Tag: Labour

Berating Branson

As a petition to strip Sir Richard Branson of his knighthood reaches 27,000 signatories, a doctor calls out this Beelzebub-like businessman’s meanness

Sir Richard Branson, undoubtedly one of the most deserving figures of hate of the coronavirus pandemic, has rightly been panned on the left and panned on the right. With both Tory and Labour politicians after him and his key backer, Delta, refusing to inject fresh cash into his crisis-hit airline, this cretinous tax exile has truly hit the buffers and is quite rightly fast running out of friends and allies.

On Tuesday in the Guardian, the columnist Marina Hyde condemned Branson’s offer of Necker Island as security for a £500 million bailout from the British government as “the most WTF-tinged piece of collateral action since that late-1980s moment when Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond bought Van Gogh’s Irises at Sotheby’s, using a loan from Sotheby’s, for which the painting itself was collateral.” She was spot on about this and in stating: “I’d encourage you to speculate on how soon it will be before Richard requests UK or US bailout money for his Virgin Galactic enterprise, where space travel has been ‘set to be a reality next year’ for a good 12 years now,” this journalist hits the nail on the head. Branson can certainly be termed an immensely clever (if deviant) stage manager and anything but a one-trick pony, but what lies beneath his mirage is nothing but a house of sand propped up by a bag of bilge.

In response to the feature, one Nicholas Fox of Virgin Group wrote to the Guardian on Saturday. His missive pathetically bleated about being “saddened” by Hyde’s suggestions, but as a counterpoint, one Dr Richard O’Brien, who had travelled on one of Branson’s aircraft, provided an entirely different take. The good doctor remarked:

SIR – Is Marina Hyde being a little harsh on Richard Branson? On a Virgin flight home from Los Angeles several years ago I answered the call for a doctor (the third call, actually, as hardened medics wait for somebody more gung-ho to respond) and saved the life of a businessman who had swooned during his in-flight massage (no, please, it was nothing).

The crew were so relieved when I spared them the expensive inconvenience of an unscheduled landing that they gave me a free orange juice as they ushered me past the empty business seats and back to steerage. It was followed up by a letter of gratitude and a promise of 10% off my next trip. I later found out that anybody could get 10% off by booking online.

So don’t tell me Branson seems to feel entitled to the free benefit of others’ generosity – I already know.

Dr Richard O’Brien

Highbridge, Somerset

Elsewhere, an online petition on Change.org to strip Branson of his knighthood continues to garner support. Justifying it someone named ‘Duna Stays Mad’ calls the billionaire businessman a “disgrace to his country” and a “traitor” and suggests he is “milking the system.” Today, we urge our readers to join the 27,000 who have already signed it by clicking here.

Pictured top: Sir Richard Branson getting his filthy mitts into a blonde.

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April 25, 2020
A Major Cough-up

ITV’s ‘Quiz’ has definitely left the public questioning the conviction of the ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ £1 million cheat Major Charles Ingram in 2003, but what the programme did not reveal is actually more fascinating

“After all that, can we be sure the Ingrams were guilty?” asked The Telegraph’s Chris Bennion in his review of the final episode of the three-part hit, Quiz, and indeed the ending has achieved the inevitable and will likely reignite interest in a story that dates back to 2001.

For the few that may not remember what occurred, a Major Charles Ingram won the maximum prize of £1 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on the 10^th September 2001, the day before the 9/11 attacks on America. Ingram’s wife and her brother, Adrian Pollock, had previously each won £32,000.

Immediately after the jackpot was scooped, the programme’s production company, Celador, suspecting Ingram had cheated suspended payment of the winnings. The police were called in and ultimately, after a four week trial in March and April 2003 at Southwark Crown Court, the Ingrams and another contestant, a lecturer and their alleged accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, were convicted of “procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception.” All three were given prison sentences suspended for two years, fined £15,000 each and ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs. These sums were later reduced on appeal.

Whilst many will know that Ingram was then forced to resign his commission as a major after 17 years and that he and his wife appeared on countless television shows including The Weakest Link, sadly Quiz did not delve into other bizarre twists in this “eccentric” pair’s life in the time since their “fifteen minutes of coughing fame/shame.”

