World's oldest man says fish & chips and hiking are the secret of a long life.

 

The World's Oldest Man -John Tinniswood 

Mr John Tinniswood, from Merseyside, says that fish and chips and hiking are the reason for why he's lived so long. Having reached 111 years and 223 days of age, he's now the world's oldest living man.

John, who now lives in a care home in Southport, says that "exercising the mind" and "moderation" are beneficial to a healthy life. He also says "never over tax your system" and get along with other people.

Nobody really does know the secret of longevity, because it seems to be in the lap of the gods. As Gloucester says in Shakespeare's play King Lear, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport..."  But Mr Tinniswood, might have a good point about the importance of moderation and exercising the mind and getting along with other people.

Adolph Zukor, a founder of Paramount Pictures, was once asked as he approached his hundredth birthday, if looking back there was anything in his life that he would have changed for the better. He replied that if he'd known how long he was going to live; he would have taken better care of himself. Zukor, a poor Hungarian immigrant to the U.S.A., died when he was 103 years of age.

Is Scotland's Hate Crime Act unworkable?

 

Scotland's First Minister -Humza Yousaf

Since Humza Useless brought in his Hate Crime Act, the Scottish police have said they've been inundated with complaints about hate crime and can't cope with the amount of extra work.

In the first week of the Act's introduction, the Scottish police received over 7,000 complaints about hate crime. Just 3.8% of these complaints, were considered legitimate and many were made anonymously.

Like some kind of Stasi, the SNP government have been urging the public to shop anybody they suspect of espousing "hate speech". Critics have said that the measure is likely to curtail free speech and could be weaponised by trans activists, to target gender-critical feminists or what some call, Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERF).

The Harry Potter author, J K. Rowling, has stated publicly that the Act is "wide open to abuse" by all sorts of cranks and disgruntled misfits, and she's invited the police to arrest her. The author has come under fire for stating that a "trans woman is not a woman."

 I suspect that the SNP's Hate Crime Act, is yet another nail in the coffin of Scottish independence and the Balkanization of the UK. 

"On Being Sane in Insane Places" - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

 

The 1975 film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is a very interesting film. Randle P McMurphy is sent to prison for battery, gambling and statutory rape. To avoid having to do prison work on a farm he feigns mental illness to get sent to a mental hospital where he's evaluated. Although he's perfectly sane, I think he's diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder. McMurphy thinks he's the only sane patient in the hospital but he finds out the he's the only patient who has been committed and all the rest are voluntary patients. They can leave the hospital at any time.

Nurse Ratched is a control freak and McMurphy is a manipulator and recusant. He doesn't submit to any authority and there is a battle of wills between McMurphy and nurse Ratched. McMurphy attacks nurse Ratched and he's lobotomized and turned into a vegetable.

Psychiatry likes to portray itself as a scientific discipline but it can hardly be an exact science because much of it can't be subjected to scientific scrutiny and method. There have been numerous psychology experiments where psychology students have feigned mental illness to see if they could trick a psychiatrist and get sent to a mental hospital.

The famous Rosenhan or Thud experiment, was conducted to determine the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. The study was conducted by a Stanford professor of psychology called David Rosenhan. Rosenhan and eight other people feigned auditory hallucinations to try and gain admission to 12 psychiatric hospitals in five states in the U.S. The study "On Being Sane in Insane Places", was published by the journal 'Science' in 1973.

Kafka & Humza Yousaf's Hate Crime Act.

 

I read Kafka's 'The Trial' many years ago and wasn't that impressed with the novel. It took a while for the penny to drop and for me to realise just how profoundly important this book was. The utter alienation and despair that Joseph K finds himself facing is deeply shocking. He's arrested by two agents and prosecuted by some remote and vague authority and the nature of his alleged crime, is never revealed to him or to the reader. He's eventually stabbed to death while being strangled and we never really get to know what's going on or who is killing him or for what purpose.

We now talk about being caught up in a 'Kafkaesque' nightmare or experience. You're accused of something you know to be untrue but your denials are not believed and it's difficult to acquit yourself. In a totalitarian society like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, they encouraged informers who would denounce people. It was unlikely that you would ever be told who'd denounced you. It became a good way of getting your own back on a rival, a person you dislike, a nuisance neighbour or somebody who is chasing you for money. You just denounce them as an "enemy of the people" or the party. Jealousy can be another motive for arousing a person's enmity towards you.

In the first week of Scotland's 'Hate Crime Act', the police received 7,152 complaints and judged that only 3.8% of the complaints were legitimate. I believe that many of the complaints were made anonymously. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Scottish police didn't investigate all these complaints because they don't have either the time or resources to do so, or because they considered many of these complaints to be frivolous and vexatious or motivated by animus.

There are serious concerns that these measures will be become weaponised by trans-rights activists to silence criticism by gender-critical feminist groups and that it will curtail free speech, because people will fear being denounced for 'hate crime'. The act could also be used against others including pro-Palestinian campaigners in Scotland. The Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling has said the act is "wide open to abuse" and she's challenged the police to arrest her.

