THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO

The Toxic Pollutants Coming Off Electric Cars

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So, we’re now breathing in, inhaling plastic.

Dispatches put an air filter in a classroom in a polluted London school, to find out what kind of emissions the children were breathing in. The filter was then taken to the Dyson laboratory for examination. They found that the metalicide rubber, most possibly to have come from car tyres, and they allegedly found bits of brake dust.

This is coming from tyres and brakes, not exhausts. There are no regulations for emissions from brakes or tyres in the United Kingdom.

The modern car tyre is over 50 per cent plastic, so we’re now breathing in, inhaling plastic, which should have us all really worried, and we know how dangerous it is in the ocean, and now it’s going into our lungs. Which means that some of the components from brake wear and the plastics together, these will be irritating and cause a reaction in the lung, which would over time not be great for our well-being.

This is a new finding, so who’s failed here? The car manufacturers, the EU, the government, well, seemingly all of them. When we go to electric cars, there’ll be no tailpipe emissions but we’re going to get plastic emissions from road wear, plastic emissions from tyres, so we need to do more research into the likely health effects of these plastics which we’re seeing for the first time. So, are they telling us that scientists didn’t realise carcinogenic brake dust was in the air?

It’s well known that brake dust is detrimental to your health, with millions of cars on the road braking every day, the dust weighs nothing, so it’s common sense that it’s in the air.

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The drive to replace polluting petrol and diesel cars with a new breed of electric vehicles has garnered momentum, but there’s another pending environmental question at the heart of the electric car movement, what on earth do we do with half tonne lithium-ion batteries when they wear out?

British and French governments last month pledged to outlaw the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered cars by 2040, and carmaker Volvo promised to only sell electric or hybrid vehicles from 2019. The number of electric cars in the world passed the 2 million mark last year and the International Energy Agency predicts there will be 140 million electric cars globally by 2030 if countries meet Paris climate agreement targets.

This electric transportation boom could leave 11 million tonnes of spent lithium-ion batteries in need of recycling between now and 2030. However, in the EU, as few as 5 per cent of lithium-ion batteries are recycled.

This has an environmental cost, and not only do the batteries carry a danger of giving off poisonous vapours if damaged, but core ingredients such as lithium and cobalt are finite and extraction can lead to water contamination and depletion amongst other environmental consequences. There are, however, grounds for optimism.

Thus far, the poor standards of lithium-ion battery recycling can be demonstrated by the fact that most are contained within consumer electronics, which usually end up forgotten in a drawer or thrown into a landfill. This won’t happen with electric vehicles because car producers will be responsible for the gathering and recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries, and given their sheer dimension, batteries can’t be stored at home and landfilling is not an alternative.

EU Regulations, which require the producers of batteries to fund the costs of gathering, treating and recovering all collected batteries, are already encouraging tie-ups between carmakers and recyclers. Umicore, which has invested €25m (£22.6m) into an industrial pilot plant in Antwerp to recycle lithium-ion batteries, and has deals in Europe with both Tesla and Toyota to use smelting to recover precious metals such as cobalt and nickel.

Problem resolved? Not exactly.

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While commercial smelting methods such as Umicore’s can easily recover many metals, they can’t directly recover the vital lithium, which ends up in a mixed byproduct, and Umicore says it can recover lithium from the byproduct, but each additional process adds expense. This means that while electric vehicle batteries might be taken to recycling plants, there’s no guarantee the lithium itself will be recovered if it doesn’t pay to do so.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley in June said it forecast no recycling of lithium at all over the decade ahead, and that there risked being inadequate recycling infrastructure in place when the current stream of batteries die, and the fundamental dilemma is that while the cost of completely recycling a battery is plunging toward €1 per kilo, the value of the raw materials that can be reclaimed is only a third of that.

Nissan has partnered with power management firm Eaton for its car batteries to be re-used for home energy storage, sooner than be recycled, and this economic problem is a huge reason why the cost of recycling is the barrier because it has to be lower than the value of the recovered materials for this to work.

The lack of recycling capacity is a tragedy. It takes so much energy to remove these materials from the ground, and if we don’t re-use them we could be making our environmental problems worse, and Aceleron, like Nissan, believes the answer lies in re-using rather than recycling car batteries, for which the company has patented a process.

Car batteries can still have up to 70 per cent of their capacity when they cease being good enough to power electric vehicles, making them ideal, when broken down, tested and re-packaged, for uses such as home energy storage.

Fresh from recognition by Forbes as one of the 30 most impressive hi-tech startups in Europe, Aceleron is looking for investors to help it roll out pilot projects because there’s going to be a storm of electric vehicle batteries that will reach the end of their life in a few years, and they’re positioning themselves to be ready for it.

This is not the only option though. Li-Cycle is pioneering a new recycling technology using a chemical method to recover all of the valuable metals from batteries, and Kochhar is looking to create the first industrial plant to put 5,000 tonnes of batteries a year through a wet chemistry process.

Lithium-based medication is used to manage bipolar disorder. We could turn those discarded batteries into billions of tablets for patients of this condition the world over.

There is nothing clean or green about electric cars.

Their CO2 saving is minimal and the pollution from their production is horrendous, and it’s time to bust this thing wide open, and electric cars have higher manufacturing emissions than normal cars.

Electric cars also use electricity that has its own footprint, and put together these two factors are a dirty little secret that cancels any climate benefit of electric cars, and one of the most bothersome things about articles discussing electric car emissions is the way it’s always pretty black and white.

In one corner you have the zero-emissions brigade and in the other the worse than combustion engine crew. But as ever, real life comes in shades of grey. The truth is that even after you account for the bigger manufacturing footprint of an electric car it’s all about the fuel mix of the power you use, the ‘juice’ if you will.

Using coal-powered electricity electric cars does nothing to lower emissions, using natural gas electricity they’re like a top hybrid and using low carbon power they result in less than half the total emissions of the best combustion vehicle, manufacturing included.

Dieselgate has numerous people switching to electric vehicles as a more environmentally friendly option, but in some respects, e-cars can be just as dangerous for the environment as conventional vehicles.

E-cars don’t release climate-damaging greenhouse gases or health-harming nitrogen oxide. They’re quiet and simple to operate, and electric vehicles appear to have a number of benefits over cars that operate on petrol or diesel. Indeed, with revelations about auto industry cheating on emissions tests, numerous consumers feel cheated and are looking for ways to avoid becoming a victim of hypocrisy, and it seems that one way to do so would be to change to electric transportation.

And in many instances, governments are encouraging this transformation because it seems that e-cars are a quick solution to two societal needs. Reaching national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and tackling air pollution in city centres.

Germany, which has promised to decrease carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 compared to 1994 levels, intends to have 1 million electric cars on the road by then, but it’s not expected that they will attain their goal, and beyond that, electric cars aren’t the ideal solution, for many reasons.

If e-cars are running on electricity generated by burning nasty fossil fuels, climate benefits are restricted because the complex batteries they use, currently takes more energy to produce an electric car than a traditional one, and disposing of those batteries generates an environmental risk.

So, how can consumers be certain they’re making the right decision?

Under existing conditions, the overall carbon footprint of a battery-powered car is similar to that of a conventional car with a combustion engine, regardless of its size, and while fewer emissions are generated by the vehicles themselves while driving on the roads, CO2 is still being released by power plants to charge the electric cars.