Aside from being bankrupted four times in the intervening years (most recently in 2019), the former army officer chopped three of his toes off in a freak lawnmower accident in September 2010. Ironically, the “cheat” and then resident of Easterton, Wiltshire did the injury when he “slipped on a rotten apple.” Of the incident, Ingram recalled “lying on the grass” and thinking: “Oh dear… I certainly won’t be mowing any lawns again soon.”

Earlier, yet not long after his Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? conviction in November 2003, Ingram was convicted of an entirely unrelated insurance fraud. Found guilty of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception and of deception by trying to claim on that policy after an alleged burglary, the already disgraced son of a retired RAF wing commander added a two-year conditional discharge to his burgeoning rap sheet.

The Ingrams, now, but not revealed in the show either, are based in Maiden Bradley, Warminster and run a non-registered for UK VAT company that trades as ‘Diana Ingram.’ It sells Murano glass jewellery for prices ranging from £15 to £75 and of her wares, Mrs Ingram states: “Most products listed can be altered for shape, colour, length, etc., though prices may vary. I ship worldwide and nothing is too much trouble – I regularly offer personalised wrapping and buy and write birthday cards too!” No mention is made as to whether any kind of cheat sheets can be enclosed if requested sadly.

Charles Ingram, meanwhile, has kept himself busy on Twitter since September 2013 using the handle @gallantfive. He describes himself as: “English, Irish, European, Family, Labour, LUFC and proud remainer wanting a fairer world” and has over 7,100 followers. Whilst describing Quiz as “simply brilliant” and “terrifyingly accurate,” his family have plainly had a few visits from the media as a result of the show. Now represented by one Skye Redman at 89up, a firm that somewhat immodestly has self-appointed itself as “Europe’s biggest communications agency for great causes,” the ex-major this week tweeted:

“Media: Please #StayHomeSaveLives. In any event I assure you that doorstepping is wasting your time. My solicitor, Rhona Friedman, is available for comment via phone or video conferencing. For interviews please contact Skye Redman at 89up.”

After the conclusion of Quiz, Friedman told the Guardian: “I just know that they did not do it… I just feel very sorry for them.” She intends to file paperwork associated with the case in the summer “with hopes for a hearing at the end of the year,” and given the reaction of the public after the ending of this week’s dramatisation, one thing’s for sure: We’ve not seen the last of ‘The Coughing Major’ and his ever-so-earnest wife just yet.

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April 15, 2020
The Blatancy of Branson

As Sir Richard Branson demands a combined £1.2 billion in bailouts from the Australian and British governments during the coronavirus pandemic, we call for him to be stripped of his knighthood

Sir Richard Branson can’t have it both ways: He’s either British or he’s a tax exile based in the British Virgin Islands. But, no, in the typically brazen style of this baloney filled billionaire, ‘Dickhead’ has to have it all. And then, just to top it off, he has to have a bit more… And then to cap it, a little bit more, just to be absolutely sure.

Like the fat cat that got the cream, the fat cat always comes back wanting extra. Now, with news that not only is the job killing, non-payer of any personal income tax for 14 years in the UK is demanding not only £500 million ($625 million, €572 million or درهم2.3 billion) as a bailout from the British government to “help” Virgin Atlantic, but also £700 million ($875 million, €800 million or درهم3.2 billion) from the Australian government to bailout Virgin Australia as well, this greedy pig has finally taken the biscuit.

BVI resident Branson’s record isn’t exactly something worth celebrating. Whilst the 312^th richest person in the world, the anything but patriotic Branson – whom the Guardian rightly mocked this morning for “often draping himself in the Union flag” – has deservedly come under attack from both the left and right in Westminster. Angela Rayner of the Labour Party tweeted: “Richard flog your private island and pay your staff, we are in unprecedented times here. Now is the time your staff need support after making mountains of cash for the company” whilst Conservative MP Richard Fuller added: “Pay your employees yourself their unpaid leave. When it comes to looking at the protection of your workers, the time is now, and we will all judge you by your actions.”

Whilst we reported on how the motormouth Katie Hopkins had a pop at the Branson last week, this fantasist “wedding wrecker” and convicted tax evader must accept that where there are payouts there are also responsibilities. In September 2019, the cretinous self-appointed “entrepreneur” received £178 million ($219 million, €200 million or درهم804 million) when he cashed in on his pilot killing Virgin Galactic floating on the New York Stock Exchange; perhaps, now, he could use some of this cash to prop up his own failing enterprises. The likelihood of that? Well, we’ll have to spot Shergar the racehorse speeding by carrying Elvis Presley first. Now, instead, is the time that Britain took something back from Branson: Strip this pathetic parasite of his precious knighthood.