The Russian human rights campaigner, Sergei Kovalyov, spent seven years in jail under Brezhnev for something spuriously called "anti-Soviet agitation." He says that in the Soviet Union "we had jokes and people were sent to prison for them." He recounted one such joke in which several prisoners meet and begin to discuss their cases. One says, "I'm here for criticising Radik (one of Stalin's adviser's). The second says: "I am here for praising Radik." They ask the third prisoner what he is there for, and he replies: "I am Radik."

What happened in the Soviet Union was a tragedy of monumental proportions.  What is happening in Scotland under the SNP and Humza Yousaf' and his Hate Crime Act, is a farce, but just as ridiculous. 

What's wrong with public transport in Greater Manchester?

 

The bus service in Greater Manchester is atrocious. It must be sub-standard even by Lincolnshire standards.

Waiting for a Stagecoach bus can be like waiting for Godot. Many buses don't turn up or don't run on time. Sometimes two buses turn up at the same time. In the evening, some services are one an hour. I've met bus users who have told me that they've been waiting an hour in a freezing bus shelter to get a bus.

They haven't been able to run an efficient and punctual bus service in Greater Manchester for donkeys' years. In the early 1970s, the buses were as regular as clockwork and the driver didn't have to ask the passengers to direct him along his bus route because he knew where he was going.

I support Andy Burnham's bus reforms but the launch of the Bee Network has been fraught with problems. Bus users have complained of late and missing buses and apps that don't work. There have also been complaints about cancellations due to a shortage of bus drivers. Burnham says these are teething problems which will sort themselves out in the long run. I hope he's right, because at the moment it looks like business as usual.

 

Limerick and Angela's Ashes.

 

Frank McCourt -Angela's Ashes

Limerick is also known as "Stab City." The Irish/American writer, Frank McCourt, who was from Limerick but had been born in the U.S., has often been criticised for portraying the city in a bad light in his novel called 'Angela's Ashes'. The book is cracking read but some people say that McCourt invented things and was inclined to exaggerate the poverty and misery of his childhood growing up in Limerick's lanes.

One of his relatives was a 'Blue Shirt' called Laman Griffin. In his book, McCourt says that all Irish children are taught about how Ireland suffered under 800 years of English oppression. Yet, the miserable Irish childhood that McCourt describes, took place in a country that was an Irish Republic and which was dominated by the Roman Catholic church and the conservative nationalist politics of Fianna Fail and Eamon de Valera. It was a country that banned abortion and contraception and which subjugated women. It was country of Magdalene Laundries where unmarried mothers were incarcerated and their babies sold and then exported to the U.S. and Australia. Many of the "fallen women" who escaped from the laundries, were often returned by the local Gardai.

Sinead O'Conner was sent by her father to the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity laundry in Dublin, when she was just 14 years of age, when she was labelled a "problem child" and started to shoplift and play truant. Sinead claimed that she suffered horrendous physical and emotional abuse from her mother when she was a child, but this seems to have been covered up as was a lot of child sex abuse in Ireland. 

Gerrard Winstanley the Digger.

 

The Digger colony on St. George's Hill in Weybridge, Surrey, is now one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the UK. This is a gated community with a golf course, which is full of multi-millionaires, celebrities, and Russian oligarchs. It has been claimed that Vladimir Putin's daughter bought a house there.

Gerrard Winstanley and many of the others associated with the colony on St George's Hill, referred to themselves as the 'True Levellers' rather than 'Diggers' which was a derogatory term that was used by their detractors. They were agrarian communists. They started to cultivate the land on 1 April 1649 and were there for about 12 months. There were also Ranters among them who seem to have caused Winstanley a number of problems, believing in free sex, the virtues of sinfulness, and indolence. Initially, local people didn't take much notice of the Diggers but later on the colony was attacked by local residents, farmers and soldiers, who beat people up, stole tools and set fire to property. Much of the violence was instigated and coordinated by local landlords like Francis Drake, Lord of the manor of Walton. Court proceedings were also started for trespass and fines and costs were imposed. Some were even sent to prison.

Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, two of the Diggers, appeared before General Fairfax on Friday 20th April 1649. Both men refused to take off their hats to Fairfax and after questioning both of them, Fairfax seems to have thought them harmless individuals and believed the local worthies, were overreacting. He considered Everard, a former soldier, slightly mad. Fairfax met the Diggers again at St George's Hill on the 29th May 1649 and although "he told them off", he seemed satisfied that they were no threat to public order and were for non-violence.

The groups position was one of passive resistance and they believed it was a social duty not to work for the rich. The idea of working for wages was anathema to them. The local property owners saw things differently. They saw the Diggers as a threat to their property and feared their ideas could spread further. The following month (June), the colony was attacked by soldiers who were hired by the local landowners.

The adoption of the name Leveller, by Winstanley and his group of communists, upset the leadership of the Leveller movement. They made it clear in several publications that they were not in favour of the expropriation of private property and didn't believe in the equality of social classes. In fact, they didn't support 'levelling' at all. The communists moved from St George's Hill to nearby Cobham Heath in early 1650.

