Links - 7th July 2026 (2 - Migrants: Europe)

Wall Street Mav on X - "This is really a stunning change in Germany. The AfD party, the only party supporting mass deportations, was always stronger in the former east Germany regions (right side). Now AfD even has a majority in the west German regions (left side data). The new data shows AfD is even the most popular party among women for the first time in German polling."
Anthony Koch on X - "It’s still remarkable to me how centre-right parties across Europe would sooner speedrun themselves towards electoral oblivion than just meaningfully address immigration."
Elites will get the AfD banned soon to "Protect Democracy"

Ihsan Horani on X - "Germany's intelligence chief just warned a closed Bundestag meeting.  The Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating German political institutions. Strategic. Patient. Non-violent. Building relationships, influencing legislation, embedding through civic organisations funded by German taxpayers.  His most alarming finding: left-wing parties are the most vulnerable.  The SPD. The Greens. The Left Party. "More open and susceptible" due to what he called "a poorly understood concept of tolerance."  A German political scientist confirmed it in blunter terms. Left-wing allies "possess no argumentative resistance to the Brotherhood. They are discursively co-opted and subordinate themselves."  The Brotherhood does not confront the left. It cultivates it."
If you oppose Islamo-leftism you are racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic

Ryan Lackey on X - "How much of the anti-migrant backlash in Europe over the next decade will spill over into deterring economically productive/desirable immigrants as well? Mobs aren’t exactly known for being precise or accurate."
i/o on X - "So much of Europe's descent into failed multiculturalism and the inevitable far-right backlash against it could have avoided if the continent had only allowed itself to be rational about who it allowed inside its borders.  But, no, to distinguish between immigrant groups destined to produce generations of hostile leeching residents (e.g., rural Pakistani peasantry, Somalis, Afghans) and those which reliably produce instant net contributors would be "racist" or "Islamophobic" or "neo-colonialist".   Nothing has exposed the limitations of contemporary liberal values more than the immigration policies of European nations."
Ben Podgursky on X - "I think the bigger problem than mobs is that legal immigrants are (1) legible and (2) realistically can be deported Government will get elected promising to deport "migrants", but can't effectively deport untraceable people to countries that refuse to take them back. So they'll flail around trying to fill that mandate and the only way to hit numbers will be to cut the well-documented legal immigrants who followed the rules (leaving the ones the voters actually wanted to remove)"

How Denmark’s ghetto laws caught the eye of Kemi Badenoch - "This is Askerød, an estate branded a “parallel society” under Denmark’s controversial ghetto laws. Today, its population is 54 per cent “non-Western” – above the 50 per cent threshold that can compel councils to demolish, vacate or sell off social housing... The Danish government no longer uses the word “ghetto” to describe such areas, referring to them instead as places where there is a “parallel society”. As well as having more than 50 per cent non-Western people living there, parallel society areas must also meet two of four other criteria for houses to be demolished – such as having unemployment levels above 40 per cent, or crime rates of at least three times the national average. Those living in the affected properties are then re-housed in other areas, with the hope that this will improve integration and reduce crime. There are currently eight areas on the parallel society list... Ms Beckmann, a member of the Liberal Party, said a big change came when the municipality was granted full authority to decide who can move into Askerød and the nearby Gersagerparken estate. New residents must now meet certain criteria: they must be employed or in education, have no criminal record, and hold EU citizenship. She said a survey on the housing estate found that residents in the development reported feeling safer... A supporter of the parallel societies laws, Ms Beckmann described them as “overall good and effective”. “We simply cannot allow the existence of parallel societies where children and young people grow up under social control, religious indoctrination, crime, gangs, and with poor prospects for education and employment”... “When we ensure a diverse resident mix, we break down under-resourced areas. “Places where people feel unsafe, lose faith in the future, and where children see no other possibilities than what they encounter at home or next door.” The widespread political mainstream support for strict immigration measures is a sign of how much the debate in Denmark has changed. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the country welcomed large numbers of immigrants on guest worker status amid surging demand for labour. But concern grew for decades over how well newcomers were able to integrate. In 2015, the European migration and refugee crisis marked a turning point, when well over a million migrants came to Europe – mostly heading to wealthier northern countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Germany. That year, the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party (DPP), became the second biggest power in the country’s parliament. After losing the 2015 election, the Social Democrats made a public break from its previous past reputation of openness to migration. “My party should have listened,” new leader Mette Frederiksen said at the time. Since then the country has tightened rules dramatically and introduced a litany of restrictions. Its “anti-ghetto law” was introduced in 2018, and Ms Frederiksen, who became prime minister the following year, has since pursued a “zero refugee” policy. Successful asylum bids had almost halved by her second year in office, from 85 per cent in 2015 to 44 per cent in 2020. Last year just 860 asylum requests were granted in Denmark, the lowest figure apart from 2020, when Covid halted new arrivals."
Low education and low income are the other 2 criteria
Ironically, left wingers are usually in favor of forced integration
Weird. Left wingers tell us that migration is a force of nature that cannot be stopped, and is also karma for the West for colonialism

Swedish parliament requires public workers to report unauthorized migrants - "Critics said it will create a climate of fear and could negatively impact migrants’ physical and mental health. The law is part of Sweden’s efforts to tighten its approach to migration and comes as the European Union overhauls its migration system, including to expedite deportations... Teachers, doctors and social workers have been exempted from the reporting obligation, following criticism.  Sweden will now make it compulsory for employees of tax authorities, employment and social insurance agencies and prison and probation services, among others, to tell police when they have reason to believe the people they come in contact with do not have the documents required to live in the country. “Reporting obligations imposed on public agencies create a climate of fear that harms not only undocumented people but everyone who depends on these institutions,” Louise Bonneau from Brussels-based nonprofit PICUM, which supports migrants, told the AP... The new law contradicts basic human rights of migrants and encourages racial profiling, a group of researchers from three Swedish universities warned... In 2005, Germany adopted legislation asking public authorities to report migrants without valid residency status, potentially leading to their deportation. The law only applies to some public institutions such as welfare offices, while schools and hospitals are exempted.  Nevertheless, migrants in Germany are known to avoid exercising their right to medical care because of the requirement to obtain a document from the welfare office in advance, which exposes them to reporting to migration authorities.  To address that, several institutions offer healthcare specifically for migrants without valid residency status, usually in large cities like Berlin. In 2018, the U.K. government revised a policy that had permitted immigration officials to obtain patient information from the National Health Service, following concerns that the arrangement deterred migrants from seeking medical treatment and undermined the confidentiality of patient records.  Under the revised rules, the Home Office was restricted to accessing only the names of people suspected or convicted of crimes who were subject to deportation proceedings."
Having the police catch criminals creates a climate of fear and negatively impacts criminals' physical and mental health. So the police need to ignore criminals
Isn't it racist to say that certain racial groups are more likely to be illegal immigrants? Ironic.
If you're against open borders, you're against basic human rights

Lozzy B 🇦🇺𝕏 on X - "23 year old Sudanese migrant Abubaker Mohamad Awad, stabbed 19 year old Tommie Lindhn to death in his own apartment in Härnösand, Sweden after Lindhn tried to stop Awad from raping a Swedish girl at knife point.  After killing Tommie, Awad continued to rape the young girl next to Tommies dead body.  The Sudanese migrant had already previously been convicted of several crimes, including sexual harassment, drug offences & shoplifting.  Had he been deported, Tommie would still be alive.   The media painted Tommie as Far Right, implied he was racist & that his life didn’t matter.  Tommie’s life DID Matter, all White Lives Matter.  Tommie Lindhn was a HERO  R.I.P Tommie 🤍🕊️  There is no justice without completely overhauling the broken system in the West & without Remigration.  Locking up violent foreign criminals AFTER they kill does not stop the next innocent person from losing their life.  No justice, no peace."

