Donald Trump was at a town hall, which was full of odd moments when he told a joke about him getting shot to a couple whose son had died at war in Afghanistan.
After the former president was twice stopped by medical issues in the room, the conversation with South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem in Oaks, Pennsylvania, morphed into an unplanned performance.
At one point, Noem introduced Mary and Charles Strange, a Gold Star family whose son Michael was killed while serving in Afghanistan in 2011.
Trump and Noem encouraged the Strange family to come up on stage, but Trump then cracked a joke about getting up to meet them.
‘It’s a little harder to get up since I got shot. It made it more difficult. Perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to be,’ he said.
Noem forced a chuckle before reintroducing the Strange family: ‘They lost their son, Michael. Come on up here.’
Both Trump and the family moved past it, with Charles Strange asking the president to launch a Congressional investigation into his son’s death.
‘My son was killed August 6, 2011, with 29 other men. It was the biggest loss of life in the Iraq and Afghan war,’ Strange said.
’22 of them men were Navy Special Warfare. Til this day, we still haven’t gotten any answers. I was wondering, I’m begging you, we would like a congressional hearing.’
Trump replied, ‘So here’s what we’re going to do.
‘In the first week—not the first day because I made a lot of promises in the first day, we’re gonna drill baby drill, we’re gonna close up the border, we’re gonna do a lot in the first day. In the first week, we will set up a commission.’
Upon his election, he invited Charles and Mary Strange to visit him, completing his plan.
‘We’re gonna find out because so many people are in your same position. They want to know what happened, why did it happened to their son or daughter, and we’re gonna do that in the first week. So you get ready to come over to the White House, okay?’
The event on Monday evening was billed as a ‘town hall’ and a chance for Trump to answer questions on the economy from voters who could decide the outcome of the whole election.
Naturally, Donald Trump always makes it about himself! Because he’s an egotistical buffoon and should not be cracking jokes because he is the joke, but Trump will decline quickly because he has zero morals and integrity.
Vote for a rational president, America, please, not a relic from the past!
Donald Trump is all words and no action; therefore, if he wins the presidency again, it will be no assistance to the American people. As president, his primary responsibility will be to serve himself and the other billionaires.
Donald Trump talks faster than he thinks, but then empty vessels make the most noise, and idolising a politician is like believing a stripper will love you.
The expenses of servicing the UK’s £2.7 trillion debt pile are rising, and Rachel Reeves has been advised that she is “walking a tightrope” in the impending budget.
Following a stormy beginning to Labour’s term in office, the Chancellor is gearing up to present a significant first fiscal package on October 30.
However, because of market anxiety over Ms Reeves’ potential to scrap borrowing regulations, interest rates on UK government bonds have been rising recently.
Bank of England liabilities and other debt could be reclassified to give ministers another £30 billion of headroom—or perhaps even more—for infrastructure projects.
The yield on 10-year gilts is now running at around 4.2 percent, up from as low as 3.7 percent in mid-September, reflecting higher risk to the public finances and concerns about ‘sticky’ inflation.
Mark Dowding, chief investment officer at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, told the Financial Times: ‘Financial markets won’t afford much room for additional borrowing.
‘Rachel Reeves needs to walk a tightrope; otherwise, the gilt market will limit her ability to deliver much of Labour’s agenda.’
Ms Reeves is scrambling to find ways to raise revenue to help fill a claimed £22 billion hole in the books and fund Labour’s policy commitments.
There had been conjecture that the Chancellor would reduce the pension contribution relief granted to those whose earnings exceeded the higher rate.
But that prospect has apparently been dropped amid fears that it would cause chaos in the civil service and NHS – where pensions are far more generous.
There are also allegations that the administration may not be able to reap the full benefits of several of the Labour Party’s main objectives.
This may put more pressure on Ms. Reeves to bolster her finances by enforcing stricter inheritance taxes, which would include drawing down pension funds.
According to Savanta study, almost 75% of businesses anticipate an increase in their workload, and 2/3 are concerned that this would negatively impact their capacity to function.
In an early sign of how extra borrowing will be spent, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh effectively confirmed that HS2 will run to Euston.
Ms Haigh slipped out the news as she insisted it would not ‘make sense’ to end the rail link at Old Oak Common in the London suburbs.
The multi-billion dollar renovation of Euston to make it an HS2 hub has caused anxiety.
Reeves is completely out of her depth, along with the rest of the Labour cabinet. You can’t keep borrowing because at some point it needs to be paid back. Ten years from now or even sooner there will not be enough tax receipts to pay the public sector pensions which are out of control and state pensions, then what are they going to do then?
Senior citizens are already seen by our administration as a drain on society. How is Labour going to respond? Declare mandatory euthanasia for seniors above 70 years of age in order to save money and free up homes.
