Napoleon and Frederick the Great are both credited with the saying ‘an army marches on its stomach’, knowing that troops need adequate nourishment to fight effectively on the battlefield.
However, one of their golden rules for military success appears to have been ignored by British defence chiefs after the number of Army chefs was slashed by almost two-thirds in the last 15 years.
Rather than employing chefs with military training to prepare healthy, wholesome meals for soldiers, the Ministry of Defence now mostly uses commercial contractors to deliver cuisine that many Army members find offensive.
A soldier posted startling images on social media of food served to troops training on a shooting range at Longmoor in Hampshire, calling it ‘the worst I’ve seen in 12 years of service’.
It included a bowl of raw chicken in soup and a meal merely comprising ‘meat water and a potato’.
Another warrant officer said he was ‘appalled’ after getting just a ham and cheese toastie as a meal.
Figures released by the MoD have shown that the number of chefs has plummeted from 2,547 in 2010 to 868 today, a drop of more than 65 percent.
In 2010, the Army comprised some 114,000 full-time personnel. But by last year, this number had dropped to about 75,000.
One former commander said the reduction in the number of Army chefs would ‘seriously damage morale’ and was ‘terribly short-sighted’ of the MoD.
Because they prepared meals for hundreds of soldiers every day in sweltering field kitchens during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army cooks became unsung heroes.
Fresh, hot food prepared by trained chefs was considered essential to morale.
In addition to offering top-brass fine dining, army chefs are highly skilled soldiers who are trained to prepare meals for troops in harsh field kitchens.
With Pay As You Dine, things took a turn for the worse. Contract chefs and cooks, who were chosen based on their lowest offer, took the place of the camp chefs.
The service chefs were then pooled for exercises and operations, before this, they were posted to units that became part of the fabric. They knew who they were cooking for and had rapport with them. All that was lost in a pen stroke, and now this is the outcome.
And all the time migrants are treated with kid gloves and this is how our lads and lasses are looked after – no wonder our youngsters are not interested in a military career anymore.
The migrants would likely be able to provide far nicer cuisine, to be fair. Maybe we ought to hire them? Or perhaps they should serve this rubbish up in Whitehall and Parliament, and see how they like it.
A Labour councillor has provoked anger after he was apparently filmed doing a Nazi salute before shouting that he is a ‘fascist’ during a council meeting.
The bizarre moment occurred when Cllr Alan Gardiner, speaking at a meeting, told a Liberal Democrat member to ‘shut up’.
Then, with background applause and laughter, the Labour politician appears to do the Nazi Sieg Heil gesture.
To make matters even worse Mr Gardiner then recited ‘I’m a fascist’ several times.
He has since apologised saying he was being ironic.
However, the move was described as ‘deeply disturbing’ by councillor Sarita Robinson who spoke to the Express.
She said the Labour Party needed to act ‘clearly and swiftly’ about this after saying they would get ‘serious about tackling antisemitism at every level’.
She added: ‘Hull is a proud and welcoming city and this action does not speak for us.
‘As a Jewish person and minority in the city, it was horrific to see this display of ambient antisemitism.’
Since this, the councillor has now apologised for his comments, saying in a statement: ‘I wholeheartedly apologise for my comments made in the chamber earlier today’.
‘After a heated debate, I made comments in irony which upon reflection I know are highly inappropriate.’
Mr Gardiner was contacted by MailOnline for comment.
This comes after tech billionaire Elon Musk was embroiled in a scandal after claims he seemingly made the same salutation at Trump’s Inauguration.
Following this, he responded to this by posting a string of offensive puns to his X account.
His post made light of the names of Adolf Hitler’s Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess; Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels; Reichstag President Hermann Göring; and Schutzstaffel (SS) Commander Heinrich Himmler.
Conservatives rushed to Musk’s defence after a liberal meltdown over the gesticulation where he put his hand over his heart, then shot his hand out to wave to the crowd in Capital One Arena.
Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weighed in, writing in an X post on Thursday that Musk ‘is being falsely smeared.’
A few weeks later, a former Trump aide was also attacked for doing a similar hand signal at a Conservative convention in the US.
Steve Bannon yelled ‘fight, fight, fight’ before extending his right arm, fingers pointed and palm down, during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) near Washington DC.
This led to the French far-right leader Jordan Bardella cancelling his planned address at the same event and calling Mr Bannon’s action a ‘gesture referring to Nazi ideology’.
Bannon denied the Nazi comparison and called the gesture a ‘wave’, saying it was the ‘exact same wave’ he did on stage at a speech seven years ago in France to Bardella’s party.
‘If he cancelled [the speech] over what the mainstream media said about the speech, he didn’t listen to the speech. If that’s true, he’s unworthy to lead France. He’s a boy, not a man,’ he told the French news magazine Le Point.
These are the sought of people running our country. Our country is under communist rule and comrade Starmer is simply loving the power. He will fall back to earth when he’s ousted – hopefully from a significant height.
