wrongful prisoner releases, although he defended Mr Lammy.

On Thursday afternoon, the Justice Secretary made an appearance in front of television cameras to answer questions on the prisoner release controversy.

But Mr Lammy raised additional questions when he said Kaddour-Cherif was mistakenly released before new checks were implemented.

This is despite him telling MPs last Monday that those checks were effective immediately, two days before the wrongful release on October 29.

Whitehall sources later said the Ministry of Justice was investigating evidence that the mistakes that triggered Kaddour-Cherif’s release took place in September.

Mr Lammy continually declined to demonstrate at PMQs on Wednesday, when he was standing in for Sir Keir, whether any more asylum seekers had been mistakenly released since Hadush Kebatu, the now-deported migrant at the heart of protests in Epping, Essex.

He told reporters on Thursday he was ‘not equipped with all the details’ about Kaddour-Cherif’s release when he appeared in the Commons.

‘We have found out that the release that has caused concern this week was actually before I introduced those checks just a few weeks ago, following the release of Kebatu, and the other prisoner was a court mistake, not, in fact, a prison mistake,’ Mr Lammy added.

The Justice Secretary had confirmed on October 27 that stronger release checks would come into force immediately, two days before Kaddour-Cherif was released.

He was charged by the Tories with possibly deceiving the public.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: ‘David Lammy has either lied or has absolutely no clue what’s going on in his department.

‘How can the public have confidence in the Justice Secretary when he can’t establish a timeline of events or answer basic questions?’

Housing Secretary Steve Reed on Friday morning dismissed criticism of Mr Lammy from fellow ministers as ‘anonymous tittle tattle’.

He told Times Radio: ‘The problem is we’ve got a broken system, and you are going to see failings when you have a broken system.

‘The key is to make sure we have a digital system so that no prisoner is ever released by mistake.

‘There is not an acceptable number for this, but the way to fix it is not tittle tattle about David Lammy in the newspapers, it’s to get on and do the work and put in the investment that will digitise the system.

‘David has already had the prison governors in his office yesterday, I imagine they felt pretty hauled over the coals given what’s been going on.

‘But he was also making sure that they’re getting all the support they need to carry out the much tougher checks that will be required to make sure that the repeats of this are at an absolute minimum.’

Incompetent and cowardly are descriptions that are far too courteous for this clown. He needs to be sacked immediately.

To be honest, I could think of a few more choice words for not only this fool, but the entire cabinet. I believe it’s time for them to stop sharing a brain cell, and they are all puppets for the elite. We need some fresh meat! Instead of stewing steak, we need sirloin.

Our government may claim that we require a digital system, but we don’t. They just want digital so they can monitor everyone, but you can be sure that those who actually need to be watched won’t be.

We are turning into a communist state without anyone even recognising it. Ultimately, one party will rule over all significant facets of our nation, including the ownership of all industries, enterprises, and property on behalf of the populace.

The objective is to create a society with no private property or social classes, where wealth will be shared equally among citizens, although in practice, these states have frequently been authoritarian and governed by a powerful central government – terrifying, isn’t it?

Folks, the state will own you. It will own our means of production, like factories and land. We will become a classless society. Not even the King can overrule the government because the King must act on the advice of the government, not override it – seems pointless him being here!

What should happen is that we should oust our UK government, but to do that, we would require a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons, and most of them are napping for most of the time.

So, now for the most important question. Who owns England? Behind this simple question lies the country’s oldest and best-kept secret, but now there’s a book by Guy Shrubsole called ‘Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Land and How to Take It Back.’

We are all pawns in the grand scheme of things, and I guess we will always be, and then the worker ants are just above us – then there’s the elite, you need to watch out for them! Do you want to be the pawn? Because this is the cage they have you ensnared in.

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