In Germany for example, more than half of Germany’s electricity is generated from coal and gas, and a person charging an electric car with what usually comes out of a German power socket would need to drive 100,000 kilometres (62,000 miles) in order to pay off this eco-debt, and generate overall less CO2 than driving a gasoline driven vehicle.

The production of electric carriers currently poses the most significant environmental problem, and according to research by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, it takes more than twice the amount of energy to produce an electric car as a conventional one. The main reason for that is the battery.

The institute estimates that each kilowatt hour of battery capacity involves 125 kilograms (276 pounds) of CO2 emissions. For a 22 kilowatt-hour battery for a BMW i3, this translates into approximately 3 tons of CO2, and a study by the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute discovered that the greenhouse gas burden of current battery production is 150 to 200 kilograms CO2 per kWh.

Battery production with contemporary technology needs 350 to 650 Megajoule of energy per kWh. Batteries further need to be made from minerals such as copper and cobalt, and rare earths like neodymium.

Mining ventures in countries like China or the Democratic Republic of Congo frequently create human rights breaches and widespread ecological destruction: deforestation, contaminated rivers, and contaminated soil.

In addition, numerous automakers use aluminium to build the chassis of e-cars, and a huge volume of power is needed to prepare bauxite ore into the lightweight metal. Yoann Le Petit, an e-mobility specialist with the Brussels-based campaign group Transport and Environment, says there is a wrong way to go electric – and a right one, and producing electric transportation is more energy-intensive than producing a conventionally fuelled automobile.

Once in use, though, electric transportations are much cleaner and energy-efficient. In terms of the environment, the electric vehicles of today are already performing better than internal combustion engines, and this production is estimated to improve as more renewables provide clean electricity to the grid.

But then there are further factors, indicating that more electric cars could generate more traffic in general with Norway being the foremost country in Europe for electric vehicle sales, and as the sales of electric cars have gone up, the use of public transport to get to work dropped by 80 per cent.

The environmental organization carbon footprint has warned that the benefits of a conversion to e-cars would be restricted if it resulted in more personal car ownership and that instead, governments should concentrate on electrifying public transport.

However, the German government and the country’s car industry are still encouraging private transport, offering buyers an incentive of up to 4,000 Euros to buy an electric car as part of a scheme to promote electromobility, but because of their indirect emissions, there’s been debate over whether electric cars can be called zero-emission vehicles, and it’s a question with far-reaching consequences.

The EU’s new CO2 limits only need to be met on an average that takes account of all the various vehicles a manufacturer produces, and by producing zero-emission vehicles, car makers can also continue to sell gas guzzlers like SUVs that transcend those limits.

And a battery-powered electric vehicle that uses electricity generated by fossil fuels will release slightly more emissions over its lifetime than a diesel-powered car, which is still less than a petrol car, but e-cars that use electricity generated from renewable sources will provide up to six times less carbon over their lifetime than a petrol car. This means that in order for the switch to e-mobility to be most effective, countries will have to transition their energy production in similarity, and renewables made up about 34 per cent of Germany’s energy mix in 2016, and by 2035, Germany wants 55 to 60 per cent of its electricity to come from wind, solar and biomass.

Concerns have further been raised about what happens to the complex batteries, which also contain toxic chemicals, at the end of an electric vehicle’s life, so would this create a new environmental crisis? Not if new solutions being developed to give the batteries a second life are successful.

A battery can be used for other purposes rather efficiently but we need to ascertain what ‘whole life’ is for a battery, and there are a number of universities, and scientists that are developing ways to recycle and reuse electric vehicle batteries, for industrial processes, for example.

The longer the battery can be utilised after the life of the vehicle, the lower that vehicle’s environmental impact will be over its lifespan. There’s also continuing research into making the batteries more productive while they’re in the vehicle, and engineers are also looking into how to use electric vehicles as storage devices in the overall energy grid.

A car plugged in overnight could, therefore, feedback into the grid at times of lower renewable energy generation, for example when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing, and there is this broad consensus that while electric vehicles may not be truly zero emission vehicles, they’re still on the whole better for the environment and for the climate than traditional vehicles.

The key in the coming years will be solving how to make sure these new vehicles can become even more eco-friendly. Although the Tesla gigafactory has a battery recycling centre, and I’m sure that eventually there will be a lot more of these.

But there does seem to be a problem and this problem needs to be thought out before we embark on making everything electrical, and cars are going to be a major part of transport for some time to come, and electric transportation alone isn’t going to resolve every problem we have. Sooner or later, reality has a cruel way of encroaching on inventions of the future, and it’s just a pity that real thinking doesn’t come first, and the dilemma of recycling will be resolved when the problem of refuelling is solved.

Rather than recharging your own battery, it would make a lot more sense to go to a station and exchange the battery for a fully charged one. The cost of a swap would cover the cost, battery rental and charges for recycling, and recycling would become considerably more manageable with a restricted number of pick up locations.

It would further improve the uptake of new battery technologies as the battery stations would have an interest in continually expediting boundaries to improve their competitiveness. I guess there are many pluses and minuses to this, and it appears that a little has been thought through but not all of it, but politicians have made the decision and industry is expected to make all the changes to conform, but how will the electricity for this be produced, and will it apply to trucks, and if so, will that work?

Traffic will have increased, so will traffic management change? Especially to truck trains and vehicle trains, and will there be the same spontaneity of driving that there is today, or will it be much more superintended?

Straight Women and Gay Men

In 2015 a new matchmaking site connecting straight women with gay male best friends was being rolled out, and it was asked if this was a joke, no joke it was real. The Every Girl Needs A Gay matchmaking site was the real deal, and it had a forum called the Rainbow Room, and a post on the matchmaking site claimed that new research from the journal Evolutionary Psychology suggested that what creates a special bond between gay men and straight women was their unique ability to provide clear-headed counsel regarding romantic relationships.

Do I believe it’s a great idea, I think it’s a fabulous idea because there are many women out there that would love to have a man as a friend, but most heterosexual men can’t do that with a woman because they’re always thinking about their penis.

Do you remember “When Harry Met Sally”:

“Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends. Sally Albright: Why not? Harry Burns: What I’m saying is – and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form – is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way. Sally Albright: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved. Harry Burns: No you don’t. Sally Albright: Yes I do. Harry Burns: No you don’t. Sally Albright: Yes I do. Harry Burns: You only think you do. Sally Albright: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge? Harry Burns: No, what I’m saying is they all WANT to have sex with you. Sally Albright: They do not. Harry Burns: Do too. Sally Albright: They do not. Harry Burns: Do too. Sally Albright: How do you know? Harry Burns: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her. Sally Albright: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive? Harry Burns: No. You pretty much want to nail ’em too. Sally Albright: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU? Harry Burns: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story. Sally Albright: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then. Harry Burns: I guess not. Sally Albright: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.”

Gender is essentially a social construction, and there are things in life that just naturally go together, whether it’s cake and frosting, or dogs and tennis balls, these things just spontaneously fit together because we’ve been socially constructed to accept that like gender. But over the years I’ve come to learn several things, and the most significant thing in a girls life is that she needs a best friend, and that friend can come in a diversity of shapes, colour and gender, but regardless, there’s only one out there for every lonely girl.