It appears every day we get a Labour politician ‘wholeheartedly’ apologising, the fact that they need to apologise demonstrates the calibre of those who are supposed to be representing us.
Notwithstanding their claim to socialism, the present Labour Party is unquestionably crypto-fascist. Without a doubt, it possesses all the characteristics of political authoritarianism, including the propensity to impose limits and bans on our society based on ideology and to tolerate no criticism or debate.
It’s that fantasy world that our friends on the left live in, that’s the reason, and Labour are out of control, but then, when have they ever been in control?
A man reduced to “crying on his knees” after being refused NHS access to weight loss injections has lost nine stone and saved thousands by going private.
Grandfather of two, Mark Spurr, 53, has dropped from 30 stone to 21 stone and shaved eight inches off his waist after starting weekly Mounjaro injections eight months ago.
The security officer had pleaded with his GP in June for NHS treatment upon discovering that he couldn’t fit into the needed stab-proof vest for work at a Leeds immigration centre and struggled to walk from the car park.
With a body-mass index (BMI) score of 57, flying off the chart, he still didn’t meet the NHS criteria, which necessitate a BMI over 35 with at least one weight-related illness for those with “the highest clinical needs”.
Determined to save both his job and his life, Mark turned to Cloud Pharmacy, embarking on private treatment starting from £100 a month.
Now, not only has he shed pounds but he’s also benefited financially – claiming to have kept £2,000 in his pocket by foregoing the £400 monthly spend on snacks and takeaways, all courtesy of the medication that tricks the brain into feeling full.
“Mounjaro’s changed my life and it might have even saved my life,” Mark told PA Real Life. “I couldn’t walk across the car park in June and last weekend, I hiked Whernside mountain in the Yorkshire Dales.
“When I went to the GP, I was basically on my hands and knees crying my eyes out and pleading with them to prescribe it to me, I was in so much pain.
“I might as well have been smashing my head against a brick wall as I was told I didn’t fit the criteria. But they recommended that I take it privately and now I feel fantastic.”
Mark, from Morley, West Yorkshire, started to gain weight when he left school aged 15 and took a job as a joiner for Leeds City Council. Ten years ago, his weight spiralled after the death of his mum Susan Spurr, in her 60s.
“Food was a coping mechanism,” said Mark. He joined a Slimming World group but his weight kept yo-yoing.
On a typical day, he would consume a sausage, spam, and egg sandwich for breakfast, followed by a bacon roll, a pastry, and a coffee. For lunch, he would have a sandwich, pasty, bun, and cake, while for dinner, he would have takeaway fish and chips, with snacks of multipack crisps and chocolate in between.
Things came to a head last year when Mark could no longer fit into the stab-proof vest he was required to wear for work and feared he would lose his job. “I felt depressed, tired all the time but unable to sleep, and full of anxiety like I was struggling in an 85-year-old’s body,” he said.
“I was wearing shorts and T-shirts in winter because I was sweating by the time I’d walked from the car door to the office.
“A report by occupational health said I’d have to lose six stone to do my job safely and I took some time off. I have to thank my work for giving me the opportunity to lose weight.”
Mark said he visited his GP every few months at Robin Lane Health and Wellbeing Centre in Pudsey where he “begged and begged for help but got nowhere whatsoever”.
He added: “I asked if I qualified for a gastric band but there was a two-year waiting list.
“Then I did a blood test for Mounjaro but I didn’t fit the criteria, even when the results showed I was in the lower end of type two diabetes.”
The final straw came during a trip to Crete in June when he could not walk from the hotel to the beach and had to resort to taxis. “When I came home, I said to my dad, ‘That’s it, I don’t care if I can afford it or not, I’m doing it’, and I ordered my first pen,” he said.
Mark immediately began taking weekly Mounjaro injections, starting with a dose of 2.5mg, costing £100 per month. “I was really shocked because it works and it worked virtually within four hours,” he said.
“For somebody in my situation, we get food noise, where you’ll be eating breakfast and you’re already thinking about what’s for dinner, but taking Mounjaro, that food noise just disappeared.”
After a week on the treatment, Mark had lost 9lb and had switched junk food for meal replacement shakes and high-protein meals like chicken and rice and egg salad. He is now losing a steady 2lb to 3lb per week, is approaching his ideal weight of 16 stone, and has resumed mountain biking with his son Joshua, 28.
He’s also enjoying more walks with his 54-year-old partner and playful times in the park with his six-year-old granddaughter Hailey. “So far, I’ve gone from a 6XL to a 3XL – now the goal is to be able to nip into Primark rather than travelling to specialist clothes shops for plus sizes,” he said.
Mark has upped his amount of Mounjaro, which now costs him £150 a month, and he notes that the price will increase to £180 at the end of the treatment. “It may not seem like a lot but as a civil servant on minimum wage for my level, I thought I couldn’t afford it,” Mark said.
