Killer Nurses!

 Killer Nurse - Niels Hogel

Following the conviction of the baby killer nurse, Lucy Letby, the nursing profession we're told have been "rocked to the core" by the murders and now fear this may have an impact on public trust. Letby, was convicted of murdering seven babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital, and the attempted murder of six other babies. From what we know, nurses who kill their patients, is something that is rare, but it certainly occurs.

In June 2019, the nurse Niels Hogel, was convicted of murdering 85 patients at two German hospitals. Hogel attacked patients in order to impress colleagues by subsequently trying to revive them. He was given the nickname 'Resuscitation Rambo' by his colleagues.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer, a nurse, in Canada, killed eight elderly patients. Her first victim was James Silcox, an 84-year old patient with dementia. She used insulin to kill him. She told the police "That evening I got the urge to overdose James."

Charles Cullen is known to have killed 29 patients in America where he was a nurse, and possibly hundreds, over a 16-year period using insulin, digoxin, and epinephrine.

The nurse Beverly Allitt, killed or attempted to kill or seriously harm, 13 children in her care, within an 8-week period in Lincolnshire.

Collin Norris, was found guilty of murdering four elderly patients and attempting to murder a fifth, at two hospitals in Leeds in 2008, where he was employed as a nurse. All his victims were women. He killed them with insulin.

It's believed that 450 people had their lives cut short at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Portsmouth by drugs, and another 200 "probably" given similar opioids, between 1989 and 2000. The opioids were given to patients without "medical justification." No charges were ever brought against medical staff. The police did investigate the deaths of 92 patients of Dr Jane Barton at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in the late 1990s. No charges were brought against her, but an inquest held in 2009 and 2013, found that medication prescribed by Barton, had contributed to the deaths of six patients.

A friend once told me that his elderly father who was in his eighties, had been admitted to hospital. He said that while his father was in hospital, he'd been told by medical staff, that his father was coming to the end of his life. He was then asked if he would agree to putting his father on "palliative care." He wouldn't give his consent and told staff to do everything possible to keep his father alive. I asked him what the outcome was. He told me that he'd taken his father out of the hospital and that he'd lived another three years.

That's not bad going for a man who is coming to the end of his life and I'm sure, this is not an isolated case in British hospital's.

Are NHS hospital's more concerned with organizational reputation than patients?

 

There is a pattern to the way in which allegations made against staff are treated within NHS hospitals.

In 2017, the breast surgeon, Ian Paterson, was given a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and 3 counts of unlawful wounding, after carrying out unnecessary and botched surgery on women patients. Sir Ian Kennedy, who conducted the Kennedy Breast Care Review, said in his report that NHS management within the hospitals where Paterson worked, were inward looking, over-defensive, and prone to destroy by a variety of means, those who suggest the emperor has no clothes. Professor Kennedy wrote:

"In reading this Review, you will see and recognise themes which have figured in a number of reports on the NHS over the years. Indeed, it has been said more than once, that, as regards reviews of the NHS, the place may be different, the date may be different, the details may be different, but the underlying issues are only too familiar. They include challenges in managing difficult and powerful members of staff - difficulties in raising concerns, inter-professional animosities, dysfunctional organisation, failures of communication, lack of openness, a particular style of leadership, lack of engagement by the Board in the quality and safety of care."

We might also add a tendency to hush things up and to throw things into the long grass. Medical staff who do raise concerns within a hospital, often complain of being ignored, bullied, or threatened. This happened at Solihull Hospital where Ian Patterson worked, and the Countess of Chester Hospital, where Lucy Letby worked. This also happened at Mid Staffs, Tameside, and Bristol hospitals, when staff raised concerns about patient safety.

When seven consultant pediatricians asked for an urgent meeting with management to discuss their concerns about Letby, it took the hospital three months to respond. The consultants were threatened with consequences after asking for the police to be called in.

Cases like Lucy Letby, are fortunately rare, but they're not unheard of. The nurse, Beverly Allitt, was convicted of killing four infants in 1993. Serial killer physicians, like Harold Shipman, are not unheard of either.

Doctors were in fear of speaking out about child killer Lucy Letby!

 

Child Killer - Lucy Letby

The Francis Inquiry into the failings at the Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, published its report in February 2013. Among its recommendations, was that a professional "Duty of Candour", should be introduced for those working within the NHS. A statutory duty of candour was brought into law in 2014 for the NHS Trusts and 2015, for all other providers. This means that health and care professionals must tell the person (or, where appropriate, their advocate, carer or family), when something has gone wrong, apologise, offer an appropriate remedy or support to put matters right (if possible).

