Margaret Burke, a former Neo-Nazi supporting HMP Holloway jailbird turned one-time Labour Party councillor, happily hung around with hypocrites Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and Caroline Flint; will she get a ‘photo op’ with the drippy dope Sir Keir Starmer during General Election 2024?
Elected as a councillor in Milton Keynes in 2012 in spite of having previously dressed in Nazi-style uniforms and also having recruited youths to daub buildings with swastikas, Margaret Burke – pictured above with fellow hypocrite, gypsy basher Diane Abbott MP – was a member of a repugnant group known as the November 9th Society in the early 1980s. Today, instead, this wicked wastrel claims to “look after hedgehogs and birds and anything else that comes her way.”
Whilst a councillor, this anything but innocent “bit of a berk” also neglected to mention her time in Her Majesty’s Prison Holloway for vandalising a butcher’s shop whilst a member of the Animal Liberation Front. Bombastic bore Burke, however, was prepared to share that she “held surgeries for one hour per week for her constituents every Friday evening.”
In the context of this Labour loon, don’t mention the war and don’t mention her friendliness with not only Abbott, but also her disgraceful ex-lover, Jeremy Corbyn. He was happy to pose for a picture with her in 2016 even.
One now has to ask: “Will the super fan of the bombastic bigot ‘Nasty Nat’ Natalie Elphicke and all-round drippy dope Sir Keir Starmer be seeking out Margaret Burke for a ‘photo op’ during the General Election 2024 campaign?” Shame on anyone who associates with this vile piece of toe rag.
Of the one-time Neo Nazi Margaret Burke, the now ex-Labour MP The Right Honourable Caroline Flint once shockingly enthused: “Margaret has been a community activist for some time and also runs a wildlife hospital and as you can imagine is very well known. Relatively new to the Labour Party she has taken to knocking on doors like a duck to water. Out in groups but also alone, Margaret is clocking up her target vote. She is an inspiration to those who avoid the doorstep.” If she’d been around when they were in power, might Caroline Flint – a woman bizarrely endorsed in 2019 as “first rate” by Boris Johnson – have lauded Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler perhaps also?Two mental maniacs come together… Dimwitted dunce Diane Abbott was happy to be snapped with the ex-Neo Nazi and since ex-Labour councillor in April 2012 in Milton Keynes. Excusing her previous antics, another Milton Keynes Labour councillor, Kevin Wilson, pathetically bleated of a woman who, along with her [then] husband [Terry Flynn], “wore Nazi-style uniforms and recruited gangs of local youths to hand out racist leaflets and daub buildings with swastikas”: “We were aware of Margaret’s past and we questioned her at length. We had no doubt at all that her misdemeanours of 20 or 30 years ago were serious matters but I do not believe that somebody should be punished or penalised for what they did such a long time ago.”The ex-jailbird Margaret Burke grinned like a Cheshire cat when she got herself into a snap with Jeremy Corbyn in 2016. At the time, according to ‘Guido Fawkes,’ the then Labour leader was quoted as telling her: “Thank you very much for all the hard work you have done.” One can only wonder if this wicked woman gifted him a swastika in return.
As the queue-jumping puppet master of Gordon The Gopher Phillip Schofield quits ‘This Morning’, Matthew Steeples asks: “Will further scandal follow for this flogger of plughole-fit-only plonk?”
This morning, The Observer asked: “Will the Phil and Holly saga put an end to the absurd notion of the TV couple?” and aside from examining the storm-in-a-teacup of the end-of-the-road being reached for the dastardly queue-jumping duo, referenced the likes of the ‘washed-up old soak’ Judy Finnigan and her ‘modern day Dorian Gray-esque’ husband, Richard Madeley.
Whilst the married telly box duo of the alleged shoplifter Madeley – he still claims to have been falsely accused and even once pointed this out to President Bill Clinton – and his ‘mummy-like’ wife Finnigan remain together, “the silver soufflé” Phillip Schofield’s ‘sofa based’ relationship with Holly Willoughby is now finally toast.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples polled his 10,600 personal followers of @M_Steeples. He asked: “Will further shocking stories about bitter bore Phillip Schofield emerge in wake of his departure from ITV1’s ‘This Morning’?” By 11:30am on Sunday 21st May 2023, the very clear majority of the 1,000 plus respondents took the view: “Yes; more scandals on the way.”
Twitter reacts to Matthew Steeples’s poll…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7mzqB6oQe8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPTahhXUxPw
Twitter delights in the disappearance of Phillip Schofield from ITV1’s daytime screens…
Wacky and weird Phillip Schofield’s worst moments…
On himself (in spite of being condemned by everyone from Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford to Nadine Dorries MP):
“I am only about 26 in my head.”
“If I was a pig to work with, I wouldn’t get asked back.”
“My dad was the archetypal charming man. If I’ve inherited even a small bit of what he had, that would be enough for me.”
“I’m incredibly sentimental, although I’m not one of those people who doesn’t chuck anything out; I don’t keep used tea bags, just special mementos.”
To his one-time ‘friend’ turned ‘runner’ (for a time) on This Morning, Matthew McGreevy (whom he met when the young whippersnapper was just 12 or 13 years old) asking him about what they might end up doing in three years:
“Well, if I’m still getting away with it, I’ll be a happy man.”
On the world in general:
“We live in a world that has very sharp edges. It can be very bitter.”
On Holly Willoughby (who subsequently has distanced herself from the crying cretin):
“Holly is my rock.”
On being gay (in spite of hidden such for years):
“I thought maybe I was bisexual.”
“If you ask anyone who is gay, they know, there is no confusion.”
“You never know what is going on someone’s head when they think they are leading the perfect life.”
As he cut off invited guests on ‘This Morning’ who he believed misgendered LGBTQX+ sorts:
“We’ll get back to the show and we’ll get back to 2017 and not get back to medieval Britain in just a moment.”
On his now ex-wife’s keenness to be rid of him:
“My wife Steph never tells me to take on less work; she’s just glad to have me out of the house.”
On birthdays:
“I hate birthdays.”
On putting wine ahead of family:
“Wine is the biggest passion of my life without question.”
“I don’t do anything by halves and wine is an expensive passion.”
On preferring to travel alone:
“In general, I’d say that I need to be with the right people in the right place, although one of the best holidays I ever had was alone.”
On quitting Twitter:
“I have another secret Twitter account.”
“There’s nothing that winds me up more on Twitter than people who are stupid and who say the most ridiculous things.”