“But once the effects kicked in and I was eating less, I realised I’m actually saving £250 per month.”
The doting grandfather, who also has a one-year-old grandson named Arthur, thinks the medication’s benefits overshadow its side effects, which have included constipation and diarrhoea. “If that’s what I have to do to prolong my life and stay healthy, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make,” he said.
“People say it’s not a quick fix and it’s not – I am putting in the hard work at the gym three to four times per week – but the medication controls my appetite.
“Rather than food being my life, I now eat to live rather than live to eat.”
Mark’s weight loss journey is being chronicled on his TikTok account, Mark on Fitness @spurry05tiktok, where he has accumulated 3,500 followers and his videos have garnered up to 80,000 views.
Since weight reduction injections are just for diabetics, many people who sought them out from their doctor were flatly denied access.
Those who can afford it pay for it themselves, while those who cannot afford it suffer in silence and do not receive the injection.
In the long run, administering injections would undoubtedly save the NHS a significant amount of money.
The cause of a person’s weight growth is unknown. Medication, decreased mobility, genetic sickness, etc., could all be contributing factors. It has nothing to do with not taking care of oneself. It’s about receiving the necessary support, and those who are overweight aren’t receiving any.
Why not aid those who are overweight? The NHS helps those who smoke and those who are addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where our food supply is endless. Go to the supermarket and there it is in abundance, and foods that are high in refined carbohydrates, sugar, or fat can make you feel more hungry more often.
The purpose of these foods is to trick your brain into believing that you need or desire more food.
Like alcohol, food is addictive, although it’s not entirely as black and white as that, but well done to this man. What an outstanding accomplishment which has probably saved his life.
Food addiction is no different to alcohol, drugs, smoking, shopping, gambling and even sex addiction, it’s all the same substance and all are classed like any other illness and should be covered by the NHS for help and support, and it should be helped with prevention medication as any other illness.
Before passing judgment on others, those who think that being overweight is a self-inflicted condition should examine themselves.
What about individuals who train out at the gym or go running so much that they develop an addiction to it and subsequently have an injury that requires a fractured bone, a knee replacement or both?
Shall we tell all those people that it was self-inflicted because they were addicted to exercise? Where does this argument end? The fact is, none of us are perfect and we all have things that we are addicted to, whatever it might be.
Police probe new theory on Hollywood star Gene Hackman’s last moments after he and his wife Betsy Arakawa were discovered dead in their New Mexico home.
The couple, who had been married since 1991, were discovered dead in separate bedrooms as well as one of their dogs in their Santa Fe home.
Police originally said that no foul play was suspected and that two dogs survived the threefold tragedy. Still, a search warrant has since ruled their deaths as ‘suspicious’ enough to investigate further.
Although the actor’s daughter had previously speculated that carbon monoxide might have killed them, the document also said that there were “no signs of a gas leak.”
The deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa remain an ‘open investigation’ following an autopsy, police have said.
The County Sheriff’s statement said: ‘In the early hours of Thursday, February 27, 2025, Hackman and Arakawa were transported to the Office of the Medical Investigator.
‘An autopsy was performed. Initial findings noted no external trauma to either individual. Carbon monoxide and toxicology tests were requested for both individuals.
It appears that the couple were dead for a long time, to the point their bodies had become mummified. At this point, we don’t know what occurred and it would be inadvisable to rule out foul play.
Gene Hackman and his wife’s untimely deaths are particularly tragic.
Another amazing actor is gone – there are not many replacements. He was always a fantastic character, and if he was in a film you knew it would be worth seeing.
We have no idea how either of them perished. It is best to leave their family alone as they have only just begun the grieving process. Regretfully, they passed away; Gene Hackman will always be remembered for his outstanding work.
Regardless of what happened, hopefully, it was peaceful and painless.
The fact that no one came to see how they were doing does seem odd. The fact that people are alone even in families that already exist is so tragic, but in today’s world, very common.
Sadly, they both lost their lives, however, falling asleep and never waking up again is a pretty good way to go out.
One of Britain’s strictest headteachers has blasted ‘gentle’ middle-class parenting tactics for eroding traditional child-rearing methods and destroying working-class families.
Katharine Birbalsingh, who co-founded and leads the Michaela Community School in Brent, north London, said that parents should embrace being authority figures and stop giving their children choices in food and clothes.
Speaking in The Times, Ms Birbalsingh said it was impossible to find traditional parenting books that gave parents permission to tell their children what to do and teach them right from wrong.
Instead, modern methods focused on ‘understanding the child’ and ‘communicating with their needs’, rather than how to ‘teach them right from wrong’.
During her harsh criticism, the prominent headteacher, who did not reveal whether she was a parent, also criticised those who did not teach their children to read and count.
‘The culture and the language that’s being used means parents feel that they’re not in a position of authority over their child,’ the 52-year-old said.