Maybe the super-wealthy might band together to cover the pensioner’s winter fuel costs? However, there’s very little likelihood of that occurring because they would vanish into thin air.
Mind you, I doubt that Labour will even be here because I doubt they will last for the duration. They will eventually implode to the point where they will be unable to govern, and some might say that’s happening already.
Unfortunately, each candidate that wins the election is passed on an empty pot from the previous government. It’s a bit like having to take on someone else’s debt that they have no way of paying back, so they have to borrow and borrow and borrow, and then they hike taxes up from the peasants or just leaves them with nothing.
The first salvo of the ‘pylon wars’ was fired today by villagers furious at being in the path of a massive new power line that will stretch hundreds of miles down England’s east coast.
Officials want to install a vast new network of overhead lines snaking from the port town of Grimsby down to Tilbury in Essex as part of a plan dubbed ‘The Great Grid Upgrade’.
The proposals are being opposed by the Lincolnshire County Council along with its counterparts in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex; nevertheless, labour is in favour of the construction of more pylons to link to offshore wind farms, with Sir Keir Starmer as a supporter.
Villagers whose beloved local landscapes are set to be despoiled told MailOnline they felt ‘absolutely devastated’ and are already fighting back.
Broad’s Green in Essex, which is sandwiched between the idyllic villages of Little Waltham and Great Waltham, is one of the places that will eventually be covered by pylons.
Across the area, people have pinned protest signs to garden gates and fences, with some reading, ‘180 km of giant pylons. Say No!’
The landlord of The Walnut Tree in Broad’s Green, 81-year-old Peter Stokes, said of the pylons, ‘I do not want them. One, it’s going to spoil the countryside. They’ve got alternatives that are less destructive. They may cost a little bit more [the alternatives] but at the end of the day, people have got to live.
‘They do not want to be looking out of the window and see bloody great pylons.
‘People are buying these houses because it’s in the countryside and there was nothing spoiling the view. Now you are going to get a lot of pylons with the electric magnetic field that comes with it and that’s going to spread across the area here.
‘The value of properties has been going down. There’s a new house up for sale down the lane here and it’s been on the market five times and each time it’s been reaching closure, the sale has fallen through. People do their searches and find out about the pylons.’
At his speech at the Labour conference last month, Sir Keir described the construction of pylons near homes as one of the ‘hard choices’ that his government would have to take.
He later described underground power lines as too expensive and said: ‘If you want lower energy bills, we’re going to have to have pylons above the ground.’
But Lisa Lawrence, 29, and her partner Oliver Booker, 35, who began renting their semi-detached house in Great Waltham two months ago, are opposed to the plans.
Ms Lawrence, a nurse, said of the pylons, ‘I’m not a big fan. With the traditional look of the houses here, to have to drive along and see these pylons will take away from the heritage and look of the village.
‘Once they put the pylons up, you won’t be able to go back.’
Oliver, a marketing manager, said, ‘It would be better without the pylons. Surely there’s the technology to do it differently. They’re going to look horrendous.
‘It will take away from the awesome British old-school village that it is.’
In Great Waltham, contemporary and Victorian cottages coexist alongside thatched and timber-framed buildings from the 1930s, as well as council houses with well-kept lawns.
In any case, these power lines should go underground rather than overground to provide extra energy requirements, but Labour wants to destroy this green, pleasant land. If the government were to stop the UK’s massive daily population increase, there would be less need to provide so much power, but I’m guessing it’s mostly cost-based.
The drive for sustainable energy has ruined Scotland’s highlands. Power firms and absentee landowners are making millions, while the general public is ignored and is forced to put up with the severe inconvenience of unsightly pylons, gigantic dams, and community disturbance while this is happening.
Green energy doesn’t exist. There is nothing environmentally friendly about the entire process, from raw materials to manufacturing, installation, and, of course, electricity transmission.
Although there isn’t enough proof to say that living close to electrical pylons is harmful to your health, some research points to a potential connection.
There may be a higher chance of childhood leukaemia for residents who live close to electricity lines, according to some research. All the data combined nevertheless points to no impact.
One study found a 29 percent increase in lung cancer rates in people living downwind of pylons in the southwest of England. However, the National Radiological Protection Board considered this theory implausible and highly speculative.
Power lines produce electromagnetic fields (EMFs), which are a mixture of electric and magnetic forces. According to some experts, there may be a higher risk of cancer in those who have extensive EMF exposure. As for low-level EMF exposure near power lines, most experts think it’s safe.
As the UK government has developed EMF exposure restrictions to prevent any known effects on the body, it appears that exposure to EMFs below these levels has no documented health risk, and if power lines are more than 300 feet away, there should be no cause for concern.
There needs to be more physical evidence, and it needs to be open to the public, not hidden away. If it is proven, then it should all be banned along with cigarettes, processed foods, and alcohol.