On the people he’s interviewed:
“I’m not being arrogant or blasé, but I got a bigger buzz sitting opposite Jean-Bernard Delmas at Château Haut-Brion than I did from interviewing Elton John, Liza Minelli or Whitney Houston.”
“You can tell when you look at someone and think: ‘He’s on the brink of fainting’ or that certainly something’s not right.”
On offending people:
“I love the fact we do break taboos.”
Asked why he and Holly Willoughby skipped the 13-hour queue to attend the lying-in-state of the late Queen Elizabeth II:
“Have you got nothing better to do with your time? … Why should I apologise?”
On ghosts and his past life:
“[I have] a rule about never borrowing money… [I was] ‘murdered’ in a past life over a debt… I opened the door to silence and felt horror wash over me. Three steps in, and I saw them – two murdered bodies on the floor. knew they were my wife and small child. Horror turned to fury. I knew why they were dead. I owed money to two brothers who worked at the end of the street in a sawmill. The brother [then] found me, dragged me outside, punched me to the ground and, as my head hit the mud, he repeatedly stamped on it until I was dead!”
“Our back garden is allegedly haunted by a ghost called the Grey Lady. When one of my daughters was three, she said she’d been speaking to a lady in the garden and we went running around trying to find this woman. There was no one there.”
On refusing to go near churches:
“Going into a church reminds of the terrifying vision of [past life] death… [I am] not willing to take the risk again.”
To a flower pot that he felt got in his way on television:
“Go back to where you were, go back to where you were… Only I can see them.”
To Lady Colin Campbell (whom he was interviewing about her latest book on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex):
“For someone who allegedly moves in aristocratic circles, isn’t it all a bit tawdry and undignified? … Paul Burrell, who’d have thought we’d quote him, said of one of your previous books on the Queen: ‘You can only be a true, reliable witness to history if you are there. Lady Colin Campbell was none of these things.’ … You are a gossip. Well, you’re a gossip, but only when it suits you.”
Whilst interviewing television personality Kim Woodburn (who responded by slamming his rudeness):
“I know why people reacted in the way that they reacted to you. It’s because of the way you make me feel sitting on that sofa. You are already making me feel controversial. [You are] confrontational… We’re just asking you a question.”
On dealing with problems (in spite of being the creator of many himself):
“I’m a very good clearer-upper.”
Whilst shockingly sharing a list of ‘names’ of Conservative politicians live on-air with then Prime Minister David Cameron of those he believed might be abusers (he was subsequently forced to apologise and pay £125,000 to Lord McAlpine, an innocent man):
“I have those names there. Those are the names on a piece of paper. You know the names on that piece of paper. Will you be speaking to those people?”
On the ‘work’ he has done:
“I’m not a workaholic.”
“I do have a rule about how much I will take on. The last thing you want is to be on TV too much and for people to be sick of you.”
On being on television:
“I am very conscious of the fact I am in peoples’ living rooms every day and they feel like they know me.”
“I meet people who are so sniffy about daytime TV… Ghastly.”
“I don’t want people turning on the telly and going: ‘Dear God, not him again.’”
‘Schofe’s’ extremely curious history… “What’ll come next for this raging ratbag?” is indeed the question…
Gordon The Gopher (also known as ‘Gordon T. Gopher’) was Phillip Schofield’s puppet ‘friend’ on ‘Children’s BBBC’ (‘CBBC’) between 1985 and 1987. The yellow puppet gopher with red pads – which were said to “represent lobster claws” – is amongst the many that the now former ITV ‘This Morning’ presenter turned upon. Of the puppet, Schofield once told ‘Heat’ magazine: “Gordon the Gopher is in rehab. It’s all gone horribly wrong for him. It’s a shame. I’ve got a restraining order against him and we don’t speak. He’s quite bitter and he has been ever since I got my role in ‘Doctor Dolittle’ in the West End and he didn’t get offered the part. It was the straw that broke the gopher’s back.”Phillip Schofield claims not to check Twitter anymore; he has also said he has a ‘secret account’ so most likely does monitor the many thousands of messages slamming his utterly reprehensible antics.Phillip Schofield with his now convicted and now jailed criminal 54-year-old paedophile brother Timothy Schofield in happier times. After the verdict earlier in April – in a case where the television presenter’s civilian police officer sibling was convicted of three counts of causing a child to watch sexual activity and three counts of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child – in a statement released by his lawyer, Phillip Schofield remarked: “My overwhelming concern is and has always been for the wellbeing of the victim and his family. I hope that their privacy will now be respected. If any crime had ever been confessed to me by my brother, I would have acted immediately to protect the victim and their family. These are despicable crimes and I welcome the guilty verdicts. As far as I am concerned, I no longer have a brother.” Timothy Schofield was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and two of sexual activity with a child at Exter Crown Court and had told the television presenter that he’d “had time together” (including watching porn and masturbating) with a child whilst the ‘This Morning’ host was doing the washing up in his very own kitchen.On 8th November 2012, Schofield handed the then Prime Minister David Cameron a list of names of alleged sex offenders in the Conservative Party which he had found through research on the Internet. That list was partially visible to ‘This Morning’s’ millions of viewers and as a result one person on it, Lord McAlpine, sued. Subsequently, the broadcaster was quite rightly forced to issue and unreserved apology and a statement that read: “ITV and Phillip Schofield have now reached agreement with Lord McAlpine to settle his libel claim, made in relation to the This Morning programme broadcast… ITV and Phillip Schofield apologise unreservedly to Lord McAlpine, have agreed the terms of a statement to be made in open court, and have agreed to pay him damages of £125,000 and his legal costs.” According to ‘International Business,’ “the ITV settlement [was] reportedly less than McAlpine was seeking. However, the peer’s lawyer, Andrew Reid, said he was ‘pleased’ with ITV’s admission that it was wrong and called the settlement ‘pragmatic.’ … Reid told the BBC: ‘The Schofield stunt added fuel to the fire that was already there and we had to take that into account.”Now former ITV1 ‘This Morning’ co-host Phillip Schofield cringed and looked as if he was about to snap when approached outside his West London home by GB News presenter Ben Leo in November 2022 about the ‘Queuegate’ scandal that utterly disgraced him. Here is a mouse-not-a-man who wrongly assumes that he’s some kind of national treasure worthy of not a jot of criticism.Instead of skipping queues and upsetting the nation on multiple occasions, the all-round-angry man and now ex ‘This Morning’ host and ex-sidekick of Gordon the Gopher should now focus on improving his deservedly slammed boxed wines (right). He thought his red “perfect with olives” whilst the public decided it “better poured down the plughole.” Alternatively, he could put some effort into ‘making up’ with his missing from our screens for quite some time now former close friend, Matthew McGreevy.The television presenter and all-round plonker with his supposed ‘former friend’ Matt McGreevy on another occasion.On one occasion, Matthew McGreevy – who has allegedly since been made to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) – was paraded around on an episode of ‘This Morning’ in a just a pair of swimming trunks. Ruth Langsford looked on sheepishly whilst ‘Princess Tippy Toes’ swung into action and covered skinny McGreevy in sun tan lotion. Phillip Schofield’s role in orchestrating this puff piece remains unknown.In recent days, Schofield has supposedly come to rely on a man named Simon Schofield (who is not a relation, but whom the ‘Daily Mail’ this week most tellingly described as like “a rock” to the now ex ‘This Morning’ presenter). Here, the latter is pictured with the pair’s ‘friend’ Matthew McGreevy.The ‘This Morning’ host is known for being a very angry and bitter man. Like Ferne McCann (pictured right), a fellow presenter on ITV1 with a reputation for being an utter rotter and for having had a child with a monster who threw acid over innocent people in a London nightclub, he is also known for being incapable of owning his own mistakes.