Apple Lamps on X - "Pim Fortuyn exposed the multicultural fraud before it turned European cities into war zones. He told the truth that mass immigration from Muslim countries would bring crime, welfare dependency, and values that despise Western freedom, especially for the gay man he was. The far left activist Volkert van der Graaf could not win the debate so he put a bullet in Fortuyn's head. This environmental leftist radical turned political assassin revealed the left's ultimate argument when facts threaten their ideology. They kill.   Then the system they captured let him out early after serving only twelve years of an eighteen year sentence. That disgraceful early release proved the left protects its own killers while the rest of us get the full weight of the law. The same movement that excuses Antifa violence and riots over deportations once murdered the one politician brave enough to say the quiet part out loud about Islam.   Fortuyn's warnings were dismissed as hate then. They read like prophecy now. The left has never apologized for that murder or the soft treatment of the assassin because admitting the motive would require admitting he was right. They chose the gun over the argument and then made sure the gunman paid almost nothing. Europe has paid in blood ever since."

Rome, “Take in a Migrant for Free at Home”: Program Flops, Three Sign-Ups in Three Months : r/europe_sub

David J Harris Jr. | Facebook - "🚨TRAGIC: After being robbed at knifepoint by Algerian migrant Said Malkoun, Italian woman Cinzia Dal Pino, 65, got back into her Mercedes, chased him down, and ran him over multiple times — killing him — before retrieving her bag and driving away.  Prosecutors are now demanding life in prison, arguing she was fully in control of her actions despite the trauma of the armed mugging. Meanwhile, attackers from similar backgrounds who mow down civilians are often quickly labeled “mentally ill.”  This is a clear DOUBLE STANDARD!"

Meme - Sardoche @Sardoche_Lol. Translated from French: "Spoiler: He got probation - 0 days in prison. The lawyer argued that he wasn't used to seeing free women and that he couldn't know how to behave. At least we're having a good laugh."
Dr. Maalouf @realMaalouf: "BELGIUM: A 30-year-old refugee from Afghanistan sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in a public swimming pool. His lawyer argued:"
Clearly, Europe needs to import loads more men from the Third World who are not used to seeing free women and don't know how to behave, and condemn indigenous white men for perpetuating rape culture

Monireh Kazemi on X (translated) - "The Absurdity of the Self-Inflicted Transformation
 It is one of the great ironies of our time: Millions of people flee from Islamically influenced countries to the West because economic conditions, freedom, and future prospects there are miserable—often as a result of corruption, clan structures, religious paternalism, and a lack of innovation culture. They seek precisely what they did not have at home.  Yet therein lies the absurdity: The larger their communities grow in the West, the more they alter the political landscape. Western politicians, driven by electoral arithmetic, become dependent on these votes and increasingly tailor their programs to the demands of the new electorate—at the expense of the native population.  The outcome is predictable and tragic: The problems the migrants fled from are slowly imported. Advancement through merit, secular freedom, and the rule of law increasingly give way to no-go zones, high social costs, declining educational standards, and growing religious influence.  In the end stands the bitter punchline: People leave failed societies—and through their mere presence reproduce precisely those conditions they sought to escape. The West imports not only people but also the archaic cultural notions, gender roles, homophobia, antisemitism, and institutional deficits of their countries of origin.  Anyone who criticizes this because it does not fit the parties' narrative is quickly labeled as “right-wing.” But the real absurdity lies in the fact that a continent once admired for centuries for its achievements is voluntarily embarking on the path to its own decadence—merely to avoid appearing “intolerant.”"

Visegrád 24 on X - "🇩🇪 The Left Party in Germany has submitted a motion to allow foreigners to vote in German elections, provided they have lived legally in Germany for at least five years.   They argue that the current system does not reflect Germany’s character as a country of immigrants.   According to the Basic Law, only Germans can vote in Bundestag elections, but The Left argues that some parts of the Basic Law use the term “people” rather than explicitly “German people,” meaning voting rights could be extended to foreigners."
This is why left wingers push mass migration

Mario Nawfal on X - "🇪🇸 Tens of thousands of Spaniards hit the streets demanding Pedro Sanchez resign. “SANCHEZ, RESIGN NOW!” First the UK, now Spain. People across Europe look fed up with their leaders."

German taxpayers bled dry: Mass migration cost €40 billion in 2025 - "Migrants cost German taxpayers — just at the federal level — €24.8 billion in 2025, according to new data in the “refugee costs report” from the German Federal Ministry of Finance. However, the true sum is much higher.  The €24.8 billion is strictly the federal bill. The actual, combined national cost of migration for Germany is that €24.8 billion plus the massive, separate billions that the individual states and municipalities had to pull from their own local tax revenues to cover their own deficits brought on by mass immigration. Welt notes that the total figure is indeed much higher, since it does not include states and local communes, but Welt does not provide this combined data.  Nevertheless, previous years indicate that this number is at least €15 to €20 billion. That means any total figure is likely well over €40 billion, but as in previous years, it may actually go as high as €50 billion... Of course, all of these expenses only cover specific areas like housing, direct social benefits, and integration courses. The true cost is still far higher than €40 billion to €50 billion.  The costs, for instance, do not cover expenses associated with the substantial foreign prison population. They also do not cover the need for the vastly increased police forces and counter-terrorism efforts. There are also “gray areas” that lead to other hidden taxes on Germans brought on by mass immigration. For instance, mass immigration has led to vastly higher housing prices, more road traffic, crowded hospitals, and longer wait times for medical treatments.  Germans are even paying higher health insurance premiums now due to mass immigration.   The head of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV-Spitzenverband) has repeatedly criticized the federal government for creating a massive multi-billion-euro deficit that forces them to raise premiums, with the core of the complaint revolving around “non-insurance benefits.” These are social welfare benefits mandated by the government that are paid out to people who have not paid regular insurance contributions into the system. This includes long-term unemployed citizens and refugees... Once on welfare, they are fully integrated into the statutory health insurance system. This is where the GKV-Spitzenverband argues the math breaks down, with the government only paying €108 per person per month for welfare recipients, the majority of which are migrants and those with a migration background, when the care actually costs between €300 and €350 a month.  This has resulted in a multi-billion euro deficit, which the insurance companies say now needs to be passed on to Germans actually paying for their health insurance.  In short, Germans are being squeezed from all sides due to mass immigration, and despite claims that foreigners would pay the pensions of Germany’s aging population, this is clearly unrealistic. Instead, Germany’s elderly may now be expected to work even longer, with a strong movement in the government to raise the retirement age to 73."