So, our government can waste millions on foreign aid, millions to keep uninvited newcomers to our shores, but they won’t spend to help save our once beautiful country.
The thing is, worrying about the earth’s destruction in the future seems to be causing the earth’s destruction in the present, but that’s incompetent politicians for you!
Al Pacino, a well-known actor, shared horrifying details of his COVID-19 near-death encounter, in which paramedics battled valiantly to resuscitate him after his pulse stopped.
Pacino, 84, recalled to The New York Times Magazine how he was ‘sitting there in my house and I was gone’ after falling unconscious while battling COVID-19 at an unknown time.
‘I didn’t have a pulse,’ he told the magazine. ‘In a matter of minutes, they were there—the ambulance in front of my house. I had about six paramedics in that living room, and there were two doctors, and they had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something.’
The Godfather actor had one of his employees get him a nurse after he began feeling ‘unusually not good,’ while he had a fever and was dehydrated when he suddenly lost consciousness.
‘I didn’t see the white light or anything. There’s nothing there,’ he said. ‘I’d never thought about it in my life. But you know actors: It sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there’s no more?’
Despite the scary experience, the elderly actor is happy to have his children as ‘consolation’ and his extensive body of work to keep his legacy going.
However, the 84-year-old doesn’t seem afraid of death, as he has grown to have a ‘different view of death as you get older.’ Simply brushing it off as ‘it’s just the way it is.’
‘I didn’t ask for it. Just comes, like a lot of things just come,’ he told the magazine, before saying he doesn’t find discussing death ‘morbid.’
As for the movie, he believes his youngest child, who was born in June 2023, should watch first. Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler as it’s ‘funny.’
‘It came at a time in my life that I needed it because it was after I found out I had no more money. My accountant was in prison, and I needed something quickly. So I took this,’ he said.
Pacino’s former financial advisor, Kenneth Starr, pleaded guilty in 2010 to taking $33 million from his clients to fund his lifestyle. His fraud caused the actor to owe $188,000 in back taxes to the IRS.
Starr was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for the ordeal.
Although the Oscar winner has a long career and has been in several critically acclaimed films, like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, the actor acknowledges that he enjoyed his work better when he was younger.
Did he have a near-death experience or did he pass out? Who knows, we weren’t there, but let’s face it, the man is 84 years old—every day is a near-death-experience.
In his day he was a superb actor. Hoo-hah!
Perhaps his near-death experience was a dress rehearsal for the full-death experience.
Sadly, to stay relevant, these Hollywood celebrities produce garbage, but then make-believe stories keep the peasants in obedience.
The economic and public safety of California is in jeopardy due to an incursion of hazardous three-foot-tall, rat-like monsters with orange fangs.
Nearly 1,000 nutria—one of the largest rodent species—had already been hunted down in the Bay Area this year.
But the creatures have now made their way into Contra Costa County’s California Delta, which is one of the state’s most crucial water sources and ecological sites, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported.
The creatures, also called Coypu, are about 20 pounds in weight and are dangerous to people, animals, and pets. They also wreak havoc on wetlands.
They are known to harbour septicaemia and TB, two potentially fatal illnesses, in addition to being tapeworm carriers. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, they also carry blood and liver flukes, which can cause illness when exposed to polluted water.
Nutria look similar to beavers, with the distinction of highly arched backs and ‘long, thin, round, sparsely haired tails rather than wide, flat tails like that of a beaver,’ according to the CFWD.
The rodents have big, bright orange teeth, a white snout, and whiskers. They are typically found close to permanent water sources.
Since the first nutria, a pregnant female was discovered on a private wetland in March of 2017 in California, 5,042 of the species have been killed in the state.
Officials are urging locals to ‘immediately’ report and photograph any sightings or potential signs of their presence to their state wildlife department.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Peter Tira told SFGate: ‘We cannot have nutria reproducing in the delta. The threat to California’s economy is too great.’
The animal’s prodigious reproductive rate—females can give birth to as many as 27 pups annually—makes the spread especially concerning.
Additionally, they reproduce all year round, yielding two to three litters, each containing two to nine young.
Furthermore, there isn’t a single natural predator controlling the population.
The list of forbidden species in certain jurisdictions, including California, forbids the importation, ownership, trade, buying, selling, or transit of rodents.
It is legal to shoot the animal outside of city limits or wildlife control officers can kill them using humane euthanasia.
The highly destructive species is known to cause significant losses in crops and weaken levees due to their burrowing.
The unique and endangered plants and creatures that depend on the wetlands are also at risk due to their impact on ecosystems.
A rodent native to South America, the nutria, sometimes known as the coypu, is a member of the spiny rat family.
Originally native to subtropical and temperate South America, they were brought to North America, Europe, and Asia by fur farmers. They reside in burrows by bodies of water and eat the stems of river plants.