David Lennox shares the stories of five famous British poker players and what makes them good at their game
Many of our readers enjoy gaming both in casinos and online on sites such as SlotsLV, but most would struggle to name individuals famous for other activities who also happen to be very, very good at games such as poker.
Whilst well-known individuals such as the footballer Michael Owen has also found success on the horseracing circuit and the England manager Terry Venables is now also known for co-creating the detective series Hazell, the following five ‘famous faces’ are the British kings of ‘poker hand’ activity:
Derren Brown
Mentalist, illusionist, painter and author are just a few of the occupations Derren Brown has practicised. A former evangelical Christian turned atheist, this award-winning “master of mind control” is a winner of two Laurence Olivier Awards and in 2014 appeared as himself in the Sherlock episode ‘The Empty Hearse.’
Active since 1992, Croydon born Brown claims not possess any supernatural powers and often begins his shows by stating that what he does is achieved through “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship.” He took inspiration from the hypnotist Martin S. Taylor and worked as a conjuror whilst studying at the University of Bristol.
Considered a controversial entertainer by some, Brown – who claims to be a “big fan” of parrots and who is a patron of the Parrot Zoo Trust in Friskney, Lincolnshire – is said to have “prowess” also at blackjack and poker. He is considered so good that he has supposedly been banned from several casinos in the United Kingdom.
Stephen Chidwick (Aliases ‘stevie444’ and ‘TylersDad64’)
Aside from being a lookalike of the Marmite-like social media manipulator Andrew Tate, Playa del Carmen based Stephen Chidwick is listed as being the number one on the England all-time money list for poker tournament winnings.
Born in 1989 in Deal, Kent and “popular with the fans,” Chidwick had raked in a grand total of £26.1 million ($32.3 million, €29.7 million or درهم118.6 million) by November 2019 and likely now has well exceeded that figure. At that time, he was eighth all-time and he currently stands at the biggest-earning British tournament poker player in history.
Michael Greco
Best known for having played Beppe di Marco in EastEnders for four years, Michael Greco was born in Sutton, Greater London in November 1970. He has also appeared in Casualty, Celebrity Love Island and Soapstar Superstar, but card games are his true passion.
Wikipedia list Greco’s total live tournament poker winnings at in excess of £890,000 ($1.1 million, €1 million or درهم4 million), but given they only provide dated entries to contests including the Showbiz Poker between 2005 and 2009, his actual total is likely far higher.
In 2022, the actor announced he would be starring in a new Netflix series and also appeared in Aladdin at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre. Of this, he observed: “They’re the best parts to play, the villains. It’s the role people remember. I played the boy-next-door characters growing up. As I’ve got a bit older, gruffer and hairier – oh, and greyer – it’s the baddies now.”
Stephen Hendry MBE (AKA ‘The Golden Boy’, ‘The Ice Man’ and ‘The King of the Crucible’)
Aside from having appeared a poor ninth in The Masked Singer as ‘Rubbish’ in 2023, this Scottish snooker player is lauded as “one of the most successful snooker players in history.”
Hendry turned professional in 1985 at the tender age of 16 and went on to become the sport’s youngest world champion when he won his first World Snooker Championship in 1990 aged just 21. He won seven world titles between 1990 and 1999 and retired in 2012, but returned to the professional circuit in 2021.
A father of two, Hendry supports Hearts and Chelsea F.C. and also “enjoys poker.” He has appeared in several televised tournaments and especially “loves” high-stakes games.
Stuart Wheeler (1935 – 2020)
Eton and Oxford educated Stuart Wheeler was once “told to stop playing blackjack for being too successful at Caesar’s Palace Casino in Las Vegas.” He played cards with Lord Lucan two nights before his disappearance, invented spread-betting on shares and gave William Hague’s Conservative Party the biggest donation in British history – a sum of £5 million ($6.2 million, €5.7million or درهم22.7 million).
A regular competitor in the World Series of Poker championships and known for playing bridge with Omar Sharif also, Wheeler lived in the £15 million ($18.6 million, €17 million or درهم68.2 million) Chilham Castle in Kent and counted ‘Model of the Millennium’ Jacquetta Wheeler amongst his trio of delightful daughters.
In September 2019, Quiller published Wheeler’s memoir Winning Against The Odds: My Life in Gambling and Politics and launched it with a glitzy party hosted by Dominic Cummings at Carlton House Terrace. He sadly died of stomach cancer just months later and generously left his Jacobean castle to charity.
David Lennox is a restaurant critic and occasional enthusiast for the ‘Sports of Kings.’ He enjoys the ‘Beautiful Game’ and the odd game of poker as well as backgammon and the roulette wheel also.
Matthew Steeples suggests Jim Davidson should admit he got it wrong in suggesting returned to jail paedophile Gary Glitter was a “remorseful’ man who “looked ready to start a new life”
This morning, the washed-up wazzock and all-round scumbag that is Jim Davidson OBE was trending on Twitter after an interview with the ‘Mouth of the Sewer’ that is GB News’ Dan Wootton last night.
Whilst Davidson – a foul-mouthed ‘5×3’ (five kids by three of his five wives) – used the interview to bang on about “smug” Gary Lineker and how he “never particularly felt welcome” at the BBC, he neglected to comment on his thoughts on the real trending news, that of the filthy paedophile Gary Glitter being returned to jail after just 38 days in a bail hostel after breaching his licence terms.
