Welfare Claimants To Be Given ‘Right To Try’ Work Without Risk Of Losing Their Benefits

Labour’s reform of the system will allow welfare recipients to attempt employment without fear of losing their benefits.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is expected to announce legislation to introduce a ‘right to try guarantee’ for those on health-related benefits.

This will prevent people from having their entitlements automatically re-assessed if they enter employment.

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) survey found 200,000 people on health-related or disability benefits were willing to work if the right job or help was available.

However, many people with disabilities or chronic illnesses reportedly worry that if they try to find work and it doesn’t work out, they won’t be able to receive their benefits back.

Almost four million working-age adults in England and Wales presently claim incapacity or disability benefits, up from 2.8 million before the COVID pandemic.

Since becoming Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer has slammed Britain’s ‘broken’ and ‘indefensible’ welfare system and claimed it ‘locks millions out of work’.

His Government is expected to unveil around £5 billion to £6 billion of welfare cuts in the coming days, although it has emerged that ministers could U-turn on some projects.

It has been said that Downing Street and Ms Kendall’s department are poised to backtrack on imposing a real-term cut to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for disabled people – including those who cannot work – by cancelling an inflation-linked rise due to come into force next spring.

A backbench mutiny against Sir Keir’s welfare crackdown has stung him, and some Cabinet ministers are reportedly upset.

This morning, Health Secretary Wes Streeting declined to comment on whether the government’s welfare reforms will include a PIP freeze.

He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: ‘I haven’t seen the full plans, they haven’t come to Cabinet yet.

‘But what I do know is the Work and Pensions Secretary wants to support people who need help the most and we’ve got to make sure that there is a wider range of support.

‘And that everyone’s playing their part, including me, because with those levels of illness, for example, if I can help people back to health, in many cases I’ll be helping them back to work and that’s what we’ll do.’

He added: ‘I haven’t seen the proposals but you’ve seen the briefing, you’ve seen the speculation, I think the moral of the story is wait for the plans.’

A Government source said: ‘The broken welfare system we inherited is trapping thousands of people in a life on benefits with no means of support, or any hope for a future of life in work.

‘It doesn’t account for the reality of people’s health conditions, many of whom fear that they will be punished for taking a chance on work.

‘As part of our plan for change, our reforms will deliver fairness and opportunity for disabled people, and those with long-term health conditions, protecting the welfare system so it is sustainable for the future and will always be there for those who need it.’

James Taylor, executive director at disability charity Scope, said giving disabled people ‘greater confidence to try work’ was ‘a good move’, but warned against making significant cuts to benefits.

He said: ‘We hope that releasing news of this scheme at this time isn’t a smokescreen designed to blur the lines between in and out of work benefits.

‘PIP exists because life costs more if you are disabled. It isn’t an out-of-work benefit.

‘Making it harder to get benefits will just push even more disabled people into poverty, not into jobs.’

Asked about Labour’s welfare plans during a press conference on Saturday, Sir Keir said: ‘I have made the principles clear enough. We need to support those who need support and to protect them.

‘But at the same time, we need to make sure that we support and protect those who need to and are able to get into work, which the current arrangements I don’t think adequately do.

‘That’s why it’s important we make the case for reforming welfare, which is what we are doing.’

A Conservative Party spokesperson said: ‘Labour is failing to take the action needed to tackle the unsustainable welfare bill.

‘Their inaction has already cost the taxpayer £2.5 billion and counting.

‘The Conservatives are united in the belief that those who can work should, which is why we had a bold plan at the election to save £12billion from the welfare bill.

‘Labour have done no original thinking of their own. The dithering, delay and division over the need to bring spending on benefits down is not fair for British taxpayers.’

What employer is going to hire people who are disabled? Discrimination, right? However, it happens all the time.

Therefore, our government continues to increase the welfare cost because it lacks the courage to address the underlying issue while allowing illegal immigrants to continue entering the land of milk and honey.

He keeps the civil service growing because he’s terrified of unions and he taxes the diminishing ageing workforce until they squeak.

He is hurting pensioners who are unable to defend themselves and increasing the strain on companies. What a hero you are, Keir Starmer. He ought to put the nation’s needs ahead of his own goals.

Who is going to employ all these people? Where are all these jobs coming from? And don’t forget there would have to be a workplace risk assessment for anyone disabled working at a company, and most businesses don’t have insurance for this, so, therefore, would not take a disabled person on for work.

And remember our Prime Minister and MPs have no reality of the real world, and the biggest scroungers in Britain are our MPs, followed by all those arriving by boat!

In Two Years, the UK Could Sell Lab-Grown Food

Lab-grown meat, dairy, and sugar may be available for human consumption in the UK for the first time in as little as two years, which is earlier than anticipated.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is examining how it can speed up the approval process for lab-grown foods.

Such products are cultivated from cells in small chemical plants.

UK firms have led the field scientifically but feel they have been held back by the existing regulations.

Dog food made from meat that was grown in factory vats went on sale in the UK for the first time last month.

In 2020, Singapore became the first country to permit the sale of cell-cultivated meat for human consumption, followed by the United States three years later and Israel last year.

However, Italy, the US states of Alabama, and Florida have instituted prohibitions.

The FSA will collaborate with academic researchers and specialists from high-tech food companies to create new regulations.

It states that it plans to finish the comprehensive safety evaluation of two foods produced in a lab within the two years it has begun.

However, critics say that having the firms involved in drawing up the new rules represents a conflict of interest.

The effort was launched in response to UK companies’ worries that they are falling behind their foreign competitors, whose approvals processes take half as long.

Prof Robin May, the FSA’s chief scientist, told BBC News that there would be no compromise on consumer safety.

“We are working very closely with the companies involved and academic groups to work together to design a regulatory structure that is good for them, but at all costs ensures the safety of these products remains as high as it possibly can,” he said.

However, this strategy has its detractors, including Pat Thomas, director of the campaign organisation Beyond GM.

“The companies involved in helping the FSA to draw up these regulations are the ones most likely to benefit from deregulation and if this were any other type of food product, we would be outraged by it,” she said.

The science minister, Lord Vallance, took issue with the process being described as “deregulation”.

“It is not deregulation, it is pro-innovation regulation,” he told BBC News.

“It is an important distinction because we are trying to get the regulation aligned with the needs of innovation and reduce some of the bureaucracy and duplication.”

Foods produced in laboratories are developed from microscopic cells into plant or animal tissue. To modify the food’s qualities, gene editing may occasionally be required. They are said to provide possible health benefits and to be better for the environment.

The government wants lab-grown food companies to succeed because it believes they can boost the economy and provide new jobs.

The UK is good at the science, but the current approvals process is much slower than in other countries. Singapore, the US and Israel in particular have faster procedures.

Oxford’s Ivy Farm Technologies is prepared to produce lab-grown steaks using cells from Aberdeen Angus and Wagyu cows.

The firm applied for approval to market its steaks to restaurants at the start of last year. Ivy Farm’s CEO, Dr Harsh Amin, explained that two years was a very long time to wait.