They’re still hunted and trapped for their fur in some regions, but their destructive burrowing and feeding habits often frustrate humans, and they consider them an invasive species in the United States. They can also transmit various diseases to humans and animals, mainly through water contamination.
A grandfather-of-four who smashed his face tripping on a pothole outside his home, only to discover he had broken his spine, has claimed his neighbours reported it to the council three years prior.
When Darren Lucas claimed to have stumbled over a 10-foot-long pothole and struck his head on the concrete, he was making his way back to his house in Abergavenny, Wales.
Mr Lucas went to A&E after being left with a huge bump on his head, a wounded leg, and blood on his face. He claimed to have been given painkillers and sent home.
It wasn’t until a year later, in March 2022, when Mr Lucas collapsed that an MRI finally revealed his spine was broken in three places.
The 57-year-old endured a gruelling emergency operation to insert six or seven metal plates into his spine and spent 11 days in the ICU recovering. He has had to relearn to walk again using a Zimmer frame.
About six years ago, one of Darren’s neighbours allegedly reported the pothole to Monmouthshire County Council, but nothing was done, according to the neighbour.
Despite the procedure, Mr Lucas claims he still struggles to walk owing to being in an extreme amount of pain, putting him in fear of additional falls.
‘It’s terrible that they won’t accept any responsibility for it. If I’d just banged my head and I’d just fell, it wouldn’t be so bad, but because of the injuries I’ve got and they’re life-changing injuries, it’s just not fair.
‘It’s a terrible thing to go through. It’s just wrong. The injuries just got worse and worse. My body just gave up in the end.
‘I was suffering; I couldn’t get off the sofa; I couldn’t even dress myself. I became incontinent; I had to wear nappies and it got worse.
‘Even the slightest movement I was screaming in agony; it was that bad. I didn’t understand what was going on.
‘It just became unbearable. I couldn’t even walk; I couldn’t get to the car. In the end, I collapsed at home.
‘I couldn’t even lift myself up because my arms were gone, my legs were gone. It was the worst feeling ever.
‘They told me that I could be paralysed for life; they even told me I might not come out of it.
I said, ‘Look, if I don’t come out of it, I don’t come out of it, but at least I’m not in no more pain any more because it had become that bad. It was horrible.
‘It was just frightening. I just wish the council would take responsibility for what has happened.
‘It’s like I’ve been chucked on the scrapheap; that’s how I feel. My wife has got to do everything for me. I can’t even dress myself. It’s embarrassing and it’s not fair on me.’
Although Darren remains in a lot of pain, he goes to physio every two weeks and can get around using a walking stick.
Since the housing association owns the home Darren lives in and he thought they also owned the road where the pothole is located, Darren claimed he reported the pothole to them following the autumn.
But after instructing a solicitor to represent him over the incident, Darren found out that the road is owned by Monmouthshire County Council.
Darren claimed that during the five years he has lived in the home, the pothole has never been fixed, despite the council telling his lawyers that the road is inspected every six months.
Darren says it was only after being contacted by his solicitor that the council filled in the pothole with concrete, but claims that the council will not take responsibility for the life-changing injuries he suffered.
Now he plans to move house because of the bad memories he associates with it.
Darren said, ‘I could fall at any time. I’ve got a trapped nerve in my leg from these injuries and now I could be walking around the house and my leg could just give way so I’ve got to use a stick to keep me upright.
‘It could happen at any time, though; it’s permanent damage. I’m stuck in limbo basically; it’s terrible, really. I’ve got nerve damage all over my body.
‘I do have feeling in my legs and my arms. I’m happy with what I’ve got at the moment because I had nothing but I’m still in a lot of pain.
‘I’ve still got problems now with my neck; I can hardly move it.
‘I can’t understand why the council didn’t notice it. It’s their road at the end of the day. They should have seen it. This should have been dealt with a long time ago.
‘I’m not going to let them get away with it. I’m going to fight them all the way.’
One of Darren’s neighbours claims she reported the pothole to the council around six years ago but no action was taken.
The neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous, said, ‘I’ve been here 11 years and it’s never been maintained since I’ve been here.
‘I’ve complained a number of times, including reporting the pothole to the council around six years ago. They are a joke.’
Monmouthshire County Council has been contacted by MailOnline for comment.
Personally, if the council owns it, then they’re responsible for the health, safety, and welfare of those using it. You should watch where you’re plonking your feet down; this is true, but councils are still responsible for ensuring such a public highway of any kind is as safe as possible, whether that’s a back alley or pavement on the high street.
The issue is that councils only give these matters any thought right before the fiscal year ends when they have to dispose of any extra cash, failing which the government will reduce their funding from the previous year. Such cunning little blighters, are they not?