‘The stuff you’ll get nowadays will be much more along the lines of gentle parenting, being friends with your children, not holding them to account. It will be written from the point of view allowing them to choose to lead their own feeding.’
The headteacher has made headlines for her controversial opinions on ‘woke culture’ in schools – such as suggesting that some people from the most impoverished families should set their sights lower.
When discussing parenting books from decades ago, Ms Birbalsingh said parents were given more agency and more of an understanding of ‘having dominion’ over their child.
But modern parents had ‘been infantilised’, she claimed, and were now not able to ‘take ownership of their own child’.
Ms Birbalsingh said middle-class parents ‘might get away’ with this ‘gentle parenting’, but believed this was not the case for ‘families that are under financial pressure, social pressure and don’t have two parents in the home’.
‘And the culture that is created by this literature, written by middle-class people—they don’t realise the absolute destruction that it causes for the working-class family,’ she said.
Ms Birbalsingh often comments on social media about parenting and posts videos she deems wholesome, especially those relating to fathers and daughters.
She also added that fathers have a big influence by being stricter than mothers but are also more fun and adventurous. However, she suggested that either parent could take that role.
Ms Birbalsingh said she was regularly told by parents that it was the ‘teacher’s job’ to deal with their child’s social media use, a position she described as ‘mad’.
When defining the perfect parenting culture, the teacher described ‘one of learning all the time in the household’.
In January, Ms Birbalsingh accused Labour’s Education Secretary of showing ‘her Marxist outlook in every decision’.
Speaking on the Planet Normal podcast, the outspoken teacher said Bridget Phillipson has Marxism ‘coursing through her veins’ as she hit out at government education policy.
A new bill under review by Parliament would ensure all state schools had the same pay scales, followed the national curriculum, employed only skilled or qualifying teachers and limited uniforms to three branded items.
Speaking to the Planet Normal podcast, Ms Birbalsingh said: ‘I do see a sense of Marxism that is coursing through the veins of the [new education] bill.
‘Bridget Phillipson is looking at this in a manner that is just not very informed. You see her Marxist outlook in every decision that she’s making.
‘Social mobility is not something that you can just place upon children, you need to inspire them to take ownership of their own lives and jump over the obstacles that are in front of them.
‘They need to feel like they belong to their school and wear their uniform. They need to work hard to get grades at GCSE that will compete with the boys at Eton.
‘They need to own their lives and push themselves forward. It’s about self-empowerment, it is not about holding your hand out to the state and saying: ‘Please give me more.’
You seldom get to have a perfect child that’s just born good, kind and intelligent. Our job as parents is to infuse those characteristics in them to secure them a more promising future, not just for them, but for the family they too will create in the future.
Most children of my generation in the 1960s and before knew their numbers, alphabet, nursery rhymes and how to use a knife and fork before they started infant school. Nowadays it’s like babies are starting school, literally babies with some still in nappies. It’s not the teacher’s job to do everything – parents need to take some responsibility.
The problem is that now, for a lot of children, English is not their first language, and there lies a lot of the problem. That is our children’s downfall and immigration is impacting our children at school as well.
The pivotal word here is ‘authority.’ This does not mean a reign of terror, but guidance sometimes in the smallest measures. Like brushing teeth before bed, no matter how exhausted. Small steps, but with the general message, there is someone who can tell right from wrong.
Children might feel like life is problematic, but they need someone to turn to and guide them because parents who let their children discuss and decide all the time have given up their leadership, leaving their children to get lost.
Of course, some children will reign terror once they become teenagers but hopefully, those little embers parents installed into their children when they were younger might survive and turn into good ones later on in life.
An experienced primary school teacher was sacked after one of her students did not understand that a threat to ‘whack’ him round the head was a joke.
Baiklautchmee Subrian took Gilbert Colvin Primary School in Ilford, east London, to an employment tribunal after she was dismissed for making the comment to a small class of Year 6 pupils.
Whilst preparing the children for their maths SAT exam, she made the comment after one of the children asked her what would happen to them if they didn’t hold their papers in place during their tests.
Ms Subrian, who has been teaching for 35 years, was said to have replied she would ‘whack’ them and gestured with her hand.
The teacher claimed that her comment ‘had been made in jest’ and almost all the children in the class had understood that it was not meant to be malicious.
But the hearing was told the student, who spoke English as a second language, felt threatened, upset and angry over the incident and reported it to another teacher.
Ms Subrian was requested to meet with the school’s head the day after the comment was made, and she was informed that an investigation would be conducted.
A disciplinary hearing took place in July 2023 where Subrian claimed that because the child who made the complaint had continued to attend her after-school club they were not really that upset, but the teacher was sent a letter of dismissal later that month.
The school explained that even if she had ‘intended the comment as a joke’ to the student because he did not have English as a first language he ‘could not be expected to understand that’.