“If we can shorten that to less than a year while maintaining the very highest of Britain’s food safety standards, that would help start-up companies like ours to thrive.”

A similar narrative is told by Dr. Alicia Graham. Working at the Bezos Centre in west London at Imperial College, she has managed to cultivate a sugar substitute. A berry gene is introduced into yeast in this process. By using this method, she may create a lot of the crystals that give it its sweet flavour.

It doesn’t make you fat, she says, and so is a potential sweetener and healthy substitute in fizzy drinks.

In this instance, I am permitted to sample it. It reminded me of lemon sherbet; it was really sweet, fruity, and slightly sour. But it needs permission before Dr Graham’s company, MadeSweetly, can sell it.

“The path to getting approval is not straightforward,” she tells me.

“They are all new technologies, which are not easy for the regulator to keep up with. But that means that we don’t have one specific route to product approval, and that is what we would like.”

The FSA says it will complete a full safety assessment of two lab-grown foods within the next two years and have the beginnings of a faster and better system for applications for approvals of new lab-grown foods.

Prof May of the FSA says the purpose of working with experts from the companies involved as well as academics is to get the science right.

“It can be quite complex, and it is critical that we understand the science to make sure the foods are safe before authorising them.”

But Ms Thomas says that these high-tech foods may not be as environmentally friendly as they are made out to be as it takes energy to make them and that in some cases their health benefits are being oversold.

“Lab-grown foods are ultimately ultra-processed foods and we are in an era where we are trying to get people to eat fewer ultra-processed foods because they have health implications,” he said.

“And it is worth saying that these ultra-processed foods have not been in the human diet before.”

I’m not sure I would eat lab-grown food, but I suppose as long it’s correctly labelled as lab-grown, most people will eat it, and in the end, we will have no way of avoiding it.

However, people will eventually take lab-grown meat over US-farmed meat any day.

I mean, who would eat meat that has been pumped full of hormones to stimulate growth, force-feeding them processed calorific foods and keep the animals inactive so they grow faster, then chemically washing the meat in chlorine to remove the bacteria that contaminate the meat due to the cramped conditions it is raised in – this is all pretty standard in the US.

Good job I don’t live in the US then!

The image above doesn’t exactly make lab-grown meat look very tasty, but then neither does most processed meats, but that doesn’t stop people from consuming the meat in large amounts, regardless of the environment, animal welfare or their own health. Perhaps the meat will be used in burgers, pies and fast foods, instead of being displayed in the window of your local butcher’s shop.

Eating lab-grown food is not natural, it is genetic engineering, and something feels truly wrong when they are creating food from a lab instead of the land. I believe it takes us down an extremely disturbing cul de sac, especially when saying it will create jobs – it won’t, it will cost jobs in the agricultural sector – we all know they want to stop agriculture.

I’ll have to go to vegetarianism if the only food available is lab-grown. I have no problem with this, but I should be able to choose rather than have it imposed on me.

The whole point of ‘lab produced’ is that it doesn’t rely on jobs – it automates supply. Every promotion from the global wealthy and the global corporations is to warm us up to the belief that they will supply us without having to work for it.

However, I suppose with lab-grown meat – it would lower carbon emissions, animal abuse and habitat destruction, but then making food synthetically in a laboratory – what could possibly go wrong?

Age Ranges For Conscription In The UK

The UK government has been advised to consider bringing back conscription – leaving numerous people wondering whether they would be called up to fight.

Britain’s declining soldier numbers have sparked panic among experts in national security, with one former commander warning that the country would be virtually defenceless were Vladimir Putin to launch a direct attack. Following significant cuts to the MoD that began in 2010, just over 72,000 regular forces personnel now serve in the British Army—the lowest number since the Napoleonic Wars.

One touted solution to this shortfall has been to reintroduce conscription, meaning ordinary citizens would be drafted in for compulsory military training and put on ‘standby’ for future deployment. Numerous other countries in Europe do it, including Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but the UK hasn’t had any form of conscription since National Service ended in 1963. Here, we answer some questions about conscription and what it would mean for you.

When Britain introduced conscription in the months leading up to World War II, unmarried men aged between 20 and 22 were required to undertake six months of military training, resulting in 240,000 being called up. But when war was announced following Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland, the age range was immediately widened to any man aged 18 to 41. Exemptions were given to men who were too unfit medically, or who worked in vital industries like baking, farming, and medicine, which were essential to the war effort.

By the end of 1941, women and all childless widows between the ages of 20 and 30 were required to do work related to the war effort, while men aged up to 51 were called up for military service. Even men aged 52 to 60 were required to take part in “some form of military service”.

After the war, National Service required all healthy males aged 17 to 21 to serve in the armed forces for 18 months, along with a four-year reserve period. This generally involved training at a barracks based within the UK.

The UK has never drafted in women to serve in direct combat – but recent polling indicates the public believes that this should change if World War III ever broke out. A YouGov poll found that 72 percent supported women being conscripted as well as men, in the event of the measure ever being reintroduced.

Despite the ominous warnings of the world now being in a “pre-war” state, the same YouGov poll also found that numerous young people would be unwilling to fight for their country – even if Britain was about to be invaded.

About 38 percent of under-40s said they would refuse to serve in the armed forces if World War III broke out, and 30 percent would not serve even if the UK faced “imminent invasion”.

In World War II, ‘conscientious objectors’ who were within the conscription age but refused to fight were taken to court, and many were given mandatory jobs to contribute to the war effort in other ways.

The shaky attempts by Donald Trump to achieve peace in Ukraine have left many concerned that Vladimir Putin will feel emboldened to attack Europe again, potentially pulling the UK into a major war. As the US weakens its support for Ukraine and Russia rejects ceasefire agreements, former top brass have warned that Britain must prepare to conscript if things escalate – or risk surrendering quickly.

Colonel Hamish De Bretton Gordon, who used to lead the British Army’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, told the Sun: “The government should rule nothing out at the moment. I can’t see how an army of just 70,000 is going to be able to deter Russia in the long term and maintain the mass it needs. If you look at the size of our regular Army, it’s tiny and they’d find it difficult to deploy a brigade for any period of time”. Sir Richard Shirreff, a former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, meanwhile said that the British government should be prepared to “think the unthinkable” and begin a “selective” form of conscription.

The Government has said there are no plans for any form of conscription in the UK. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the News Agents podcast on Thursday that “nobody is talking about conscription” and that such a proposal has “never crossed my lips”.

I don’t think the discipline and hardship of conscription would be mentally manageable for today’s young men. Additionally, our educational system has shaped them into woke, left-wing, weak warriors. Who wants to fight for a government that has no allegiance to a broken Britain and mocks the working class?

This country has been broken for an extremely long time and the youths of today know nothing about hard work, respect and the checklist goes on.

I don’t believe that our teenagers would suffer any negative effects from National Service, and it’s about time our government learned that not only would National Service strengthen our forces numbers, but perhaps it would infuse some much-needed discipline and pride.