Of course, not all pavements can be flat and even as we would like, but if somebody from the neighbourhood makes a complaint about it, then the council should send someone out to have a look. The same goes for grass, hedges and shrubs. I had a tree growing outside my kitchen window. When I moved in, it was tiny; by the time I had been in my flat for 11 years, I couldn’t see out of my kitchen window. I grant you, the council did come out and have a look and said, ‘Oh no, we can’t cut that; what about the wildlife?’ I ultimately got someone in to dig it out and get rid of it.
Councils are legally responsible for ensuring any path or road under their jurisdiction is kept free from hazards to members of the public. The problem is there seems to be a lack of complaints and also funding because they’re always complaining about lack of funding.
By law, they must respond to repairs when notified, and it’s up to them to ensure they budget for such things, especially after being handed over so much money from Westminster over the years, which seems to have solely been used for rainbow zebra crossings and squiggly lines. I mean, what’s that all about? I know it’s all to do with the LGBTQ. Integration is great, and rainbow crossings would be great if it could be afforded, but honestly, I, being part of the LGBTQ community, love a bit of colour, but why? Honestly why? Just wear a bright T-shirt and be done with it!
Despite defrauding £50,000 worth of benefits, a fraudster secured employment processing Universal Credit claims.
Chido Vincent was employed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in 2014, despite serving an 18-month jail sentence for exceeding his immigration limits and forging a letter to apply for benefits.
For reasons unconnected to his conviction, the 57-year-old Nigerian was fired from his position at the DWP in Leeds.
Speaking about how he obtained employment processing, he stated that because his conviction occurred more than five years ago, he was exempt from having to reveal it.
‘During the recruitment process, I was asked everything and I answered honestly,’ he told The Sun.
‘They asked for my passport, right-to-work documents—I gave them everything.
‘They said they needed to do a DBS. I gave them all the information and it came back fine, so I got the job.’
He went on to tell the publication that he ‘did what was asked of me’ and that there was no need to declare a conviction.
He also said what happened to him was 10 years ago so ‘it was considered spent’.
This comes after it was revealed that a judge said an Albanian driving test fraudster can’t be jailed because ‘His Majesty’s prisons are full to bursting’.
Speaking at Lincoln Crown Court, Judge James House KC said Albanian national Elidjan Aliaj, 30, should be put behind bars for paying an impersonator to take his driving test.
Instead, Aliaj has been sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months.
The judge told Aliaj he ‘deserved to go to jail’ but his hands were tied ‘because His Majesty’s prisons are currently full to bursting’.
The Department for Work and Pensions has been contacted by MailOnline.
Why wasn’t this man deported after serving time in jail in 2014 for exceeding the duration of his visa? Who gave him a work visa and why is he still here? And on top of that, he managed to secure himself a government job that deals with benefits. It beggars belief. This seems to be a deliberate programme of transferring wealth from the old population to the new replacement population, and now it looks like visas and passports are being handed out like Christmas cards.
No wonder immigrants are flocking here.
Prisons are bursting and they are full up, and now criminals are being let out of prison because there is simply no room at the inn. The easiest option is to charter planes, load them up with however many criminals and drop them off. Oh, I forgot, human rights issues!
Then look at the convoluted way the DWP advertises for vacant positions. It’s only when you start looking that you will uncover who their prospective employers might be.
This is another triumph for diversity and equality because it’s more important to tick a box than employ the best person. So, how many others with questionable backgrounds are working for the DWP and involved with benefit claims?
A convicted swindler working at the DWP. You just couldn’t make this up!
These days, it appears that individuals in our nation hire people in particular occupations based on factors like skin colour, etc. Not because they’re the most qualified candidates, and trust me when I say that if they continue to hire individuals just like themselves until they fill every post, we’re going to have problems!
This is all ridiculous; can you imagine the NHS making a similar announcement: ‘We can’t accept any more patients because the hospitals are full.’ No doubt, at some point, this will happen.
A family-run human trafficking gang went undetected for years as it forced 16 slavery victims to toil at McDonald’s and a factory supplying major supermarkets.
Ernest Drevenak and Veronika Bubencikova, both 46, were found to have started exploiting the men from the Czech Republic in 2015 but were only caught in 2019. Drevenak is said to have run the gang alongside his brother Zdenek.
Their victims—who were homeless, unemployed, or in very low-paid jobs in the Czech Republic—had been brought to the UK with the promise of a better life.
Some were then put to work in Caxton, Cambridgeshire, at a branch of McDonald’s, with the fast food chain now promising it had improved systems to spot ‘potential risks’.
According to a BBC investigation, some people were forced to work at a facility that produced bread for high-street stores.
The corporation disclosed the identities of 16 victims of slavery; nine of them were employed by the McDonald’s franchise and nine by the Pitta Bread company, which had factories located in Tottenham, north London, and Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.