Pictured top: “Second rate creep” Sir ‘Dickhead’ Branson likes to get hold of whatever he can; here he is ‘Now Boarding’ whilst greedily grabbing a bikini-clad bird.

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April 13, 2020
Starmer & Savile

Matthew Steeples calls out fake news site ‘Politicalite’ for falsely blaming Sir Keir Starmer for failing to prosecute the paedophile Jimmy Savile

Anyone who tells you Sir Keir Starmer isn’t a vast improvement on Jeremy Corbyn as leader of Her Majesty’s official opposition has to be off their merry rocker. That’s a fact, but, naturally, the spin campaign against this Southwark born Leeds and Oxford graduate has already kicked in.

With the self-declared “hottest right-wing tabloid news outlet [who support] Brexit, Trump and Populism” (take that to mean: “trashy fake news rag”) that is Politicalite claiming that Sir Keir “helped [the] renowned paedophile [Sir Jimmy Savile] evade justice in 2009, three years before he died,” one can see evidence of both the hard-left Corbynistas seeking revenge and the far-right looking for a new ‘leftie’ enemy to pin shame on.

Sir Keir, to the contrary of what the moronic headbanger founder of Politicalite, Jordan James, declared as fact very clearly condemned the situation that led to Savile getting away with his crimes. In 2013, he told the BBC’s Panorama:

“Without a change in the law, there’ll be another Savile… I think this is a very real issue that has been with us for a very long time. You can go back to the 50s and probably earlier to find examples, but you can find many more recent examples, and it’s a very simple proposition: if you’re in a position of authority, and you have cause to believe that a child has been abused, you really ought to do something about it.”

Whilst Starmer also admitted that Savile needed to be a “watershed moment” and wakeup call for the CPS – which he headed between July 2008 and November 2013 – he subsequently acted to propose altering the tests used to assess complainants’ credibility in sexual violence cases. In October 2013, he even went as far as to state: “For too long, child sexual abuse cases have been plagued by myths about how ‘real’ victims behave which simply do not withstand scrutiny. The days of the model victim are over. From now on these cases will be investigated and prosecuted differently, whatever the vulnerabilities of the victim.”

Hatemongering Politicalite, on the other hand, is a ‘publication’ that deserves to be called out. It has promoted Tommy Robinson and given a platform to James Goddard, the ‘Yellow Vest’ convicted of harassing the ex-MP Anna Soubry in 2019. Here, indeed, is something that the nation should most truly be ashamed of.

Pictured top: Sir Keir Starmer with his wife, Victoria.

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April 9, 2020
Down With Dumb Diane

After retreating to the backbenches, can life get better for the thickest politician in history, Diane Abbott? She’s got the sentencing of her criminal son to look forward to for starters… And a few paid gigs at the Beeb no doubt too

Life is not so rosy for Diane Abbott right now. She had to “resign” from her Shadow Cabinet post (well, she’d never have accepted being inevitably “pushed” if she hadn’t gone willingly) and on Wednesday, she’ll see her degenerate son, James Abbott-Thompson, sentenced for biting a policeman and spitting at another.

Remembered in Tuesday’s Telegraph as having an “infelicity with words and numbers that made John Prescott look like JFK,” Abbott pathetically told Sky News in February: “I was a backbencher for a few years and there is an awful lot to do on the backbenches” (take that to mean: “I’ll keep causing trouble and making a berk of myself and dipping my grubby mitts in the till via gigs at the BBC and elsewhere”).

Calculator-less, “most abused of any Labour MP ever” Abbott – whom also claims she’s going to be singlehandedly able to stop Labour going into a “dead end” with a “swerve to the right on migration policy” – however, did find time to once again block The Steeple Times on Twitter. She also get one positive call out in the little-read Independent where the self-declared “fangirl of Naomi Campbell” and “she/her/I” Lola Oriowo accused anyone having a go at Jeremy Corbyn’s ex-sexual partner of being “institutional racists.”