This is not only about Ukraine – we, all of us, are entering into menacing and scary times, and like it or not, we can’t just roll over and act like this is not happening.

Due to a severe shortage of troops, the UK is unable to defend itself, let alone other nations.

There is nothing for young people to do these days, so National Service would be a terrific way to get them off the streets, teach them about the proper way to live and earn them some respect.

Mind you, what exactly would these youngsters be signing up to defend?

A bygone parliamentary system where the first chamber doesn’t represent the percentage of votes cast, an unelected second chamber that is not representative of the population and is chosen by this first chamber, an unelected head of state that has no actual political power they are there by accident of birth and a financial system that is set up to enable tax dodging in ‘overseas territories’ which have no representation in parliament whatsoever.

Reeves’s Plan To Cut Welfare Triggers A Labour Revolt

Keir Starmer is facing a rebellion over plans to axe £5 billion from welfare as the government scrambles to balance the books.

Labour MPs have been warned of ‘deep concern’ over ‘draconian’ curbs, and details are expected to be announced as soon as tomorrow.

Liz Kendall is set to declare that workers who lose their jobs should receive more than long-term claimants. Check-ups on sickness payment recipients are also expected to be bolstered.

While disability subsidies could be frozen in cash terms, most of the savings are probably going to come from making it more difficult to receive personal independence payments.

Ministers have been making the ‘moral’ case for reforming welfare, with Rachel Reeves pointing to the near-million young people not in education, employment or training. 

The Chancellor is fighting to sidestep the need for more tax rises at the Spring Statement later this month, after delaying economic growth and increasing debt costs wreaked havoc with her Budget plans.

She is also under immense pressure to ramp up defence spending amid increasing alarm at the US withdrawing support from Europe and doing deals with Russia. 

Health and disability benefits in sicknote Britain are expected to cost more than £100 billion a year by the end of the decade – which would be more than the defence budget even after Keir Starmer’s recent boost.

The  Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated in October that the cost of long-term sickness handouts will increase from £64.7 billion in the 2023-24 financial year to £100.7 billion in 2029-30.

That would be about 3 percent of GDP, while Labour has committed to spending 2.5 percent by 2027 and looking towards 3 percent after the next election.

Speaking to the BBC’s Westminster Hour on Sunday, Labour MP Rachel Maskell said colleagues were ‘deeply concerned’ about the prospect of changes to the system.

She told the programme: ‘We recognise the economic circumstances that we’re in and the hand that we were given and of course it is right that the Chancellor has oversight over all those budgets but not at the expense of pushing disabled people into poverty.’

She added: ‘There’s got to be a carrot approach, not a stick approach.

‘We’ve got to make the right interventions and that doesn’t start with the stick.’

Ms Maskell said that she had ‘picked up […] deep deep concern’ from colleagues and called for a ‘compassionate system and not taking just draconian cuts’.

There are assertions that up to 80 MPs are prepared to fight the reforms. 

The government wants to create a new, time-limited benefit for those who find themselves out of work after paying into the system, dubbed ‘unemployment insurance’.

It will have a lower age limit – probably about 22 years – with different support set to be announced for out-of-work youngsters.

The goal is for people who have contributed to the system to benefit from it more than those who have not.

Nonetheless, there will be exceptions for people with serious disabilities that prevent them from working.

After World War II, the welfare system had a far greater contributory component, but governments of all stripes have been progressively reducing it.

Liz Kendall, the secretary for work and pensions, is expected to announce to the Commons later this week, possibly tomorrow.

She is aiming to save roughly £5 billion from the welfare bill, with the majority of the cuts expected to come from changes to Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

A crackdown on personal independence payments is expected to tighten rules, potentially affecting those with conditions like anxiety and depression.

The rate of PIP will also be frozen in cash terms, rather than going up 1.7 percent like other benefits.

A Work Capability Assessment is administered to new sick benefit applicants and is intended to be repeated periodically.

That gap is meant to range from six months to three years, depending on the severity of the illness. Some 607,000 repeat assessments were carried out in 2019, but that nosedived during COVID and last year is believed to have been about a third of that level.

According to the OBR, the decline in checks is the primary cause of the increase in claims; Ms Kendall’s aides told the Telegraph that she is investigating measures to increase checks.

Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden said yesterday that without action four million people would be on long-term sickness benefits.

‘There are 2.8 million people on long-term sickness benefits,’ he told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.

‘We are an outlier in the UK and not in a good way. We’re the only G7 country that hasn’t recovered its pre-pandemic rate of employment and we’re the Labour Party.

‘We believe in work. We believe in the good that a good job can do for people. We don’t believe it is good that if somebody could work with a bit of support that they’re left to live a life on benefits.

‘200,000 of those 2.8million have told us they would work tomorrow with the right support. So, we’ve got to reform the system, because if we don’t, the trajectory of standing back and doing nothing is that it won’t be 2.8 million in a few years, it will be over 4 million people. We can’t allow that to happen.’

A government source said: ‘The challenge we inherited and the case for change is stark.

‘When this Government took office last July, more than 9.3 million working-age people were out of work and not looking for employment – that’s more than the entire population of London. 2.8 million of those were out of work due to long-term sickness – the highest in the G7.’

The UK will run out of money unless it begins to repatriate illegal immigrants.

Given that housing and caring for migrants costs billions of pounds and that many of them are economic migrants who have no desire to contribute to our nation or community, Rachel Reeves ought to reduce the budget for migrants.

I simply don’t see why our own citizens are homeless but migrants get all they want. What’s the point of repeatedly giving to them? This merely invites them over, and when they get what they want, who can blame them?

I observe people fighting and disputing with one another in the interim, while the elite is getting away with anything they want while we are fighting. It’s a tried-and-true method of inciting conflict among us.

Instead of targeting people with lifelong disabilities and health conditions, Rachel Reeves would do better to stop paying for migrants in hotels. That would plug the supposed hole. They should start addressing the elephant in the room!

People who are ill or disabled are being targeted, particularly those who are seriously disabled and simply cannot work. Every disabled person I know—and I know a good many of them—would trade their PIP for the ability to be physically healthy and lead a “normal life” without hesitation.

There must be protests at Westminster, Downing Street, and the doorsteps of lawmakers.

There are many people, however, who hate British retirees, the sick, and the disabled, and they are quite pleased that we spend £5.5 million per day on hotels for all of the economic migrants who live in our nation and receive everything for free, including our NHS care.

Put an end to this Net Zero craziness. Put an end to unauthorised immigration. Turn the budget around.

Meanwhile, people have been paying their National Insurance to get their pension for 45 years or more but will never get a penny from it – of course, our government need to hold on to that money (our money) so that they can give it to the 1600 boat people that have arrived this week!

Why should a family or individual who has never made contributions to the social system be granted benefits upon arrival in the UK?

Many migrants are not able to speak any English, and many do not work or intend to work.

Although they will never make any contributions to the UK economy, the state will provide them with welfare payments, housing, healthcare, and other benefits at no cost.

The UK cannot afford to maintain this kind of generous giving.

