Britons face winter of surging energy bills as Europe facing gas stockpile shortage

 Europe is hurtling toward a potential energy emergency this winter after gas stockpiles dropped to levels not seen in years, according to a report from The Telegraph.

Storage facilities across the continent stand just above 50 percent full in late July—a historically low figure for this time of year—leaving the region on course to begin the cold season with sites only about 75 percent full, well below the five-year average of 90 percent.

The shortfall stems directly from the ongoing conflict involving Iran, which has disrupted roughly one-fifth of global energy supplies and forced heavy drawdowns of reserves....<<<Read More>>>...

The Death of ‘Silly Season’

 ‘Silly season’ is supposedly upon us. Traditionally, the parliamentary recess marked a brief lull in political news. Ministers retreated to their constituencies, MPs disappeared on holiday and newspapers, deprived of Westminster intrigue, filled their pages with escaped llamas, giant marrows, seagulls stealing chips on Scarborough seafront and other harmless absurdities. The absence of serious political news was taken as evidence that, for a few weeks at least, the machinery of government had slowed to a crawl. As a teenager, I remember wondering: “If the news stops when Parliament stops, perhaps less government would mean less news.”

Silly season no longer seems to arrive. Every summer now brings another existential crisis demanding constant commentary. Brexit negotiations gave way to Covid and lockdowns. Covid gave way to Ukraine. Ukraine gave way to inflation, leadership contests, small boats, riots and a seemingly endless succession of emergencies. Westminster has become a theatre in permanent performance. There is no interval, and the actors never leave the stage. There is only crisis....<<<Read More>>>...

The applause for Burnham scrapping Starmer’s digital ID arrived before anyone checked what survived it

The new UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is in Downing Street, and he has spent twenty years telling you exactly what he wants to do to the internet. He won the Makerfield by-election on 18 June 2026. He then collected the backing of roughly 349 Labour MPs, more than 85 per cent of the parliamentary party. By the time he walked through the black door, the job had been settled for weeks.

His first big announcement was the one privacy campaigners had been hoping for. Starmer’s digital ID scheme for all adults is dead, scrapped before Burnham had finished unpacking, the money moved to the cost of living. The applause came quickly. Perhaps it should not have.

This is a read on a government barely a day old. On speech and privacy, the early signals point one way, and it is not the way that loosens the state’s grip. He is not about to tear up the settlement he inherits from Keir Starmer. The open question is how much further he carries it.

Burnham arrives with a long record on all this. He is one of the few senior British politicians with a documented, two-decade appetite for putting the government closer to what you can see, say and read online....<<<Read More>>>...

The UK’s latest dystopian censorship plans could spell the end of UK independent content creators to save the BBC

 Andy Burnham’s government is proposing statutory changes that force digital service providers to prioritise its preferred sources of “news,” such as the BBC.

YouTube, an American company, is warning that the UK government’s control over its algorithms will make it harder for independent UK content creators to be discovered on its platform.

The UK government is proposing regulatory changes that force social media platforms to prioritise content from established public service broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.Currently, the public is being softened up to the idea through a government consultation on a Green Paper titled ‘Watch this space: A new strategic direction for UK media’ published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (“DCMS”) on 23 June 2026. The consultation, which takes the form of a survey, closes on 31 August 2026...<<<Read More>>>....

Rupert Lowe: The Fabian Society is deliberately trying to wreck the UK

In a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Rupert Lowe MP said that the shadowy group known as the Fabian Society was deliberately trying to wreck the UK.

“It’s the most extraordinary organisation,” Lowe told Rogan. “Their emblem is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as if that doesn’t tell you what they’re doing.”

The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation that co-founded the Labour Party, which to this day formulates and controls the Labour Party’s policies. There are over 6,000 members of the Fabian Society and it boasts being “the future of the left since 1884.”

“Every Labour prime minister has been a Fabian and today 100s of Labour politicians are members of the society, including Labour leader Keir Starmer MP and more than half his cabinet, as well as senior figures in devolved and local government. Our elected executive committee currently includes five Labour frontbenchers....<<<Read More>>>...