Migrant grooming gangs in Nuremberg accused of luring underage girls into prostitution in exchange for hard drugs - "Migrant drug gangs in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg are accused of exploiting underage girls by luring them with gifts, getting them hooked on hard drugs, and then demanding sex in exchange for further supplies"

Nearly Half of Italian Rape Victims Raped By Migrants - "Data from the Italian Interior Ministry has stated that 42 out of 100 rapes in the country are committed by migrants and the numbers continue to rise.  The statistics from the Interior Ministry also suggest that Italian women are more prone to be the victims of sexual harassment and minor sex attacks than foreign women, while foreign women have a slightly higher rate for serious sex crimes such as violent rape, Il Giornale reports...   A report from the  Italian Interior Ministry released last August suggested that nearly one in three crimes in Italy are committed by migrants despite migrants making up just eight percent of the population."

Visegrád 24 on X - "Greta Thunberg has spoken up against migrant deportations in Sweden, claiming that the country is “becoming increasingly hostile and racist.”  “The right to seek asylum is a basic human right and cannot be compromised,” she said.  The popular left-wing activist, who led a so-called “Freedom Flotilla” to Gaza, did not comment on the report released a few days ago that showed the true scale of Hamas’s sexual terrorism during and after the October 7th attack.  The report, prepared by the Civil Commission, examined over 10,000 photographs and gathered over 430 accounts from witnesses, survivors, experts, and medical staff.  In one testimony, a survivor told how a woman was gang-raped by terrorists, during which one cut off her breast.  “He throws it on the road, and they are playing with it,” she said. A terrorist then “shot her in the head” while still assaulting her.  This is the reality of Hamas’s sexual violence, which left-wing activists like Greta Thunberg still choose to ignore."
It's the omni cause. The left wing agenda is all connected/ "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution"

Francesco 🇮🇹 on X - "Estibaliz Kortazar, a far-left Spanish activist, did what good comrades do, she opened her home to a North African migrant.  Once he got what he wanted, the man started sexually harassing her, insulting her, and beating her. Then he threw her out, changed the locks, and took over the house.  She called the police for help. Their response? “We can’t do anything without a court order.”  Now she’s sleeping at relatives’ houses, seeing a psychologist after a nervous breakdown, and has launched a petition to fast-track the legal process and get her home back."
RAW EGG NATIONALIST on X - "The kicker: none of this will change her political views. She’ll still promote the same policies and vote by the same way."

From Refugee Helper to AfD Voter: YouTuber Explains Her Political Shift - "Nicole Blair, a 36-year-old YouTuber who once worked actively as a refugee helper, has explained why she now votes for Germany’s right-wing opposition party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).  In 2015, during the height of the migration crisis, she spent time in Budapest, where she saw families camping without food or shelter.  Back in Germany, she threw herself into volunteer work—donating blankets, teaching children, arranging housing, and supporting newcomers. “I was totally passionate. I wanted to be a good person,” she told the Schwäbische Zeitung.  But over time, her enthusiasm faded. While she built friendships and received much gratitude, she also said she met migrants who lied about their background, stole from her, or showed a “sense of entitlement.”...   Ahead of the 2021 Bundestag election, Blair decided to re-engage with politics. She read every party’s manifesto in full. “To my surprise, the AfD’s programme made sense to me,” she said.  What stood out most was its migration policy. “It didn’t say ‘all foreigners out.’ It said people who integrate are welcome, but those who commit crimes or lose their right to asylum should return. That sounded logical.” She also agreed with AfD positions on family, education, and the economy...   Blair stresses that she does not oppose genuine asylum seekers. “People who are really persecuted must get help. But many I met openly admitted … they came for a better life. That’s understandable, but it’s not what asylum is for,” she stressed.  She argues that encouraging young men to rebuild their home countries would be “more respectful and compassionate” than offering long-term welfare in Germany.  Her YouTube channel, launched shortly before the 2021 election, quickly attracted hundreds of thousands of views. Many viewers, she says, thanked her for voicing doubts they shared but were afraid to express."

Asylum NGO Boss To Marry Convicted Libyan Smuggler - "Alaa Faraj was sentenced by Italian courts to 30 years in prison for multiple counts of manslaughter and aiding illegal immigration, linked to a 2015 Mediterranean shipwreck that left 49 people dead. He served a decade in Palermo before receiving a partial presidential pardon in December from Sergio Mattarella, reducing his sentence by more than 11 years. He remains liable to serve additional time, though further reductions are possible.  Faraj is now planning to marry Alessandra Sciurba, a university lecturer and former president of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans. The two met during a prison education programme in Palermo, where Sciurba became involved in his case and publicly supported his claim that he had been wrongly convicted...   Separately, several members of Mediterranea Saving Humans are currently facing trial in Italy on accusations of facilitating illegal migration and profiting from their activities."

Jonatan Pallesen on X - "The most idiotic progressive idea may well be the idea that people with low IQ should get far lower sentencing.  Just now in Norway, a Syrian migrant is sentenced to only 6 months in jail after child rape.   It makes zero sense. It obviously doesn't make it less bad for the victim or future victims that their rapist is retarded.  His IQ wasn't even that extremely low. It was estimated to be in the range of 64–75. The Syrian mean is around 78. So he is within normal range for the Syrian population.   Even if their argument did make sense, 6 months for child rape is an insanely low.  What are we doing?"

Jonatan Pallesen on X - "The policies of left-wingers in Europe are the same as they would be if their goal was to get more rape.  First, allow mass immigration from the peoples in the world that have the highest propensity for rape, such as Afghanistan and Somalia. Especially aim for getting many young men.  A problem is that many of these are not able to support themselves in Europe. And if they leave again, they would not have as many chances to rape. So they should be supported by lavish welfare, ensuring that they will stay.   And finally, aim to make the sentences for rapists as lenient as possible. This helps both reduce the deterrent effect and gets rapists back on the street faster.  For extra bonus points, ban women and girls from carrying protection such as pepper spray."

Switzerland votes against 10 million population cap - "The proposal sought to limit the number of residents in Switzerland to 10 million. It has about 9.1 million today and foreigners make up nearly 28 per cent of the population. It was billed as a potential “Swiss Brexit” because the initiative could ultimately have forced Bern to tear up its free movement agreement with the EU.  This could have risked the collapse of wider bilateral accords that give Switzerland privileged access to the EU market... Xavier Alonso, a senior editor at RTS, told The Telegraph the result showed that the SVP had lost at the ballot box but won “the battle of ideas”.  “The SVP campaigned alone against everyone and won 15 to 16 points more than its militant base, which is around 30 per cent,” he said.  “Almost one Swiss person in two thinks that growth and immigration, despite prosperity, is a problem.”  The result also exposed a sharp town-country divide, with rural areas much more receptive to the cap than the cities."