It added the student had felt threatened by the teacher and the comment amounted to gross misconduct.
Ms Subrian criticised the investigation conducted by the school for ‘lacking integrity and said the punishment was too severe.
But Judge Jack Feeny rejected her claim of unfair dismissal at the hearing in east London.
In his closing comments, the judge said: ‘I do not consider whether or not the comment was intended as a joke to be particularly important. It was plainly an inappropriate thing to say.
‘The accompanying hand gesture compounded matters, particularly where at least some of the children did not have English as a first language.
‘A teacher may get away with a comment in these circumstances if all children receive it as a light-hearted comment and laugh along. It is common ground that this was not what happened here. The risk of making such a joke is that if even only one child is upset by it, it must amount to a significant safeguarding issue.’
In the classroom, a lot of teachers probably crack jokes. It makes their days easier, and I’m sure a lot of pupils, many of whom don’t speak English as their first language, take it all in stride.
The idea that a teacher could be dismissed for serious misconduct due to a single student’s miscommunication is horrifying and should deter anyone thinking about pursuing a career in teaching.
It was a joke, but most of us have lost our sense of humour. Perhaps some of us should be learning how to get a life.
In years past, teachers were allowed to strike hands with rulers when children were misbehaving. In areas like Asia parents cane their kids. If you don’t punish them when they are young, don’t regret what they do when they are older!
Portraits of Winston Churchill and other well-known British Prime Ministers have been taken down from the walls of Parliament following Labour’s 2024 election victory.
After winning 412 seats in the House of Commons, Sir Keir Starmer and Labour returned to government for the first time in 14 years in July 2024 following the general election.
Although Starmer had pledged to make numerous changes if elected, The Telegraph has disclosed that rearranging the decorations in Parliament was reportedly one of the first items on the Labour agenda.
Just days after Starmer’s July 4 election victory, five portraits of William Gladstone, the four-time Conservative Prime Minister, were taken down from Parliament’s walls, along with five photographs of former Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.
And a few days later the new Government removed portraits of the Duke of Wellington among a host of other well-known British figures, before taking down ‘drawings, prints and photographs of Winston Churchill.’
Five images of the former Prime Minister were pulled down from the parliamentary estate including one photo from Portcullis House, Parliament’s main office building, showing Churchill standing at the Cenotaph in 1945, according to the Telegraph.
Any new Government has a pick of the Parliamentary Art Collection, which has more than 26,000 portraits, drawings and pictures from which the buildings can be decorated.
Following news of Labour’s re-decoration, a spokesman for UK Parliament told The Telegraph: ‘There are more than 26,000 items within Parliament’s Collections, and there are regular movements, for example, due to maintenance works in an area, changes to the occupancy of spaces and conservation needs.’
The collection underwent an audit following 2020’s Black Lives Matter movement, and it is believed that many of the photos removed were selected because of their ties to Britain’s colonial history.
The portraits of Charles I, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Lord Salisbury, and poet John Milton were also taken down.
It was reported by MailOnline in 2023 that almost 200 artworks had gone missing from the enormous parliamentary collection.
Among the items missing were paintings, drawings, pictures from a century ago, and even a life-size sculpture.
It was not made clear whether any of the pieces were stolen, but a Freedom of Information request from Mail Online revealed that 199 pieces could not be located.
An 1801 portrait of William Pitt the Younger, a 19th-century sketch of William Gladstone and a six-foot-high sculpture of Queen Victoria were among the pictures missing.
At the time, a spokesperson for the House of Commons said: ‘Parliament is continuing to address collection objects historically identified as missing or not located through ongoing audits and regular reviews across the estate.
‘The number of objects catalogued as missing or not located is only true at the time of request and may differ over time.
‘Parliament has an ongoing programme to address the matter, through comprehensive and regular audits, recently resulting in a 5 per cent reduction in objects identified as missing since 2021.’
It appears that our Labour government does not want to be reminded of the importance of having a strong backbone and prioritising our nation and its people.
I do hope that these heirlooms have been carefully packed away because they will be back soon when Starmer’s lot has failed us. Having a great man like Churchill looking down on the weak effects of Starmer evidently intimidated him and his comrades.
It seems like Starmer has an inferiority complex and he could never stand in the same boots as Churchill. If there was a war, Starmer would be standing there waving a white flag.
Perhaps they’re endeavouring to reinvent history, and in the end, ‘Lest We Forget’ will be a thing of the past, and removing the portraits of Sir Winston Churchill is offending his memory and legacy, and the courageous people who gave their lives for their country and future generations.
The Met Police employed more than 1,000 officers without checking their references before they started on the force.
The new recruits are said to have been employed after the 2021 rape, kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, an officer in the Metropolitan Police’s elite parliamentary and diplomatic protection squad.
It comes despite a promise from Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, to root out rotten officers following the major scandal that dropped Britain’s jaw.