At the Countess of Chester Hospital, where Lucy Letby murdered seven babies and attempted to murder six others in a neonatal unit, paediatricians working at the hospital, who reported their concerns about Letby, to senior hospital managers, say they felt ignored, threatened, and that senior staff at the hospital were more concerned about preventing reputational damage to the hospital. The consultants were forced by hospital management to write a letter of apology to Letby.

A recent BBC Panorama program into the case, questioned how 33-year old Letby, had been able to murder and harm so many babies for so long. She deliberately injected babies with air, forced fed others milk, and poisoned two infants with insulin. On Monday, Letby was given multiple whole-life terms - one for each offence - and will never be released from prison. But there are fears that she may have killed other babies under her care at other hospitals where she worked. This is now being investigated by Cheshire Police.

Dr Naru Narayanan, the president of the doctors' union the Hospital Consultants and Specialist Association, told Sky News there should be "better protection for people who raise concerns." He added: "But we see time and again that people who do so face retribution, and they fear for their careers."

The government have already announced a public inquiry into the Letby case and there have been calls for senior hospital managers at the Countess of Chester Hospital, to be investigated by the police for corporate manslaughter. Dr Dewi Evans, a retired paediatrician who gave evidence in the Letby trial, said three of the murders, could have been prevented if hospital bosses had acted more urgently. He told the Observer newspaper, that the hospital bosses at the Countess of Chester, were "grossly negligent" and "grossly irresponsible", and that police should investigate them for criminal negligence.

Child care expert calls for police to charge hospital managers with "corporate manslaughter."

 

Lucy Letby under arrest

A consultant paediatrician who gave evidence at the trial of Lucy Letby, has called for "grossly negligent" executives at the Countess of Chester hospital, to be investigated by the police for corporate manslaughter.

Dr Dewi Evans, 74, a National Crime Agency accredited expert, who has given evidence in hundreds of cases since 1988, said he would ask Cheshire constabulary to investigate the hospital management's "grossly irresponsible" failure to act.

Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill another six after a 10-month trial at Manchester crown court. The government have already announced that there will be a public inquiry into the case. What drove Letby to murder the infants under her care, remains unclear. The prosecution suggested that her motivation may have stemmed from a need for attention or sympathy or she liked "playing God."

Criminologist, Professor David Wilson, who has researched why nurses kill in hospital settings, told a BBC Panorama documentary, that Letby really didn't fit the profile of a "healthcare serial killer." He told Panorama, "She is very social, she is very socialized, she has friendship groups, she has people in the hospital who befriend her, mentor her."

What is it to be 'Jewish'?

 

I know that what I say is likely to be controversial. But what do we mean when we talk about being Jewish or being a Jew? Does it refer to someone's race, their religion, or ethnicity? It could be all three, and does it really matter? I suppose it does, if you claim a moral right to lay claim to colonize a part of the Middle –East called Palestine and you’re from Florida or Moscow.  

The Rabbinical Torah Jews, say that Jewish identity is completely religious. We also know that a person can convert to the religion of Judaism and call themselves a 'Jew', even though they are not descended from the line of Abraham. According to the 'halachic' definition, a Jew is someone who is born to a Jewish woman. 

In his book, 'The Pillars of Hercules', the American travel writer, Paul Theroux, wrote: "Doubtful history and wobbly logic made it normal for Israeli immigrant citizens from Morocco and New York City and Kiev to think themselves as Israelites."

The vast majority of Jews today, identify as ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, whose origins lie in Eastern Europe. The various groups of Jews in the world today, do not share a common genetic origin and their genome is largely 'Khazar'.  They are not Semitic Jews or descendants of Abraham.

A lot of genetic research has been done to verify this. DNA research science that was undertaken by Dr Eran Elhaik and associates at the Institute of Genetic Medicine, at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine, concluded that "97% of the 17 million of the world's Jews are not the descendants of Abraham." A.N. Poliak, Professor of Medieval Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, has said that the majority of Eastern European Jews are 'Khazar' and Japhetic (Caucasian), in origin, and not Semitic. In 2001, genetics research by Dr Ariella Oppenheim of Hebrew University in Tel Aviv, found that the origins of Ashkenazi Jews are in 'Khazaria', and that they are of Turkic bloodline. In 1867, the great Jewish scholar Abraham Harkavy in "The Jews and Languages of the Slavs", said that the Jewish Yiddish language came from the 'Khazar's and not the Hebrews. In 2007, Schlomo Sand, a history teacher at the University of Tel Aviv, verified their Turkish-Mongol heritage in his book called the "Invention of the Jewish People." He said that the "Jews are not a race and have no Israelite connection."