ɖʀʊӄքǟ ӄʊռʟɛʏ 🇧🇹🇹🇩 on X - ">swiss think immigration is too high
>propose referendum to limit immigration
>government accepts proposals
>holds referendum to limit immigration
>limit immigration vote wins
>government limits immigration
>central issue of C21st western politics instantly solved
>it’s that easy"

Germany: Syrian asylum seeker Fahad A. on trial for murdering 70 people, torturing 115 - "The man was able to apply for asylum in Germany in 2023 as a war refugee, but now, the prosecution alleges that the defendant served as a prison guard and secret service agent who partook in brutal forms of torture while serving the former regime of Bashar al-Assad."
If you don't welcome all refugees, you are heartless and evil

German day cares under police protection over pork - "Plans to no longer serve children pork or gelatin-containing products like gummy bears at two day care centers in the eastern German city of Leipzig prompted a wave of criticism online and made headlines...   "Out of respect for a changing world, only pork-free meals and snacks will be ordered and served starting from July 15," read a letter sent to parents, according to Bild...   By the evening, the director of the two centers said they were putting the plans on hold for now following the outrage... "Imagine if German children in Riyadh fought for their right to currywurst and forced the majority of society to change their diet," she said, referring to a popular variation of German sausage.  Sawsan Chebli, a German politician in Berlin for the center-left Social Democrats who is of Palestinian descent, said the measure may have been well-intentioned, but did little to include Muslims."
From 2019

All Meals in Yet Another German School Will Be ‘Halal’ - "After a daycare center in Lower Saxony recently raised the hackles of parents by only serving sausages from halal-slaughtered animals, now a school in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhein-Westphalia, is also bowing to the demands of the Muslim population when it comes to food offerings. Starting next school year, Erle Comprehensive School will serve only halal meals, according to an announcement on the school’s website... Around 60% of students in Gelsenkirchen have a migration background, with some districts seeing even higher numbers. Pork has already been banned in all schools since 2010, following a decision by the city’s food advisory board.  Other schools in Germany, including a special needs school in Baden-Württemberg, have also shifted to halal-only menus... some non-Muslim Europeans view halal-slaughtered meat being the ‘default’ offering as a form of religious accommodation that they have not chosen, or even a forced passive participation in a system they don’t adhere to. Certain Christians oppose consuming halal meat because the animal is dedicated to Allah, a deity they do not worship or recognize. And animal rights activists have opposed halal slaughter that does not stun the animal before its throat is slit and it is drained of all blood.   No word on whether German schools intend to cater to the religious food rules of the Jewish population—who do not consume halal foods"

Greeks under Islam

Clash Report on X

"Theologian JD Hall to Tucker Carlson: The Muslim rulers didn't tax churches during the Ottoman period. They were very kind to Christians. As a matter of fact, they took care of our holy sites. Islamic authorities rebuilt the Church of the Holy Sepulchre three different times over the centuries. They had a law protecting Christian pilgrims on their journey. Nobody messed with the pilgrims."

Homer Pavlos on X

This is Islamic propaganda by two uneducated barbarians who are deliberately trying to manipulate history. I will explain to you, in a long and historically accurate post, exactly how Muslim Turks treated Christians. In the 1.300 years of Muslim-Arab slave trade, approximately a million Greek Christians were sold as slaves. I am Greek, so I will write you about how Islam and Muslim Turks treated Greek Christians. On March 30, 1822, the Chios Massacre took place. The Muslim Turks slaughtered 42,000 Greek Christians: women, men & children. Additionally, 52,000 were sold as slaves in the markets of Smyrna & Constantinople. On September 1, 1821, Samothrace was devastated by the Ottomans through a general massacre led by the Turkish Kara Ali. Approximately 10,000 men & boys were slaughtered. Women & children were sold in the markets of Constantinople & Smyrna (Holocaust of Samothrace). On June 4, 1821, the Turks carried out a massacre against the Greeks of Kydonies in Asia Minor (modern-day Ayvalık). They did pogroms at shops and homes, looting them, while seizing women and children to sell as slaves. Simultaneously, they conducted a general massacre of the population, and the town was set ablaze and completely destroyed. In Crete muslims carried chains with them to tie up Greek Christian women so they could take them away. They were enslaving and converting the Greek Christians of Crete for centuries. For 300 years (1380-1680) the muslim Turks were stealing kids from their mothers. This was the most brutal thing humanity ever witnessed. They were waiting for women to birth, raise their kids, and then at the age of 8 were collecting the them. The devşirme known as "collection of children" or "blood tax" or in Greek as "paidomazoma". The devshirme was the greatest wound inflicted on Hellenism during the period of Turkish rule. The children who were seized were considered definitively lost. In Epirus, in fact, on the first Sunday after the abduction, their parents would go to church dressed in black, where a funeral service was chanted. In this service, the names of the children were read aloud as if they were dead. Once taken, boys were circumcised, renamed with Muslim names, and forbidden from contact with their families. They were raised as Muslims, effectively erasing their Greek cultural and religious identity to foster loyalty to the sultan. After the Ottoman conquest of Crete (1669), local officials and governors began to oppress the Christian population in every way: killing, abducting and abusing women, demanding money, and preventing the performance of the subjects' religious duties. We Greeks, called the Muslim Turks, "The grand masters of torture." In 1821, in Patras, they captured a father and son and, after impaling them, lit a fire and forced the other captives to roast them like lambs. Ali Pasha at that point was more inventive: When he impaled Christians, he forced their relatives to turn the spit, threatening that otherwise he would impale them too. Immediately after the hanging of Patriarch Gregory V in Constantinople, the Turks hanged three metropolitans at various points in the city. However, one of them, the very elderly Metropolitan of Nicomedia, breathed his last before reaching the place of execution. Such, however, was the Turks' mania for revenge that they punished even the dead man by hanging his corpse. Just 65 years after the Fall of Constantinople (1453), Sultan Selim I Yavuz, grandson of Mehmed the Conqueror and father of Suleiman, decided to definitively abolish the Patriarchate of Constantinople during the patriarchate of Theoleptos I, and to slaughter all the subjugated Christians (rayah) of the empire who refused to convert to Mohammedanism. Just 65 years after the Fall of Constantinople, the Greeks of Thrace were collectively placed before the forced dilemma of either converting or being wiped off the face of the earth, that is, to suffer ethnic cleansing or genocide, as we would say today. Between those two barbaric options, the Greeks of Thrace (the ancestors of today’s Muslim Greeks of Thrace) chose ethnic cleansing at their own expense; that is, they chose to convert in order to survive as an ancient indigenous people, in the hope that at some point in the future their descendants would regain their national self-awareness and their religious independence, and would then voluntarily return to the bosom of the Greek Nation and of Greek Orthodoxy. When the Greek Bishop Dionysios the Philosopher of Larissa organized a revolt against the Muslim Turks in 1611, which ended in failure, the Turks flayed him alive, stuffed his skin with straw, and paraded it from city to city. Three days later, the Turks also discovered -the Greek rebels- Deli Giorgos and Lambros. They burned Lambros alive, while they crucified Giorgos and, instead of a crown of thorns on his head, they drilled holes into which they placed feathers. Dionysios’s skin, together with the heads of 85 Greek Christian rebels, was sent to Constantinople, where it was thrown into the Sultan’s stables. After the failure of Daskalogiannis’s uprising in Sfakia (Crete, 1770), the Turks captured him and flayed him alive, cut him in pieces and throw them in the fire and the dogs. The Muslim Pasha of Thessaloniki, Abdul Abud, who had set as his goal the extermination of the Greeks, burned 120 villages and wiped out their inhabitants to the last one. 5.000 Greeks were massacred in Naousa, the rest were sold in slave markets, and the entire city was reduced to ashes. The most common torture inflicted by the Muslims during the Ottoman period was whipping. The usual victims were the Christians. It was the introductory torment in every other torture, so common in the persecutions of Christians that the phrase became proverbial: "I will whip you until you change your faith." The Janissaries faced no restraint in their behavior toward the Christians. They would even enter churches and desecrate them. And if they discovered a beautiful Greek girl, they would seize her from her parents in order to satisfy their lewd desires. For this reason, anyone who had a pretty daughter was forced to keep her locked inside the house, while most Greek women who lived in towns would wear a burqa when they went out, just like Muslim women. The Janissaries also exterminate Christians without any reason, simply because they were Christians. Sometimes they executed them in cold blood in the middle of the road, just to test the accuracy of their weapons; other times to watch them writhe in their own blood; sometimes to make the abduction of a bride, right after her wedding, more dramatic; other times simply because the Christians were manly-looking, relatively well-dressed, or on horseback. In the latter case, the rayah would hurry to dismount upon seeing a Janissary, but the latter would draw his pistol and say: “Why did you dismount, you infidel dog? So you could make me ride instead?” And the rayah, Greek Christian, would fall dead. During the Ottoman period, Muslims enjoyed performing all kinds of mutilations. Ears, noses, lips, tongues, breasts, and genitals were primarily cut off. Not just those, though. Let's recall here the newly-revealed Saint Raphael of Mytilene, who was hanged from a tree and had his lower jaw cut off, while the twelve-year-old martyr Irene was roasted in a barrel on the Tuesday of Easter in the year 1463, ten years after the fall of Constantinople. Many times Christian captives were placed in front of cannons that were fired, turning them into human shreds of flesh. In other cases, they were tied to galleys that sailed in opposite directions and were torn apart. Dismemberment of victims also occurred with horses. In Chios Massacre young girls were raped publicly in the streets, and newlyweds in front of their husbands, who were then slaughtered. Others were raped in front of their parents, after which the men's genitals were cut off. Women over 40 were set on fire and left to burn alive. Pregnant women had their bellies ripped open and their fetuses pulled out, while small children were thrown forcefully against rocks. The frenzy of the Muslims was unprecedented. In 1822, Muslims also captured the wives of Zafeirakis and Gatsos. The wife of Zafeirakis was built into the wall up to the neck in the church of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki. Maria Karatasou, daughter of a priest refused to change faith, and for this Ebub Lubut enclosed her in a sack with deadly snakes, where she martyred. Pouqueville describes in the darkest colors to the civilized world the dramatic scenes he saw with his own eyes there: “Many women naked were put up to the neck in sacks with cats, snakes, and mice…”. The Greek Christian Woman, during the years when Greece was enslaved to the Muslim Turks, in order to avoid -as much as she could- the abhorrent dishonor from the barbaric Muslims, would destroy the youthful beauty of her face, or create a family from the age of fourteen, believing that she would not give birth to slaves. On September 1955 in Constantinople 4,348 Greek businesses, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, 23 schools, and 73 churches were damaged or destroyed. The exodus of Greeks from Turkey, reduced the community of over 150.000 (who have already left from the Fall), to fewer than 2.000 today. Muslims commited GENOCIDES and Islamized the Anatolia, Antioch and Seleucia. From the Hellenism of the East (Thrace, Asia Minor, Pontus), around a million people were exterminated (1914-1924). In the Pontus region alone, 353,000 people were slaughtered. Because they stole our lands. Smyrna, Aydin, Kydonies, Prousa, Nicaea (Asia Minor region), Trebizond, Kerasounta, Samsounta, Oinoe, Paphra, Ordou, Amaseia (Pontus), provinces of Derkon, Metron, Herakleia, Myriophytou, Kallipoleos, Ainos, Tyrolois, Saranta Ekklision, Adrianople (Eastern Thrace). On December 18, 1803, at Zalongo in Greece, a group of Greek Souliote women jumped from the cliffs, holding their children. They chose death over falling into the hands of Muslims, where they would face rape, abuse, and enslavement. These are only some of the most recent and important events in Greek history. Of course there are thousands of books and primary sources about the Ottoman period and what happened to Christians in Anatolian Greeks and other Christian countries. Bookmark this and repost it everywhere. I am Homer Pavlos. A Greek, descendant of those who fought Islam and knows the history of his homeland.