Despite official guidance from the College of Policing, Clare Davies, the Met’s human resources chief, decided in early 2020 to waive reference checks or seek them retrospectively.
She was subsequently promoted by Rowley and is now paid more than £235,000 a year.
Before being employed, the recruits would have been vetted to check for red flags, such as prior convictions or family connections to criminality.
Official guidelines also required forces to obtain character references from previous employers or educational institutions going back three years.
According to police sources, references were frequently never followed up on, even though some were acquired after a new hire joined the Met.
‘Once they were in, that was it; the reference checks were swept under the carpet,’ one official said.
It came at a time when Boris Johnson’s government wanted forces across the nation to recruit 20,000 additional officers over three years.
The Met was under pressure to employ more than 4,500 new recruits, but only managed to sign up 3,468.
Couzens, the discredited former officer, now 54, had been able to go on undetected at the Met for years due to failures in vetting that didn’t flag he had a history of sexual offending dating back to as far as 2015.
A separate review into the Met’s culture and norms by Baroness Casey in 2023 described the force as institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.
There were more monsters in the Metropolitan police besides Couzens.
Reprobate rapist Cliff Mitchell, an ex-Met police officer, carried out more than 50 sex attacks against two female victims – one of them a child – between 2014 and 2023.
He was found guilty of 10 counts of rape, three counts of rape of a child under 13, one count of kidnap and breach of a non-molestation order.
The 24-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum term of 13 years and 225 days at Croydon Crown Court in May 2024.
David Carrick, 49, is currently serving a life sentence after he was convicted of 85 offences, including 48 rapes against a dozen women.
He was a Met officer for 20 years until his detention in 2021. Yet from 2009 he served in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Unit, which requires one of the highest security clearances for a police officer.
According to Met Commissioner Sir Rowley, a plan is in place to guarantee vetting evaluations of active officers who might have been charged with sexual misconduct or exhibiting other negative patterns of behaviour.
The High Court, however, decided earlier this month that it was illegal to fire Lino Di Maria, a sergeant whose warrant card was revoked after he failed vetting.
Mr. Di Maria denies all of the charges against him, including rape, sexual assault, indecent exposure, and domestic abuse.
Sir Rowley described the ruling as leaving policing in ‘a hopeless position’.
He said: ‘We now have no mechanism to rid the Met of officers who are not fit to hold vetting [clearance] — those who cannot be trusted to work with women or enter the homes of vulnerable people. It is absurd that we cannot lawfully sack them.’
In response to the failure of satisfactory reference checks, he added: ‘Londoners rightly expect the highest standards from our officers and staff, and we’ve overhauled our vetting and professional standards processes as part of our ‘New Met for London’ plan.
‘We are continuing to strengthen our approach, taking account of learning from inquiries by Baroness Casey and Dame Elish Angiolini. We have recruited extra vetting officers, introduced a new force policy and decision-making framework, and invested in new technology to make sure only those with the highest standards serve in the Met.’
Over thirty years ago, vetting was a significant part of the process and rightly so. It just goes to show how frantic they are to keep police numbers up at the risk and safety of the public. All references, vetting, credit checks, full employment history et cetera should be completed even before they progress onto the next phase, and reviews should be done at least every five years if not more frequently.
The police should be recruiting the best people to be police officers. They should not be selecting diverse, obese, small people and box tickers. We need the best possible people to protect us and to keep the streets safe.
Each day just keeps on giving me more affirmation that nothing is right with this country especially when references are not being checked for those who are supposed to uphold the law.
Yes! Politicians don’t care, managers don’t manage, councillors don’t council, and police don’t police.
There should also be compulsory drug testing and any prohibited substances in their system, they are sacked and lose their pension – that might prevent them passing around the crack pipe in cabinet meetings.
This is gross negligence and ineptitude. It’s no surprise police forces are in such a state. They’re being led by high-ranking officers promoted way above their pay scale and ability.
Standards have declined over the years. The Lemming police force has dropped off a cliff, and the public has been robbed of their hard-earned taxpaying money.
It appears that the Met do as they please until they are exposed, at which point they either cover it up or provide a pathetic apology and just continue. They appear to be under protection, but from whom?
A partly severed hand belonging to a 12-year-old boy was dropped from the sky by a bird into a primary school playground, police believe.
The horrifying finding was made on Friday outside Our Lady Immaculate School in Darndale, north Dublin.
Officers think the body part was blown off during Thursday night’s neighbourhood children’s play with a gas canister.
It is then believed to have been picked up by a bird. Irish station RTE said that the school was closed when it was discovered.
When the badly injured hand was found early Friday afternoon, there were suspicions that it belonged to a murder victim.
Some of the remains of slain gangland victim Keane Mulready Wood were found near the location in 2020.
Police are confident the remains belonged to the child, who presented at the hospital with a partly severed hand.