Other Digger colonies were also established in other areas of the country in Buckinghamshire, Kent and Northamptonshire. In 1657, Winstanley and his wife Susan, were given a gift of property by his father-in-law William King. The property was called Ham Manor in Cobham. In 1659, Winstanley became overseer of the poor and in 1671, he was elected Chief Constable of Elmbridge, Surrey. He died in 1676, aged 66.

Lynching in the American Midwest 1930.

 

The lynching of Thomas Shipp & Abraham Smith

America seems to be full of abandoned and neglected areas like Gary in Indiana. Gary is the birthplace of Michael Jackson and his family. They call it the rust belt which stretches from New York to Chicago. These are areas that were reliant on certain industries such as steel and which suffer economic decline and urban decay because of deindustrialization. Gary's racial population is mainly black and it's 30 miles from Chicago.

The city of Marion, in Indiana, is 147 miles from Gary or a 2-hours, 45 minutes’ car drive. I believe the racial population of Marion is mainly white. It's the birthplace of the actor James Dean, but it's also notable for another incident.

In August 1930, two young black men, Thomas Shipp and Abraham Smith, were lynched by a group of thousands. They were taken from their jail cells, beaten, and hanged from a tree in the county courthouse square. They had been arrested as suspects in a robbery, murder and rape case. No one was ever charged over their deaths which was typical in lynching’s. Police officers in the crowd are known to have cooperated in the lynching. The crowd was estimated at 5,000 including women and children.

We usually associate lynching’s with the southern states of the U.S. but Indiana is in the American Midwest. As Billie Holiday sings in "Strange Fruit": "Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood on the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees..."

The song is said to have been inspired by a poem written as a protest against lynching’s and in particular a photograph taken by Lawrence Beitler of the lynching of Shipp and Smith.

The American singer Paul Robeson tried to get the U.S. President Harry S Truman to take action to stop the lynching’s of black people, but Truman declined to do so, because he felt it would alienate southern voters.

Horatio Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar.

 Horatio Nelson

Nelson had 27 ships at the battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), against the Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 ships. A total of 22 French and Spanish ships were destroyed but only one British ship. The British lost 1,666 men in battle against 13,781 French and Spanish.

The French Admiral, Villeneuve, was captured at Trafalgar and taken prisoner, but was soon returned to France. He committed suicide in Rennes on 22 April 1806 shortly after being freed on parole. He stabbed himself six times in the chest while staying at an inn.

Nelson's secretary, John Scott, was struck by a cannonball that nearly cut him in two and his body was thrown overboard. Nelson was shot an hour and half later. Thomas Hardy, the captain of the Victory, had urged Nelson to remove his medals from his uniform so he would be less conspicuous to an enemy sniper. Nelson refused to do so. He was hit by a musket ball fired by a French marine, from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable, which entered his left shoulder, passed through a lung, then his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae. He died three hours later.

The bullet is now part of the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. Many of Nelson's medals and personal artefacts have been stolen since 1900.

Ambivalent Sexism.

 Garrick Club

The exclusive male-only Garrick Club, constantly gets signalled out has a bastion of male elitism because of its rule on male only membership. Some MPs, like the politically correct dipstick, Stella Creasy, have raised questions about it in the House of Commons.

When the Guardian recently criticised the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, and Sir Richard Moore, the head of MI6, for being members of the male only Garrick, they immediately resigned.

Some argue that male only private members’ clubs are unfair, sexist, unacceptable and discriminatory. Yet, there are female only private member’s clubs in London and nobody bats an eyelid about it. The University Women's Club, has been female-only since 1886. The Allbright club in Mayfair is female-only and so are The Sorority, The Trouble Club and The Merit Club.

Why are male-only club’s sexist and unacceptable, but not women-only clubs? Why are women allowed their own private social spaces but not men? Why isn't Stella Creasy demanding a ban on female-only private member’s clubs like The Allbright?

Diane Abbott ignored by Speaker during a debate about herself.

 

Diane Abbott

During prime minister's questions, Dianne Abbot stood 46 times over a period of 35 minutes to try and speak during a debate about herself, and was ignored by the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle.

The Tories biggest financial donor, Frank Hester, is alleged to have said of the black female MP that she made him "want to hate all black women" and that she "should be shot."

While other MPs were discussing Abbot and her personal safety, Hoyle closed the session and didn't allow her to ask a question. A spokesperson for Hoyle said the Speaker had not called Dianne Abbott because there had not been time to do so.

The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said Hester's alleged remarks were "wrong" and "racist" but told MPs that he had apologised and his "remorse should be accepted." He also confirmed that the Conservative Party would not be returning the £10 million donated by Hester.

Manchester's Dark Underbelly.

 

The Undercroft on Rochdale Canal

There have been reports in the Manchester Evening News of holiday-makers on canal boats complaining of seeing people engaged in sex acts on the canal towpaths in Manchester as they sail past.