Khazaria is believed to have been located in parts of modern-day Russia, and the Ukraine, and even a part of Kazakhstan. The Khazar's are believed to have converted to Judaism in the 8th century under the reign of King Bulan, who wanted to avoid conflict with other countries. When Khazaria was attacked by Prince Vladimir of Russia and Genghis Khan, the people fled to other parts of Europe.

In 1976, Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian Jew, published a book called "The Thirteenth Tribe: The Kazar Empire and It's Heritage." Koestler argued that the Khazar's were more closely related genetically to the Hun, Uigur, and Magyar tribes, than the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He said their ancestors came not from the Jordan, but the Volga, and not from Canaan but the Caucasus.

A genetic disease known as "Tay-Sachs", is known to be particularly prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews, but not Semitic Jews, proving that they are not Semites.

Drag Queen children's entertainer boasted of anal sex and orgies!

 

Drag Queen Story Hour

It's hardly surprising that the American import, 'Drag Queen Story Hour' (DQSH), has proven to be controversial.

DQSH, involves grown men in drag reading stories to young children in public spaces, such as libraries. DQSH, claim that the purpose of using men in drag to read stories to children, is "to show the world that being different is not a bad thing", and to provide "imaginative role models for children to look up to." Some parents have objected to DQSH on the grounds that it's inappropriate for children and claim that their children, are being indoctrinated into gender ideology.

The Welsh government say they intend to make "Wales the most LGBTQ+ friendly nation in Europe” and they have ordered public buildings to fly flags representing 'asexual' and 'aromantic' people. In August 2022, Cardiff council, used Welsh government funding for a DQSH event at Cardiff Central Library. The event was hosted by 'Aida H Dee' the drag persona of DQSH founder, Sab Samuel. Apart from demonstrations outside the building by people objecting to the event, Cardiff council received 143 letters of complaint. Some protestors thought the event encouraged ridicule of LGBT people. 

It later transpired, that Samuel had been fundraising to pay for the funeral costs of a convicted child sex offender he called his friend, and had also made online comments, on social media, about "anal sex and orgies." Critics said it was mind boggling that Cardiff Central Library had considered Samuel's a suitable person to entertain young children.

The ones that I really feel sorry for, are the poor kids, who have been subjected to all this adult nonsense about queer politics. Childhood is a precious time and it doesn't last very long, so I feel that we ought to let children enjoy it. Does anybody ever ask them if they're interested in stories about gender bending or whether they want to listen to this crap? I doubt it. But I don't think we have to.

If we look at the most popular children's books in Britain today, none of them are really about gender bending or sexuality. The vast majority of children's authors don't write about these adult themes and never have done, because they think children, are more interested in fantasy - Father Christmas and the tooth fairy, and they're right.  Among the top fifty of children's favourite books we still find, 'Winnie the Pooh', ' Horrid Henry', 'The Gruffalo', 'Peter Pan', 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', 'Watership Down', 'Treasure Island' and the 'Harry Potter' books. Do I need to say more?

Anderson warns of the danger of sending children to University!

 

Lee Anderson MP

Tory lump head, ‘30p Lee Anderson’, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, has now got his own show on the TV channel for right-wing loonies, GB News. GB News styles itself, "The People's Channel."

The ex-miner and Labour turncoat from Ashfield in Notts, recently warned his viewers of the danger of sending their children to university. He fears that they can be indoctrinated with strange ideas. His son Harry, had grown his hair long and had grown a beard. Worse still, Harry had become a "Vegetarian." A tearful Anderson, tells his viewers, "It's shocking, truly shocking, let that be a warning to you!"

Anderson is well known for being a self-publicist, and for his narrow-mindedness and bigotry. He recently told asylum seekers that if they didn't like being housed on the barge the Bibby Stockholm, they should "Fuck off back to France." The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, endorsed his comments.

The Bibby Stockholm was recently found to be contaminated with legionella bacteria, and asylum seekers were taken off the barge. The Fire Brigades Union have called the barge a "potential death-trap."