Two of the people implicated worked for Speciality Flatbread, which is no longer in business, as well as McDonald’s.
They are said to have been paid at least the national minimum wage, only to have almost all of their cash stolen by the criminal enterprise in charge of them.
The victims spent their days living in cramped accommodations, including a leaking shed and an unheated caravan, even as the gang leaders were lavishing their earnings on luxury cars and gold jewellery.
According to the BBC, warning flags were ignored by officials for years, including the fact that the victims’ pay cheques were deposited into accounts with other names.
Payments meant for at least four of the employees, adding up to £215,000, were said to have gone into an account controlled by the slave-trading gang.
Since the people who were transported here from the Czech Republic could not understand English, gang members filled out their job applications and attended interviews as interpreters.
It was discovered that the workers at McDonald’s were putting in anything from 70 to 100 hours a week.
While employed by the baking company, nine victims shared a terraced house in Enfield, north London.
Dame Sara Thornton, the former independent anti-slavery commissioner, told the BBC after reviewing the investigation’s findings: ‘It really concerns me that so many red flags were missed and that maybe the companies didn’t do enough to protect vulnerable workers.
Detective Sergeant Chris Acourt, who led a probe by Cambridgeshire Police, told of there being ‘massive opportunities’ missed to uncover the gang sooner.
He said: ‘Ultimately, we could have been in a situation to end that exploitation much earlier had we been made aware.’
Ernest and Zdenek Drevenak, the brothers who headed the group, were discovered to have taken their victims’ passports while using violence and terror to maintain control over them.
One victim named Pavel, who waived his right to anonymity, told the BBC how he was first approached by the gang while homeless in the Czech Republic in 2016 and tempted by the promise of a well-paid job in Britain.
But he was only given a few pounds a day and had to work 70 hours a week at McDonald’s.
Pavel said, ‘You can’t undo the damage to my mental health—it will always live with me.
‘We were afraid. If we were to escape and go home, [Ernest Drevenak] has a lot of friends in our town—half the town were his mates.’
He added, ‘I do feel partially exploited by McDonald’s because they didn’t act.
‘I thought if I was working for McDonalds, that they would be a little bit more cautious, that they will notice it.’
The British Retail Consortium said: ‘It is important that the retail industry learns from cases like this to continually strengthen due diligence.’
A spokesperson for McDonald’s (UK & Ireland) said in a statement today: ‘The victims in these cases were cruelly exploited by the criminal perpetrators of these shocking offences. McDonald’s commends the bravery the victims showed during the legal proceedings in bringing the criminals to justice.
The UK needs to implement an immigration programme like Australia and they need to do it fast because not only are they being allowed into the UK, but they’re being exploited, and neither is right nor humane. They’re being treated like cattle; all we need is the cattle prod to go with it.
People like these repeatedly get away with it because our judicial system is so flawed and our government has no control over who enters the UK.
Margaret Thatcher said we were being swamped, but the Tory government of the fifties invited in cheap labour immigrants to man the nationalised industries that we British citizens hated. The idea was to send them back once our government was finished with them, but they didn’t use their brain cells and then realised they couldn’t send them back because they had carved a niche into our society and guess what? They multiplied by having children!
It was a bit like the Gremlins, only for them it wasn’t ‘don’t give them water’. In this case, it should have been ‘don’t let them in,’ because humans multiply; it doesn’t matter who they are or what colour or religion they are; we all multiply!
Fed-up locals say their village has become a ‘hellhole’ and a ‘dumping ground’ for refugees for councils in London.
Residents in the former mining village of Eldon Lane in County Durham have compared their community to a ‘ghost town’ with eerie streets full of vandalised homes covered in boarded-up windows.
In the past, bus drivers refused to stop in the village due to the high anti-social conduct and criminality.
A YouTuber visiting the area harshly branded it a ‘Victorian slum’.
It coincides with the growing number of refugees in County Durham’s towns and villages who are allegedly being relocated by southern authorities to the North East of England.
Cheap housing in deprived towns and villages—where properties are known to sell for just £5,000—make them prime locations for councils to place migrants in the hands of private landlords.
One local told MailOnline: ‘They started placing refugees and Londoners here all of a sudden; maybe two years ago they started to arrive; it became a dumping ground.
‘But we’ve got nowt here, so they’re in the same boat as us.’
MPs have said it is ‘abhorrent’ that deprived communities in the North have been singled out to rehouse asylum seekers and vulnerable families by authorities in London and the south.
Due to a lack of social housing in the city, London Borough councils reportedly transferred up to two vulnerable households per month into private landlord-owned properties last year, as revealed by a Northern Echo investigation.
Numerous sources from around the area have attested to the fact that a sizable number of refugees are also being brought to County Durham.