Glitter – who was caught and photographed by another bail hostel resident using a smartphone to access the ‘Dark Web’ via something called ‘The Onion’ to attempt to snare further victims – had been visited by Davidson at the Isle of Wight prison where he was then housed by the former supermarket shelf-stacker Davidson in 2019.
Afterwards, in June 2021, Davidson shockingly and rather casually shared of his child abusing ‘chum’:
“I spoke to Paul [Gadd, AKA ‘Gary Glitter’] when I visited The Verne [prison] two years. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life.”
Instead of remarking on this very, very clear ‘error of judgment,’ speaking to Dan Wootton on GB News yesterday regarding the BBC’s #GaryGate debacle, Davidson raged:
“My political interest was cast upon me way before at Thames Television when I had The Jim Davidson Show and a man called John Howard Davis, who was a BBC producer, turned up and got rid of me and Benny Hill overnight.”
“And then, about a year later, I got a little cassette, a VHS, dropped on my desk by my manager and it [sic] said: ‘The BBC want you.’”
“I said: ‘What’s that?’ They [sic] said: ‘They want you to do this, it’s some rotten show about snooker, so me and John Virgo went and did that show and I never particularly felt welcome there.”
“I was a smell under peoples’ noses and then one day Bruce Forsyth went sick and I stepped in and did The Generation Game. I replaced him just for a day and I wasn’t particularly good, but it made Bruce get better very quick.”
“When he went to do his new deal, they said: ‘No, we’ve got Jim Davidson’ and I did The Generation Game for seven years. I did The Big Break for twelve seasons and seven seasons of The Generation Game.”
“Now look at the BBC. I’m totally erased; I am the statue that’s thrown into Bristol Docks… They gave me a million quid to go away. I had a contract with a million quid’s worth of wages and they said: ‘We’ll give you a million quid if you go away; please don’t tell anyone,” but I told you ‘Danny Boy’ [Dan Wootton].”
“I was worse [than anything else] because I was a working-class Tory. I was a traitor and I like to mess about and have a laugh and be rude and stuff on the rehearsals and it was all pretty much frowned upon.”
“They’re more concerned in being woke and ticking boxes. You know, ticking boxes; the man said to me: ‘We have to have 8.9% ethnic minorities on every show’ and so if you couldn’t get anybody that wanted to come on Big Break who was of non-white persuasion, you had to go out and kidnap some poor bugger and throw him in.”
“You know, err, it was daft and do you know what I learnt there, and I’ve been in the business forty-seven years… I’m nearly one-hundred… So, you learn a thing or two about the BBC and it’s full of people that don’t know how to make programmes. I had to tick a box and I had to be silly.”
“Now, I wouldn’t have thrown Lineker off like that and having a boss called Tim. Now come on, how scary is a Tim?”
“Now, anyway, you wouldn’t throw someone off; just turn them off. I can understand that it’s taxpayers’ money and I hate the BBC with a passion. It’s a toss-up between them and the NHS who I hate the most, but I, you know, I wouldn’t have got rid of him because now Tim’s shown himself as lily livered.”
“[Lineker] can now say what he wants, can’t he? He’s won and he’s going to be even smugger. Smug, smugger.”
“It’s upto Tim and all those silly people [what the BBC does next] and now they want to get rid of the chairman ‘cos he arranged some loan or helped Boris [Johnson]. Now, everyone’s just picking on one another. I think the BBC have lost the public; they’ve lost the dressing room.”
“You know, who do we watch now? GB News, anything but BBC. What does the BBC stand for? ‘Bring Back Corbyn,’ ‘Bring Back Communism.’”
“You know, it is a joke and we have to pay for it whether we like it or not. You know, let’s scrap it and watch GB News all day long.
Responding, this morning on Twitter, I asked:
“As Jim Davidson trends, should he apologise for his June 2021 remark: “I spoke to Paul Gadd [Gary Glitter] when I visited The Verne [prison] two years ago. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life” given the paedo has been recalled to prison after being caught on Dark Web?”
Other Twitter users took up the mantle and amongst comments were:
“I wonder if Jim Davidson still believes that Gary Glitter is remorseful and ready to start a new life?”
“Remember when Jim Davidson was funny? Me neither.”
“Fun Fact: For years the BBC didn’t give a flying sh*t about their right-wing so-called ‘comedian’ Jim Davidson’s racist/misogynistic stage show when he was hosting their flagship Saturday night show ‘The Generation Game’ #IStandWithGaryLineker.”
All that Glitters is not gold; all that is Jim Davidson is utterly toxic and now it is time for the latter to apologise for getting it well and truly wrong about one of the most evil men ever to set foot on this planet.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGGBmDZbfgE
TRAILER – Matthew Steeples will be ‘live’ with Shaun Attwood to discuss his views on Gary Glitter being returned to the clink after breaching his licence terms whilst in a bail hostel on Wednesday 15th March at 6pm GMT. Please do tune in and please do ask away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylQ6N-_gPRQ&t=0s
FULL EPISODE – This will be ‘live’ for the first time at 6pm GMT on Wednesday 15th March 2023. View here.
As Jim Davidson trends, should he apologise for his June 2021 remark: “I spoke to [Gary Glitter] when I visited The Verne [prison] 2 years ago. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life” given the paedo has been recalled to prison after being caught on Dark Web?
This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “As Jim Davidson trends, should he apologise for his June 2021 remark: “I spoke to [Gary Glitter] when I visited The Verne [prison] 2 years ago. He’s remorseful and he looked ready to start a new life” given the paedo has been recalled to prison after being caught on Dark Web?” He gave the options: A) “Yes, disgraceful remark”; B) “No, second chances matter”; C) “Cancel Davidson and Glitter” and D) “Couldn’t care less.” By 11:30am on Wednesday 15th March 2023, the majority of respondents favoured the idea of the cancellation of this noxious pair of grifters.GB News is about the only channel that will now accept the weird warblings of these two utter berks. A pair of toerags forever linked by a hashtag.Twitter users have rightly mocked the ‘entertainer’ over his decision to visit a disgraced ‘singer’ who abused children as young as 10 years old in prison. What on earth was it about the paedophile-nonce-monster Gary Glitter that attracted Jim Davidson to visit him in prison? An answer is required. The public should be told.Those that think Gary Lineker was WRONG to tweet about politics whilst working for the BBC should be reminded that both Jim Davidson and the late paedophile Sir Jimmy Savile openly campaigned for the Conservative Party and that both men also worked for the BBC. It is pure hypocrisy to call out Mr Lineker on this basis.