 

Related:

Dr. Ben Braddock on X

"Ottoman officials forcibly collected young boys from the empire’s Christian subjects as a form of taxation. They were then taken back to Istanbul, forcibly converted to Islam, and trained to be the sultan’s military slaves, the Janisseries. Ottomans launched slaving raids into Slavic lands, taking 3-5.5 million Christians as slaves, and the Barbary Corsairs captured over 1 million Christians as slaves in Western and Southern Europe. Weasel move to say that churches weren’t taxed when all Christians had to pay a heavy Jizya tax, and no new churches were allowed to be constructed, and Christians had no legal rights in courts against Muslims who wronged them."

Roman Helmet Guy on X

"Christians lived under the Pact of Umar during the Ottoman period. They weren’t allowed to own weapons. They weren’t allowed to ride horses. Their sons were enslaved and turned into cannon fodder to kill more Christians. Ottoman identity was centered upon being ghazis (jihadis)."

Zoomer on X

"'Sorry we kidnapped your family and sold them into slavery, made your son into a janissary and put your daughter into a harem, we'll look after the holy sites and we're really BASED and hate Jews, we promise we're on your side!'"

unspinthespinagain on X

"Tuckers latest guest

Jd hall his pastoral career abruptly collapsed due to a sequence of public, legal & behavioral issues 1/ Defamation Case (2022): Hall admitted to fabricating and publishing a false, damaging story about a transgender activist, which resulted in a formal retraction, a public apology, and a legal settlement 2/ Arrest and Addiction: He was arrested on driving under the influence (DUI) and weapons charges. He later acknowledged battling a severe addiction to prescription Xanax 3/ Ouster and Excommunication: Following these events, alongside separate allegations of domestic violence against his wife, his church removed him from the pulpit and formally excommunicated him 4/ Embezzlement Conviction & Resolution (2024–2026) The Charges: Following his termination, investigations revealed that Hall had misused over $100,000 of church funds for personal travel, family cell phones, political blog operations, and a gun safe In September 2024, Hall entered a no contest plea to criminal embezzlement charges. He was ordered to pay $15,454 in restitution to Fellowship Baptist Church and issue a formal, written apology admitting to his personal failures and sins 5/ Case Dismissal: After successfully completing the terms of his deferred sentencing agreement and paying the restitution, his criminal embezzlement case was officially dismissed and the court files sealed Now hes tuckers friend 🤣"

 

Links - 7th July 2026 (1)

Language watchdog targets brunch spot over Yiddish word 'nosh' - "Over the years, as Quebec’s language laws have tightened, the province’s language watchdog has taken issue with all kinds of non-French words on storefronts and elsewhere, from “pasta” to “Burgundy.”  Now it is grappling with the Yiddish word “nosh.”...  the Burgundy Lion Pub, further east on Notre-Dame St., faced a similar encounter with the OQLF. Owner Toby Lyle told The Gazette the agency deemed “Pub” and “Lion” acceptable on the establishment’s sign but raised concerns about the word “Burgundy,” which refers to the neighbourhood’s name, Little Burgundy — or Petite-Bourgogne in French — a name he said has been used in English for generations. The agency later apologized and allowed the sign to remain unchanged...   Since taking office in 2018, the CAQ government has strengthened the Charter of the French Language and encouraged Quebecers to file language complaints. It has also doubled the OQLF’s annual budget to $49 million."