And why does every photo of a Labour minister show them with a smug grin on their faces? Let’s be real, they have nothing to be smug about.

Millions Of Pounds Are Spent Every Day On Foreign Prisoners

Foreign prisoners are now costing British taxpayers more than £1 million per day, official figures have revealed.

New data by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has revealed around 10,500 foreign prisoners are being held in prisons across England and Wales, each costing more than £50,000 a year.

Around 12 percent of all inmates in the UK are foreign nationals.

Among the nationalities with the most inmates in the UK, Albanians lead the unwanted league table with more than 1,200 prisoners. Poles are in second with 911, followed by Romanians (729), Irish (634) and Jamaicans (370).

About half of those inmates have been convicted while the other 50 percent are being held on remand either because they are considered to be too dangerous to release or because they are deemed a flight risk.

A Freedom of Information request seen by The Telegraph revealed violent crime was most common among prisoners from Poland, with 215. While Romanians were most likely to be involved with sex crimes, with 88 prisoners.

Ireland topped the table for robbery (80) and theft (11) while Albanians were most likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes, with 439 held on these charges, four times more than any other nationality.

The MoJ has committed to spending £5 million on new frontline immigration staff to accelerate the removal of foreign prisoners.

They plan to work across 80 prisons to remove some foreign offenders, to lower the elevated costs and free up spaces in Britain’s already overcrowded prisons.

This new unit will be operating by April 1 and will also help the Home Office to identify and handle those going through the immigration process, deporting prisoners up to 18 months before the end of their custodial sentence.

Labour says it has removed more than 2,500 foreign criminals since last July.

Prisons minister Lord James Timpson said: ‘It cannot be right for British taxpayers to foot the bill for jailing foreign criminals who have brought misery to our communities.

‘Under this Government, removals are up by nearly 20 percent. We’re now taking action to ensure this is done swifter, easing pressure on overcrowded prisons and on the public purse.

‘This is part of our Plan for Change – fixing the broken prison system we inherited and keeping our streets safe.’

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said removing foreign criminals from prisons should be a priority and argued that countries who refuse to take them back should be blacklisted for migrants wishing to enter the UK from that country. 

Mr Jenrick said: ‘That is the number one thing we can do to free up prison capacity. And how do you do that? Use every lever of the British state to put pressure on those other countries to take back their own criminals.

‘Do things like stopping issuing visas, don’t give foreign aid to those countries. If they won’t take back their criminals, we shouldn’t be supporting them.’

As previously reported, foreign nationals are up to three times more likely to be arrested than Brits in regions of the country, according to data by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In Cambridgeshire, of the more than 21,200 arrests made between 2021 and 2023, almost 8,800 (41.5 percent) were not UK citizens. This is despite them comprising just 15 percent of the local population. 

Foreign nationals living in the UK are three times more likely than British citizens to be arrested on suspicion of a crime, according to statistics from Cambridgeshire Police, which serves places including Cambridge and Peterborough.

In the county, the average annual arrest rate for foreign nationals between 2021 and 2023 was 21.5 per 1,000 population. In comparison, MailOnline analysis suggests the equivalent rate for Brits was 6.5 per 1,000.

Last year, surprising data from MoJ revealed that foreign criminals who evaded deportation carried out more than 10,000 offences in a year.

According to the data, about 25 percent of foreign offenders committed another crime after being released from prison or receiving a court order.

The 3,235 criminals who were released from prison without being deported were behind 10,012 crimes in the year to March 2022 – a rise of 25 percent on the last annual total of 8,021.

Over the last four years of data – released by officials in a parliamentary question – foreign criminals were guilty of 40,000 offences ranging from robbery and drug dealing to murder.

As well as criminals who were released from prison and evaded deportation, the MOJ data also includes people who were previously deported before returning to Britain illegally.

All of them ought to be sent back to their own countries to fulfil their sentences. They are not helping our nation and are cluttering up prisons, costing us a fortune.

Since the human rights of law-abiding, innocent people should come before those of criminals, our government should take away their opportunity to appeal deportation.

Unfortunately, we are no longer the UK; instead, we are a hub for criminals from other countries.

If these foreign nationals have committed a crime and should be expelled, no excuses.

I have had enough of paying taxes to all the jerks from every other nation. Our government needs to take care of its own citizens, but it’s so easy to waste other people’s money, isn’t it?

All our politicians need to be locked up because they’re all traitors to this country!

The English City Where A Staggeringly High Percentage Of Women Are Married To Their Cousins

Sir Keir Starmer has signalled that he would block any attempt to ban first-cousin marriage, a practice which remains prevalent in some UK communities – despite the genetic damage it can potentially do to offspring.

 

In Bradford, one of northern England’s largest cities, almost half (46 percent) of the female Pakistani community were in a ‘consanguineous relationship’ meaning they have a common ancestor, a 2024 study found.

In December of last year, independent MP Iqbal Mohamed faced a great deal of criticism for opposing former Conservative Minister Richard Holden’s bill to outlaw the marriage of first cousins.

A senior Tory said it was ‘shocking’ that an MP would ‘defend this revolting practice’.

Mr Holden’s Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Bill is due to return before the House of Commons on Friday and, ahead of its planned second reading, Mr Holden pushed for government support.

However, Sir Keir, yesterday signalled that Labour would stop any such endeavour to introduce a legal prohibition on first cousins being able to marry in England and Wales. 

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Holden urged Sir Keir to ‘think again’ after Downing Street previously indicated it had no plans to change the law.

‘A marriage between first cousins carries significant health issues, many of which aren’t even knowable until post-birth,’ he told the PM.

‘When practised generation after generation, there is a significant multiplier effect.’

Mr Holden added: ‘In addition, the real impact for the openness of our society and women’s rights in our country are also significant.

‘After all, there are significant dynamics in having and sharing the same set of grandparents.

‘On Friday, this Government has a choice to let my Bill to ban first cousin marriage go through to committee stage.

‘Will the PM think again before instructing his whips to block this legislation?’

But Sir Keir signalled the Government would not be throwing its support behind Mr Holden’s Bill, with the PM replying: ‘We’ve taken our position on that Bill, thank you.’

While the genetic risks of first cousin marriage are hotly contested, they relate to a process called ‘unmasking’. 

Each individual receives two versions of each gene – known as ‘alleles’ – from our parents, one from the mother and one from the father.

One gene can be dominant and one can be recessive, so for a recessive gene to become active and manifest in a certain individual then both copies of the gene must be the recessive. If you only receive one recessive gene then you are just a ‘carrier’.

Since cousins share grandparents, it becomes risky in first-cousin marriages because there is a greater chance that a child would receive two copies of the same harmful gene.

Experts say that children of first-cousin marriages have an approximately double chance of having a child with an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, with the danger increasing to 6 percent from about 3 percent in the general population. 

However, not all members of the medical community believe that is a basis to prohibit the practice, as one doctor put it in a 2005 paper by Owen Dyer: ‘We know that the risk of Down’s syndrome increases with advancing maternal age, but we don’t see public education films urging mothers to have children younger.’