In 2018, Anderson was suspended by the Ashfield Labour Group, after receiving a community protection warning from the council for using boulders to block members of the Traveller community from setting up camp at a site in the area. On previous occasions, Anderson has said that food banks are unnecessary and only used by people who can't cook. He claimed that anybody could knock up a decent meal for 30p.

In 2020-21, Anderson claimed £220k in parliamentary expenses after claiming Brits 'can't budget." This was nearly £16,000 higher than the average costs claimed by an MP and in addition to his £84,144 salary, has an MP.

Dennis Potter.

 

I always liked watching Dennis Potter's TV serial dramas. They were thought provoking and entertaining. Some numbskulls nicknamed him 'Dirty Den', because some of his TV dramas such as 'Lipstick on Your Collar', were a bit risqué. 'The Singing Detective', is considered to be Potter's masterpiece.

His father was a forester and coal miner in the Forest of Dean. Dennis passed the eleven-plus in 1946, and went to Grammar School and later Oxford. In 1961, he was diagnosed with psoriatic arthropathy. His skin scalded off his body overnight and his joints blew up. In February 1994, he was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer.

Despite his poor health, Dennis Potter, managed to earn a living as a television dramatist, screenwriter, and journalist, before his death in 1994. I can remember watching his last interview with Melvyn Bragg in March 1994 on BBC. He was sipping morphine from a flask. He talked about his father and life in Berry Hill. It was tragic to watch. He died three months later. His wife, Margaret, who he cared for, died of breast cancer in May 1994.

West Yorkshire Police slammed over arrest of disabled autistic child!

 

Earlier this week, seven police officers dragged a screaming 16-year old autistic girl from her home in Leeds, Yorkshire, after she said that a WPC "was a lesbian like nana." The police said the girl had been arrested on suspicion of an "homophobic public order offence."

The girl, who also suffers from the spinal disability scoliosis, had been driven to her home in Leeds after attending the city's Gay Pride celebrations with her sister. Her mother accused the police of overreacting and denied that her daughter was homophobic.

West Yorkshire Police, were accused of "heavy-handedness", after footage of the incident was filmed and put on TikTok by the girl's mother. The footage, went viral, and provoked a furious backlash after the girl was seen cowering in a corner of the hallway as her mother pleads with the police that her daughter is autistic, and didn't mean to offend the police officer. The police are then seen to drag the child away screaming.

West Yorkshire Police, later announced that they would be taking no further action and were releasing the girl from bail. They said a review of the arrest was ongoing.

New Mills school asks children to choose from 42 different gender pronouns.

 

New Mills School

Is it any wonder that young people in Britain are growing up confused?

Politically correct dipsticks at a school in New Mills, Derbyshire, have asked 11- year old pupils to choose from 42 different gender pronouns. Parents were sent an admissions form from the school and were asked to select the such terms as, zie, zim, zir, zis, zieself, as well as, verself, ve, ver, vis and vers. One father told the Sun newspaper,

 "It is just so bizarre. I don't even know what these mean - I'm not convinced anyone does. Children don't need this kind of thing...When you see something like this, it just makes you not want to take them seriously as an educational establishment."

Although other parents have said they are equally baffled by the admissions form, the school said the form is standard and is used by "thousands of schools." This is not the first time the New Mills school has hit the headlines. The schools "Drag 'n' Rainbows" non-uniform day, was cancelled after it was reported in the press.

In recent years, gender identity zealots, have been constantly targeting young children with propaganda related to sexuality and gender. They say they want to inculcate in children an "inclusive" and "genderfluid" outlook.  Stonewall, the LGBT advocacy group, insists that the evidence shows that children as young as two years of age can recognise their "trans identity."

But many parents think that their children are being indoctrinated by proselytizers of queer politics and there have been protests against it. They have questioned why it needs a drag queen to read a story to children and don't want their infant children being used as pygmies, in a social engineering project, to promote LGBT ideology.

The Drag Queen Story Hour movement which began in America in 2015, aims to promote "queer role models" and the "gender fluidity of childhood." Supporters of the movement say that this is no different to a pantomime, where men dress up as a woman. But this is disingenuous and misleading. The aim of the pantomime Dame, is to entertain, and it doesn't seek to promote an ideology. Nobody ever thought that Les Dawson or Roy Barraclough were two women or that the male impersonators, Hetty King or Vesta Tilley, were two men. 

Not so long ago, this sort of nonsense would have been the subject of mockery and derision, but many people now running English schools, have bought into it and so have many of the politicians

Viva Verdi!