'Feels like harassment': Montreal café owner says years of language inspections taking a toll - "Inside SoLIT Café in downtown Montreal, orange-grove-inspired decor hangs from the ceiling above customers sipping coffee, chatting with friends and working on laptops.  Like many small business owners, Maryam Rahimi does a bit of everything in her shop — takes orders, helps in the kitchen, serves customers and manages staff.  But she says another part of her job has increasingly taken up her time over the past several years: responding to compliance requests and follow-ups from Quebec’s language watchdog.  "To be honest with you, I’m not quite sure what’s happening," Rahimi said... "They basically audited everything that was in writing, including our receipt paper," she said. One of the first concerns involved the word "Thank you" printed in small letters at the bottom of customer receipts.  "They sent me a formal letter and then so many emails," she said. "You have to make sure it says 'merci.'"  She says other requests followed. She recalls being asked about terms such as "chicken nachos" and "flat white."  "They said your chicken nachos is in English," Rahimi recalled.  "So we changed it to 'nachos au poulet', but they said, 'no, the word nachos... you should find a French equivalent for that.' I said, ‘What do you mean?'" she laughed in disbelief. The issue that frustrated Rahimi the most involved the café’s name.  She says one OQLF inspector questioned whether "SoLIT" could be interpreted as an English phrase if separated into two words: so lit.  "I said, well, any word that you separate could mean anything else," Rahimi said.  At one point, another inspector said she might have to go to court if she doesn’t comply, which she welcomed.  "I actually want to be heard," she said. "I want to present my case to a judge and say, 'How is this fair?'"  Instead, she continued making the requested changes.  Most recently, she installed three new signs in French after receiving a compliance deadline earlier this year. But she says she feels as though the process is never-ending.  "We’re always under review," she said. "It really feels like harassment because mentally it’s exhausting."  Rahimi estimates that redesigning materials, replacing signage and consulting lawyers has cost her thousands of dollars over the years.  For a small business operating on narrow margins, she says the time spent dealing with compliance issues can be just as costly.  "To have to put my energy into something else that doesn’t help me sustain my business or make it profitable," she said. "It’s frustrating."... The office says it has received 22 complaints concerning the café since March 2022, although it notes some complaints may ultimately be deemed inadmissible or unfounded."
Of course, there were people criticising her

'Feels like harassment': Montreal café owner says years of language inspections taking a toll : r/montreal - "The OQLF always goes a step too far. She wasn't in compliance, fair. She fixes it and then they complain again about fucking nachos? Everyone calls them nachos. No one calls them "des croustilles au maïs avec du fromage et sauce de legumes pimentée".  They complained about an Italian restaurant having Italian-named dishes with the French description underneath. While the SAQ was using the word vino in ads at the time.  They wasted taxpayer dollars making the STM change Go Habs Go when even the idiot leader of the PQ said he would keep using Go Habs Go.  All this while "grilled cheese" is officially Québécois French.  Just do your job and avoid the power trip. Fucking hell."

Meme - "HOW TO KNOW you'RE IN A
CULT VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO.
NO PRIMARY ELECTION JUST VOTE FOR WHOEVER WE TELL YOU TO.
GET COVID SHOT OR LOSE YOUR JOB.
GET INSURANCE OR PAY A FINE.
SILENCE PEOPLE YOU DISAGREE WITH.
DO WHAT WE TELL YOU NO MATTER WHAT.
EVERYONE ELSE IS A NAZI AND RACIST THAT HAVE DIFFERENT POLITICAL VIEWS THAN US.
YOU HAVE TO SUPPORT BLM. LGBTQ. AND ABORTION.
WAVE OTHER COUNTRIES FLAGS INSTEAD OF THE US FLAG.
PROTEST ANYTHING REPUBLICANS DO.
BE A VICTIM.
PLAY THE RACE CARD.
BLAME REPUBLICANS INSTEAD OF TAKING RESPONSIBILITY.
ALWAYS MENTION TO JUSTIFY THE SUMMER OF LOVE.
BLAME TRUMP FOR EVERYTHING."

Meme - "Haspengoud *very young girl with 2 apples in her top* De appels en peren van het nieuwe seizoen zijn er."
People were clutching their pearls, because they needed to virtue signal. The lady doth protest too much, methinks

Meme - *Pool*
"No entry. Restroom closed"

Spellbreaker on X - "Why would "witches" die for a lie? If they were willing to die for their religion, "witchcraft" must be the true religion, according to what passes for Christian logic these days."

Controversies That Soured Bill Gates' Reputation Beyond Repair - "Bill Gates appeared multiple times in the Epstein files
He admitted to having two affairs during his marriage to Melinda Gates
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen claimed Bill Gates betrayed him
He earned scrutiny for his rude handshake with the South Korean president
Melinda French Gates was unsatisfied with Bill Gates' handling of an employee's sexual harassment case
Bill Gates had a reputation for pursuing women he worked with
His climate memo gave fuel to climate change deniers, including Donald Trump
In 2015, Bill Gates founded Breakthrough Energies, an initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. Hence, it was quite surprising a decade later when Gates posted a climate change memo to his blog, Gates Notes, in which he seemed to reverse his stance on the issue. The memo begins by denouncing the "doomsday view of climate change," and claiming that, while it will have serious consequences, climate change won't "lead to humanity's demise." The Microsoft CEO goes on to argue that America should pivot away from fighting climate change and reducing emissions and instead direct the resources it has devoted to these efforts toward human welfare.  While he makes it very clear that he believes climate change is a serious issue that should be addressed, he continues to argue for changing society's approach to it and to push the "truth" that climate change won't end civilization. Unfortunately, a lot of climate change deniers pounced on the memo, twisting it to fit their narrative that climate change doesn't exist. Among these deniers was Donald Trump, who gloated on Truth Social that he "just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax" because Gates allegedly "admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue" (via The Conversation).  While climate change deniers were grossly simplifying Gates' climate memo, it still drew some scrutiny from scientists, who questioned why he was attempting to make solving climate change and solving poverty an either/or situation. Additionally, he spent a lot of time deconstructing an argument that very few climate activists have made. Many already know that climate change won't end civilization and are instead focused on reducing the human suffering it will contribute to.
Bill Gates' deposition in Microsoft's anti-trust case garnered ridicule
He was a notorious 'office bully' in his younger years
The Gates Foundation has been accused of hurting Africa through its agricultural strategy...
In 2024, several African leaders penned an open letter to the Gates Foundation and other charitable foundations, demanding "reparations" for the damage the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has done to Africa's ecosystems.  The Gates Foundation is the biggest funder of AGRA, which seeks to revolutionize agriculture in Africa. On the surface, it sounds like a good initiative aimed at improving food security and farmers' incomes. However, years after its founding, AGRA has yet to achieve results. Studies have even found that hunger has increased in AGRA countries since its founding. In their open letter, African leaders argued that the initiative has caused harm by promoting industrial models and synthetic fertilizers that disrupt Africa's agricultural traditions.  AGRA has had years and billions in aid from donors and the government to achieve its goals, and its failure has raised eyebrows. The Gates Foundation stands out as one of the primary funders of AGRA. However, it's certainly not the only one, especially since it launched the initiative in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation.
Bill Gates has an enormous carbon footprint despite his climate advocacy"
You're not allowed to speak facts and question climate change hysteria if the "wrong people" will benefit from it. The motte and bailey is clear here, since climate change hystericists have traumatised children into feeling despondent