Experts started tracking the prevalence of consanguinity in Bradford – home to one of the UK’s largest Pakistani communities – in the late noughties.

Nearly 12,500 pregnant women were questioned about their relationship status with the father of their child.

The Born in Bradford study was later repeated with another cohort of 2,400 women between 2016 and 2019.

Last month, Wellcome Open Research, a platform operated by the esteemed Wellcome Trust, released the final results.

The study discovered that cousin relationships are no longer a ‘majority’ in Bradford’s female Pakistani community amid growing awareness of the birth defect risks.

A decade ago, a Government-funded surveillance project discovered that 62 per cent of Pakistani heritage women were in consanguineous relationships.  This figure has since declined to 46 percent, researchers say. 

He described cousin marriage as having gone from a ‘majority activity to now being just about a minority activity’.

Dr Wright added: ‘The effect will be fewer children with congenital anomalies.’

The Born in Bradford figures, it was said, may indicate that the number of Pakistani people marrying cousins across the UK as a whole is also falling.

It is believed that changes in family relations, higher educational attainment, and more stringent immigration laws are the causes of the decline.

Writing in their study, the team said: ‘It may be we are seeing generational changes and newly evolving societal norms. 

‘But these changes need to be monitored to see if they are indications of a lasting change and they need to be considered in other settings where consanguinity is common to see how widespread these reductions in consanguinity are.’

Pakistanis make up more than half of the population of the Bradford West seat, which is represented by Labour MP Naz Shah.

The figure is 36 percent in Bradford East and nearly 17 percent in Bradford South – the city’s two other constituencies.

Birmingham also has an extensive Pakistani community, with up to 40 percent of people being of that ethnicity in regions of the city.

In the past, the highest classes of Britain frequently married cousins.

In the past, it was seen to be a means of strengthening ties and preserving family money and land.

In certain communities, like travellers, the practice is still prevalent even though it has become less popular.

Prince Albert and Queen Victoria shared grandparents and were first cousins.

The existence of ‘extreme’ inbreeding in the UK was exposed pre-COVID.

Scientists studying the genes of 450,000 Brits believed 125 had parents who were either first- or second-degree relatives. This correlated to a rate of one in 3,600.

When extrapolated to the wider population, the 2019 study, published in the journal Nature Communications, was reported as meaning that 13,000 Brits were conceived through extreme inbreeding.

First-degree relations include those between parent and child, while second-degree includes more distant, but still genetic close relatives, such as half-siblings.

The University of Queensland authors noted, given the nature of the subject and the limited variety of Brits included in the sample, actual rates could be significantly higher or lower.

Incest—sexual intercourse between immediate relatives—is prohibited in the UK even if consensual.

Marriages between certain blood relatives—as well as some step relationships—are also illegal. However, it is legal to marry your cousin in the UK.

Richard Holden, a former Conservative minister, recently introduced a bill to completely ban the practice.

Saying now was a ‘sensible time’ to look at the problem, Mr Holden said: ‘People already think it is illegal and then are surprised when you mention it isn’t.’

He pointed to evidence showing it heightens the risk of birth defects and claimed that it can ‘reinforce negative structures and control women’.

Mr Mohamed, representing Dewsbury and Batley, suggested that MPs should avoid ‘stigmatising’ the issue, which is seen as ‘very positive’ in some communities.

Instead of banning it outright, he said a ‘more positive approach’ involving advanced genetic tests for prospective married cousins would be more effective in addressing issues around it.

Mr Mohamed, who is part of the Independent Alliance of MPs – including ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, encountered objection from senior Tories for defending the practice.

Tory justice spokesman Robert Jenrick said: ‘It’s shocking that an MP would defend this revolting practice which is linked to birth defects and abusive relationships. 

‘We know this is causing immense harm. This practice has no place in the UK.’

Labour declined to support proposals to outlaw marriages between first cousins.

Worldwide, one in 10 people is thought to be a result of a consanguineous union.

The prevalence of consanguineous marriage is estimated to vary globally.

Studies have put Pakistan as having one of the most elevated rates globally at 65 percent of unions.

This is followed by India (55 percent), Saudi Arabia (50 percent), Afghanistan (40 percent), Iran (30 percent) and Egypt and Turkey (20 percent each).

Data suggests the chance of a child of first cousins developing a genetic condition is up to 6 percent, double that of children from unrelated parents.

Although this implies that most children delivered in these situations will be healthy, there is no denying the elevated risk.

Children of first cousins may be more susceptible to developmental delays and chronic genetic problems in addition to birth abnormalities.

These can include diseases including cystic fibrosis, low IQ, cleft palate, blindness, heart issues, and even a higher chance of newborn death.

They were adamant about outlawing first-cousin marriages back when I was a child, but nothing changed.

For generations, people have been marrying their first cousins.

While many people have had children with anomalies, my grandfather’s sister married her first cousin and they produced children without any.

Prince Leopold was born with haemophilia B, a form of haemophilia, and died of a haemorrhage at the age of thirty. Prince Leopold was the son of Queen Victoria.

To avoid upsetting the Labour voters, Keir Starmer will not forbid these unions because that would mean having a backbone and the leaders of the UK seem to be devoid of one.

This man is so anti-British that it’s unreal.

This is huge and will be a lifelong burden on the UK, and this includes those who have come from elsewhere, and who have been fully assimilated into our society.

Resistance is Futile!

An Elderly Woman With Dementia Was Convicted For Not Insuring Her Car

An elderly woman with dementia has been convicted of failing to insure her car – despite her living in a nursing home and no longer having a driving licence. 

The pensioner, 93, from Dudley in the West Midlands, was prosecuted by DVLA in September last year when they discovered that the insurance on her Ford had expired.

In a handwritten letter, the woman explained that due to her diagnosis, she had not driven since November 10, 2023, but the car had been ‘kept on the drive’ during this time, the Evening Standard reports.

She confessed to having ‘overlooked’ making a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) for the motor but said her disease had caused her to hide mail – leaving her family unable to access her letters.

The woman also disclosed that she had spent November in a care facility recuperating from a stroke.

Because it wasn’t in the public interest, the prosecutor, DVLA, had the option to drop the case.

However, this was overlooked because of the Single Justice Procedure’s expedited nature.

The pensioner was convicted on a guilty plea at Taunton magistrates court last month. 

She was given a six-month conditional discharge, meaning no financial penalty, but still has a criminal conviction.

On Thursday, the administration opened a consultation to change the SJP system.

Proposed changes include making it an obligation for prosecutors to read mitigation letters and making it compulsory for agencies like DVLA to engage with potentially vulnerable defendants.

The consultation is expected to conclude on May 8, but the SJP system will continue to operate until then.

A DVLA spokesperson said: ‘We urge anyone who receives a letter about potential enforcement action to get in touch with us if there are mitigating circumstances we need to know about.

‘A Single Justice Procedure notice will only be issued when we have exhausted all other enforcement routes, including issuing multiple items of correspondence, to which the customer can respond to DVLA with their mitigation.