 

Giuseppe Verdi 

I think Giuseppe Verdi understood drama and the theatre better than many opera composers. He had a liking for Shakespeare.

Nabucco, was Verdi's first great success, and nobody had ever heard anything quite like it. This opera launched his career. The poor man had lost his wife and children and was absolutely devastated and was at the point of giving up. His two previous operas - Oberto and Un giorno di regno, had not been a great success. After Nabucco, he went on to compose another twenty-five operas which are categorized as his early, middle, and late period.

More than half of these operas have been the staples of the international operatic repertoire, since their first production. By all accounts, Verdi wasn't an easy man to get on with and he could be quite tetchy. He didn't try to ingratiate himself with people, but he had a deep integrity.

His second wife, the opera singer, Guiseppina Streponi, did say that she prayed every time he finished an opera that it would be his last one, because he was hell to live with. The creative process must have been a strain on Verdi. Yet she sang in some of his operas and sang some of the music, before anybody else had ever heard it.

He was once asked by an Italian politician how he went about composing an opera. Verdi said the idea was complete in his head to begin with, but the problem was getting it down fast enough.

Verdi's music was very much tied in with Italian nationalism and the Risorgimento, the idea of Italian unification. In Verdi's opera, Attila, Ezio's famous line to Attila, “You can have the universe, but leave Italy for me", would send theatre audiences wild. Even his surname (VERDI) was used as an acronym for "Vittorio Emanuele. Re D'Italia." Some Italians even wanted the "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves", Va, pensiero, to be the Italian national anthem.

Before he died, Verdi donated all the royalties from his operas to the construction of a retirement home (Casa Verdi) in Milan, for retired old singers "not favoured by fortune." Built in 1899, it's still going to this day. Verdi's grave can be found there.

Love Among The Ruins - Evelyn Waugh.

 

"Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future", is a dystopian novel by Evelyn Waugh, which was published in 1953. It takes its title from a poem by Robert Browning called "Love Among the Ruins", published in 1855.

Waugh's novel is a satire and an attack on the welfare state and the quasi-egalitarianism, that the Labour government was building in Britain, in the early 1950s. The author despised socialism, plastic, and the modern age. Waugh wrote the novel in response to the Labour Party's victory in the 1950 General Election.

The hero of the story, Miles Plastic, an orphan, is a semi-reformed arsonist, a pyromaniac, who is nearing the end of a term of imprisonment for arson. Waugh says that his parents had been ruined and reduced to poverty by the impositions of socialism and high taxes, and forced to divorce. He was handed over to an aunt who died of boredom from working in a factory. He was then raised in an orphanage. Evelyn Waugh says of Miles, "Huge sum were thenceforward spent upon him; sums which, fifty years earlier, would have sent whole quiversful of boys to Winchester and New College and established them in the learned professions..."

In Satellite City, where Miles is sent on his release, crime is dealt with leniently and there is a high level of recidivism. There are no criminals, only victims of inadequate social services. Miles goes to work in the euthanasia centre run by Dr Beamish. It's one of the cushier jobs in Satellite City and there is no shortage of customers or "welfare weary" citizens, who are queueing up to die. Although Dr Beamish runs the centre, Miles finds that the doctor is rather indignant that people can't find another way to die.

In Satellite City, orphans and offenders like Miles Plastic, are always given priority when it comes to getting jobs, and he's the envy of all his colleagues. One of his colleagues says to him, "Great State! You must have pull. Only the very bright boys get posted to Euthanasia. I've been in Contraception for five years. It's a blind alley."

Miles begins a romance with Clara, a bearded ballerina - a side effect of a botched sterilisation operation - who is a "priority case" at the centre. Clara doesn't wish to die, but she's been referred to the centre by the department where she works. Miles and Clara fall in love and she becomes pregnant. One day, Clara disappears and when Miles eventually finds her, he finds she has a rubber jaw replacing her formerly bearded face and his child has been aborted. In anger, Miles sets fire to his former prison but he's not identified as the perpetrator of the crime.

As a model rehabilitated prisoner, Miles gets promoted and he's sent to London to give a series of lecture tours on the worthiness of the prison system. He loses interest in Clara and is forced to marry the "gruesome" Miss Flower, a civil servant. Miles is whisked off to the registry office and half way through the wedding service, Miles starts to fidget with his cigarette lighter. We're left wondering whether Miles is just about to start another fire.

Can the English working-class be pigeonholed by Marxist theory?