'What does the BBC stand for? Bring back Corbyn, bring back communism…and we have to pay for it whether we like it or not. Let's scrap it, let's watch GB News all day long.'
It is very clear that Dan Wootton has no nous when it comes to questioning Jim Davidson. Mr Wootton is clearly not a journalist prone to drilling into real stories; he just PR peddles for his chums.
Deserved “Public Hate Figure” Jim Davidson OBE’s Worst Moments…
On Great Yarmouth:
“Full of fat children of all colours.”
On London and the UK:
“I am never coming to London again… I may as well go to Dubai and be an ethnic minority there than wait five years till I become one here.”
On former UKIP leader Nigel Farage:
“The Jim Davidson of the political world.”
On beating up one of his four ex-wives:
“We’re like a couple of boxers. On the first occasion, I poked her in the eye by accident. I actually went for the mouth… The second time I gave her a shiner. I threw a bunch of keys which whacked her in the eye. Just for a giggle she kept blackening it up to make it look worse.”
“I took the wife out last night; one punch!”
On supposedly giving up on making jokes about black people:
“I can’t do impressions of Frank Bruno or Ian Wright? That’s racist, is it? But I can do Sven-Göran Eriksson?”
“I’m not going to get on my knee, and I’m not going to go ever black person I see, ‘hail you.’ I’m not going to apologise for the past; the past was the past.”
On Black Lives Matter protestors:
“Pondlife… F**king stupid.”
Of his thoughts about his chum Boris Johnson:
“Don’t listen with mother.”
On Piers Morgan (after he was paid to appear on his Life Stories programme):
“You don’t deserve to listen to anyone’s life story because you don’t f**king listen.”
On the BBC and the NHS:
“I was a smell under peoples’ noses… I’m totally erased; I am the statue that’s thrown into Bristol Docks… They gave me a million quid to go away.”
“I hate the BBC with a passion. It’s a toss-up between them and the NHS who I hate the most.”
Proving himself the ultimate ‘Brain of Britain’:
“People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die.”
After being declared bankrupt:
“My problem is money.”
On himself:
“I could cure Aids and give £1 billion to womens’ groups and people would still think I was a racist, sexist twat”.
“Very unkind” windbag writer Rachel Johnson, a sympathiser of convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, offers sympathies windbag ball and cat kicker Kurt Zouma
“Poundland muckspreader” and “associate of two dirty dildo floggers” Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge CBE has been deservedly slammed for not firing Kurt Zouma, an overpaid kicker of bags of wind for West Ham, after he giggled as he got his brother to film him kicking and slapping a cat in his kitchen.
Now, the Prime Minister’s somewhat off her merry rocker sister, windbag writer Rachel Johnson, has decided to stick her claws in and on her LBC radio show yesterday suggested:
“Listen, I mean I know, thank God it’s after the watershed. I am not a cat person… However, I do think we are in danger of overreacting and cancelling Kurt Zouma for one misguided kick in his kitchen which his silly brother posted on social media.”
“He’s 27, clearly he’s old enough to know better, but do we really want to live in a world where one silly mistake can lead to the end of somebody’s career? I think we don’t.”
“I think he’s taken his punishment, his cats are no longer in the house. I think he should apologise and move on. I think there are bigger issues at stake.”
As we said of Baroness Brady – who pathetically excused this animal abuser and even suggested he could “turn something negative into long-lasting positives” – yesterday and we repeat again to Rachel Johnson today: “Try telling that to the poor abused cat.”
Previously, in November 2021, ‘Rabid Rachel’ penned another ‘excuse article’ for The Spectator that was rightly condemned as “sickening.” In it, the daughter of Stanley Johnson – a man whose first wife declared: “He hit me many times, over many years… He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it” – offered her thoughts on the trial of the since convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell and disgracefully declared:
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell – 500 days and counting in solitary confinement.”
“I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh.”
“She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall – even though I wasn’t in the same college as her and Boris. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home.”
“I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.”
Clearly Rachel Johnson – who believes being “called unkind… really cuts to the quick” – is a woman with a moral compass as warped as not only her buffoon brother Boris Johnson, but also a woman who’ll excuse the activities of both the abusers of animals and humans. Perhaps it is now time for this blonde bozo to reassess her recent remarks and realise that the cats and victims of a sick sex trafficker are the ones she’s most definitely been most unkind to.
Pictured top – West Ham’s cat abuser Kurt Zouma, convicted sexual abusers Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and continually abusive of power and privilege siblings Rachel and Boris Johnson.
Rachel Johnson got her breasts out against Brexit in February 2019. The LBC presenter with her father and siblings.Karren Brady – another defender of cat abuser Kurt Zouma – got elevated to the House of Lords by her guffawing chum David Cameron in spite of claiming to “have no interest in politics.” She also likes bumping fists with Carrie Johnson’s puppet, Boris.
“Very Unkind” Rachel Johnson’s Most Ridiculous Remarks
On boozy lockdown breaking parties in Downing Street:
“I didn’t see much of the Prime Minister and his family during lockdown, but the times I did see him, he was completely compliant: he dotted every ‘I,’ he crossed every ‘T.’”
“If it was rule of six, there were six. And what I didn’t see were all the things you’ve been reading about.”
“To my mind, if he did go out into the Downing Street garden – and he’s told us he did – for him, that would have been work. He may have had a drink, I don’t know. Is that one of the key questions? But that would have been work.”
“For example, at his birthday, it was me, my three brothers, Carrie and Wilf. That was six people. And I have to tell you something about my brother’s character.”
“You’ve been seeing the front pages which couldn’t have been worse: suitcases of booze going into Downing Street from the Co-op.”
“I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that he has never once turned to me or any member of my family and said: ‘I tell you what, let’s have an office party’ or: ‘I tell you what, let’s have a party.’”
“If anything, he would say: ‘Let’s play reading,’ when we were growing up, or even in our twenties, or: ‘Let’s play, who can memorise the most poems from the Oxford book of verse’’ And, of course, it was always him.”
“Look, I’m just telling you what I saw over lockdown and what I know of my brother’s character.”
On her own character:
“Of course, I’m naughty.”
“Without my Johnson trademark mop of yellow hair, I think I would be nothing.”
On politicians:
“If you tell the truth you get into trouble and that’s why politicians are extremely dull.”
On the sex trafficker and daughter of a thieving murderer Ghislaine Maxwell:
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell.”
On food and coffee:
“In Germany, salads are assemblies of ham and mayonnaise.”
“I am a total coffee snob and bore. If anyone makes the mistake of offering me ‘a coffee’ they tend to regret it. I’m worse than Mariah Carey and the hot milk rider is completely non-negotiable.”