‘Once progressed to SJP, any defendant can request a hearing in open court, but for those pleading guilty via SJP, including those with mitigating action, are considered by a magistrate. These can be referred back to DVLA but whether or not to do so is a decision taken by the magistrate.’

Picking on the weak and defenceless while others get away with everything has become the standard in the UK.

This goes to show that the UK has gone off the rails. There is literally no hope if we are prosecuting a 93-year-old with dementia for not registering her car.

Does our government really hate pensioners that much, or are they just a soft target? This was an utterly meaningless conviction and a waste of time, money and resources.

Authorities want quick wins to maintain high conviction rates when drug traffickers, murderers, and worse are free to roam the streets, and what moron told her to plead guilty? The violation was driving without insurance, yet she didn’t even drive the car. This is a total disgrace.

Is this country devoid of common sense?

This is a despicable way to treat our elderly, but then, we no longer matter!

Meanwhile, several million migrants come to the UK and commit any crime they like.

They probably don’t look at the insurance records and driver’s licenses of Uber drivers and others, particularly those who park outside fast food restaurants. Many of those guys shouldn’t even be driving on our roads, and I doubt that many of them don’t even know the highway code or speak English.

Zelensky’s Comment Pushed Trump Over The Edge

Volodymyr Zelensky’s prediction that the end of the war in Ukraine was ‘very, very far away’ was branded ‘evil’ by Donald Trump’s inner circle and enraged the president before he chose to pull military aid to the beleaguered nation.

In response to the remarks, Trump promptly scheduled a meeting on Monday with National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to consider a course of action.

Zelensky had spoken after a summit in London on Sunday, with 18 allies joining to offer Ukraine security guarantees and reify their support.

British PM Keir Starmer said a ‘coalition of the willing’ would come together to present a viable peace plan.

‘The Ukrainians didn’t think we were serious. We had to make a demonstration,’ one official told The Wall Street Journal as Trump confirmed he was cutting aid to Ukraine. 

The extreme move comes just days after Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky in the Oval Office for failing to show gratitude for the $180 billion in US military aid sent to Kyiv since Russia invaded three years ago. 

The aid pause – which the Department of Defense confirmed to DailyMail.com Monday night – could leave Ukraine without air defence systems, surface-to-surface ballistic missiles and long-range rocket artillery.

The Ukrainian leader had already flown to Europe, desperately seeking support from NATO allies following a catastrophic Oval Office meeting. The war-torn country could collapse within months without US assistance.

In the leadup to the 2024 election, Trump promised a swift end to the war in Ukraine, even boasting he could end the fighting in one day and questioning whether Zelensky wanted peace.

Trump was apoplectic following both White House fracas and the statement from the Ukraine leader claiming the end of the war with Russia was ‘still very, very far away.’

He also laid into Europe’s effort to fill the void where the U.S. said it would remove aid for Ukraine. 

Trump accused the UK-led ‘coalition of the willing’ of being weak for relying on an American backstop for peace – after his administration applauded the UK for pledging to lift its defence spending. 

Trump said following the summit: ‘It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelensky, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S.’

In an interview with Fox News, JD Vance also appeared to target America’s allies in Britain and France as he urged Ukraine to sign the minerals deal.

Vance said giving Americans ‘economic upside in the future of Ukraine’ was a ‘way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years’.

British troops supported both the American-led invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) following the September 11 attacks. The attacks prompted the first and only time NATO invoked Article 5, calling on allies for military support.

With the U.S. increasingly turning away from Europe, the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen said today that Europe was ready to massively boost its defence spending, unveiling a €150 Billion Defense Loan Plan for Pan-European Security and presenting a plan to mobilise €800 billion for European defence.

The EU will propose to give member states more fiscal room for defence investments, as well as 150 billion euros in loans for those investments, and will strive to muster private capital as well, von der Leyen said.

Trump acknowledges that without American assistance, Europe will find it difficult to survive on its own.

He said following the London summit: ‘It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelensky, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S.’ 

White House DOGE leader Elon Musk branded Zelensky ‘evil’ for continuing to pursue war after the president made clear he wants to bargain with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

‘Zelensky wants a forever war, a never-ending graft meat grinder. This is evil,’ Musk wrote on X. ‘Stop sending men to die for nothing. ENOUGH!!’

Earlier Monday night, the State Department said Secretary Marco Rubio insisted a diplomatic end to the war was imperative.

‘We want to get the Russians to a negotiating table. We want to explore whether peace is possible,’ Rubio said.

‘President Trump is the only leader in the world right now who even has a chance at bringing an enduring and lasting end to the war in Ukraine.’

For several reasons, it might constitute a crippling blow to Ukraine’s anti-Russian operations.

In an interview last month, Zelensky said that the United States supplied Ukraine with over one-third of its war equipment.

‘The contribution from the United States to Ukraine’s defensive capability and security is now around 30 percent,’ Zelensky said. ‘You can imagine what would happen to us without this crucial 30 percent.’ 

Furthermore, as Ukraine enters spring, Russia will use the warmer weather to renew its push to take more territory in the weakened nation, The Telegraph reported.

The war continued to rage overnight, with Russia again striking civilian infrastructure – with a drone hitting a children’s clinic in the Sumy region, and another attack damaging two kindergartens in Odesa, where energy infrastructure was targeted.

Ukrainian military drones destroyed a vital pipeline in the Rostov region and a Russian oil refinery in the Syzran and Samara regions.

The strong-arm move from Trump to ‘pause’ US military supplies to Ukraine leaves Zelensky’s defences facing danger because it will prevent vital arms such as Patriot air defence missiles.

Ukraine was severely hurt by Congressional Republicans withholding aid for several months last year. Families were forced to take refuge in train stations in Kyiv while Russia hit the country’s energy infrastructure. 

However, Ukraine has become less dependent on the US, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow Michael Kofman told the New York Times, ‘than it was a year ago.’ 

Dr Kenton White, politics and international relations expert at the University of Reading told MailOnline yesterday, ahead of the shock announcement, that Ukraine was still reliant on America’s scale and efficiency of production.

‘Ukraine would struggle without US support as the US has the greater capacity for the manufacture and supply of weapons, ammunition and all of the supporting military equipment and infrastructure required to prosecute a modern war,’ he said.

‘A US backstop is urgent because Western Europe has been complacent about its own defence, and its ability to produce the military infrastructure necessary for fighting a war.

‘Even within NATO, there is no flexibility for anything other than short-term, low-intensity conflicts. NATO is not ‘war-ready’ at all.’

In the United States, reactions to the news mostly followed party lines, with some Republicans in swing seats voicing opposition.

Without mentioning Trump, Republican Mike Lawler, who won his seat in New York in a district where Kamala Harris defeated him by a slim margin in November, blasted the action.

‘Stopping support for Ukraine would jeopardize the stability of Europe and the free world,’ Lawler said. 

‘There are strong opinions on both sides of this issue, and I respect that. However, we must be pragmatic about the bigger picture and protect America’s interests abroad,’ he said on social media.