 

An Attack on All Our Rights

 Have you heard about the new piece of legislation, tabled by the Home Secretary, which is “opening the door to a gradual erosion of all our rights and freedoms”? I ask because I received an email this morning from the human rights charity Liberty alerting me to this danger. Apparently, Shabana Mahmood (that strangest and rarest of beasts – a competent Labour Minister) is plotting to put “people’s rights at risk to score political points” and “weaken the European Convention” by making it easier to deport people. And this will apparently constitute an “attack on all our rights”.

The attack in question is coming in the form of the Immigration and Asylum Bill 2026, which is due to have its second reading on July 13th. The bill does rather a lot, and bits of it are actually very welcome – it indicates that (my goodness) some thought has gone into what the Government is trying to do in respect of immigration policy. But that’s for another day. Today I want to focus in particular on Liberty’s remarks about the aspects of the bill which deal with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the so-called ‘right to family life’, and what this demonstrates about the, frankly, debased and rather silly way in which human rights advocates think (or, rather, don’t think) about the values they hold dear. This will in turn lead us to the problem lying at the heart of human rights law, which is that it is not really law and, moreover, not even a coherent or sensible concept....<<<Read More>>>...

Police Must Stop Engaging in “Woke” Culture Wars, Says Major Government-Backed Report

 Police must stop engaging in “woke” culture wars and “preferencing certain groups” and focus instead on catching criminals, a major Government-backed review has concluded. The Telegraph has more.

The damning report into failings in police leadership said bosses must be “resolute” in “refusing to take sides” and not be diverted from “focusing entirely on the prevention, detection and prosecution of crime”.

Amid renewed scrutiny over ‘two-tier policing‘, police leaders are accused of “preferencing certain groups” in the review, which is one of the most thorough examinations of the force ever undertaken.

Lord Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary who co-chaired the report, said there was “no room for culture wars or woke” causes in policing. “The idea that people should be diverted onto other issues is entirely wrong,” he said.

A commission was set up by the College of Policing with the support of the Home Office, in the wake of a series of scandals, including the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving Metropolitan Pc Wayne Couzens.

Its report, published on Monday, called for a “reset” of police culture after finding evidence of ineffective and corrupt leadership, nepotism, poor training and a lack of support for front-line officers.

The murder of Henry Nowak, a student who was handcuffed by police as he lay dying because his killer, Vickrum Digwa, who is Sikh, lied about being racially abused by the teenager, has renewed the debate around two-tier policing in Britain.

Amid the public outcry over the treatment of Nowak, police chiefs announced a review of their guidance that suggested “racial equity” did not mean “treating everyone the same or being colour blind”....<<<Read More>>>....

Andy Burnham’s Operation Hexagon was built to hunt the whistle-blowers, not the rape gangs

 In 2019, Greater Manchester Police began Operation Hexagon. As the Mayor of Manchester with Police and Crime Commissioner functions, the Operation came under the oversight of Andy Burnham.

They led the public to believe Operation Hexagon was designed to investigate allegations of rape gang crimes in Oldham. However, the wording was deliberately vague.

The actual purpose of Operation Hexagon was to investigate people exposing the Muslim rape gangs and those attempting to cover-up these crimes.

In other words, Operation Hexagon was designed not to target criminals but to silence whistle-blowers and others who spoke about the rape gangs and their crimes....<<<Read More>>>...

The outcome of the trial for arson attacks on properties linked to Starmer is not as the BBC said

Crispin Flintoff spent 21 days at the Old Bailey attending the trial of three men accused of arson attacks on properties linked to Keir Starmer. “What I heard in court was not the story later told by the BBC,” he said.

Three young men stood accused of carrying out arson attacks on a car and two properties linked to Keir Starmer. They had been arrested by counter-terrorism police and spent a year in Belmarsh prison awaiting trial. At the centre of the prosecution case was a mysterious Telegram user known as ‘El Money’, who was alleged to have directed the arsons but was not himself in the dock.

Three young men stood accused of carrying out arson attacks on a car and two properties linked to Keir Starmer. Roman Lavrynovych, 22, a Ukrainian national from western Ukraine, was accused of setting fire to a Toyota RAV4 previously owned by Starmer at 2.42am on Thursday 8 May 2025, and then being involved in fires at Ellington Street at 2.05am on Sunday 11 May and Countess Road at 1.35am on Monday 12 May. Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, a Romanian national who had lived in Britain for nine years, was accused of helping connect people and arrange payment. Petro Pochynok, 35, a Ukrainian-born man who had lived in the UK for several years, was accused of involvement but was later acquitted.