 

Marx & Engels

Marx and Engels frequently changed their opinion about the English working-class and its revolutionary potential.  Sometimes they viewed the English working-class as the best organised and most advanced in Europe. At other times, they were driven to despair by the English' workers, narrow-mindedness and sectarianism. They ridiculed their notions of national superiority and their bourgeois ideas and viewpoints.

Marx and Engel's called the Chartist leader, Ernest Jones, "Citizen, Hip, Hip, Hooray." The Irish-born, Chartist leader, Feargus O'Connor, was in favour of peasant proprietors, and wasn't a revolutionary. He was opposed to the Chartist movement building links with European socialists, and thought that in doing so, it would dilute the national character of the Chartist movement.

Other lefties and Marxists, have held similar mixed feelings about the English working-class.  The Trotskyist writer and journalist, Paul Mason, says that Marxism got it all wrong about the English working-class. In his book 'Post-Capitalism', he wrote: "200 years of experience shows it (the working-class), was preoccupied with 'living despite capitalism' and not overthrowing it."

Some years ago, Raphael Samuels, in the New Left Review, wrote: "A dozen vanguard ' parties and as many tendencies and groups, compete for the honour of leading a non-existent revolutionary working-class."

In my personal experience, I've never found the English working-class to be politically savvy, or much interested in politics at all. Many of them might vote Tory, but they have a healthy suspicion of all politicians and their motives. The English will tell you that they vote for the lesser of the two evils.

Yet, I do know from British history, that there have been times when the country seemed to be on the brink of a revolution because of working-class militancy. The strikes and social unrest in the years leading up to WWI are a good example. The year 1926, which saw a General Strike, is another good example. The reformist politicians and trade union leaders, pulled the plug on the 1926 strike fearing that it might lead to a social revolution. The French Communist, who led the CGT, did the same thing in France in 1968.

The Liberal Prime Minister, Lloyd George, always said that the parliamentary socialists were the best policemen for the Syndicalists, who advocated for workers control of the means of production and for a social revolution. Some English workers have always been more class conscious and politically clued up than others.

You can find evidence of early communist or socialist ideas being espoused throughout English history. It's found in the writings of people like Gerrard Winstanley, the 17th century 'Digger', from Wigan. The priest and Lollard, John Ball, who was executed for his part in the Peasants Revolt of 1381, said:

"Things cannot go well in England, nor ever will, until all goods are held in common, and until thee will be neither serfs nor gentlemen, and we shall be equal." It was John Ball who told us, "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"

U.S. Judge blocks Republican book ban in Arkansas.

 

Those on the political right in Britain, think that it's only those on the political left that are into cancel culture and banning books.

A federal judge in Arkansas, in the U.S., has just blocked a law that would have made it a crime for librarians and book sellers to give materials to children deemed "harmful or obscene." Republican Governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, signed Act 372 into law in March. The Act, makes "furnishing a harmful item to a minor", a Class A misdemeanour, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500. U.S. District Judge, Timothy L. Brooks, issued a preliminary injunction siding with bookstores, libraries and patrons in the state, who argued that parts of the law were unconstitutional.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to free speech. In his injunction, Judge Brooks, referred to the wider implications of the Arkansas law, quoting the novel 'Fahrenheit 451' by the author Ray Bradbury. The novel depicts a dystopian American society where books are burnt by the authorities to control people's access to information and knowledge. The Judge citing Ray Bradbury, wrote: "There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”

Arkansas, already has a law that makes it a crime to provide obscene materials to minors, but people working in schools, libraries and museums, were protected from prosecution. Opponents of the law, said that Act 372, removed that protection and that "harmful" was overly vague and placed libraries and booksellers, in an impossible position.

More dentists opting out of NHS.

 

It's a topsy-turvy world. Increasingly, fewer dentists in the UK, are prepared to take on NHS patients even though they're trained by the NHS. Yet, you can get a sex change operation on the NHS, at a cost of £19,236 per patient. The dentists say that they lose money if they treat NHS patients.

It seems ridiculous that the British taxpayer pays for the tuition fees and training of dentists, but yet in many cases, they can't get dental treatment on the NHS. Dental treatment was free at the point of use when the NHS was introduced in 1948, but in 1952, charges for patients were introduced.

I agree that government funding should cover the reasonable costs of dental treatment. It looks like the present system has been set up to fail. Yet, if dentists won't treat NHS patients, then I think it's about time, that they started to pay for their own training and not burden the taxpayer with having to pay for it. No treatment, No Bursary.