Chilling final post of bungee jumper who plummeted to death when she was thrown with no cord - "Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, 21, jokingly wrote, “Who was the crazy person who let me jump off a bridge???” on her Instagram Story Saturday before she went on what she thought would be a thrilling bungee jumping adventure in Limeira, São Paulo.  Instead, Rodrigues de Freitas fell to her death after the bungee company failed to attach a cord to her harness as they hurled her over the cliffside...   A sickening video posted on social media captured Rodrigues de Freitas being thrown off the edge of the “Skeleton Bridge” without her bungee cord after the grim joke...   The witness filming could then be heard shouting, “Guys, the rope!” and pointing to the crucial safety device lying on the ground. Rodrigues de Freitas, a physical education and sports management student, was pronounced dead at the scene, the outlet said.  Her fiancé was watching as she plummeted to her death, according to cops. Six people have been arrested following the incident, including three people at the scene of the jump.  Two of the suspects tried to flee, but were ultimately tracked down by a helicopter in the wooded area, according to the military police."

The strange demise of Europe’s once-great airlines - "It has been downhill for BA almost ever since, with cost-cutting, strikes, IT meltdowns and lost bags leaving many declaring: “I’m flying ABBA” – anyone but British Airways... How and why did the golden era of European airlines end? Two men – and a structural change in the industry – are responsible.  The two men could not be more different. Michael O’Leary of Ryanair is, by his own admission, a “sweary gobs----”, who claims his cheap and not-so-cheerful airline runs on “leprechaun wee and bulls---”. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is the conservative ruler of Dubai, who created the ultra-luxury Emirates airline with on-board bars and showers, and chauffeur service to and from airports.  O’Leary ate BA’s lunch in short-haul and “Sheikh Mo” ate BA’s dinner on long-haul.  O’Leary’s bet that passengers “will crawl b-----k-naked over broken glass to get low fares” – as low as €15 (£13) in some cases – paid off spectacularly. His no-frills carrier now transports more than 200 million passengers a year. To put that figure into perspective, BA carries fewer than 50 million passengers a year across both short-haul and long-haul services... Álex Cruz, BA’s chief executive until 2020, decided that the only way BA could maintain market share was by cutting costs. He crammed so many seats into the company’s short-haul jets that legroom is now the same as Ryanair, and the lavatories are minuscule. Worst of all, he scrapped free food and drink in economy class in 2017. An airline with the word “British” in its name would no longer serve a free cuppa (although it has reintroduced the world’s smallest bottle of water).  The cutbacks continue to this day. The white headrest covers in short-haul business class recently disappeared, while the legroom on BA’s Embraer jets that operate from London City Airport has shrunk, and many seats no longer recline... As the quality and innovation among European carriers dipped, Emirates took to the skies, redefining long-haul travel – and in its vapour trails followed other shiny new Gulf airlines: Qatar Airways and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad.  Each of the new Middle Eastern carriers has introduced innovations that have raised the bar and attracted a new generation of travellers. Emirates was the first airline to put showers and a large bar with a dining table for four people on its Airbus A380 superjumbo. It is setting new standards in premium economy."
9/10 of Skytrax's five-star airlines are East Asian and the last is Qatar. It's no coincidence that they have almost no strikes

America’s tipping culture is completely out of control - "On the unofficial Facebook group for British tourists visiting Orlando – which has nearly 200,000 members – the topic has been banned entirely. “Please don’t post about tipping as it causes too many arguments,” reads the group’s official rules that are upheld by strict moderators. To be fair, they may have made the right decision. Look at the bitter arguments that tipping has already caused on social media. Last year, a post in which a New York waitress complained that her customers had only tipped a paltry 7 per cent – on a bill of $3,000 – led to incendiary rows on X, with the post attracting 16 million views.  That was far from the only crazy tipping story to go viral online. How about the Illinois restaurateur who was caught on video chasing down a customer who had failed to leave a tip? When the video made the news, some Americans even took the angry chef’s side, suggesting that he was right to berate the customer who had the audacity to pay the advertised price.  Could all this madness have some upside in persuading the Americans to rethink their obsession with tipping? For decades, our transatlantic cousins have defended the practice, insisting that it leads to better service and more customer choice. Now, surveys suggest they might be having a rethink, with more than three in four saying that tipping has gone too far in one recent poll.  In the meantime, the tipping menace shows no signs of slowing down just yet, as the standard demand for a 20 per cent gratuity appears on every Epos terminal across America. Good luck, then, to the England and Scotland fans heading to the World Cup, where stadiums are already charging the best part of $20 (£16) for a beer, and around one third of that for a bottle of water.  In the current climate, perhaps we should just be glad that Fifa isn’t demanding a 20 per cent tip on ticket prices – at least not yet anyway."

I’m expected to tip for my delivery driver’s healthcare in the US. The UK is next - "an increasing number of restaurants have started to adopt US-style tipping measures, with Gordon Ramsay leading the charge. At the end of last year, the celebrity chef started hitting diners with a 20 per cent service charge on festive menus at his Lucky Cat restaurant in Bishopsgate. His other eateries – including the Savoy Grill and The River – also have a higher-than-usual tipping charge, at 15 per cent. And with more top London restaurants – such as The Delaunay and Brasserie Zédel – increasing their service charges from the traditional 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent of late, this may soon become standard... In cafés or hairdressers, you will now often be presented with the preset options of 10 per cent, 15 per cent or 20 per cent. (And to be clear, everyone will watch as you wrestle with your conscience and judge you according to which box you tap.) Likewise, in black cabs, where traditionally one always rounded up to the nearest pound... while my most farcical “tipflation” experiences include being asked by a medical clinic if I would like to tip the nurse who just removed a small mole from my back, and being handed a restaurant bill in which the tipping options started at a hilarious 25 per cent, Reddit is buzzing with even more preposterous anecdotes. Think self-service checkouts asking to have their talents recognised. Think funeral parlours."
A service charge isn't tipping