The three had been arrested by counter-terrorism police and spent a year in Belmarsh prison awaiting trial. At the centre of the prosecution case was a mysterious Telegram user known as ‘El Money’, who was alleged to have directed the arsons but was not himself in the dock.

There were obvious questions from the start. How did these men know details about Starmer’s former car and two addresses connected to him? Why had they been held in Britain’s highest-security prison? Who exactly was ‘El Money’? And why, if this was such a serious case involving the Prime Minister, were so few people there to watch it?...<<<Read More>>>...

Food for Thought #1148

 

The Government’s Latest Censorship Initiative is its Most Sinister Yet

 Over the last few months, free speech activists have been perturbed by proposals to age-gate social media for under-16s. Meantime, whilst all eyes were looking elsewhere, the Government has just slipped out a new raft of proposals which would profoundly reshape the online media landscape in the UK. In my view, whereas the impact of the proposed social media restrictions for kids on the free speech rights of adults has been overstated, this new initiative poses a far greater and invidious threat to our freedom of speech and access to information.

The proposals are contained in a Green Paper, published this week, called ‘Watch This Space’. Described by Ian Murray, the Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Art, as setting out a “new strategic direction” for the Government’s media policy, the new measures would require social media companies to prioritise content from ‘traditional’ so-called public service broadcasters – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and so on – over that of independent media outlets. This would therefore (although this is not spelt out expressly in the paper) de-prioritise, i.e., suppress, content from independent content creators. The effect would be to rewire the algorithms according to which content is delivered to our social media feeds. It would take us from content driven by preference and audience demand towards a system structurally hardwired and legally obliged to direct us to traditional media brands – the very titles that such a large proportion of the public have turned away from.

Given that some 70% of all UK news content is now read digitally, the impact of these measures on the online public square and on the ability of UK audiences to access information sources of their choosing can hardly be overstated....<<<Read More>>>...

Food for Thought #1132

 

Rupert Lowe’s independent Rape Gang Inquiry Report has been released

 Yesterday, Rupert Lowe, Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth and leader of Restore Britain, released the full report from the independent Rape Gang Inquiry.

“I urge all Britons to read this report in full. Lessons need to be learned and prosecutions need to follow for the appalling cowardice of those responsible for refusing to resist such horrors. The strongest possible penalties, up to and including death, must also be sought for those yet to be properly punished or indeed punished at all for their vile, unspeakable crimes,” he said.

Because the Government has failed the victims and the public, last year Rupert Lowe MP launched a campaign to hold an independent national inquiry into the UK’s Muslim rape gangs.

The Inquiry began hearings in London on 2 February 2026. It focused on survivor testimonies, systemic failures by public authorities and cover-ups, particularly concerning cases involving predominantly white British girls and perpetrators from various ethnic backgrounds, including Pakistani men. The hearings ended on 12 February....<<<Read More>>>...

Keir Starmer’s Doomed Social Media ‘Ban’

 We’ve been here before. Last December, Australia launched a failed experiment which the UK is now seeking to replicate. Australia purported to ban children from social media, requiring social media platforms to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that there were no under-16’s on their platforms.

Most Australian children are still on social media. Even the eSafety Commissioner concedes that at least 70% of the children are still on there – based on a survey of parents. The true figure is almost certainly higher: no children who circumvented the ban are going to tell their parents. This is unsurprising given the official Government-funded study, used to recommend implementation methods, proposed systems that would literally let over 40% of 10 year-olds through (a finding that the authors occluded in their report). The report was prepared by the UK-based Age Verification Providers Association, an industry body with a direct commercial interest in selling these systems. One imagines the UK Government is receiving similarly dubious advice. And then there are VPNs — allowing children to bypass age verification entirely by appearing to connect from a country without a ban.

From a child safety perspective, the failure of the Australian ban is a good thing. Social media platforms operate based on network effects. They persist because of the community that is there. In ordinary circumstances, this provides an incumbent advantage. But if the Government succeeds in breaking these networks down, then under-16’s are suddenly motivated to go elsewhere.