Unite bans members from screening film on Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Jeremy Corbyn and Asa Winstanley

The cat is now out of the bag. The trade union Unite, ordered their Bristol Community Union Branch, not to show the film 'Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie', which purports to expose the use of false anti-semitism claims to bring down Jeremy Corbyn and the left in the Labour Party. 

Unite, also demanded that the branch cancel a discussion of the book "Weaponising Anti-,Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn", by Asa Winstanley, of the Electronic Intifada.

The blog called Skwawkbox, alleges that emails from Unites Assistant General Secretary, Gail Cartmail, show that she was acting on the instructions of the General Secretary of Unite, Sharon Graham. Skwawkbox, also claims that Unite were acting on a complaint that they had received from the pro-Israel pressure group called the 'Campaign Against Antisemitism'.

I've always believed that the charge of antisemitism within the Labour Party were both spurious and a ruse designed to bring down Jeremy Corbyn. Yet, Corbyn bought into it, and claimed that party members who denied that Labour had a problem with antisemitism, were part of the problem. He also looked the other way when his own comrades and supporters were thrown under a bus, after being falsely accused of being anti-Semites.

What puzzles me is why Unite donates millions of pounds to a political party that is led by a louse, like Sir Keir Starmer, who wouldn't be seen dead on a picket line, denies that Israel is an apartheid state, and who says he supports Zionism "without qualification."

Chancellor orders investigation into bank account closures.

 

There's some evidence that people have had bank accounts closed because they have expressed opinions that were deemed to be unacceptable or not in accord, with the values of a banking institution.

The former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, is perhaps the most high-profile person to have had bank accounts closed. He had two accounts closed by Coutts, who initially said they had closed his accounts because Farage didn't meet their "wealth threshold." Coutts, is owned by NatWest, and the British government has a 38.6% shareholding in NatWest.   Farage submitted a "Subject Access Requests" and found that his accounts had been closed because of his personal and political opinions. The 40 pages of personal data that he received from Coutts, confirmed that he did meet their wealth threshold, but a bank employee wrote:

"It's clear to me that NF has - and projects - xenophobic, chauvinistic and racist views, even though this is done within the law, or framed with sufficient ambiguity to claim misquoting by his critics."

The Coutts report, referred to Farage's criticism of migrant boat arrivals, support for Brexit, and how he'd compared 'The Black Lives Matter' movement, to the Taliban. It also alludes to his support of Enoch Powell, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and his use of anti-Semitic tropes. The report referred Farage as a "disingenuous grifter.'  Coutts, concluded that there was a risk of reputational damage for the bank in having Farage as a customer.

The Farage affair has been a public relations disaster for both Coutts and NatWest. It has led to the resignation of both Dame Alison Rose, the CEO of NatWest and Peter Flavel, the CEO, of Coutts. The bank and the BBC had to apologise to Nigel Farage for misleading comments and he's now been offered his accounts back at Coutts. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has now called on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCO) to conduct an investigation into bank account closures.

What concerns many people in this country, is the extent to which institutions like banks, are setting themselves up as the self-righteous arbiters of what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable in public discourse. Clearly, this as serious consequences for both free speech in Britain and for people being able to access financial services.

Many people have now come forward with their tales about how they had bank accounts closed and were in many instances, unable to access their money, in frozen bank accounts. These people didn't have the political clout of Nigel Farage or their own TV show, so nobody took the slightest bit of interest. Hopefully, measures will now be introduced to make the system more transparent and to give banking customers the right to notice, an explanation, and the right to challenge decisions by appeal.

Eileen Blair, airbrushed out of history.

 

Eileen Blair

I've always enjoyed reading George Orwell. The novels, essays, diaries and journalism, are all worth reading. Yet, he wrote very little about his own wife, Eileen Blair, whose maiden name was Eileen O'Shaughnessy.

Eileen, was born in 1905 and came from South Shields. She studied English at Oxford University, St. Hughes, where JRR Tolkien, was one of her tutors. Although Eileen, was with her husband, George Orwell, during most of the six months he spent in Spain fighting in the civil war, she's not mentioned by name in his novel 'Homage to Catalonia'. In Homage, Orwell mentions "my wife" 37 times but never once names her.