Don Bacon, who won his seat in Nebraska by less than half a point, also criticised the move but didn’t mention Trump, stating that Russia’s supporters were not pausing aid. 

‘There is an invader and a victim, there is a democracy and a dictatorship, there is a country who wants to be part of the West and one who hates the West. We should be unambiguously for the good side,’ he said.

New York Democrat Dan Goldman said that Trump was attempting ‘extortion’ on Zelensky.

‘Basically, he wants Ukraine to cave. That’s the only thing that I can tell,’ he told CNN Monday.

Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, represented much of the caucus in backing Trump: ‘If Zelensky wants to continue fighting an endless war, let him do it himself. The U.S. will no longer participate in this conflict that has led to the death of thousands. It’s time for peace!’

Even while European nations are debating how to strengthen their support for Ukraine, Trump met with senior advisors on Monday to debate the future of the aid, which led to the order.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly executed the pause.

Over $1 billion in arms and ammunition will be hindered, as well as hundreds of millions in support, leaving Ukraine to negotiate with private contractors, the New York Times reported. 

The Biden administration provided Kyiv with more than $66.5 billion in military aid and weapons since the war started.

It had left unspent roughly $3.85 billion in congressionally approved funding to dispatch more weapons to Ukraine from existing U.S. stockpiles – a totality that had not been impacted by the foreign aid freeze that Trump put in place when he first took office.

Although President Biden stopped deliveries of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel amid humanitarian concerns in Gaza, Trump’s move against Ukraine essentially serves as a final ultimatum to Zelensky.

Either the Ukrainian leader concedes to Trump’s demands or faces devastating losses on the battlefield. 

A White House official said Trump is focused on reaching a peace deal to end the more than three-year war sparked by Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine and wants Zelensky ‘committed’ to that goal.

The official added that the U.S. was ‘pausing and reviewing’ its aid to ‘ensure that it is contributing to a solution.’ The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the assistance.

A second official told Fox News that ‘this is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause’. 

All of the US’ NATO brethren have vowed to boost assistance to Ukraine since the disaster meeting, though they are nowhere near as heavily armed as America.

During a news conference on Monday, Trump alluded to the possibility that Zelenksy’s tenure as Ukrainian president would be short-lived if he persisted in making demands before a peace agreement was reached.

‘It should not be that hard a deal to make,’ Trump told reporters at the White House. 

‘It could be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long.’

In response to a post on X claiming that ‘Zelensky knows if the war ends, his power ends’ and branding him a ‘dictator’, Musk said: ‘True. As distasteful as it is, Zelensky should be offered some kind of amnesty in a neutral country in exchange for a peaceful transition back to democracy in Ukraine.’

This echoes a statement by Trump, who also called Zelensky a ‘dictator’ for not holding elections in Ukraine, where Martial Law has been declared since the beginning of Russia’s attack in 2022. 

On Monday, Trump was asked what Zelensky needed to do to resume talks with Washington.

‘Well, I just think you should be more appreciative because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin,’ he said, before repeating a falsehood about levels of American support.

He added: ‘We’ve given them much more than Europe, and Europe should have given more than us.’

Trump has been pushing for a quick deal to end the war in Ukraine ever since he returned to office in January. 

His administration has held discussions with Kyiv on a rare earth minerals agreement that would permit Washington to recoup some of its expenses. 

The disruptive ending of Zelensky’s meeting at the White House on Friday with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance has flung all prospective support to Ukraine into question after the Ukrainian president was asked to leave the White House after the meeting.

Following a weekend of media backlash over his handling of Zelensky, Trump reaffirmed his stance on Ukraine.

‘The only President who gave none of Ukraine’s land to Putin’s Russia is President Donald J. Trump,’ the president wrote on Truth Social. ‘Remember that when the weak and ineffective Democrats criticize, and the Fake News gladly puts out anything they say!’

Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz warned in an interview on FOX News Channel’s America’s Newsroom Monday morning that the days of unlimited support from America to Ukraine were over.

‘The American people’s patience is not unlimited, their wallets are not unlimited and our stockpiles and munitions are not unlimited,’ he said. ‘The time to talk is now.’ 

Zelensky, according to Waltz, did not show that he was prepared to cooperate with Russia and the United States to reach a peace agreement to stop the conflict.

‘Success looks like President Zelensky sitting down and talking the terms of peace…what became so evident to us in that session is he’s not ready to talk peace at all but here’s the problem: Time is not on his side,’ he said.

Waltz said it was ‘really confounding’ that Zelensky blew up the meeting and lost an opportunity to work with the American people for the future of his country. 

‘I think that President Zelensky truly did his country a real disservice by not having a positive outcome on Friday and we’ll see where things are going forward,’ he concluded.

During the Oval Office discussion, Zelensky became irritated when Vance discussed how crucial it is to permit President Trump to negotiate with Russia.

‘What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?’ he asked, after listing all of the ways that Putin had broken prior agreements with Ukraine. 

‘I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country. Mr. President,’ Vance replied, before accusing Zelensky of being rude to President Trump by attempting to express his opposition to a peace deal in front of the American media. 

After the controversial Oval Office meeting, Trump told Zelensky to leave, cancelling the scheduled lunch, and a meeting to sign a mineral deal agreement followed by a press conference to celebrate.

‘I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country. Mr. President,’ Vance replied, before accusing Zelensky of being discourteous to President Trump by attempting to express his opposition to a peace deal in front of the American media.

Trump said the Ukrainian president did not seem to be interested in reaching a peace agreement and chastised Zelensky for demeaning the United States while in the White House.

‘He can come back when he is ready for Peace,’ Trump wrote on social media. 

After the catastrophic meeting with Trump, Zelensky made an emergency trip to London where he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European leaders who emphasized their support for Ukraine.

‘The U.K. is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others,’ Starmer said. ‘Europe must do the heavy lifting, but to support peace in our continent and to succeed, this effort must have strong U.S. backing.’ 

But NATO members seemed to be divided following the meeting, while Trump accused the UK-led ‘coalition of the willing’ of being weak for relying on an American backstop for peace.

French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a 30-day end to the fighting – but without any security guarantees for Kyiv.

Britain and other allies gave the plan the cold shoulder, as the UK supports the Ukrainian situation which is that any end to the war must be secured by an agreement which Russia will be too afraid to break.

European leaders were hoping a common policy on Ukraine would materialise following Sunday’s meeting, with reports of the French diplomatic effort emerging. 

None of the leaders who attended the meeting on Sunday offered their support for the plan.  However, no one voiced opposition to it either, out of respect for Macron.

Concerns remain among allies over the number of troops countries can deliver as part of a post-settlement stabilisation force as Trump rejects using the US as a ‘backstop’ to prevent Russia from striking again. 

Trump said following the summit: ‘It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelensky, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US.’

He added in what appeared to be an attack on what he appeared to perceive as a weakness of European leaders: ‘Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?’

Putin’s lapdog appears to be preventing Ukraine from receiving weaponry to help his best friend win the war.