A selection of the opinions of Twitter users about Miss Abbott’s departure follows below. This double left footer will certainly not be missed by many.

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Diane Abbott has busied herself by once again blocking ‘The Steeple Times’ since being demoted. Plainly she hasn’t got much else to do.

April 7, 2020
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Sumption OBE, PC, FRHistS, FSA

Eton and Oxford educated former Supreme Court judge and historian Jonathan Sumption, as a barrister, successfully represented the billionaire Roman Abramovich against the late oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Formerly one of the highest paid legal eagles in Britain, this father of three termed his £1.6 million salary “puny” in 2001 in a letter to the Guardian and subsequently charged the extraordinary sum of £800,000 to successfully represent the UK government in what was then then the largest class actions against the state ever in 2005. The trial lasted just four weeks. Sumption speaks French and Italian fluently, owns a chateau in South West France and serves as a director of the English National Opera. He became an outspoken critic of the “hysteria” over the police reaction to coronavirus outbreak in the UK in March 2020. Of this “frightening opponent” with an “icy analytical instinct,” the Guardian’s Wendell Steavenson suggested: “Sumption is a man who cannot stop thinking” whilst the former Labour spinner Alastair Campbell more simply concluded: “Brain the size of a planet.”

March 31, 2020
A Cockney Paradise in Chelsea

Art deco mansion block apartment in Chelsea that was once home to the “cheeky Cockney” actor Harry Fowler for sale

“Cheeky Cockney” actor Harry Fowler MBE (1926 – 2012) appeared in everything from Minder to Lawrence of Arabia. He was first discovered as “a near illiterate newspaper boy” making eight shillings a week and invited on the BBC on a radio programme about life in wartime London. He was an immediate hit and subsequently a film company executive offered this Lambeth born boy a “monumental 42 shillings a day” to play an evacuee in The Demi-Paradise – which starred Laurence Olivier and Penelope Ward.

Subsequently Fowler took on many “juvenile roles” and after serving in the RAF during the war, he appeared in films and television series including Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, Jackanory, In Sickness and in Health, The Bill and Casualty and was described by Terence Pettigrew as being “as English as suet pudding.” Going further, of him, the broadcaster added: “His characters were neither honest nor irretrievably delinquent, merely wise in the ways of the streets, surviving through a combination of wit and stealth. He had a certain arrogance, but there was an appealing vulnerability, too.”

Harry Fowler as a schoolboy named Albert in John Paddy Carstairs’ British comedy film. ‘Top of the Form’ (1953).

Married first to the Ealing Studios star Joan Dowling, whom tragically committed suicide in 1954 by gas poisoning, Fowler’s second wife was Catherine Palmer. The couple had no children and amongst where they lived was in a portered art deco mansion block called Chesil Court in Chelsea, London, SW3.

Now offered for £975,000 ($1.2 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.3 million), the one-bedroomed first floor flat in which the “everyman for every occasion” and his wife resided is appropriately decorated in authentic 1930s style. It has an original iron bath and original radiators and a Chesil Court clock even. In the bedroom, the wallpaper is a Parisienne print by Madeleine Castaing and in-keeping also are the peacock blue silk blackout curtains and silk leopard print curtains that can be found throughout, according to agents Strutt & Parker.

The 586 square foot apartment is small but perfectly formed and comes with a 35 square foot south facing balcony and it was no doubt there that this Labour supporter decided against a career in parliament. “I found there was little room for laughter in politics,” The Telegraph reported he concluded.

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The sitting room is furnished in appropriate 1930s style.

The dining area.

The kitchen is small but stylish.

The bedroom features rainforest patterned wallpaper.

The original 1930s bathroom.

The south facing balcony.

The entrance to Chesil Court, Chelsea Manor Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 5QS, United Kingdom.

A floor plan of the first floor apartment.

March 26, 2020
Moron of the Moment – James Abbott-Thompson

Diane Abbott’s policeman biting son is proof of her own inadequacies as a parent; this loopy Labour MP should get her own house in order before lecturing others

Diane Abbott is known for many things and sadly most of them aren’t endearing. She’s had sex with Jeremy Corbyn, she stupidly apologised after doing something amusing in drinking a canned mojito on a tube train and most recently, she went out with two left shoes on.