The North East of England is battling a housing crisis where 75,000 families are on waiting lists for social housing and over 300 children are homeless in County Durham alone.
Eldon Lane is a community with notable socioeconomic challenges since 39% of families reside in impoverished conditions.
Every street has visible evidence of deterioration, with rows of homes having windows that are either boarded up or damaged by stones.
Although the town has long been without basic services, the locals have embraced the migrants nonetheless.
The village GP practice closed down two years ago and the nearest A&E department is in Darlington, a 22-mile roundtrip away.
There is no dentist, chemist, school or bank, and the last of its pubs closed down years ago.
One man praised the refugees and immigrants moving to the village and said Eldon Lane had long been ‘forgotten’ by local and national administrations.
He said, ‘They’re nice, friendly people who look after their houses and they don’t take drugs and smash the place up, so good luck to them.
‘They look after their houses and a lot of them work to pay their way.
‘Eldon Lane has long been forgotten and left behind; we’re used to it but the place has become an absolute hellhole.’
The persistent lack of funding has prompted people to get together and build a playground for their children. Onto the grassed space behind the high street are swings, slides, and trampolines, all designed for common use.
The grass is tended by locals to give their kids a place to play, with few of the small housing authority homes having external space for a garden.
Eldon Lane’s DIY playground is set against a backdrop of two rows of long-abandoned, boarded-up houses.
Some claim that the crime has gotten so bad that it is now uncontrollable.
Casting an eye up the deserted main road, Spencer Street, one local recalled distant, better days.
He said, ‘My dad worked at the pit and it was a profitable one; there was coal piled as high as the houses and the high street was bouncing.
‘There were dozens of shops and pubs and the place was alive. When you walk through it now, it makes you shudder, it’s like a ghost town, you barely see a soul who’s ventured out because what is there to venture out for?’
While local Bethany Wainwright, 25, said, ‘It’s rough, you can’t get around that; it’s obvious just by looking round at the number of empty and vandalised houses.
‘The bus even had to stop coming through here at night because it was getting pelted with stones and it was dangerous for the driver and the passengers.
‘There is a lot of vandalism and stone-throwing and fires being started but there is nothing at all for the kids to do; there’s nothing left here.
‘The great thing about Eldon Lane is that it’s a community and people are good to each other; they look out for one another.’
Carer Joanne Rowlands, 25, said, ‘I was brought up in Eldon Lane and I know it has a bad reputation but I’m used to that.
‘There are problems with crime here; houses getting damaged and kids were even setting light to the postboxes, which meant people’s mail was being destroyed.
‘It’s not even the local kids that do a lot of it; they come in from surrounding areas to cause damage here because they know they can get away with it.’
Christine Steward, 75, originally from Southampton, arrived in Easington Lane with her husband, a County Durham native, in the late 70s and fell in love with the village.
She said, ‘The place has a good heart and I love it here and was very disappointed to read it had been called a slum.
‘It could be so much better with a bit of investment. We have housing associations who are content to leave rows of houses boarded up instead of repairing them and finding tenants.
‘It was a thriving place once and it could be again if the local authority gave it a bit of care and attention.
‘Lately, we’ve been getting quite a few refugees and they’re just left here on some occasions with absolutely nothing.
‘When that happens, the locals rally round and help them because that’s the kind of community this is.
‘One man didn’t even have a mattress to sleep on so we found him a bed. We’ve also helped find clothes for the children of refugees to see them through the winter.
‘It must be terrible to be dumped in a strange place with nothing but the clothes on your back, so we help them; they’re welcome here and we’ll look after them.’
Oghenekome Ivbijaro, 39, arrived three years ago in Eldon Lane from Nigeria with her husband and three children.
She said, ‘When we first arrived, we had little, and the local church found us everything that we needed. We have come to like it here and 90 percent of the people are friendly and helpful.
‘I found a job in a care home and we feel we’ve become part of the community. It helps us to have other Nigerians and some Zimbabweans here as well; there is a small African community here now.’
But this isn’t about immigrants; this is about how a council can let this happen to their community. It’s disgraceful.
The North is a good place to put everybody, it seems, but why the North? Why not somewhere else to house people who need housing? It’s a form of social cleansing by the elimination of members of society who are considered undesirable, including, but not limited to, the homeless, criminals, street children, the elderly, the poor, the weak, the sick, the needy, and the disabled.
Single-family houses are no longer the solution to the severe housing problem we’re now experiencing. Eventually, the government will construct denser complexes due to a lack of available land.
A stroll around your community will reveal three or more empty houses, and these stack-and-pack projects are becoming increasingly common, particularly in urban areas. From the outside, they appear beautiful, but inside, they resemble rabbit hutches. However, housing is housing in whatever form, right?