That ‘elsewhere’ could be a completely unregulated startup app or website with no safety measures whatsoever....<<<Read More>>>...

Starmer to Ban Under-16s From 10 Social Media Apps, Including X, but not Bluesky

 This is purely and simply a silly dictator attempting to prevent the next generation of Brits from waking up and being allowed to think for themselves. Its nothing to do with child safety ... 

 +++++++++++++++++++++

Sir Keir Starmer is set to announce sweeping reforms tomorrow banning under-16s from 10 major social media platforms, including X, but not the Left-wing platform Bluesky. In addition, he will introduce daily curfews for 16 and 17 year-olds, going further than Australia’s restrictions. The Times has the story:

Teenagers will be banned from certain social media platforms and have their daily usage curbed under sweeping reforms to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer on Sunday.

The ban will go further than the one imposed by Australia in December by targeting technology deemed harmful to children, including chatbots and certain features on gaming apps.

Under-16s in Australia have been banned from using ten platforms: TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch and Kick. It is understood that the UK will follow suit by raising the minimum age on social media to 16, from the average of 13, for the same ten sites.

Curfews for older teenagers will be introduced. Daily social media use will be restricted for 16 and 17 year-olds in a move designed to curb unhealthy late-night scrolling habits.

A Government source said: “Keir has been clear we need a game-changer to keep our children — and future generations — safe online.”....<<<Read More>>>....

Starmer issues ultimatum to technology companies to implement client-side scanning; this is the end of online privacy

 Starmer has issued a three-month ultimatum for major technology firms to implement client-side scanning; so that all content on all digital devices sold or used in the UK can be scanned using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning.

Client-side scanning is a surveillance technique that analyses content on a user’s device before encryption. And, if the Government succeeds, it marks the end of online privacy – for everyone.

Signal has issued a statement on the UK government’s demand. “This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all,” Signal says.

Age verification is spreading worldwide. It is a Trojan horse for limiting access to content that they do not wish the public to see. We need to look no further than what the UK government is doing worldwide under the pretence of keeping children safe online.

In July 2025, provisions in the Online Safety Act 2023 (“OSA”) were enacted, introducing age verification checks for online content. Using these new rules, just a week after they were implemented, a variety of content unrelated to children’s safety was already being censored.

“British people are being forced by the state to verify their age and hand over personal information to view political news about their own country. It is the sort of thing for which British diplomats would castigate third-world or tyrannical governments, but there seems to be little awareness of the danger of this law among our own governing class,” The Critic said in the week after the new rules began....<<<Read More>>>...

Starmer Poised to Ban Under-16s From Social Media in ‘Australian-Plus’ Crackdown

 Sir Keir Starmer is preparing to announce a ban on under 16s using social media in the next 10 days.

The Prime Minister has been considering what action to take after a three-month consultation on an Australian-style social ban on children under 16.

There is growing speculation that Sir Keir will opt for a so-called “Australian-plus” model with a ban on a wider range of sites combined with restrictions on “addictive” features and tougher age checks to prevent children circumventing the rules.

Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election in less than two weeks’ time.

However, the children’s commissioner has proposed that any social media ban should be extended to 16- and 17-year-olds

Dame Rachel de Souza has said that any ban must apply “equally to all children” up to 18.

She also urged Sir Keir Starmer to draw up a list of features that tech firms would be forced to ban because they encourage children to stay online, put them at risk of seeing harmful content or enable them to be contacted by strangers.

The Prime Minister is expected to announce the first stage of the crackdown on Monday with tech companies being forced to install software that makes it impossible for children to take or share nude images.

If businesses including Google and Apple fail to comply within three months, Sir Keir will say legislation will be introduced that would mean the companies could face fines, regulations on phone sales to children or criminal sanctions....<<<Read More>>>....

Scotland Yard Captured by “Woke Mind Virus” and No Longer Treats Citizens Equally, Says Whistleblower

A veteran Metropolitan Police officer has accused Scotland Yard of being captured by the “woke mind virus”, claiming the force has spent more than a decade pursuing equality of outcome between ethnic groups rather than equal treatment under the law. Rick Prior, former chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, makes the claims in a foreword to a Free Speech Union report into the policies and training materials that inevitably led to the police believing Henry Nowak’s murderer over his victim. The Telegraph has the story:

Scotland Yard has been captured by the “woke mind virus” and no longer treats citizens equally under the law, a veteran police officer has claimed.