On her work:
“I used to sit at home in my tracksuit bottoms and the real excitement of my day would be going out to get a copy of Private Eye and a latte.”
“It’s often discouraging sitting working at home, wondering whether to put the heating on, answering the doorbell to the gas board, feeling it’s all utterly pointless.”
“The Lady [which she was the 9th editor of between 2009 and 2013] is a piddling little magazine that no one cares about or buys.”
On what others think of her:
“I’m worried about looking like a bad person… I don’t like the public image I’ve been dressed with and it worries me.”
“When I’m called unkind, that really cuts to the quick. You can say anything else that you like about me.”
“I don’t mind being called snobbish, a pain and a social climber, but being called unkind really hurts.”
Whilst Cardinal (John) Henry Newman got made a saint, Carrie Johnson’s Abba dancing buddy Henry Newman has been binned and turfed out with the rubbish
Oxford University educated Cardinal John Henry Newman was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in October 2019. Meanwhile earlier that year, his namesake, a spad of plainer birth but of the same alma mater, “discretely charmed by the bourgeoisie” Henry John Newman, got himself elevated when his Abba dancing partner, Carrie Johnson, got her clammering claws on the keys to the nation’s second most famous home, 10 Downing Street.
Now, whilst supposedly “sublimated homosexual” Saint John Henry Newman C.O. – despite having being dead for 132 years – is considered a “national treasure” and described as “the first English saint of the modern era” according to The Tablet, his openly gay namesake was this weekend turfed out of Downing Street with the rubbish.
Gone for Brexiteer ‘Bin Boy’ Henry Newman – who was bizarrely photographed pointing at bags of refuse in Camden in 2017 whilst standing to become a councillor – will be the days of quaffing booze on the terrace of the half acre garden behind the official residences of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now, instead, this graduate also of equally fabled institutions including Harvard and the London School of Economics, will have to pleasure himself with a pint in a pub in The Marquis of Granby after days working in the less salubrious surrounds of Marsham Street back with his supposed sometime flatmate Michael Gove.
According to the Daily Mail’s Andrew Pierce this morning, Newman was so important to Carrie Johnson that the Prime Minister allowed him to celebrate his 38th birthday last summer – hardly a milestone of any note – with a lavish bash at Chequers, the grace-and-favour residence intended for entertaining visiting statesmen and international dignitaries.
“It turned out to be a very high-spirited affair,” Pierce reported, with “Housing Secretary Michael Gove riding pillion as Boris Johnson took him on a joy-ride on his second-hand Yamaha motorcycle around the grounds. Gove clasped his hands around Boris’s ample waist as they nudged speeds of 55mph, while Newman – clutching a flute of champagne – laughed and cheered.”
Gone now are such privileges and gone also is Newman’s desk close to Boris Johnson’s study and instead this alleged “Chatty Rat” – if we are to believe Dominic Cummings – “has been banished to work with his former mentor Gove at his departmental HQ a 15-minute walk away in Marsham Street.” This once influential spad – whom once suggested on Facebook: “[What I’m] thinking [is that] this country needs is a new taskforce” – it appears, has been disposed just like a binbag full of stinking, rotten fish.
For Newman, this downgrade will no doubt seem heartless and unfair, but, as Pierce added: “It was [his] intimate relationship with Mrs Johnson that has proved his undoing.” He now faces likely criticism into what went on with ‘Partygate’ in Sue Gray’s report and as the journalist concluded: “There will be fewer cosy chats in the Downing Street flat in the future.”
Elsewhere, in a ‘Comment’ piece this morning, The Sun declared: “Only time will tell if the ‘greased piglet’ [Boris Johnson’ left it too late to escape” slaughter by his very own party. They neglected to remark on how it will continue to go from bad to worse for his spendaholic, power crazed wife ‘Carrie Antoinette’ now that she’s lost “her rock” and equivalent of Paul Burrell to the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
A fan of wearing beanie hats that declare: “Let’s get Brexit done,” here is a young man who taught politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), after studying at the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the London School of Economics. Henry Newman reportedly then “cut his teeth” working in the Cabinet Office during the coalition government years and then joined Michael Gove’s entourage in the Ministry of Justice after he was appointed as the Lord Chancellor in 2015.Aside from having travelled to Russia in his youth, Henry Newman joined the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 referendum campaign and, according to ‘The Telegraph’ “was among a close circle of Mr Gove’s friends who were said to have helped to convince him to ‘knife’ Mr Johnson and torpedo his bid for the Tory leadership by deciding to run himself.” Later, a director of the pro-Brexit Open Europe think-tank, Newman was then rewarded for being “loyal” to his wine chucking bestie Carrie Symonds when Boris Johnson came to power.
‘Bin Boy’ Henry Newman’s words of wisdom on Facebook…
“Is drunk.”
“Is opening an organic box.”
“Is discreetly charmed by the bourgeoisie.”
“Is drowning in honey, stingless.”
“Once you kill a cow you gotta make a burger.”
“Wondering if he is really a top concern for US immigration.”
“Waiting for Jacqui Smith to resign.”
“Is dancing, dancing, dancing… Is listening to rumba in W. Hartford… Is dancing in the dark… Is missing dancing.”
“Is listening to the Stones while the economy collapses.”
“Is watching his tan fall off.”
“Hates people who don’t know how to use a rowing machine.”
“Is thinking what this country needs is a new taskforce.”
Descriptions of Henry Newman by…
Boris Johnson:
“One of my three musketeers.”
Carrie Symonds:
“One of my four favourite people.”
Toby Young:
“He is a new role model… If you were a [politics show] booker who had to find someone… Newman was the only name on your Rolodex.”
“As the oxygen went out of Theresa May’s premiership, and her withdrawal agreement began to breathe its last, the great balloon of his career became more and more inflated.”
Dominic Cummings:
“All the evidence [regarding the second lockdown leak] definitely leads to Henry Newman… I’m just trying to get the communications data to prove it.”
An unnamed “senior government source”:
“The allegations against Henry Newman are entirely false. He wouldn’t be working in Downing Street if he was suspected of leaking information.”
An unnamed “Downing Street insider” to The Mail on Sunday:
“This is the man who did more than anyone to encourage Michael [Gove] to stab Boris in the back.”
“But he’s used his relationship with Carrie to ingratiate himself back into the inner circle. He’s always up in the flat with her, and that gives him direct access to the PM. The rest of the No. 10 team have no idea what he’s saying to him. And that’s the root cause of a lot of this.”