People have been lured to parts of the Rochdale canal for sex and then beaten up and robbed. Teenage rent-boys are also known to work in the area. According to the M.E.N., the Undercroft is well publicised as a gay cruising and public sex area on websites. This is the dark underbelly of life in the city of Manchester which under a Labour controlled council, has become identified as a "queer city". Many of its politicians can't see much further than Canal Street and its "gay village."

Although parts of Manchester are known for being areas of social deprivation and child poverty, when he was appointed the Lord Mayor of Manchester in 2016, Carl Austin-Behan, said he would be spending the next twelve months in office to highlight "prejudice towards the trans community" and to make HIV testing more readily available. He was deselected in his Burnage ward in 2017. Some said his deselection was due to his lack of visibility in the ward. He now works as the LGBT adviser to the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.

 

Britain snubbed military alliance with Russia in 1939.

 

Winston Churchill

Churchill wasn't always seen as a great British leader. He was blamed for British failures at Gallipoli during WWI and was thought by many British people to be a warmonger before the outbreak of war with Germany in September 1939.

Britain's greatest defence is that it's an island surrounded by seas that are often perilous, which makes any invasion by sea difficult, but not impossible. It deterred both Napoleon and Hitler. Hitler knew that if Germany tried to invade England by sea, it would incur great losses in an encounter with the Royal Navy.

Lord Halifax and others wanted to negotiate with Hitler but Churchill opposed this and said he would never negotiate with a Hitler-led German government. Britain could not have beaten Germany alone without the help of the Americans. The German invasion of Russia was also a turning point. Some historians do argue that Britain delayed opening up a second front so the Russians would have to do most of the fighting. Stalin did offer Britain and France a military alliance before it entered into a pact with Germany but their proposals were snubbed. Anti-communist feelings were widespread among British conservatives and the western democracies were happy to see Russia and Germany at war with one another.

The British government did send Admiral Regional Drax on a mission to Moscow in August 1939 to discuss an alliance, but the Russians soon realised that Drax was not a government minister and had no authorisation to agree to anything. The Russians also realised that Britain could contribute very little to an alliance in terms of military hardware and equipment.

 

Carlton Club gives Anderson the boot.

 

Lee Anderson

"I want my country back", Lee Anderson, has been told to resign his membership of the exclusive and prestigious Carlton Club in Mayfair. He's been told by the chairman of the Carlton Club, Lord Young of Cookham, that if he refuses to quit, he will be expelled in two weeks' time.

Anderson recently defected to the Reform UK Party. He'd been the Conservative MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, since 2019 but was stripped of the Tory whip when he claimed that London and its mayor, Sadiq Khan, was under the control of "Islamists." He produced no evidence to substantiate his ludicrous allegations but merely referred to the anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian rallies that have taken place in the capital. Anderson denied being a racist Islamophobe but refused to apologise or retract his comments which he admitted were 'clumsy'. Referring to Sadiq Khan, he told GB News viewers, "He's actually given our capital city away to his mates." Sadiq Khan accused Anderson of "pouring fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred." In January 2024, he resigned as a deputy chairman of the Conservative party in order to rebel against Rishi Sunak's Rwanda bill, claiming it didn't go far enough.

I wonder how many people in the pubs and clubs of Ashfield, were aware that this 'Man of the people" or Tory in clogs, was a member of a posh private member’s club founded in 1832 by Tory peers including the Duke of Wellington. Anderson, a former Labour councillor and Notts miner, also presents a TV show on GB News bizarrely called 'Lee Anderson's Real World' for which he's paid £100,000 a year for hosting the show.

In 2022, Anderson defended his £220,000 claim for his expenses as an MP after saying Brits can't budget. The expenses he claimed in 2020/21 were in addition to his £84,144 salary as an MP and were nearly £16,000 higher than the average costs for an MP. In 2022, Anderson claimed that food banks were being used by people who can't budget or cook and that you could knock up a meal for 30 pence.

Anderson has ruled out the possibility that he would trigger a by-election citing the impending general election as a reason for doing so. As the first MP for Reform UK, Anderson, a right-wing populist, knows that the Tories are likely to lose the next general election and he obviously thinks he's more chance of retaining his seat if he stands for the Reform UK Party. Last month, Simon Danczuk, the former Labour MP for Rochdale, received a 6% share of the vote (1,968 votes) when he stood as the candidate for Reform UK in Rochdale. George Galloway of the Workers Party of Britain, received a 40% share of the vote (12,335 votes) and was elected.

Since 1955, when the Ashfield seat was created, the constituency has been predominantly Labour controlled. It went Conservative in 1977 and 2019, with the election of Lee Anderson. Geoff Hoon represented Ashfield as the Labour MP from 1992 until 2010, when he was succeeded by Gloria De Piero who now works for GB News. The voters of Ashfield should take heed of the words of Doctor Samuel Johnson, who famously said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." If they've any sense they'll give this uncouth bigoted lout the boot and put him on the park benches where he belongs.