In a recent article, "Looking for Eileen: how George Orwell wrote his wife out of his story", the author Anna Funder, points out, that you'd never know from Orwell's book nor the biographers' accounts, that Eileen worked in the headquarters of the POUM, the Spanish Marxist organisation that Orwell was fighting with, while he was serving as an infantry man in the trenches on the Aragon front. Funder, says:

"The whole time that he was fighting, Eileen was working on print and radio propaganda for the party, provisioning the men, dealing with communications, arranging the transport of medical supplies from London, lending money of her own when the party leader had none, and dodging Stalinist spies in the office and in the hotel where she lived..."

After Orwell was shot through his throat, Eileen cared for him and saved his manuscript which she'd been typing, during a two-hour-long Stalinist raid on their room. While Eileen Blair is curiously absent from her husband's writings, Anna Funder, points out that Stalin could see her perfectly clearly. As both Eileen and Orwell fled Spain to avoid being arrested by Stalin's goons, for 'Espionage & High Treason', the arrest warrant was made out in the names of "Eric Blair and his wife, Eileen Blair...Their correspondence reveals that they are rabid Trotskyites."

Despite Eileen Blair's involvement in Orwell's life, work and politics, Anna Funder, says that after devouring six brilliant biographies on George Orwell, she barely knew who Eileen Blair was, adding, it was as if history had "relegated Eileen to the private realm where she lived - and has remained...but, how is a woman made to disappear?"

Her book, "Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life" is published on 17th August by Viking (£20). Eileen Blair died on 29 March 1945 during an operation in Newcastle upon Tyne to remove her uterus. She was thirty-nine.

The hanging of Ashton poisoner Mary Ann Britland.

 

Hangman - James Berry

 

The Yorkshire executioner, James Berry, (1852-1913), is known to have carried out the death sentence on the first woman to have been hanged at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, in August 1886.

Mary Ann Britland, had been sentenced to death for poisoning her husband, daughter, and her best friend and neighbour, called Mary Dixon. Mrs Britland lived on Turner Lane, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. It's believed that the motive for the murders, was that Mrs Britland was involved in a extra-marital affair with Thomas Dixon, the husband of Mary, and that her daughter Elizabeth, had suspected it. Thomas Dixon was arrested but later released because of a lack of evidence.

It was known that Mrs Britland was in the habit of buying poison to kill mice in the home which contained both strychnine and arsenic. An autopsy was carried out on Mary Dixon which found evidence of arsenic and strychnine in her body. Autopsies were also carried out on Thomas and Elizabeth Britland, which found evidence of arsenic in their bodies.

In his book called "My Experiences as an Executioner" published in 1892, James Berry refers to the hanging of Mary Ann Britland. Apparently, the terrified woman had to be dragged to the scaffold at Strangeways Prison kicking and screaming.  The hanging of Mrs Britland, seems to have haunted James Berry throughout his life. He had become an executioner in 1884. In his memoir, Berry said that he could still hear her screams in his head to this very day.

By all accounts, she died instantly. The previous year, 1885, hadn't gone well for the hangman from Heckmondwike, in the West Ridings of Yorkshire. In a botched hanging, Berry decapitated Robert Goodale, at Norwich Prison in November1885, and nearly decapitated, Moses Shrimpton, at Worcester prison, in May 1885.  In February 1885, Berry had failed to execute John Babbacombe Lee, at Exeter, after pulling the leaver on the trap door three times. Lee became known as "The Man They Couldn't Hang." His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. James Berry hung some 130 people between 1884-1891, and later campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty.

Press regulator rejects Hancock's complaint against the Daily Mirror.

 

Matt Hancock

It seems laughable now, but I do remember how the disgraced former Tory Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, told us in 2021, that the UK is not "remotely a corrupt country."

Yet, we also know from a text he sent to Dominic Cummings in 2020, that he called his health secretary, Matt Hancock, "totally fucking hopeless." and that Hancock had said publicly, that he wasn't embarrassed by the PM's remarks.

Now we know, that complaints that were made by Matt Hancock, about the Daily Mirror, have all been rejected by the press regulator IPSO. All the complaints were made under Clause 1 of the Editors' Code (accuracy). The Daily Mirror articles, included allegations that Hancock:

* "Presided over PPE contracts handed out to acquaintances of ministers and officials, including his ex-pub landlord" during the Covid-19 pandemic.

* "broke ministerial code by failing to declare he held shares in a family firm that won an NHS contract."

* was "a failed health secretary and cheating husband who broke the lockdown rules he wrote, doubled down on the lies he told, helped enrich his mates via the infamous VIP PPE lane, and couldn't resist monetizing the infamy he acquired as a result of his ineptitude at managing the pandemic.