Rick Prior, the former chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the force had prioritised equalising outcomes among different ethnic groups over ensuring equality of opportunity for more than a decade.

He said this had led to a loss of skills in the force and had affected the policing of London’s streets.

He also claimed the force had rejected his suggestions that officers should be banned from wearing political symbols, such as rainbow lanyards representing the LGBT community, after he was invited to draw up new guidelines on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) last summer.

Forces across the country are facing an ongoing row about the impact of EDI policy in policing in the wake of the murder of Henry Nowak in Southampton.

The 18 year-old university student was arrested and handcuffed as he was dying after his killer, Vickrum Digwa, who is Sikh, falsely claimed that Mr Nowak had racially abused him and knocked his turban off.

Forces are under mounting pressure to review their EDI policies and rethink their Race Action Plans.

In a foreword to a report by the Free Speech Union (FSU) into the Nowak case, Mr Prior described his concerns about the state of the country’s largest force....<<<Read More>>>...

UK’s Nudge Unit is still busy, so what are they up to now?

Do you ever wonder what the Behavioural Insight Team (aka, the Nudge Unit) are getting up to these days?

Since its advent in 2010, the Behavioural Insight Team (“BIT”) has acted as an ongoing source of expert advice to the government to help enhance the power and effectiveness of its communication campaigns. Utilising a range of behavioural science strategies (‘nudges’) – psychological methods of persuasion that often operate below people’s conscious awareness – these approaches strive to shape the behaviour of their target population. Throughout the covid event, the BIT (together with other prominent behavioural scientists such as Susan Michie, who now occupies a senior position at the World Health Organisation) operated as a source of such guidance to strengthen public health messaging to maximise people’s compliance with “pandemic” restrictions and the vaccine rollout.

Although initially a core component of government, BIT has evolved into a private company, reliant on contractual arrangements for its funding. During the covid era, the BIT was awarded two lucrative contracts with the UK administration: £4 million from the Cabinet Office to provide “frictionless access to behavioural insights to match central priorities” and £1 million from the Department of Health and Social Care for “various work for test, trace, contain and enable agenda.”

The Government’s use of behavioural science strategies on its own citizens has evoked significant ethical concerns, mainly deriving from their often covert-mode of operation and the fact that nudges typically rely on inflating emotional discomfort (inducing fear, shame and scapegoating) to change behaviour. Further criticism of the way that BIT operates relates to its uncritical promotion of technocratic goals, where the assumption is that the government of the day always knows what is best for us all, and that it is therefore legitimate for a “social purpose company” to manipulate people into complying with these decrees.

So, what is BIT focusing on in these post-covid years? ....<<<Read More>>>>...

Pat McFadden: All Labour Does is Ask “Who Can We Tax?”

 Labour cares only about who it can tax in order to pay more in benefits to others, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden complained to Lord Mandelson. The Telegraph has more.

As Sir Keir Starmer’s enforcer in Cabinet, Pat McFadden told the disgraced peer that every meeting he had with members of the Parliamentary Labour Party concerned the question: “Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?”

The comments were seized on by the Conservatives, who branded Labour “the welfare party”.

The frank exchange forms part of the Government’s release of more than 1,500 pages of emails and WhatsApp messages relating to Lord Mandelson’s time as the UK’s ambassador to the US.

The document release on Monday – the largest laid before Parliament since the 2016 Chilcot Inquiry – was demanded by MPs in the wake of Lord Mandelson’s sacking and fresh revelations about his friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The damning emails and texts paint a picture of a Government at war with itself, led by a Prime Minister lacking the flair to tackle the challenges facing Britain.

Among the explosive exchanges between Lord Mandelson and McFadden were texts sent in the weeks before a major Government climbdown over welfare cuts.

Last July, No. 10 backed down on £5 billion of cuts to personal independence payments. The climbdown is regarded as the moment Sir Keir ceded power to the soft Left of the parliamentary Labour Party.

McFadden is now the Work and Pensions Secretary, in charge of Britain’s ballooning welfare bill....<<<Read More>>>>...