The poisoner who taught Sylvia Pankhurst to dance.

 

The house pictured above, was once the home of the suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst. Mrs Pankhurst lived in the house with her husband, three daughters, and her son Harry, before Mr Pankhurst died in 1898. It's near Victoria Park in Manchester, Buckingham Crescent, 114, Daisy Bank Road.

Mrs Pankhurst was supposed to have been in straitened circumstances when she moved into a five-bedroom villa at 62 Nelson Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock in 1898. It's now the Pankhurst Centre and it faces Manchester Royal Infirmary. The family also had two servants and rented the property.

Mrs Pankhurst took a job as the salaried registrar for births, deaths, and marriages, for Chorlton-on-Medlock. The family knew the area well because her daughter's Christabel and Sylvia had taken dancing lessons at number 60 Nelson Street. The dancing school was run by Mrs W Webster and her brother. In October 1895, Mrs Webster poisoned herself and her two sons. The youngest son survived the poisoning. The inquest returned a verdict of murder and suicide due to temporary insanity.

Sylvia Pankhurst, who was a socialist, lived with an Italian anarchist called Silvio Corio and they had a son called Richard, born in 1927. The Italian was her lover and companion for thirty years, but Sylvia refused to marry Silvio, because she objected in principle to entering into marriage and taking a husband's name. Mrs Pankhurst severed ties with her daughter and never spoke to her again. Sylvia died in Ethiopia in 1960 aged 78.

Christabel Pankhurst worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement and died in Santa Monica California in 1958 aged 77. She never married but had an adopted daughter called Betty.

The youngest daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, Adela Pankhurst, died in Sydney Australia, in 1961 aged 75. She had been a Communist and then an anti-Communist founding the far-right Australia First Movement. Later in her life she became a Roman Catholic. Mrs Pankhurst had given Adela a one-way ticket to Australia. She had five children and married a man called Tom Walsh.

Harry Pankhurst, the son of Emmeline Pankhurst, died in 1910 aged 21 of spinal inflammation. An older son Frank, had died of diphtheria in 1888, aged four. Emmeline Pankhurst died in a nursing home in Hampstead, London, in 1928 aged 69. 

Gary Goldsmith the 'Bad Uncle'.

 

Gary Goldsmith 

I don't watch Big Brother, but I've just been struck by the resemblance between Gary Goldsmith the "black sheep" maternal uncle of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her eldest child Prince George.

The self-made multi-millionaire has just been slung out of the Celebrity Big Brother House after being in it for less than a week. Marrying into trade might improve the Royal Family gene pool, but it's not without its risks. 

Goldsmith, who has been married four times, is the brother of Carole Middleton, the mother of the Duchess of Cambridge. In July 2009, Goldsmith was the subject of a 'sting' by the News of the World in which he was filmed dealing cocaine to an undercover reporter. In October 2017, Goldsmith was charged with assault for beating his wife during a "drunken argument." He pleaded guilty to assault and was fined £5,000 and given a twelve-month community order.

Although Goldsmith and his sister Carole Middleton were brought up in a council house in Southall and Hounslow in London, they are descendants of Jane Harrison, nee Liddle, the great-great granddaughter of Sir Thomas Conyers, 9th Baronet, who was their great-great grandmother. Their father, Ronald Goldsmith, was a painter and decorator and their mother Dorothy, was a shop assistant.

Michael Middleton, the father of Catherine, Princess of Wales, is linked via his Leeds born cousin, Lady Bullock, to William Petty-FitzMaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain between 1782 and 1783. Michael Middleton inherited trust funds from his grandmother, Olive Christiana Middleton (nee Lupton). Last year, the Middleton's were forced to sell off their party supplies firm, Party Pieces, after it racked up debts of £2.6 million.

Gary Goldsmith first met Prince William at a dinner party when he and Kate were dating. In 2006, he invited William and Kate to his eight-acre luxury property in Ibiza called La Maison de Bang Bang. Gary and his daughter Tallulah, were guests at Pippa Middleton's wedding ceremony to James Matthews in May 2017. Catherine and Pippa Middleton were nicknamed "the Wisteria Sisters", by those in aristocratic circles because of their ability to climb the social ladder.

Mary & George.

 

A recently released Sky Atlantic drama, Mary and George, starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine, depicts the relationship between King James I of England and the courtier Earl of Buckingham, George Villiers. James described him as his "sweet child and wife." A contemporary French poem says: "It is well known that the King of England/Fucks the Duke of Buckingham."

The drama portrays the role played by Villiers' mother, Mary, in plotting her son's social advancement by way of the King's bed. It's well known that King James had many relationships with men and openly flirted with male courtiers in public. He also seems to have had an active sexual relationship with his wife Anne of Denmark, with whom he fathered seven children of whom three survived.

History has not been forthcoming about the male relationships that James had with men, but to portray King James as a prominent figure in LGBTQ+ history, is frankly laughable. He wrote tracts condemning sodomy even though he may have practiced it. He was known to be slovenly about his personal cleanliness and seldom washed himself.  