Vacant homes, whether from the private sector or council, are almost certainly because older residents have moved or passed away and left it to their children who haven’t figured out what to do with it. As for councils who refuse to put tenants in their properties, they should be fined the rental for each week it has been empty, and for those homes that are now in disrepair, councils should be charged triple that amount.
Currently, it appears that building what is known as stack-and-pack housing is the solution. Greetings from our concrete jungle!
Sweet treats, including chocolate, cakes, and biscuits, could face the same cigarette-style warnings in Labour’s latest ‘nanny state’ crackdown.
According to reports, ministers are trying to make food packaging messaging more powerful to combat childhood obesity.
It comes amid fears that the government could target cartoon characters, as one source told The Sun that Kellogg’s Frosties’ Tony the Tiger may need ‘re-educating’.
Sir Keir Starmer is already looking to ban junk food advertisements from television before the 9 pm watershed, while online ads high in fat, salt, and sugar could be prohibited altogether.
Now, a source has told The Sun: ‘We want to give parents better information so they can make informed choices. Our children are getting shorter, fatter and sicker.’
But Maxwell Marlow, of the Adam Smith Institute think tank, said Brits were ‘perfectly capable’ of making their own choices by reading the ingredient lists on labels.
He said the measures would instead be ‘another burden on businesses’.
Earlier this week, public health minister Andrew Gwynne announced that the government is considering plans to overhaul licencing laws in Britain to ‘boost the nation’s health and tackle anti-social behaviour’.
He indicated that the measures being considered include tougher action against irresponsible landlords and—far more controversially—”tightening up on some of the hours of operation’.
His words triggered alarm among hospitality experts, with Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, warning the ‘half-baked plans’ would be detrimental to the trade, with 50 pubs already closing each month.
Back in August, it was revealed that Labour planned to ban smoking from outdoor places—the first sign of Labour’s ‘nanny drive’.
The seemingly unenforceable plans would make it illegal to smoke in pub gardens as well as outside football grounds and children’s parks.
Under shocking new ideas, Keir Starmer’s Labour administration may abolish the freedom to smoke in nightclubs, restaurants, and even shisha establishments.
Smoking in parks or at home would be permitted, but there would be no smoking on university and hospital property.
Beaches and enclosed public parks are among the other places that are allegedly grey zones and are still up for debate.
Vape-free zones are also mentioned in the paper, although it’s unclear if e-cigarettes would be prohibited as well.
Defending the unpopular policy, the Prime Minister argued that ‘over 80,000 people lose their lives every year because of smoking’ which is a ‘preventable death’.
‘This is a preventable series of deaths’, continued the PM, ‘and we’ve got to take action to reduce the burden on the NHS and the taxpayer.’
Both the public and the hotel sector harshly criticised the planned measure.
When we were youngsters, there were huge amounts of sweet foods, cereals made with real sugar, larger chocolate bars, and generally slimmer individuals. They keep us in the dark about what they put in our meals, such as food additives and other ingredients that increase appetite. Items such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), a taste enhancer that increases appetite by stimulating the pancreas to produce more insulin; while the FDA views MSG as generally safe, several studies have connected it to obesity and diabetes.
Refined flour can also raise blood sugar, which can result in insulin surges and crashes.
Leptin, the hormone that indicates fullness, can be released more slowly when high fructose corn syrup is consumed, and artificial sweeteners can signal to the gut that calories are coming, but when they don’t, the brain may try to compensate by making people eat more.
There are many more; these are only a handful. Although processed meals are the worst, most people nevertheless consume them as they occasionally offer a more affordable option than purchasing fresh meat daily.
The way our prime minister is approaching the issue is incorrect. He needs to ban food producers from adding harmful chemicals to extend product shelf life, as this leads to product addiction and the subsequent development of obesity, diabetes, and cancer. Ultimately, though, it’s all about the money.
Children used to play and exercise back then. These days, everything revolves around a plethora of TV channels, video games, and the internet.
I can remember running about outside from dusk till dawn, but this is just the reality of how things are now because I would never let my children out on the streets, not now, not in this day and age; it’s too dangerous.
Kids these days, if you ask them what they want to do, they would want to watch everything that the TV has to offer or play video games all afternoon. Outdoors really isn’t attractive these days because it’s not safe to be out there, but back in the day, we played out, we had fun, and health and safety weren’t an issue, but now parents won’t let their children out because of all the stabbings et cetera, so now they’re just glued to their playstations or iPads.
I would spend all day on my bike, in the park with my friends, and I ate what I liked. These days kids can’t even go for a day out without a mobile phone glued to their hands, but to be honest, if you went to the park these days, there would probably be no one there to play with anyway because communication is non-existent these days unless it’s via a mobile phone, iPhone or some form of tablet.
Perhaps they should be putting health warnings out about Keir Starmer. Let’s face it, he is especially dangerous to our health, especially if you’re old, live on your own and the only income you have is your pension!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 