They say that a dog is a man’s best friend, so why can’t gays be strictly reserved for the woman as a friend? After all, they give the best advice on clothes, and they’ll always tell you the truth. And girls when you want to galavant around overpriced clothing stores and try everything on in the fitting room, when you know you’re not going to buy a damn thing, you know that your gay best friend will sit on the couch while you try everything on in the store and still laugh and joke about it. Gay men have a real affection for bubbly retorts and the overall wellbeing of their ladies, and diamonds might be forever, but it turns out that a gay boy is truly a girl’s best friend, and your gay man will truly make you feel like a princess, as they inspire you to buy clothes, and tell you that you look perfect, while holding your bags more elegantly than you do.

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Not only that but a trusted gay best friend can help to neutralise the frustration of navigating a world of backbiting girls and moronic boys, and of course, they sympathise with a girls raging, mood-swinging hormones as well, even though they don’t get them themselves. Gay men like us, girls, way more than they let on, they’re actually kind of envious of you. Not because we get all the great fashion, their envy comes from the fact that our feminine energy has a way of making the male species become putty in our hands. Of course, gay men can do that too, but just not as well as we can, and they watch us lots because they’re dying to learn all of our know-how for manipulating guys into doing anything they want, but of course, manipulation shouldn’t be something we’re proud of unless it means manipulating a more favourable deal on a pair of shoes.

Now, as for loving ourselves, we all go to the same school, the school of the Perpetual Inferiority Complex. Where you slink into school and sit in the back of the class, immersed in your own thoughts because you think you’re not good enough, well, your gay friend is sitting there right there with you because they also participate in the belief that they’re not good enough from time to time, the only thing is, as a gay best friend, they will make sure you feel good enough just as you are.

And if your parents haven’t taught you that, then shame on them. The point is that your gay best friend can relate to your insecurity, and they’re the ones that will hold up the mirror that reminds you how fabulous you are, and talking about what we’ve got, we shouldn’t forget that we have the most amazing gifts and we should showcase them proudly to the world. Gay men and gay culture tends to have a reputation of being suggestive, sexually active and over the top, which is really forcing stereotypes on people, which isn’t right, and stereotypes should be banned because people should be permitted to just be themselves, and that just doesn’t mean gay men and gay culture, but everyone.

And someone in your world has told you at some point that you can’t be this or you can’t be that, and I’m not proposing you rebel, I’m just inviting you to do as you want so long as it’s not harming someone else because everyone needs to pave their own way in the world. Yes, some gay men are racy, sexually active and over the top, but then some gay men are also quiet wallflowers, happily monogamous, dedicated parents, ambitious CEO’s and creatively gifted people without being ostentatious.

There is no way to be gay than there is to be a teenager or grown up, and whoever you are you have to embrace who you are, and a gay best friend is a pretty important thing to have because every girl or woman deserves to have a friend she can trust to love her unreservedly.

Man With Brain Tumour

A man left reeling following a brain tumour diagnosis says he was forced to fill out forms for six hours as he applied for Universal Credit because Neil MacVicar had to leave his bar manager job in London and move back into his parents home in Inverness as he battled cancer.

The 26-year-old said he went to a local Jobcentre to apply for Universal Credit and felt like he was being punished for being sick after it took so long to fill out the forms, and Neil MacVicar who was diagnosed two years ago said that the experience left him feeling broken and depressed, and he’s now calling for changes to the horrible system.

After his cancer treatment, he went to the Jobcentre to apply for Universal Credit and sat down in front of a computer for six hours to fill the form in, but he felt ashamed and felt like he was being punished for being ill, and he’s frightened that this might happen to someone who doesn’t have the help he has, and he’s especially annoyed with the shameful system, and the entire experience with Universal Credit has left him feeling broken, discouraged and anxious.

Cancer charity Macmillan Cancer Support estimates more than 2,600 cancer patients in Scotland including some with a terminal diagnosis are at substantial risk of hardship if the Universal Credit system is rolled out further.

And A, who also works for the CAB, has seen the impact of Universal Credit for the past few years, with people dying before they even get their benefits. The system doesn’t work!

The side effects of cancer and its treatment can affect someone’s ability to work, and as a result, four in five Scottish patients are hit with an average cost of £420 a month because of lost income and additional outgoings, such as increased household bills due to feeling the cold more.

More than a quarter of those diagnosed have no savings, and the current Universal Credit rules mean that cancer patients have to endure a five-week delay before they get any money.

This pertains to those with a terminal diagnosis because the “fast track” process for people with less than six months to live has been withdrawn, and under current policies, people with cancer already claiming benefits will have to apply for Universal Credit.

The system is failing people with cancer and the government needs to fix this before tens of thousands more vulnerable people are put in danger of hardship, although this actually doesn’t surprise me when there are people out there that have had to have emergency surgery for life-threatening conditions and the Universal Credit team are on the telephone demanding that they attend back to work interviews, to the point where they’re prepared to force an interview whilst a person is in the critical care unit, and this is the very reason that the Tories are frequently compared to the Nazi party for their treatment of the sick.

And there’s no point in having any savings anymore, not even a little saving because then you’ll get nothing, and then when those savings run out, if you own your own home you’ll have to sell that to meet your needs, and the Tories don’t care if you’ve worked all your life and paid your taxes and National Insurance, all they care about is satisfying their own pockets with as much money as they can before they get ousted, and then people wonder why this country is going under so fast.

Simply, the Tory government has declared war on the sick and disabled. People thought that Margaret Thatcher was ruthless and cruel, but David Cameron and Theresa May hammered them all, and the Nasty Party can’t push this Universal Credit through quick enough, no matter what suffering it causes people.

Plus it will put more pressure on the NHS due to more and more people becoming severely stressed and depressed, and make no mistake the government’s policies are extremely brutal towards the vulnerable of the United Kingdom, and they should all be ashamed of themselves.

Sadly, this is what happens in every type of government, they have these brilliant ideas and then vote for it, but they don’t discuss it with their voters, they simply say this or that is happening and we have to go along with it, but if something’s not broken why try to fix it? And it appears that these splendid ideas only work for the wealthy, the average working class and the poor person always gets punished for the government’s blunders.

And then there are the torture tactics of the DWP who have the vulnerable and the severely sick doing a large amount of form filling, knowing that one small mistake is enough to give the DWP the justification to decline payment, there is a method to their madness, and then there are those people with mental health problems, they just look at the forms and it sends them into a descent of emotions, and it’s utterly sickening what this government are doing to its own people.

And the DWP should be outed for their role in the Tories emotional and financial anguish that the government have inflicted on the vulnerable, and those who are severely sick with life-threatening symptoms and severe mental health problems.

It’s a political mafia that is effective for voting in these draconian measures while they stuff their pockets and perhaps they should be paid in the same way to see how they would cope for weeks without any means of support, and the system introduced under the last Labour government was in no way as rigid or unyielding as the deliberately destructive system the Tories turned it into.

The Labour government had doctors administering the medical assessments, and not nurses and sports therapists. Then the Tories got their fangs into the system and contracted ATOS to deliver the assessments, a contract that gave the assessors a cash bonus for every claimant they assessed as fit to work, so of course, the assessors were going to declare that person fit for work, they’re getting a bonus for it.

So, now disabled people have to fight every time they’re assessed because the assessors aren’t going to get their bonus if they find that said person not fit to work, in spite of their specialist with over 35 years of experience saying otherwise.