In the days of King James I, there was no such thing as a 'homosexual' and to be 'gay' depicted someone who was light-hearted and carefree which is still the true meaning of the word to this day.  In those days they called a spade a shovel and sexual acts between men was known as "buggery" and was frowned upon. It also became a capital offence punishable by death in 1533 with the passing of the 'Buggery Act.

Villiers relationship with the King may well have been simply a means to social advancement. In the ruthless world of the Stuart court, royal favour was everything. Villiers rose from a Knight to a Viscount and finally in 1623, he became the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke was stabbed to death on 23 August 1628, at the Greyhound Inn, in Portsmouth.

The Pentrich Rising 1817

 

The Pentrich rising (1817), was a bit of a fiasco. The rising is said to have been instigated by an agent provocateur working for the government.

I read about it in E.P. Thompson's book 'The Making of the English Working Class.' The rebels believed themselves to be in the vanguard of a Rebellion that would see an army of men descend from the north of England who would assemble in Nottingham, which was to be made a regional centre of government. They would then march to London and set up a government.

One of the leaders of the Pentrich rising was the stocking maker Jeremiah Brandreth, from Sutton-in-Ashfield, who was executed for treason. After being hanged he was beheaded. Two other people, Isaac Ludlam and William Turner, were also hanged outside Derby goal. The men claimed they had been set up by Lord Sidmouth and 'Oliver the spy' and there may well be a great deal of truth in this.

Oliver was an informer for Lord Sidmouth and he was aware of the planned rising which could have been prevented. The TV presenter and former MP,  Gyles Brandreth, claims to be a descendant of Jeremiah Brandreth.

Counter extremism Tsar says London is now a no-go area for Jews.

 

Robin Simcox - Commissioner for Counter Extremism

Robin Simcox, the Government's Commissioner for Countering Extremism, has claimed that London has become a no-go zone for Jews every weekend because of pro-Palestinian protests in the capital. He also says the government have let 'extremists' go "unchallenged for too long." Those people who have marched and protested against genocide in Gaza are being labelled 'extremists'.

I think we should treat what Simcox says with a degree of suspicion and scepticism. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has talked about extremists who are trying to tear Britain apart and described George Galloway's by-election victory in Rochdale as "beyond alarming."

Anyone who has attended a pro-Palestinian rally will tell you that it's not unusual to see orthodox religious Jews at these rallies who support neither the State of Israel or the military action currently being taken by the Israelis in Gaza. They are easily identifiable because of the way they dress. This hardly ever gets reported in the British media which constantly talks of a "Jewish Community." Moreover, not all Jewish men wear the Kippah head covering, display side curls, or wear a black frock coat, so how would you identify someone has being Jewish? Most Jews living in the UK whether men or women, don't look any different from the rest of the white UK population. Who would think that Rachel Riley who co-presents the Channel 4 Countdown program was Jewish?

The term 'extremism' is taken from the government's 'Prevent' program that aims to counter 'Radicalization'. It defines 'extremism' as:

"vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs."

The police also refer to "domestic extremists" which is not defined in English law but covers anti-fox hunters, anti-fracking protestors, and those who campaign against the arms trade. It also includes Baroness Jenny Jones. The term "domestic extremist" basically means anything the police what it to mean. They also apply the term "extremist ideologies" to groups like the environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR) who are trying to save the planet from environmental destruction.

Simcox has been branded a cheerleader for the UK's own brand of extremism. Although the right to protest peacefully is seen as a fundamental democratic right in Britain, Simcox has slammed the pro-Palestine protests and has urged a crackdown on non-violent Islamism. His views are largely in step with those of the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman who sees a clash of civilisations in multicultural Britain. She called for powers to ban protests outright and called pro-Palestinian anti-genocide protestors, "hate marchers". Braverman was called the 'Minister for Hate' and was described has being the most divisive Home Secretary in modern British history.

Robin Simcox also has close links with the neo-conservative think tank the Henry Jackson Society that has been described as having an "anti-Islam" agenda.

The French Connection

 

The Battle of Agincourt

Most English people know of the Battle of Agincourt because it was made famous by William Shakespeare in his famous history play Henry V. The battle is considered to be one of England's most celebrated victories in what is called the Hundred Years' War.

From the 11th to the 16th century, parts of France were under English control. The so-called 'Angevin Empire' stretched from Scotland to the Pyrenees and included Normandy, Maine, Brittany, Anjou, Aquitaine, Gascony and Toulouse. The Pale of Calais, remained part of England until 1558 during the reign of Mary 1.

After the marriage of Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine, Bordeaux was under English rule between 1152 and 1453. Henry V claimed the French throne through his great-grandfather Edward III, whose mother, Isabella of France, was the daughter of Philip IV of France. The 'Hundred Years' War' (1337-1453), fought between England and France, originated in English claims to the French throne.

The French throne ceased to exist in 1792 with the French Revolution. King George III of England was the last monarch to use the title King of France when England abandoned claims to the French throne in 1802.