Newman’s childish Facebook posts are not indicative of someone of academic note and his rise through government should be questioned as a result. Did he get there because of merit or simply because he was a ‘FOC’ (‘Friend of Carrie’)? The answer seems very, very clear.Henry Newman, like fellow mouthy sorts such as Diane Abbott, Jay Beecher and Owen Jones, likes to pontificate and peddle, but when called out, he simply hits the block button. Hardly the actions of someone who would like to think himself an able debater at the Oxford Union and more those of someone ‘trained’ by the wine chucking harpy Carrie Johnson.
Is overindulged prig Carrie Johnson about to be thrown under the bus along with her Abba loving groupies Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone? Is this the end of the road for ‘Carrie On Regardless’?
It seems Carrie Johnson could be about to receive a dose of her own medicine and possibly a summons to speak to the Metropolitan Police even also.
“What Carrie wants, Carrie gets” is supposedly a mantra that the Prime Minister’s wife and those around her operate by and until now, the former Miss Symonds has got everything she desires. Be it £30,000 of organic nosh from Lady Bamford’s Daylesford Organic, £840 a roll wallpaper grubbily grabbed from Lulu Lytle’s frankly ghastly emporium and £2,900 a pop gowns by fashion designer Christos Costarello, here is an overindulged modern day Marie Antoinette whose extravagance knows no bounds.
Prone prior to moving to Downing Street to chucking red wine over sofas and dancing to Abba with her ‘Chatty Rat’ clatterfart chum Henry Newman – whom she has described as “one of my four favourite people” – the current Mrs Johnson was this morning dragged deeper into the mire that is ‘Partygate,’ the Mail on Sunday reported.
According to an unnamed source who spoke to the paper’s Glen Owen and Dan Hodges, on the night of Dominic Cummings’ departure on 13th November 2020: “There was the sound of lots of banging and dancing and drinking, and a number of Abba tracks – including a triumphalist Winner Takes It All.”
Going further, the Mail on Sunday added: “The Metropolitan Police could now investigate the party as part of its probe, and call on Mrs Johnson to provide written evidence.”
“Civil servants in the building at the time were advised by officials to go to the Downing Street flat to apologise for not sufficiently supporting the Prime Minister’s then-fiancée. ‘They were ordered to go up and kiss the ring,’ one said.”
Pictured top – Obsessed with nobody but himself Boris Johnson and his overindulged current wife, Carrie, deserve to be derided. Whilst ordinary people were unable to see their relatives even due to the lockdowns his government forced upon them, these two cretins partied on regardless.
The former Carrie Symonds previously worked for Oceana, a charity with strong links to the now convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, in the past and has links to individuals connected to the far-right Traditional Britain Group. Her shockingly poor judgment is clearly worthy of question.The Prime Minister’s wife counts alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ and Abba fanatic Henry Newman as her “best friend,” according to Dominic Cummings. When the possibility of having to fire him over leaks arose, Boris Johnson reportedly said: “If Newman is confirmed as the leaker then I will have to fire him, and this will cause me very serious problems with Carrie as they’re best friends… [pause] perhaps we could get the Cabinet Secretary to stop the leak inquiry?”‘Princess Nut Nut’ – as she has also been deservedly branded – invited only a few guests to her wedding to Boris Johnson. Amongst them was “Tory hunk” Josh Grimstone. The ‘Court of Carrie’ is all about control and this 28-year-old “top-notch aide” was rewarded rather nicely in spite of being someone known best for just taking his top off. Grimstone is on a pay packet of between £80,000 and £84,999, according to Cabinet Office records.Boris Johnson protests too much about whether he partied or not. That he has now tried to have Dame Cressida Dick and the Metropolitan Police try and slow down the process of the investigation into ‘Partygate’ speaks volumes about his clear lack of a moral compass. That his current wife is now being dragged into this is evidence that he’d literally throw anyone under the bus to save his own sorry skin.
Nikolay Kalinin calls out Grant Shapps’ decision to replace ‘GB’ car stickers with ‘UK’ ones as utterly ludicrous
There are so many things that Conservative MPs could focus on right now.
They could work on reviving British business – if they truly care about Brexit – or strengthening links between the different regions in order to prevent them from declaring independence, but instead they decided to instead obsess about car stickers. Yes, you heard it right, car stickers.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps recently announced that production of traditional ‘GB‘ motifs used by British drivers abroad will be discontinued in favour of a legal emblem stating ‘UK.’ Their reasoning? The Daily Mail reports it is being done “as an attempt to win over unionists amid heightened tensions over post-Brexit border checks” and in order to “send a clear message about Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.” Exactly how the new rule will “win over unionists,” however, was not explained by the minister.
Tory MP Ian Liddell-Grainger responded to the announcement by stating: “I can’t see the point. It seems to me to be a complete waste of money when we don’t need to be wasting money. It also seems to be a slap in the face for people who are proud to be GB.”
However, another Tory MP told the Mail: “The United Kingdom is stronger because it has the link with Northern Ireland because if you say Great Britain you are excluding Northern Ireland. I think it strengthen the ties at a time when we have got a problem.”
If the transport secretary really cared about “including” Northern Ireland within the country, he would by this point get on with the construction of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland that Boris Johnson pledged to build a few months ago, which would benefit national trade and establish an easier connection between Northern Ireland and the rest of UK.
Policy like this affirms what many online satirists and journalists have been saying: The Conservatives care about anything but the people they’re supposed to represent. Instead of passing legislation designed to help people, they introduce initiatives that are either pointless, such as One Britain One Nation Day, or do things that make life worse for people, for example by not closing the country in time when the Delta variant began to spread.
COVID has exposed even more how these people absolutely don’t care about the public’s wellbeing, because while Boris Johnson has pledged to remove the rule of compulsory mask-wearing in shops and public transport, a recent poll by YouGov has concluded that 71% of people in England, Wales and Scotland want mask-wearing to be compulsory after July 19th, with 66% saying that the rules should remain in shops and enclosed public spaces.
If you need more evidence, just look at the Conservatives trying to suppress the right to protest with the Policing and Crime Bill, which Labour proposed to amend by introducing a minimum sentence for rape. Unsurprisingly, the Conservatives voted against the amendment. They don’t care about the people who suffered violence in their households during lockdown, because as Labour MP Angela Rayner stated, the Conservatives are “more interested in protecting statues than protecting women.”
The Conservatives need to realise that even though they have a 363-seat majority, that does not grant them immunity from public scrutiny and accountability. They still have a job of representing the people, and it’s about time that they started doing that, instead of passing laws that are unnecessary and pointless.