Jeremy Hunt Vows To Trigger No Deal Brexit

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Jeremy Hunt on Monday promised to trigger a No Deal Brexit on September 30 if the EU does not budge on talks.

He exchanged taunts with leadership opponent Boris Johnson after stepping up his bid to win over Tory members, and that a cliff edge departure would be one we would regret for generations.

And, in a cruel taunt at Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt stated that it wasn’t enough to rely on slogans, belief and positive thinking to get Brexit done, and on Monday night he won the backing of former Tory leader William Hague.

On Monday night he gained the support of former Tory leader William Hague, and he stated that Jeremy Hunt was one of the most talented ministers with whom he had shared a Cabinet table, and unveiling a ten-point plan in London, Jeremy Hunt said that as a Prime Minister he would begin talks in August about changes to Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

But that if by the end of September, it seemed there was a stalemate, negotiations would end and the country would be given final preparations for a No Deal on October 31, and that there would be £6 billion of relief for fishermen and farmers, and corporation tax would drop £13 billion to 12.5 per cent.

And in another thinly veiled dig, he added that people running their own company didn’t want a showman, they wanted a Prime Minister who would lead them out of a crisis, and that all holiday for civil servants would be cancelled in August except if Whitehall mandarins said their departments were ready.

The Prospect Union branded it a fundamental lack of appreciation and understanding of how arduously civil servants had been working, but Jeremy Hunt said that they had implemented the referendum, and it was the duty of a Prime Minister to do so in a way that would decrease the impact and maximise opportunities.

Later the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that Germany’s Angela Merkel had already told him that they would look at any recommendations made by the new UK Prime Minister because she wanted to resolve the problem, providing they were reasonable.

Boris Johnson and his team were caught on the back foot, but in a counterattack, he maintained that Jeremy Hunt was not earnest about delivering a No Deal as he had repeatedly declined to commit to leaving by October 31.

Jeremy Hunt can’t keep saying that they’re going to have a deadline of October 31 and then say it’s really not actually a deadline at all. Nevertheless, some supporters fear Boris Johnson is being outmanoeuvred, and a senior MP said: “Jeremy’s only a born-again Brexiteer and what he’s saying won’t wash with members. But we should be coming out with detail like this.”

Jeremy Hunt can do and say whatever he likes at the moment because at the moment it’s not been determined who will succeed and become Prime Minister, but I’m sure there are many of you out there that don’t believe there’s a chance Jeremy Hunt will beat Boris Johnson, and that there never was.

But then they all tell us what we want to hear to get the job, and then they shaft us when they’re in power, and they’re both promising that they will trigger a No Deal Brexit but will parliament let them do it?

And Jeremy Hunt calling Boris Johnson a coward shouldn’t surprise anyone, and it reminds me of when the Theresa May’s party was named the “nasty party”, and Boris Johnson has clean hands as regards the mess that Theresa May and her colleagues created, whereas Jeremy Hunt was with her all the way.

We need a competent Prime Minister, not a comedian or someone who only wants to speak to the foolish masses, who tells them what they want to hear, and each day that goes by it’s looking more like Boris Johnson will be Prime Minister, and some people want him to be Prime Minister, so the sooner Jeremy Hunt gets used to the idea the better. Boris might even get a little job for you, Jeremy, if you’re lucky… and we certainly don’t want a male version of Theresa May.

We want someone with character, charm and leadership skills, not Continuity May, and I bet even Jeremy Hunt doesn’t believe his own chatter, but then again, he’s only acting and saying what his masters want, just like traitorous Theresa May did, so perhaps it doesn’t matter to him, and even if he doesn’t become Prime Minister he’ll still get himself onto a few nice boards.

Esther McVey Trousered £17,000

Tory welfare chief Esther McVey trousered a £17,000 payoff when she resigned from the Cabinet, after only 10 months in the job.

The MP took the £16,876 golden goodbye for resigning as Work and Pensions Secretary over Brexit last November, and at the time the hard Brexiteer claimed she could not look constituents in the eye if she supported Theresa May’s deal.

Now she must face them over her bumper payout which came months after she admitted some Universal Credit claimants would be worse off under her watch.

Esther McVey made the equivalent of £67,505 as welfare chief on top of her MP’s salary, now worth £79,468, and her severance pay was nearly as much as the Tories £20,000 cap on household benefits for an entire year.

It comes despite new figures revealing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) underpaid £1.9 billion of benefits in 2018/19, the highest since records commenced in 2005.

The DWP also overpaid a record £4 billion of benefits due to mistakes or fraud, 4.6 per cent of all benefit spending, the National Audit Office announced.

Auditor General Gareth Davies said he was concerned and warned overpayments were expected to increase even more due to mistakes with people reporting income in Universal Credit, and this is a bit of a kick in the teeth because Esther McVey did nothing in her job, and she lied to the Commons about what she was doing and still succeeded walking away with multiples of the annual benefit for some of our most disadvantaged citizens.

In fact, she shouldn’t have taken a penny, and it’s the latest kick in the teeth for those who support a genuine social security system in this country, and it further questions whether Cabinet ministers who quit should be entitled to anything, after all, it’s their decision to go, they’re not claiming constructive dismissal.

A Cabinet minister getting such a huge pay-out, particularly after quitting of their own accord, is completely unacceptable, and this news is a real setback to the 14 million people, including four million children living in poverty in the United Kingdom as a consequence of brutal cuts to social security, low pay and soaring housing costs.

Esther McVey was given her severance pay which is worth three months wages. DWP minister, pro-EU Sarah Newton, got a more modest £7,920 payoff when she quit in a bid to block a No Deal Brexit in March, and Universal Credit chiefs took home bumper gratuities despite a litany of grievances about the benefit.

Universal Credit then Director General Neil Couling got at least £5,000 while another top Universal Credit director, John Paul Marks, got at least £10,000.

Imperfections in the Universal Credit rollout has driven people into rent arrears, forced them to food banks and even driven them to survival sex, yet the DWP claims that it’s reduced waiting times, increased advances and started run on payments for housing.

In the meantime, auditors have complained the DWP is overpaying Universal Credit by 8.6 per cent, the highest of any benefit, and the National Audit Office has stated that both causes are both intentional fraud and unintended error by claimants and the DWP, but that the largest problem was claimants failing to report their income and earnings correctly under Universal Credit.

The system has been hit by reiterated criticisms that it’s confusing to use, and following 2010 there’s been no rise in the percentage of fraud or error overall.

Esther McVey was knocked out of the Tory leadership race in last place earlier this month with only nine MPs’ support, and she was Employment Minister under welfare-slashing Tory Iain Duncan Smith before losing her seat in 2015.

The MP was vilified for supporting the unpopular Bedroom Tax and then returned as Work and Pensions Secretary in January 2018 having won George Osborne’s safe seat of Tatton, and as welfare chief, she acknowledged that some people would be worse off under the six in one benefit Universal Credit.

She recently acknowledged her failings in the policy but claimed she’d brought more money in and refused to apologise, and yet this despicable woman has the temerity to take this payout.

The most disturbing thing is that we have such a profound opinion and no confidence in any of our MPs because they’re all snouts in the trough and extremely self-serving, but it’s certainly not surprising what any MP pockets when they quit office.