Paul Mason calls for Galloway to be "isolated and ostracised."

 

George Galloway

Another bravura performance by George Galloway has he ties up in knots the Sky TV news presenter Anna Botting. I believe this interview took place in 2006 and has been watched by over 100m viewers.

In a more recent interview with Sam Coates, of Sky TV, Galloway made him look equally ridiculous when Coates asked about intimidation in the election campaign and claimed that people in Rochdale were worried about his election as the MP for Rochdale. Galloway reminded him that he'd just been elected the MP for Rochdale with a "thumping majority" and that he'd won more votes than the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Reform Parties, combined together. Coates told Galloway that the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, had described his election as the MP for Rochdale has "beyond horrifying." Galloway told him that "Little Rishi Sunak" was at the "fag end of his prime ministership" and that he despised the man.

Sunak has threatened to jail anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian supporters and Starmer-oid has praised his leadership. Galloway has said that Starmer-oid and Sunak are two cheeks of the same arse.

One election official in Rochdale has already been sacked after Galloway and representatives of his Workers Party of Britain, accused him of ballot rigging on behalf of Azhar Ali, who was the official Labour candidate until Labour withdrew its support over comments that he made about the Israelis. It's believed that a complaint was also made to the police and the Returning Officer for Rochdale. At this time, there's no suggestion that Mr Ali was involved in this or was even aware of it.

The pseudo lefty journalist and former BBC Newsnight presenter, Paul Mason, has called for Galloway to be isolated and ostracised along with any politicians and activists who support him. He wrote on X, "treat him like Greek Parliament treated Golden Dawn." Mason described his election by the voters of Rochdale as "militant democracy." Mason, a former member of the Trotskyist group 'Workers' Power', has aspirations to become a Labour MP but has been repeatedly rejected as a Labour candidate despite sucking up to Starmer and his handlers.

Welcome to the 'Real World' of Lee Anderson.

 

Cloth Capped Tory - Lee Anderson

The right-wing populist politician, Lee Anderson, has built his lucrative political career on courting controversy and fostering social division to promote his own self-image. The pro-death penalty former miner, who has been the Conservative MP for Ashfield since 2019, was once a Labour councillor. He was suspended by his local branch of the Labour Party in 2018 after he received a community protection warning from the council for using boulders to stop members of the Traveller community, setting up a camp site in the area. There were also calls for him to be sacked when he called for nuisance tenants to be evicted into tents and forced to work in the fields picking vegetables. The Labour Party compared his idea to "forced labour camps."

In 2023, this wind-up merchant, told asylum seekers that if they didn't like being housed on the barge the 'Bibby Stockholm', they "should fuck off back to France." He also accused people of misusing food banks because they couldn't cook and claimed you could knock up a meal for 30 pence.

In a debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, in June 2021, Anderson accused the Traveller community in Ashfield of 'thievery' and said:

 "the Gypsy encampments that we are talking about in places such as Ashfield are not the traditional, old-fashioned Gypsies sat there playing the mandolin, flogging lucky heather and telling fortunes. The Travellers I am talking about are more likely to be seen leaving your garden shed at 3 o'clock in the morning, probably with your lawnmower and half of your tools..."

During the Euro 2020 tournament, Anderson announced that he wouldn't be watching any England national football team matches because the players had taken the decision to bend the knee as a gesture against racism and in support of the campaign 'Black Lives Matter(BLM). Anderson claimed that BLM was a "political movement whose core principles aim to undermine our very way of life."

Although some Conservatives like the former MP Matthew Parris, have argued that one of the jobs of a parliamentarian is to curtail the instincts of the mob, Anderson plays up to the mob, and its paid off. The oaf now presents a show on GB News entitled 'Lee Anderson's Real World', for which he gets paid an annual salary of £100,000. It was on his show that Anderson claimed that the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was controlled by 'Islamists' but he didn't provide any evidence to substantiate his ludicrous allegation that "Islamists" had "got control" of Mr Khan and London, he merely referred to the anti-genocidal protests that have been taking place in London in support of the Palestinians. Although Anderson denied being a racist and denied being Islamophobic, he said he wouldn't apologise to Sadiq Khan or retract his comments.

The former Conservative Party deputy chairman, told ITV news that he would choose his "clumsy" words "slightly differently" if he could turn the clock back, but that he "will not back down" on the comments that he made. Anderson also denied that he'd targeted Sadiq Khan because he was a Muslim. Sadiq Khan said Anderson's comments "pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred."

Although the Conservative Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has denied that Anderson is racist he's withdrawn the whip from Lee Anderson and said his comments were "wrong, unacceptable and ill-judged." Anderson said that since making his comments on Sadiq Khan, his inbox had been full with people telling him that he'd been right to say what he said. He remarked on social media:

"I went into the pubs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Ashfield. The first pub I went into they all stood up and applauded me. That tells you all you need to know about the people of Ashfield." In fairness to the people of Ashfield, some do regard Anderson has "a bit of a prat" and a "Wally" who'd do better to keep his mouth shut.