Pictured top: Aside from being “beguiled” by the e-scooter lobby, as we reported on Sunday, Grant Shapps is now set to inflict his plain personal obsession with ‘UK’ stickers over ‘GB’ stickers on the British public.
Shapps’ decision has been ridiculed on all sides of the political divide. It will not only anger Brexiteers, but also those whose loyalties still are to the European Union.Of the move, Ian Liddell-Grainger MP remarked: “That is a bit bloody rum. I can’t see the point. It seems to me to be a complete waste of money when we don’t need to be wasting money. It also seems to be a slap in the face for people who are proud to be GB. It is a waste of time, a waste of money. I don’t know why we are bothering.” Going further, ‘The Sun’ added: “The AA described the move, which was settled on in May but not announced, leaving them feeling left ‘in the lurch’ as stocks of some 50,000 ‘GB’ motifs are now completely worthless.”
Previous advice, such as shown in this video shared on YouTube in February, is now out of date. Those that don’t follow the new rules, ‘The Sun’ concludes: “It will be a legal requirement to slap the ‘UK’ one on your car, and rule flouters could face fines. These will be down to the individual countries.”
Nikolay Kalinin digests the result of the Batley and Spen by-election and reminds firebrand fruitcake George Galloway to eat his hat
It didn’t seem likely, but Labour has managed to keep the Batley and Spen seat – albeit with a minimal majority of just 323 votes, with Kim Leadbeater narrowly beating Conservative candidate Ryan Stephenson.
This result brings an end to what has been a campaign that has been described as “a battleground” by one constituent, mainly due to the divisions within the Muslim community, most of whom have condemned Labour’s stance on foreign policy issues such as Palestine and have not forgotten Blair’s support for the Iraq war.
The man who helped further inflame these divisions, George Galloway, who in the days leading up to the election complained about the Batley council taking down his posters for not meeting election requirements, has responded to Labour’s win by transforming into Britain’s answer to Donald Trump and telling reporters: “On multiple grounds, we will apply to the court for this election result.”
During the campaign Galloway claimed that if Labour came in any other place but third, he would eat his own hat, and if he truly is a politician of honour, he should now keep his word and do just such.
The campaign has also seen allegations of dirty tactics used by groups in order to ruin Labour’s chances, with the most notable example being the distribution of a fake TUC leaflet highlighting Sir Keir Starmer’s support for BLM and stating that “it is high time that white people acknowledged their privilege and gave something back to people of colour.”
What Labour must remember is that their minimal majority should actually be a wake-up call for them, even if Conservative MPs and members of the public have attributed the narrow defeat of the Tories to Matt Hancock’s affair and the government pushing back “freedom day.”
Ever since MP Jo Cox – who was the sister of the new MP Leadbeater – was murdered in 2016 by a member of the far-right, there have been attempts to divide the community, and the events at local grammar school are the latest which have allowed people like George Galloway to exploit divisions for their own gain.
Even though Galloway did not manage to topple Starmer and Labour, he did manage to cause significant damage to Labour by taking away a sizeable amount of their Muslim base, notably by condemning LGBTQ+ inclusive education and promising to give control of what children can learn to their parents, which appealed to much of the Muslim population.
Labour should work as hard as possible within their English constituencies in order to prevent division, not only regarding the issue of Brexit but also regarding local issues. Starmer should also not restrain himself from condemning Johnson’s government at every opportunity, because only then will ‘Bosie The Clown’ be made to take accountability.
After his antics in Batley & Spen simply caused division, but allowed Labour its narrow victory, it is time to remind George Galloway of his own words and to make him follow up on his promise and consume his own headwear.
Commenting on the result for the ‘Daily Mail,’ Simon Walters observed: “[The] Batley by-election loss proves Boris Johnson needs a shot in the arm all over again… One Conservative from a ‘Red Wall’ constituency who campaigned there told me: ‘I owe my seat to Boris but people in Batley were not happy with his dithering on Hancock. It was tin-eared.’”
Sir Keir Starmer may have been just about saved from obliteration in Batley and Spen, but what must be remembered about the campaign is that George Galloway used the seat to spark what Lady Shami Chakrabarti, the former attorney general for England and Wales, termed “complex northern brew toxic.” Going further, Lady Chakrabarti added: “Galloway has form for misogyny, having made offensive comments about forced marriage in the hateful campaign he ran against Naz Shah in Bradford West in 2015, and having speculated that sex assault allegations made against Julian Assange were merely ‘bad sexual etiquette.’ In his latest campaign, the dexterous shapeshifter has made hay from a nasty dispute about images of the prophet being shown in a classroom, one minute affirming people’s ‘right to defend religious sensibilities’ and the next sidling up to self-styled ‘free speech activist’ Lawrence Fox.”
George Galloway has now vowed to challenge the result in court. In a statement, he remarked: “The result of this by-election cannot stand. We will take whatever legal measures necessary to have that result set-aside. There are multiple reasons… But the tin hat was put on the banana republic exercise that has been called this parliamentary by-election by the returning officer’s decision to refuse to grant a recount when the margin of victory was less than one per cent.”
Nikolay Kalinin slams Gavin Williamson’s war on mobile phones in schools
Away from pursuing the passage of the blatantly stupid Higher Education Bill, Gavin Williamson has decided to wage war on mobile phones in schools, saying that they are “not just distracting, but when misused or overused, they can have a damaging effect on a pupil’s mental health and wellbeing.” Coupled with the Tory majority, the proposal will most certainly become law.
Admittedly, there is some ground to his arguments – yes, I too cannot believe I said that – as apps such as TikTok and Instagram are not only distracting, but also could be used for cyberbullying and sexual harassment, as Ofsted has highlighted.
However, this legislation is both useless and is some cases even harmful; for starters, schools already have restrictions regarding mobile phone use; some for example require students to switch devices off before class or put them into a box, and some can ban their usage outright. I’m not usually a supporter of libertarianism, but policies like this do make sense because they are flexible.
Portable telephone can also be used for beneficial purposes; the CEO of Mumsnet for example recently wrote an article criticising Gavin’s proposal and revealing that one of her friend’s sons who has special needs uses his phone to record verbal instructions and take photos of the board.
There are also apps such as Evernote which allow students to organise their notes and therefore increase their chances of memorising knowledge. For many students therefore, the phone is not just a tool for entertainment, it’s also a tool for education.
The catch-up situation is in particular important because technology is not to blame for the decline of children’s education; rather it’s the lack of financial support they and their schools receive.
Used properly and appropriately, technology has a place in learning.