But then respect is earned, and they earn far too much, talk too much and do precious little for the people of the United Kingdom, and I’m hoping that after tax and National Insurance deductions she’ll be making a really charitable contribution to her local food bank.

Isn’t it astonishing, she had a job, but she resigned from it because she was either incompetent or just didn’t like the position that she was in, yet she still got a three month salary and a golden handshake, but meanwhile in the real world people are still struggling with the Tories austerity programme.

After all, it appears that Esther McVey has no talent, no ability and no morality, and I’m actually not surprised that she managed to pocket payments she didn’t deserve, and she really needs to make sure she doesn’t get her snout stuck in the trough, but then not one of them is actually deserving of the money that they get, and most people who quit their jobs, they get doodley-squat, but the elite, the finest cream of the crop ends up getting enormous payouts.

Cabinet Minister’s Salary Not Enough

Boris Johnson has told friends his minister’s salary of £141,405 a year is not enough to live on.

The Foreign Secretary told friends his yearly earnings were inadequate because of his extensive family responsibilities.

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The Tory MP has four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler. He also fathered a daughter during an affair with arts consultant Helen MacIntyre, failing to get an injunction to stop the reporting of her existence.

The report came as Boris Johnson mounted a renewed attack on Theresa May, setting out new red lines for Brexit in an interview with The Sun newspaper.

The MP for Ruislip called for an absolute two-year limit on any transition period, through which the United Kingdom should decline to accept the jurisdiction rulings from the EU or the European Court of Justice. He further stated the UK should decline to make payments for single market access following this period.

This further places the Foreign Secretary at odds with the Prime Minister, whose key speech in Florence implied the length and terms of the transition period could be more flexible, but despite his patent challenge, the Prime Minister stated that Boris Johnson was completely behind her leadership.

“What I have is a cabinet united in the mission of this government and that is what you will see this week and agreed on the approach we take in Florence,” she said.

A YouGov poll published found Boris Johnson is now favourite to be the party’s next leader among Conservative party members. Boris Johnson has the support of 23 per cent of activists, ahead of Ms Davidson on 19 per cent and Eurosceptic backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg on 17 per cent, but his repeated media interventions has lead to a backlash from some inside the Conservative Party, and ex-cabinet minister Nicky Morgan said she believed Boris Johnson had no position in a responsible government.

If Boris Johnson believes that he doesn’t get enough money, then he should reflect on what claimants on disability benefits get and not being able to work, and contrary to what the media tries to show us, the large preponderance of people on disability benefits are not scroungers, but Boris Johnson certainly is.

It can take claimants weeks and weeks to get their money, and as for disability benefits, it takes even longer with continual appointments to verify that they’re sick, and they’re always on a knife edge because they’re always fearful that they will lose their money.

So Boris Johnson gets all that money and it’s not enough to live on. He should go and live with some of his constituents that have to survive on Universal Credit and disability who have to live on less than a tenth of what he makes a year, this guy really needs to get a handle on life, after all, the man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he has no concept of what hunger is.

And to add insult to injury, the ordinary person has to put a limit on how many children they can claim Child Benefit for, unless they can verify that child was the result of a rape, yet Boris Johnson can pump out as many children as he likes, clearly we’re not all in this together, and if he can’t support the children that he does have, perhaps now he does have them he should get a second job to meet their needs!

He stated that £141,000 a year was not enough to survive on, knowing damn well that there are people in his constituency that would welcome £14K a year, but then he’s an out of touch, head in the clouds public schoolboy, and of course, we can all agree that he’s a total nincompoop, but he did get voted in, and of course, he’s just another entitled delusional old bottom burp.

I guess £141,000 a year isn’t an awful lot, particularly if you live in London, but then he should have considered that earlier on before he had children, and if he can’t afford London prices, perhaps he should move out of London like many of his other constituents have had to, but he clearly doesn’t only live on his salary, there’s an abundance of family money, investments et cetera, just look at the size of him, he’s hardly starving, and he certainly won’t be needing to visit food banks.

If he doesn’t like the kind of pay he gets, he could always resign and find a job that’s better paid, after all, there are plenty more qualified people looking to take his place in the leadership, or maybe he should lose weight, conserve money and stop talking.

Boo hoo for Boris Johnson, he simply needs to learn to budget and buy basic brand foods, you know the ones, where a kilo of rice is 52 pence because we’re all undergoing a pay cut in real terms, and Boris, we’re all in it together, remember?

I recommend he gets himself a calculator because it’s called living on a budget, but he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word, I mean budget, not living because some poor souls out there haven’t been as lucky as old Boris and have died waiting for their money from the DWP and PIP, or being sanctioned or told that they’re fit enough to work when they aren’t, and he should be grateful that he knows where his next meal is coming from.

Boris Johnson embodies everything that’s wrong with the United Kingdom, and he has an over-inflated sense of entitlement, but in fact, he’s accomplished nothing out of the ordinary, and he’s an egotist who believes he’s talented but in fact, he’s only slightly entertaining because of his own misconceptions.

And this Brexit thing is getting so tiresome now with Tory ministers swaggering around contradicting each other over it, arguing over it when they all know that it’s apparent to the dogs on the street that there won’t be any transition because there won’t be a trade deal, it’s now near on impossible, and despite all the Brexiter bravado, the new truth is that the small Leave majority has now transformed into a small Remain majority.

And clearly, Boris Johnson produced numerous pregnancies before he understood what a Durex was for – wrap up, Boris, you might end up getting something nasty! But maybe he couldn’t afford them on his meagre wages, he should have claimed them on expenses!

He obviously knows nothing about the hardship that our government inflicts on its people, maybe £141,000 could be the new minimum wage?

I wonder if Boris Johnson could sell some of his items in his home? Does he really need a telephone, or maybe he can’t really afford his home and is being reckless by continuing to live there. These are all the questions that are being asked of the needy and disadvantaged, disabled and sick, and out of touch doesn’t begin to cover this statement.

What manner of life does Boris Johnson believe he’s entitled to? And what the government call the underclasses are advised not to use heating, and to use food banks, and hike the 12-mile round trip to the aforementioned food bank, even with a disability.

Boris Johnson, have you eaten out this year, have you bought new shoes and clothing? Are your children wearing second-hand shoes, and do you even know anything about the country you purportedly serve?

Yet he’s the bookie’s favourite to be the next Prime Minister and is Britain’s most celebrated politician, and appears to be a somewhat powerful man, but with great power comes great responsibility, and in Boris Johnson’s case, with great power comes great sums of money, and once Boris Johnson told an LBC presenter that he didn’t feel inclined to discuss his salary, well he bloody well wants to address it now he feels he’s not getting enough of it.

And he now feels that what he earns is chicken feed compared to some top journalists who make a mountainous £274,999.92, and it’s people like him that say that the lower classes should handle their money properly and not have mobile phones, or TV’s or smoke, and all the rest, when he believes that £141,000 is not enough, perhaps he should heed his own advice? But then for large snouts in large troughs, there’s never such a thing as enough!

God forbid he should be living on zero hour contracts, yet he treats the populace like trash and expects them to live and pay mortgages, or uncontrolled inflated rents, and excessive utility bills out of a pittance, and then he has the temerity to say he can’t manage on £141,000, he’s just taking a Jimmy riddle, especially when they don’t even pay for their own breakfast, or much else for that matter.

And grasping at hypocrisy, MPs claim £200,000 a year for their energy bills.