If Trump truly wants peace above all else, why does he feel the necessity to put a ‘mineral resources’ price on it? That’s not looking for peace, it’s trying to screw someone over.

Why should the US keep footing the bill for something they don’t want if Zelensky and the EU want war to continue and the US wants peace?

And let’s face it, Zelensky does want a continuance of the war, he said it himself, ‘The end of the war is very, very far away.’ You wouldn’t say that if you had any interest in negotiating.

The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.

I’m amazed at how many idiots are supporting this war—or any war. What’s the matter with this world?

There seems to be enough of money for war, but not for its people, which is wrong, thus the UK shouldn’t have been involved and that has to end now.

Leak: Phones Listen To Conversations

Although it has long been assumed by millions, a recent leak indicates that our phones are listening to us. A purported presentation deck from one of Facebook’s purported marketing partners describes how the company listens to user interactions to provide customised advertisements.

In a slideshow, Cox Media Group (CMG) claims that its ‘Active-Listening’ software uses AI to collect and study ‘real-time intent data’ by listening to what you say through your phone, laptop or home assistant microphone.

‘Advertisers can pair this voice data with behavioural data to target in-market consumers,’ the deck states. 

The pitch deck goes on to tout Facebook, Google and Amazon as clients of CMG, suggesting they could be using its Active-Listening service to target users.

The pitch deck was leaked to reporters at 404 Media that showcases the abilities of Active-Listening software to prospective customers.

Since the story broke, Google removed the media group from their ‘Partners Program’ website. 

In an email statement to DailyMail.com, a Meta spokesperson said, ‘Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads, and we’ve been public about this for years. We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Metadata.’

Amazon responded to 404 Media by saying that its ads arm ‘has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.’

However, the spokesperson added that the company will take action if one of its marketing partners violates its rules, leaving the status of Amazon’s relationship with CMG somewhat unclear.

The presentation explains the six steps that CMG’s Active-Listening software takes to gather speech data from customers using any gadget that has a microphone, such as a laptop, smartphone, or home assistant.

The presentation does not make it obvious if the Active-Listening software is listening all the time or only when the phone microphone is turned on, such as during a call.

Advertisers then use these insights to target ‘in-market consumers,’ which are people actively thinking about buying a certain product or service. 

If your voice or behavioural data suggests you are contemplating purchasing something, they will serve you advertisements for that item.

For instance, discussing or looking for Toyota vehicles may cause you to see advertisements for their most recent models.

‘Once launched, the technology automatically analyzes your site traffic and customers to fuel audience targeting on an ongoing basis,’ the deck states.

Therefore, this might be the case if you believe that you encounter more advertisements for a certain product after discussing it with a friend or looking it up online.

For years, smart-device users have suspected that their phones or tablets are listening to what they say. But most tech firms have flat-out repudiated these claims.

For example, Meta’s online privacy centre states, ‘We understand that sometimes ads can be so specific, it seems like we must be listening to your conversations through your microphone, but we’re not.’ 

However, this breach is only the most recent in a string of reports that your phone is listening to you and that websites like Facebook could be profiting off your words.

404 Media first announced the presence of CMG’s active listening service in December 2023.

A day later, they exposed a small AI marketing company called MindSift for bragging on a podcast about using smart device speakers to target ads.

Although it may seem incredible, Active Listening is completely legal, CMG claimed in a since-deleted blog post from November 2023.

‘We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal? The short answer is: yes. It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you,’ the post reads.

‘When a new app download or update prompts consumers with multi-page terms of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included.’

This may be the reason why CMG can get away with it in places like California where wiretapping laws forbid recording someone without their consent.

CMG did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment and has not yet responded to similar queries from other news sites, including Futurism and Gizmodo.

CMG is a an American media empire based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company provides broadcast media, digital media, advertising and marketing services, and it yielded $22.1 billion in revenue in 2022.

Throughout the years, I have had conversations with people about fairly specific topics, and even though I may not have previously Googled or searched for them, by the time I check Facebook, an advertisement appears that it deems pertinent and related to the topic I was discussing, making it impossible for them to claim they are not paying attention.

This has to be prohibited right away since it is a flagrant invasion of privacy with a great deal of room for misuse.

Anybody with a brain larger than a walnut is aware that smart devices listen in on conversations.

Smart metres track when you get up and go to bed. Supermarkets monitor what you buy, and banks track more or less every transaction – pretty soon cars will be tracking the places you visit if they don’t already.

More and more facial recognition will be tracking you, and AI will predict where you will be and when, under the disguise of, ‘If you’ve got nothing to hide,’ ‘Or it’s for your protection.’ The future is going to be very bleak indeed.

George Orwell wrote the novel ‘1984’, perhaps this was his instruction manual for us all.

Mixing Ethnic Colleagues’ Names Can Constitute Race Discrimination

According to a tribunal, it constitutes racial discrimination to mix up the names of coworkers from ethnic minorities.

Employment judge Garry Smart said those from minority backgrounds are often ‘confused’ with others from the same heritage, which can make them feel hurt and offended and ‘lumped together as a group’ rather than being treated individually.

Judge Smart added that the ‘adverse inference’ of confusing the names of non-white employees is due to race and can therefore be seen as discriminatory.

His decision was in the case of Abhinav Sharma, an engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, who claimed that his coworker Magdelena Badescu had discriminated against him by calling him by the name of another Indian employee.

Mr Sharma said he looked and sounded ‘very different’ from co-worker Bhuvnesh Bhardwaj – who was of a larger build, wore glasses, had a beard and spoke with a British accent.

The Birmingham tribunal commented that in comparison, Mr Sharma was slimmer, spoke with an ‘obvious Indian accent’, and was clean-shaven or had ‘nothing more than stubble’.

In the engines team, Mr Sharma and Ms Badescu, who is white, were believed to get along well.

However, she called him Bhuv, which was an abbreviated form of Mr Bhardwaj’s initial name, at a team meeting in 2022.

Mr. Sharma submitted his notice and a grievance document in September of that year.

His line manager said Ms Badescu was ‘one of the kindest people he knew’ and would have got the names wrong as an ‘accident’.

But the tribunal found there ‘could be no mistaken identity based on looks and voices’ and concluded the error occurred ‘because of his race’.

The amount of compensation will be determined later.

For goodness sake we have at all one time or another called somebody by another name by accident – these things happen, but most of us have a chuckle about it and move on, but sadly that doesn’t seem possible anymore.

As a mother, I would frequently go through the names of my kids until I got the right one, even the dog! We all laughed a lot about it, and it wasn’t a huge problem.

When I was at school, kids couldn’t pronounce my surname correctly. It annoyed me slightly but it didn’t actually upset me that much, and now I’m old enough to know what a thick skin is.

I will just say that some people are not good at remembering names, but they get there eventually. Sometimes people’s brains wane, so it’s not always deliberate.

Whenever I did the yo-yo-ing with my children’s name I was never criticised for it, nor did they demand recompense, but in this issue it’s about the money, it’s always about the money.

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