The remains are expected to undergo DNA testing to confirm their identity. The state pathologist has also been notified.
The majority of the child’s hand was missing when he arrived at Mater Hospital after the incident.
His injuries are not thought to be life-threatening according to the Irish Times.
According to the officers, the boy’s hand fragments were later picked up by a bird and dropped over the school grounds on Friday morning.
The school was on mid-term break and no children were present at the time.
A police spokesperson said: ‘Gardaí were alerted to the discovery of partial human remains at a premises in Darndale, Dublin 17 this afternoon, Friday 21st February 2025,’ the Garda said in a statement.
‘A scene is currently being held and the State Pathologist has been notified, in line with standard practice.
‘The remains will be removed for examination and DNA analysis, which will assist gardaí in confirming the identity and determine the course of the investigation.’
Just when you think you have read everything, you read that a poor child lost their hand – what an ordeal they must have lived through, and which will impact the remainder of their life.
And what a thoughtful bird, dropping it back at the primary school – extremely handy if you ask me.
Unless he had learning disabilities, this child would have understood that gas canisters are potentially harmful and can explode, but he presumably thought it would be a laugh – he’s not laughing now, and clearly, he thought it was worth taking the risk because when you are that young you don’t think about the inevitability of dying or being maimed – your perspective is a scratch and a plaster.
Many people have undoubtedly constructed a variety of explosives without considering the risks because they thought they knew what they were doing. I’m certain there were a few singed eyebrows and with good fortune and detailed management they didn’t suffer any severe injuries, but I’m sure that now with hindsight, I don’t suppose they were that careful at all.
I know that they have the technology, but is DNA testing essential? I mean, how many youngsters would have recently lost a hand? It’s not rocket science, and it was said that the hand was partially severed. If the bird had it whilst the owner of the hand was in the hospital, it was indeed severed – partially suggests it was hanging off.
All that I can envision now is this young lad being carried off by the bird by his hand. I do wonder how long this poor lad will have to wait for his hand to be returned to him. The hand would not be possible now to reattach by surgery because unless the bird had some ice to keep the hand fresh, then it would not be able to be reattached – we could always call it a cold case!
Peter Kay ‘promised not to kick out’ any audience members from his Birmingham gig last night after his last performance was disrupted by three hecklers.
The comedian, 51, had come fire following his Manchester gig earlier this month after ordering one audience member to be removed for continually yelling ‘garlic bread’.
Warehouse driver Philip Peters, 54, and his son, 26, claimed they were treated ‘like terrorists’ by security staff after others claimed they had been ‘spoiling the show’.
Seconds later, Myar Curran, 25, was also removed from the audience after shouting, ‘We love you, Peter.’
As she was being escorted down the stairs Mr Kay made a jibe about the women’s weight and shouted ‘Go on, off you go Lisa Riley’, in reference to the Emmerdale actress.
Miss Curran subsequently branded Mr Kay a ‘bully’ while Mr Peters called for an apology from the comic after claiming he had been treated like a ‘rag doll’ when his only crime was saying ‘garlic bread’.
Responding to the hecklers, however, Mr Kay, who is making a jubilant return to stage after a five-year break said: ‘There comes a point when dealing with repeated hecklers simply isn’t enough. It’s not something you ever want to do but it becomes a point when it’s no longer fair to everyone around.’
Last night, however, Mr Kay promised to turn over a new leaf, making light of the situation and pledging not to remove anyone from the crowd.
Speaking at the Birmingham NEC, the comic told the crowd: ‘Good evening, how are you? Can I just say thank you very, very much for coming tonight? I really do appreciate it. Thank you.
‘Some of you have been waiting years for this and I hope you enjoy it, I really do.
‘So I promise I won’t throw anyone out. I hope you have a good time. Well unless you f***ing start – I’m only kidding.’
Later on, while a microphone was passed around the arena to those audience members who wanted to get involved, Peter made reference to the comparison he made in Manchester to one woman who looked like Lisa Riley.
Speaking to a woman who had been to his show four times already, Mr Kay quips: ‘You’re kidding? Thank god you don’t look like Lisa Riley.’
Despite Mr Kay’s good humour about his heckler-ridden Manchester show, there was an increased security presence at the Birmingham arena.
Security guards spent the show walking up and down the aisles looking for any indications of trouble – and were quick to flash their torches at audience members who dared to get their phones out.
And in a sure sign not to get booted out of the show, audience members remained compliant with no heckles being made, only speaking when Mr Kay asked for audience participation.
Numerous fans in the audience have been waiting for years to see the much-loved comic live after he abruptly vanished from public life in 2017.
He had intended to continue touring in 2020 but it was delayed due to the pandemic.
The mammoth Better Late Than Never tour has helped put Mr Kay at the top of the 2024 rich after his residency tour at the O2 in London helped bring in an outstanding revenue of £27 million.