Perhaps Boris should take his talents elsewhere. I’m certain there must be a country out there somewhere looking for a non-essential leader, but behind his artificial jovial tomfoolery hides a really clever man, a very self-serving, rather cunning man.

And unlike Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, Boris Johnson is one of those neurotic liars who opens his mouth and says whatever it takes to get him what he wants, regardless of what the facts are, and if Boris Johnson doesn’t believe that he’s not getting enough money to live on, how much is enough to live on? And before he articulates he should be mindful that some people have to exist on £70 per week or less – Boris you’re a man of maths, add it up.

Wife Of Dog The Bounty Hunter Dies

Beth Chapman has died following a lengthy battle with cancer.

The wife of Dog The Bounty Hunter was put into a medically induced coma after encountering breathing problems but never woke up, and Dog, whose actual name is Duane Chapman was by his wife’s bedside urging supporters to keep her in their prayers.

But on Wednesday he took to Twitter to announce that Beth had sadly passed away as he gave a moving statement about his wife of 13 years.

Dog wrote: “It’s 5:32 in Hawaii, this is the time she would wake up to go hike Koko Head mountain. Only today, she hiked the stairway to heaven. We all love you, Beth. See you on the other side.”

Beth shot to fame alongside her husband in early 2000 and who almost appeared in Celebrity Big Brother UK, and had been sharing her journey with supporters, including trying CBD oil to help with her pain.

The proud great-grandma, whose real name is Alice Elizabeth, was diagnosed with stage II throat cancer in 2017 but was cancer free by December of that year, but the cancer resurfaced last year and Beth underwent vigorous chemotherapy to treat it.

In January Dog The Bounty Hunter shared the crushing news that Beth’s cancer was incurable, and talked of his sad news that the cancer had spread to Beth’s lungs but stated she was determined to fight every step of the way, and Dog said that he had to keep his faith because he was the leader of the family.

Over the last few months, Beth had posted regular photos of her spending time with her family, with the most recent and adorable image of her husband, their son, grandson and their first great-grandson celebrating Father’s Day.

Beth was placed in a medically-induced coma in Hawaii with sources claiming she was having trouble breathing. Her family raced to be by her bedside, and on Monday, Dog tweeted a snap of Beth’s hand from her hospital bed.

Beth and Dog first met in the 1990s and dated on and off for years before getting married in 2006.

They shot to fame in 2004 appearing on US reality series Dog The Bounty Hunter before landing spin-off show Dog and Beth: On the Hunt.

They share two children together Bonnie and Garry and Dog has several other children from past relationships.

Beth Chapman’s daughter Bonnie gave a heartfelt tribute to her mum after it was announced she has died at the age of 51.

Twenty-year-old Bonnie, who is understood to have been by Beth’s side in her last days, took to social media to share her loss along with her father Duane ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Chapman.’ Retweeting her father’s earlier message, Bonnie wrote: “love you forever mom. You’ve got a halo now.”

Opening up in his first public appearance since Beth’s death, Dog, real name Duane Chapman, told reporters: “One of the last things she said [was] ‘It’s a test of my faith’. She had faith and that was it.

“There’s steps you go through when you’re dying. Well, the last step when you’re dying is to accept it, and she said to me the other day, ‘Honey, that last step, I ain’t taking it.’ So go Bethy.”

“She came out of it a few times – ‘I love you,’ and ‘Are you guys all OK? Don’t worry’,” he told the media before breaking down in tears.

“She never accepted it. This is totally unbelievable.”

“She was a control person – and so not from the grave but from heaven I’m sure, she’s still controlling me,” Duane continued. “I got notes in my pillowcase, on my sink, in my shaving things, you know – she’s still telling me what to wear! I love her so much.”

And pertaining to the Biblical story of Lazarus, Dog said: “Beth isn’t dead, she’s sleeping.”

He added: “It’s incredible when you walk alone into the bedroom and she was just there two days ago. I hope to god there’s a god. I have tried to be a godly [man] – I hope I’m not just talking to myself. If there is a god, I’m going to see my honey again. And that’s all we can do: hope.”

Beth Chapman, the former star of A&E’s Dog the Bounty Hunter and Duane “Dog” Chapman’s wife, endured her fair share of ups and downs during the years.

It all began when Beth met ex-convict Duane in 1988, while he was still married to his third wife, but after pursuing the notorious bounty hunter for years, the two eventually got together in 1995.

But their dramatic start as lovers hit a sad note when Duane’s 23-year-old daughter, Barbara Katie Chapman, died in a car accident the night before their May 20th, 2006 wedding, and even though the two did their best to pick up the pieces following Barbara’s passing, they faced even more sadness together, including an upsetting custody battle involving one of their grandchildren.

Beth’s painful story, however, took a life-threatening turn in September 2017 after she was diagnosed with stage II throat cancer. Sadly, that wouldn’t be the last hurdle she had to overcome.

Beth then made the decision in December 2018 to return to her home state of Colorado, a place near and dear to her heart. “They say the cancer follows the path of least resistance, so it goes downward.

Half of her lung was full of water, but after she was made more comfortable and she could breathe she really wanted to go back to Colorado, a place that she held dear, and supporters of Beth Chapman knew that describing her as tough was an understatement, so it wasn’t any wonder that she didn’t take her cancer diagnosis laying down. In fact, she tried to stay involved in their bounty hunting business, which included the filming of a new reality series, Beth also actively dictated the terms of her treatment.

Beth would not take anything the doctors wanted to give her, so she took over the counter pain meds, she would not take anything prescription.

The reality star allegedly also explored alternative cancer therapies, including cannabis-based CBD and THC treatments, which she promoted in a February 2019 Instagram post. “We need to all be far more open-minded to new treatments,” she wrote, adding, “We no longer need to poison patients to get them well. #cancersucks”

Despite her possible interest and/or pursuit of alternative cancer therapies, Beth Chapman apparently took her doctors’ advice to undergo a series of chemotherapy treatments.

The treatments were going well, but they unquestionably took their toll on her, and the outlook wasn’t great, even though Beth was a strong woman. However, by May 2019, Beth, apparently alluded to having ended chemotherapy treatments, saying that chemotherapy was not her bag.

Amid Beth’s cancer battle, she filmed a special for A&E titled, Dog & Beth: Fight of Their Lives, and at one point during the program, Beth asked Duane’s daughter, Lyssa, to spend time with her in Los Angeles while she recovered from a surgery to remove a tumour from her throat.

After Lyssa said she couldn’t make it, Beth confided to her eldest daughter, Cecily, “A family member was in need and some true colours came through.” Ouch.

What probably made things more stressful for Beth? Lyssa took to Instagram to vent about the family matter after getting some backlash from fans. Citing a “move” and “house and dog sitting” responsibilities.

Lyssa sounded off in the comments section of her November 2017 post. Duane’s daughter further complained that Duane and Beth apparently paid for Lyssa’s brother Leland to come and visit. “[Leland] only has to worry about his ‘wannabe wife’ I stand by my decision to stay with my family,” Lyssa added. “And not let the cancer eat away at my home as well.”

Beth also suffered a personal blow in March 2017, when she was robbed while staying at the Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles, where Beth and Duane had put more than $5,000 in their hotel safe, only to find it missing when they returned.