Now, with news that this dimwit and hypocrite’s privately educated son (and godson of the former MP turned vicar Jonathan Aitken), James Abbott-Thompson, has admitted “spitting at a police officer and biting his colleague” via video link to Westminster Magistrates’ Court after being refused entry to the Foreign Office, we can now observe a pattern emerging and that is: “Like mother, like son.”

Whilst wayward Abbott-Thompson – who also appeared in court in January in regard to another eleven alleged offences (including one of most inappropriately exposing himself on a hospital ward) – plainly has anger management and most likely mental health issues, his loopy mother must now realise enough is enough: Diane Abbott must get her own house in order before she hectors a single other.

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March 24, 2020
Support Stewart

Matthew Steeples backs Rory Stewart as the best candidate to become the next Mayor of London

Having very briefly met the ‘sofa surfing’ Rory Stewart in Pavilion Road yesterday, I must say I found him affable and open. We briefly discussed Shaun Bailey’s ludicrous policy of handing out burglar alarms to 300,000 households and today I urge London based readers to join me in backing his campaign to become the next Mayor of London.

South Kensington based Stewart, unlike his dimwitted Conservative counterpart and the frankly inept banger-on about being a son of a bus driver Sadiq Khan, is a man of action. Born in Hong Kong and educated at Eton and Oxford, here is someone who crosses divides and has been a member of both the Labour and Conservative parties. He has worked at the Foreign Office, been in command in battlezones, tutored Prince William and Harry and been lauded for his written and presentational work also. Here indeed is someone versatile and capable and quite frankly, at this time, this is just what London needs.

Stewart’s is clear about what he’d do: He would triple the number of police on the streets and he’d make housing more affordable by using public land for public benefit. These policies make sense and now is the time to help him get elected.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXBy4PS7Nyw&feature=emb_logo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=0Nqy2LekGq0&feature=emb_logo

March 2, 2020
TIGing a Drunken Duchess

The boozy bird the Duchess of Sussex and the newly formed The Independent Group have something in common; this “TIG moment” lover should become their leader

The former Meghan Markle – a bizarre woman who ludicrously likes to create “spaces to share” and “breeding grounds for ideas and excitement” – once had a blog called ‘The Tig.’ It was supposedly about matters “lifestyle” and on it she created “a hub for the discerning palate – those with a hunger for food, travel, fashion [and] beauty.”

On this oracle of wisdom the busybody ‘Murky Mucky’ shared information that the world simply shouldn’t be without. On the now defunct site’s ‘About’ section, she bizarrely stated:

“Several years ago I had a sip of wine called Tignanello (pronounced “teen-ya-nello“). But let’s be real – in the states most people said “tig-na-nello“…or just plain old “Tig.” The Italiano of it all gets a little tricky, so the bartender kept it simple; it was a glass of “Tig.“ So there I am, with very minimal wine knowledge and I take a sip of this wine. It wasn’t just red or white – suddenly I understood what people meant by the body, legs, structure of wine. It was an ah-ha moment at its finest. For me, it became a “Tig” moment – a moment of getting it.”

“From that point on, any new awareness, any new discovery or “ohhhhh, I get it!” moment was a “Tig” moment. At New York Fashion Week understanding that clothes aren’t just pieces of fabric, but that they can be art. So Tig. Traveling off the beaten track and hand diving for sea urchin in Jamaica – understanding that travel is adventure and discovery, culture and surprise. A Tig moment, indeed. And the same could be said for my love of cooking & dining, for cultivating friendships that inspire you, for the idea of “beauty” and what that means to us. An understanding that comes with living your life to the fullest so that it bursts at the seams. An unbridled joy. An insatiable curiosity. That’s what Tig means to me.”

We won’t bore you with the rest of this right royal pest’s drivel but yesterday, in Westminster, seven now ex-Labour MPs quit their party. They formed a group called ‘The Independent Group’ or more simply ‘TIG.’ Perhaps it might be appropriate that their fellow ‘Tigger’ The Duchess of Sussex become their leader.

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The Independent Group announced their creation in Westminster yesterday; they came across as a bunch of attention seekers.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, in New York, ‘The Modern Day Mrs Simpson’ couldn’t help but don the look of an extra from ‘Last Of The Summer Wine’ in wearing a flat cap. Here indeed was a right royal embarrassment.

February 19, 2019