Since kicking off the tour in December there had been no reported bumps in the road, until his Manchester gig on February 8 when he had to remove three hecklers from the crowd.
Mr Peters and his son were abruptly ousted from the arena and he has since claimed he was treated ‘like a terrorist’ by security staff when his only crime was ‘shouting garlic bread’.
While some other attendees slammed Mr Peters, claiming he was ruining it for others, he hit back telling MailOnline: ‘I just can’t understand it, all I said was garlic bread’.
His shout-out was first said to have been well received by Mr Kay, whose cameramen panned the driver’s face out to the audience after zooming in.
But by the second half of the show, Mr Kay had lost his patience, quickly ordering the lights to be turned on and for the heckler, as well as his son, to be led out of the building.
Mr Peters, whose tickets were bought for him by his 17-year-old daughter for Christmas, said he was left ‘disgusted’ by how he was treated and is now demanding an apology from the comic.
He told MailOnline: ‘It was me who shouted out ‘garlic bread’. I was there with my son and they dragged us out like rag dolls and I am now covered in bruises. A lot of people just stood up and walked out when they saw how we were dragged out.
‘In the first half of the show, I shouted out ‘garlic bread’ and they zoomed in on the camera on me. And I put my thumbs up and thought everything was okay. I got no warning or anything, people around us were laughing and joking.
‘Then in the second half of the show, I said it again, “garlic bread”, and that’s when the security guards came over to me and said, “You are going to have to leave – Peter Kay doesn’t like people shouting out”.
‘I said are you joking as I thought they were going to warn me off but they stood me up, brought me to the stairs, which were dead steep.
‘I have massive bruises in my leg. I haven’t been able to walk properly at work today. My arms are all covered in bruises.’
He also claims that the comedian shouted ‘You’re not laughing now’ as they were paraded down the stairs.
Meanwhile, Miss Curran said she was left ‘humiliated’ by Mr Kay when she was likened to the Emmerdale actress Lisa Riley.
‘I didn’t mean to cause any harm, I was just showing my love as he kicked someone out but he obviously didn’t like it,’ she told Good Morning Britain.
‘I feel like what I said was not abusive or aggressive – it wasn’t anti-social and I wasn’t drunk,’ she added.
‘I was just standing up chanting “we love you, Peter, we do”. It’s just been a bit over the top, his reaction.’
Miss Curran, a care worker, said she was left in tears by the crowd’s reaction at the 23,000-capacity venue and had a ‘cry about it’ when she got back to her hotel room.
‘I do feel he was on about my weight,’ the mother-of-one said.
‘I know Lisa Riley has lost a lot of weight and looks great but she used to be a bit bigger.
‘I didn’t used to be this big, I have put a bit of weight on, I’ve had a child.’
Despite the heckler’s calls for an apology from Manchester AO Arena staff and Mr Kay, the comic doubled down on his reason to evict the trio.
He said in a post on Instagram: ‘At the show on Saturday night, February 8th, in Manchester, I had two hecklers disrupting from the very start’ he said in the statement posted on Instagram.
‘I did my best to address the situation and made light of it, as any comedian would, but unfortunately, their interruptions continued.
‘I then tried to ignore them, hoping they’d settle down, but when the disruption persisted into the second half of the show, I asked the audience around them if they were being bothered by the noise.’
Tickets to the comic’s gig cost an average of £59.70 in comparison to Michael’s £43.35 tickets.
Mr Kay announced 21 new dates in November 2024, kicking off in February 2025 and will finish his performance in February 2026.
Pete Kay Live initially kicked off in December 2022 and the new dates will see him visit 16 cities over the course of a year.
The new tour which will run in 2025 and 2026 will include his first dates at Aberdeen P&J Live, Brighton Centre, Bournemouth International Centre and Isle of Man Villa Marina.
Mr Kay has already broken records during the tour after selling out 45 dates at London’s O2 Arena, the only artist to do so in the world.
The funnyman also performed a record 100 shows at the Manchester AO Arena – breaking all attendance and performance records.
I don’t believe that Peter Kay called the lady ‘Lisa Riley’ because of her weight – she really does look very much like Lisa Riley.
Something can be funny when said one, but when it’s said repeatedly it’s attention seeking and the object of the audience was to come and see Peter Kay, not listen to someone else. After all, comics are on stage, not the audience.
Well, it looks like it’s Peter Kay’s turn to be thrown under the bus by the gutter press – who’s next?
I’m happy the majority are in full support of Peter Kay. All those years out of the spotlight and then he makes a come back and people try to give him bad press.
If that jibe had been at me, I would have just said, ‘Was that a compliment?’ And perhaps he should do a performance where he interacts with his audience more!
The audience being berated by a comedian – now that something new, not. Or is it wokey’s not being able to take a joke these days?
The number of stories that will now circulate about a couple of loudmouths being removed from a live performance is just astounding. There are countless ways to repackage it, but none of them are particularly intriguing.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 