Even though robberies do happen from time to time, this incident was especially upsetting because law enforcement said there was “no sign of forced entry,” which inspired the tabloids to speculate that authorities thought the heist “might be an inside job.”

The theory is particularly compelling when you consider that the couple’s jewellery and luggage weren’t stolen, a fact that appears to imply that the perpetrator was after something specific, and it’s unclear if the authorities ever identified any suspects in the case, or whether the couple had any notions about who carried out the burglary, either way, it must have been rather unnerving for them to have had their personal property taken.

Beth’s life took a particularly scary turn in May 2012, after she and her family received death threats through an email from an unknown perpetrator. The emails were extremely explicit in nature, discussing rape, torture, and murder against the Chapmans. “I’m going to murder you. I’m going to come to Hawaii and murder you and your family in cold blood,” one email to Duane read.

What was even more serious was that several messages alluded to the couple’s then young children. “Your children looked nice today,” one particularly sinister note read.

Another talked about “massacring” the Chapman family, with the author discussing his plan to “watch [their] children bleed.”

This was particularly disturbing, and Beth, who wasn’t typically frightened by threats given her bounty hunter background, revealed during an interview that it sent a chill down her spine.

Beth and Duane Chapman then handed over the terrifying emails to the FBI because the Chapman’s were taking the threats very seriously, and were very concerned about the safety of their family, and Duane Chapman said that when the person responsible was found, he would prosecute to the full extent of the law for the fulminations made against his family.

Beth also had a soft side, which is why she was heartbroken when hearing that one of Daune’s stepchildren, then 35-year-old Nicole Gillespie was detained for suspicion of second-degree robbery in 2015, and the couple’s grief was compounded by the fact that they heard about the news through Crime Stoppers, a programme that gives the public the chance to provide crime-solving support to law enforcement.

Following news of Gillespie’s arrest, Beth and Duane delivered a collective statement expressing their mutual disappointment. “It’s always difficult and disheartening when someone you knew as a child, grows up and chooses a life of crime.”

And although Beth wasn’t related to Gillespie, an arrest in your family tree is never a great situation.

Beth and Duane bounced around their feelings for one another long after their fateful encounter in 1988. Beth was the other woman through three wives, but once the two eventually got their act together in 1995, they enjoyed a period of happiness and the birth of their children, Bonnie and Garry.

Things were so good between the pair, and they got hitched at the Hilton hotel on Waikoloa Village in Hawaii, but one day before their May 20th, 2006 wedding, Duane’s daughter from a past relationship, 23-year-old Barbara Katie Chapman, died in a car accident.

Barbara and the car’s driver, Scott Standefer II, died when their stolen SUV smashed into an embankment near Fairbanks, Alaska.

There was no clue as to why they left the roadway, and there were certainly no skid marks on the road, they just went off the road, hit an embankment and launched, but Barbara had gotten herself into a terrible mess, yet she was working so arduously to put her life back together, and despite the unfortunate circumstances, Beth and Duane continued with the ceremony.

Imagine losing a loved one in a car accident, only to encounter another vehicular-related accident years later.

Sadly, this exact scenario happened to Beth when her step-daughter, Lyssa Chapman, was involved in a serious car accident in Honolulu, Hawaii. The accident happened in September 2014, only eight years after Duane lost his daughter, Barbara Katie Chapman, to a car accident in May 2006.

Beth confirmed the sad news, telling that Lyssa and all the kids were in the car. Lyssa was driving with Beth’s granddaughters, then 12-year-old Abbie and 5-year-old Madalynn.

A picture of the scene showed a deployed airbag and debris from the car spread across the road, a terrifying image considering small children were involved in the incident.

Beth further shared a video to Facebook of emergency crews arriving on the scene, while commenting: “Lucky they are walking away.”

After Barbara Katie Chapman’s unfortunate passing in May 2006, her young son went to live with his biological father, Travis Mimms, but Duane and Beth intervened in the boy’s life after hearing an October 2011 audio recording of Travis Mimms supposedly physically abusing the then 9-year-old.

In the recording made by a neighbour, Duane and Beth’s grandson is told to bend over, a request that was supposedly followed with 13 slaps, and a cry of “no more”.

Mimms’ attorney, Jason Lewis, denied any wrongdoing on his client’s behalf. “It wasn’t bare skin and it was through his clothing and it was 3 to 5 hits on his rear,” he explained, but Beth and Duane, nevertheless, they saw the situation differently, and to hear an audiotape of their grandson being abused, they believed that was torture.

Following a tense custody battle, the couple was given interim custody of the boy, and although Beth wasn’t the biological grandmother of Barbara’s son, it must have been a difficult situation that pulled on her heartstrings.

Before Beth found love with Duane, she was married to a man named Keith A. Barmore. The exes shared a daughter together named Cecily, who was born in June 1993, two years following their 1991 wedding, and even though Beth never really said much about Barmore throughout the years, she might have exposed a troubling accusation about his life via Twitter in August 2015.

“Sorry my first husband was a heroin addict & I know all about it!” she tweeted to a fan. “It’s not a disease it’s an addiction! #ilivedit”

While Beth didn’t mention Barmore specifically, there was no other “first husband” that we know of, and making matters even more compelling, Duane was childhood friends with Barmore, and spoke about his pal’s addiction in his book, “You Can Run But You Can’t Hide.”

“He was a thief with a heroin habit,” Duane wrote. “He would drink a beer just to even out from the drugs. It just about broke my heart when I heard Beth was dating him. When I heard they got married, I got physically sick. … Friends told me he was abusing her something awful.”

Losing a parent is never easy, particularly if you’re especially close to them, and someone who knew this all too well was Beth, who lost her beloved dad, Garry Smith, in March 2006 at age 68.

Garry Smith’s death happened only two months before Beth and Duane’s wedding in Hawaii, so her dad didn’t have the chance to walk his daughter down the aisle.

As for how close the two were? In Garry Smith’s later years, he served as a bail bondsman beside Duane and Beth, sometimes making appearances on Dog the Bounty Hunter. Beth also named her youngest son after her father.

Beth used to do everything with her dad, giving him the title of “best friend”, and to her he was her garage sale buddy, her burger joint partner, ice cream eater, green chilli maker and her best friend, but mostly he was her father, and it was plain to see that she truly loved her dad, and profoundly loved her family.

Nigel Farage Should Face Highest Penalty

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Nigel Farage should face the highest penalty for a serious breach of European Parliament Code of Conduct, according to a leaked letter.

The European Parliament Advisory Committee on the Conduct of Members have called for the Brexit Party leader to face a penalty following an investigation, and the investigation alleged that Nigel Farage’s lifestyle was financed to the tune of £450,000 by Brexit benefactor Arron Banks’ companies in the year following the EU election.

The funds included rent payments, funding security, a driver as well as flights and parties to launch “Brand Farage” in America, and a letter that was leaked to Channel 4 News said that it considers that Nigel Farage committed a serious breach of the Code of Conduct and that it considers that the gravity of Nigel Farage’s conduct would merit the highest penalty foreseen by the Parliament’s Rules of Procedures.

It adds that the Advisory Committee is particularly concerned that the actions of Nigel Farage could cause damage to the integrity and reputation of the European Parliament, and the rules mean that Nigel Farage could be ejected from the European Parliament for up to 30-days, and he wouldn’t be able to accumulate a daily allowance in this time.