During the 2019 election campaign, Anderson was one of three Conservative Party candidates who were investigated by the party over claims of antisemitism. It was alleged that Anderson was an active member of a Facebook group that supported the racist Islamophobe Tommy Robinson and which also promoted conspiracy theories about the Hungarian Jewish financier George Soros. Although the results of the investigation weren't made public, Anderson apologised for being a member of the group and agreed to attended online training sessions by the Antisemitism Policy Trust charity to improve his understanding of antisemitism. 

Landslide victory for Galloway in Rochdale.

 

Congratulations to George Galloway in winning the Rochdale by-election with a thumping majority and landslide victory. Thanks to Tory-lite Sir Keir Starmer-oid and the voters of Rochdale, Galloway has been returned to Parliament after an absence of nine years. In 2015, Galloway lost his seat in Bradford West and stood in the Rochdale by-election, for the 'Workers Party of Britain'.

In this interview with Sam Coates of Sky TV, Galloway puts on a bravura performance and makes Coates look ridiculous as he answers questions put to him about alleged intimidation in the election and Galloway being a divisive figure in British politics.

Little Rishi Sunak, the unelected Tory British Prime Minister, has spoken about extremist forces that are "trying to tear us apart" in Britain. Only recently, Sunak was criticised for failing to condemn divisive racist comments made by the former miner and Labour councillor, Lee Anderson, in an Islamophobic rant about the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and for refusing to apologise to the mayor. Anderson accused the mayor of London of being "controlled by Islamists." Sunak may have withdrawn the Conservative whip from Anderson and sacked the former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, but he's never condemned their racist outbursts. Anderson has been accused of "pouring fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred."

Both Anderson and Sunak are at the fag-end of their political careers and it's likely that Anderson will defect to the right-wing populist party Reform UK. Braverman was dubbed the 'minister for hate' and was denounced as the most divisive Home Secretary in British history.

The House of Commons is full of mealy-mouthed time serving MPs and is badly in need of some sparkle. As an effective political communicator, George Galloway might well add some flavour to the proceedings and liven things up a bit. He's one MP that won't be kowtowing to the Israelis and Netanyahu and his Zionist thugs. At the moment a vote for either Labour or Tory is a vote for 'genocide' in Gaza and that's why Starmer-oid has lost the Muslim Labour vote. As George Galloway said in the election, Starmer-oid and Sunak are two cheeks of the same arse.

Starmer spoke to Israeli President before crucial SNP vote on Gaza.

 

Isaac Herzog- President of Israel

Sir Kier Starmer-oid has admitted to having spoken to Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel, before embarking on Parliamentary manoeuvres that scuppered the Scottish National Party's (SNP) motion calling for a full and immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

It has been widely alleged that Starmer-oid lobbied the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, to break with precedent to let a watered-down Labour motion be debated before the SNP motion that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an "end to the collective punishment of the Palestinian people" and an end to arms sales from Britain to Israel. Starmer is alleged to have told Hoyle that choosing his motion was in the interests of MPs' safety.

It was also reported that as many as 100 Labour MPs, including two shadow cabinet ministers, were planning to rebel against the Labour leader who has been accused of excusing genocide in Gaza and of being a cheerleader for Israeli mass murder. When Labour's amendment passed, the SNP's motion was scuppered and a mass Labour rebellion was avoided. The Commons descended into chaos with SNP and Tory MPs walking out in protest at the way Hoyle had bent the rules to get the Labour leader out of a tight spot. Hoyle later apologised for the way he'd handled matters but said he'd done so in the interests of MPs safety. Since the vote, over 80 MPs have expressed no confidence in Lindsay Hoyle as the Speaker.

Spain recently agreed to ban arm sales to Israel but Britain, the U.S. and Germany, continue to supply the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), with weapons and ammunition to kill Palestinians. Over 29,000 people have been killed in Gaza. Most of these are not members of Hamas but innocent men, women, and children. Well over 10,000 children have been killed by Israeli carpet bombing and Israeli ground forces.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), recently ruled that the conflict in Gaza "may plausibly be genocide", though it stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The UK Conservative government of Rishi Sunak, recently used its seat on the UN Security Council to abstain on a vote calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the U.S. vetoed the motion.

Last November, Labour abstained on a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and this was supported by all three Labour Tameside MPs, Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne), Jonathan Reynolds and Andrew Gwynne. Reynolds, who represents the constituency of Stalybridge & Hyde, is a Vice Chairman of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and Gwynne, who represents the constituency of Denton & Reddish, is a former Chairman of LFI.

Sir Kier Starmer-oid has stated publicly, "I support Zionism without qualification." Starmer-oid may have avoided a Labour rebellion but his political stance on the conflict in Gaza and the way he bows and scrapes to the Israelis, have lost him the Muslim Labour vote and the Rochdale by-election. It's truly scandalous the way in which the Israeli lobby meddle in British politics and the way in which some British politicians, are in thrall, to this little country in the Middle East.