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.

‘Appalling’ Food Served To Troops As Army Chefs Are Axed

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.

Labour Councillor Gives Nazi Salute Before Shouting He’s Fascist

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?

The NHS Refused To Cover Weight Loss Injections

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 Gene Hackman’s Final Moments

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.

Britain’s Strictest Headteachers

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.

After 35 Years Of Teaching, A Teacher Is Sacked

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!

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