In exceptional circumstances, the President could further prevent an MEP from representing Parliament in certain circumstances for up to a year, and the committee’s letter further advised that the President refer Nigel Farage’s behaviour to the European Anti-Fraud Office.

It also states any inquiry should liaise and cooperate with the UK National Investigatory Authorities, including the National Crime Agency, the Electoral Commission and the Metropolitan Police, in order for the complete facts to be established.

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The letter concludes that The Advisory Committee strongly believes that the circumstances of the case merit extensive further investigation with continuous EU-level supervision and cross-Member State collaboration, including third countries when necessary, and when contacted by the Mirror, a Brexit Party spokesperson refused to comment, and a party source complained that the committee may have infringed protocol as the letter had been seen before it was given to Nigel Farage.

The highest punishment? Well, I didn’t know that the EU had capital punishment, and I didn’t know that the most pathetically run organisation knew what a sanction was, but it does now appear that this little fake is only interested in a cosy life on Easy Street, yet people have given him that opening for that pampered life.

Nigel Farage is nothing but a confidence trickster and most people have been taken in by him, and he’s been leading his party without any moral principle, and Nigel Farage should be investigated for committing a massive scam on the British people.

Nigel Farage couldn’t lie straight in bed, and it would take a string of psychiatrists a lifetime to comprehend out why some people believed what he said, and I wouldn’t trust him to be the Mayor of Trumpton.

Nigel Farage is a fake and he lacks honesty, and now has a pretty poor reputation, and he will find it extremely hard to come back from this, and we should be raging because that money that was donated and wasn’t used for the promotion of desired party or marketing purposes, and was used for leisure purposes, and, anyone that did donate should prosecute him.

But the EU thought their most formidable feasible punishment was a 30-day stay, but actually Nigel Farage should be booted out, but perhaps they’re a tad concerned that he may be tempted to scatter a few of his own beans about the inner workings of the government because clearly, you don’t spend that many years in an establishment without gathering a little juicy information.

It’s about time this slimy blighter got his just desserts, and we shouldn’t trust him as far as we can throw him because he’s wholly unpleasant, self-centred, and a professional politician that’s been caught out.

Dodgy Nigel, so when do we get to see your financial records?

PM Candidate Jeremy Hunt Arrives On Canvey

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The foreign secretary appeared outside the Haystack on Canvey two days ago to meet residents and Conservative voters as part of his campaign to be the next Prime Minister, saying that the country has more potential than anywhere else in the world, I wonder if it will ever get to Canvey?

He said that we have the greatest universities in Europe, tech startups, business people, fortitude and drive, but I’ve never seen a university on Canvey, and then he had the temerity to say that we can get on and expand that wealth to our NHS and our education system.

But then he’s got to say that if he wants to get more young people voting Conservative, and has he forgotten how screwed up the NHS is? And notice how he’s not wearing a jacket and tie, that’s because he wants to look more trendy and in tune with his potential young voters, and it’s not only pitiful but it’s also disturbing to watch, but then if they look like MPs, they end up being called out of touch.

The United Kingdom doesn’t have the best universities in Europe, we’re third in the top ten, and most European countries have tech startups with Germany and Holland, and every country has people with grit and determination.

And even if we did have the best universities in Europe, how many people from Canvey would get to study there?

There might be some people out there that like Jeremy Hunt, and want him to be the next Prime Minister, but we need a leader, not a manager.

Prince William: ‘I’d Support My Children If They Were Gay’

Prince William has stated he would fully support his children if they were gay, but revealed he would worry about the added pressures they would encounter, and that it was something he’d thought about since becoming a father, and that he wished that we existed in a society where it’s really normal and cool, but especially for his family, and the position that they’re, that was the bit he was apprehensive about.

The duke was speaking to young people at an LGBT youth charity in London. The Albert Kennedy Trust (AKT) helps LGBT young people who are at risk of homelessness.

The duke said that he supported whatever choices his children made, but added that it worried him from a parents point of view, and about all the difficulties, odious words, persecution, and the hatred that might come from that, and that was the bit that actually bothered him, and that was for all of us to try and help correct and make sure we can put that in the past and not come back to that kind of stuff.

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This is a tremendous moment for LGBT people around the globe, and for a member of the British Royal Family to give such a support to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, and their struggle for equality, is a huge deal, particularly in a time when the visibility of the LGBT people is being constantly challenged.

Nevertheless, with the Duke of Cambridge being a figurehead for the Royal Family as well as the Commonwealth, it’s also worth remembering that homosexual activity is still a criminal offence in 35 of the 53 Commonwealth nations and it is only permitted in 18.

And many will now be questioning whether Prince William’s words could have a decisive influence on these places, where people are still struggling for their lives because of who they love.

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Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge have three children, five-year-old Prince George, Princess Charlotte, four, and one-year-old Prince Louis, and the duke said this wasn’t the first time he’d been asked his hypothetical question about his children.

The Queen’s cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, and his partner James Coyle were the first royal same-sex couple to get married last year, and the duke said parents frequently questioned his views on the matter and that because of this, he and the Duchess of Cambridge have been doing a lot of talking to make sure their children are prepared.

He further displayed his shock at a recent attack on Melania Geymonat and her partner Chris on a London bus, saying that he was really appalled, and the duke’s comments will make a huge difference and conveyed a message of support that the LGBT people need.

And the idea that the future monarch is saying they would support their children if they came out as LGBT is a message to the entirety of society, a message of support that empowers the LGBT people because it truly is a real pressure to live under.

And if you look into the issues around suicide and the figures in the LGBT community we need fewer barriers and less stigma and more acceptance, and numerous people have praised the prince for his comments, especially when he said it would be absolutely fine by him if any of his three children came out as gay, and when a royal comes out (pardon the pun) and says things like this, it truly makes me feel proud to be British, and believe me, that doesn’t happen often.

He was so charming and victorious at the same time, so much like his late mother Princess Diana, she would have been so proud of him, and he actually does deserve to be the next King of England.

His mother was one of the first public figures to fully and openly embrace AIDS patients during the height of the epidemic and homophobia.

She was friends with gay figures such as Elton John and George Michael, and she was an LGBTQ ally before that was a mainstream thing, so it isn’t surprising that her son picked up the same sensitivities, but hopefully by the time his children are old enough to be speaking publicly about their sexual orientation, that the world is passed that sort of hate, but at the moment we are far from that, and in a progressing society we need to be more accepting of everyone.

Prince William is a great human being simply by setting an example, after all, you can be disappointed with the choices your children make, but why would you be disappointed with who they are? Let’s face it, everyone is beautiful in their own way.

But I worry about the fate of our children, not because of their sexual orientation but because life is difficult enough as it is, but as for sexual orientation, I wouldn’t worry if my children were left-handed, it might have more challenges that other children might not, but no matter what, all children favour challenges, so why would we do our utmost to change them? After all, good parents and good people accept, and support their children and bestow them, unconditional love.

And I’m happy that Prince William could come out openly because ordinarily the royal family isn’t allowed to make any comment that might be seen as partisan, and this is a really decisive move as far as society goes because some humans are shallow, and it’s good that we can gradually purvey to the masses, and we could say that he’s simply honouring his mother, but actually he seems like a really decent human being.

And wow, I’m not a huge enthusiast of the Royal Family but this is a huge deal for them, so it should fill people with delight!

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