Why the drugs you’ve been prescribed may not work well - "  “It’s clear we are in a mess with medicines,” says Prof Nick Barber. “They are a trillion-dollar technology delivering reliability we wouldn’t tolerate in a dishwasher. Drugs don’t work well – they are badly prescribed, erratically taken, and cause immense stress, harm and waste.” And yet we rattle with pills and our bathroom cabinets groan with them, as we blindly trust our medications to improve, even save, our lives.  Barber should know: He has been prescribing and researching medicines for 50 years during a career in which he’s served as a director of clinical pharmacy at University College London and as vice-president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Today he is an emeritus professor of pharmacy at UCL and the author of an entertaining new book, How to Take Drugs.“I want people to know that drugs aren’t as effective as we think,” he says. “That doesn’t mean we don’t take them. Despite their limited effectiveness, drugs are more likely to work better than nothing at all. But we do need to have an honest and open relationship with them.”...   Much of this approach, says Barber, is down to the way modern society views illness. “We’re treating the disease, not the patient,” he says. “Plus, most technologies develop because of feedback from the user: For example, they improve a car model every five years and regularly update the software on our phones. But you don’t have that feedback loop with medicines because in the end the sale is to a health system.” Before drugs come to market, they go through exhaustive rounds of clinical trials, but these don’t take into account a person’s sex, age, or genetic make-up... The difference matters, because women may metabolise drugs more slowly than men – meaning the medication stays in their system for longer – or they may react in a certain way depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle. Factors such as body size, genetics, liver or kidney function, and the interaction with other medications can also have a big impact. According to Barber, the future lies in creating a more personalised prescription model based on an individual’s specific make-up. There are already trials taking place in this area, which is known as pharmacogenomics... The trick, says Barber, is not just to take medicines, but to “take control”. His book contains a useful acronym, Nabr, which he pronounces as “neighbour”. This stands for do Nothing, discuss Alternatives, and examine the Benefits and Risks of the drugs... “Doing nothing has a fine tradition.” This pause is what GPs call “watchful waiting”.   “An ‘alternative’ could mean upping your exercise to 150 minutes a week, instead of immediately starting a blood-pressure pill,” says Barber.  “If you do need a drug, ask: ‘What are you recommending? What are the benefits and the risks?’ What would they do in your position?”... Many people accumulate drugs on repeat prescriptions as they go through life; not all are needed indefinitely... Every GP service should offer you an annual medication review. These are increasingly being offered by pharmacists in the practice rather than GPs (and the pharmacists are the people who really understand the drugs)."
Clearly, it's sexism to not include women in clinical trials because their bodies are different, but it's also sexism to think that women have different brains than men - neuro-sexism, even

Mother loses arm in great white shark attack - "The attack, which is the latest in several fatal shark attacks in Australia in recent months, has reignited calls for sharks to be culled.  Tony Abbott, a former prime minister, said: “It’s so wrong that we don’t cull sharks after attacks. It’s so wrong we don’t put people before sharks.”  But Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, pointed out that great white sharks are a protected species.  “When it comes to shark culling, the truth is the great white shark is protected,” he said on Monday. “We’re not going to be contemplating a cull. I’m not convinced it would work. Certainly we haven’t received evidence or information it would work.” He said that low-flying, AI-enabled drones could be an effective way of monitoring the presence of sharks and warning swimmers and surfers about whether it was safe to enter the water.  Coogee Beach was closed immediately after the attack on Saturday but opened again on Monday.  Mr Minns also suggested that shark nets could be installed all year round instead of only during the summer months.  Shark nets are controversial because other types of marine wildlife, such as turtles, dolphins and rays, get caught in them and die... The week before, a man died after being attacked by a shark while spearfishing off the coast of Western Australia. Last month, a 39-year-old man died after being attacked while spearfishing on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Ten days before that, a 38-year-old was fatally bitten off Rottnest Island, near Perth in Western Australia.  In January, dozens of beaches along Australia’s east coast were closed after four shark attacks in ‌two days."
When animals/charismatic megafauna are more important than humans

How the vegan movement benefited this butcher - "“People are eating less meat but better,” Warren maintains. They “are going out less [to restaurants], but when they do, they want somewhere they’re going to get a bloody good meal. With the recent price increases, the difference between a good and bad steak isn’t as big as it used to be, so if you’re going to go, do it right.”... What customers are purchasing is also changing. “We got to a point where people were buying steaks for Tuesday night. That’s unheard of throughout history; it isn’t right. It should be a treat.”"

Burglar left passport photo at Belgravia crime scene - "A career burglar was caught when he left a passport photo of himself on the roof of a £4m Belgravia property.  Glen Banks, 57, climbed through a window of a two-bedroom house on Cadogan Lane on Feb 14 last year.  One of the occupants noticed that a window was open and that there were muddy shoe prints on his deck. He then found Banks, who fled the house before he was caught.  However, in doing so, he left his jacket behind, which contained paperwork including his passport photo, Southwark Crown Court heard.  The jacket was tested and Banks’s DNA was identified. He was later arrested."
Clear proof that it was a false flag. No one could be so stupid like "terrorists" who bring their passports along or play both good and bad cop characters themselves - it must be Mossad that was behind it

Social workers missed three chances to save baby Preston Davey - "Social workers and medical staff have been accused of missing a string of opportunities to spot the abuse suffered by baby Preston Davey before he was murdered by his gay adoptive father.  The 13-month-old died in July 2023, just weeks after being handed to gay couple Jamie Varley, 37, and John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32.  During his time with the pair he was physically, sexually and psychologically abused before eventually being suffocated by having an object placed in his mouth. Preston’s maternal grandmother has questioned whether fears of being accused of homophobia clouded social workers’ judgment.  After an eight-week trial at Preston Crown Court, Varley of was found guilty of murder, two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault of a child, 13 counts of taking indecent photos or videos of a child, one of distributing an indecent photo of a child, to his co-accused, and one of making an indecent photo.  McGowan-Fazakerley was found guilty of allowing the death of a child, two counts of child cruelty and one count of the sexual assault of a child... the pathologist’s report suggested the death had not been accidental, and identified several other injuries. He had 30 external bruises, internal bruising in his mouth and throat, internal bruising to his anus, bowel and bladder, lacerations to his anorectum, and a perforated bowel.  One medical expert said a bruise on the baby’s bottom appeared to be a bite mark.  Police found images and videos on Varley’s phone, including of the baby’s bottom and private parts, which prosecutors claimed were indecent and had been captured for sexual gratification."

Links - 6th July 2026 (2 - Left Wing Economics: UK)

Even the charity shops can’t survive in Labour’s high-tax Britain - "We should be clear about who is to blame for that: Rachel Reeves and the rest of the Cabinet appear to have no idea how tough they are making it for any form of commercial operation to survive.  The charity shops may not face the substantial increase in business rates imposed on pubs, cafés and other shops.   But they still have to pay higher National Insurance (NI) charges on the wages of paid staff, a soaring living wage, electricity bills inflated by green levies and VAT on new goods. Even more seriously, they are victims of the steady closure of other businesses. As the local café closes because it can’t pay the rates bills, the bookshop because it can’t pay the NI, the bookies because it can’t pay the new betting levy or the bakery because it can’t pay the electricity surcharges, the high street gets deader and deader.  With the charity shops gone, there will soon be nothing left. The vape shop that actually does a decent trade in smuggled cigarettes might survive, and so might the Turkish barber. But apart from that, there will be a row of boarded-up shop fronts.  Even the estate agents won’t bother with the “To Let” signs for much longer: it won’t be worth the money.   What was once the thriving heart of a local community will have become a commercial graveyard with nothing but tombstones for dead businesses. It is surely time for the Government to get serious about rescuing the high street from oblivion. It doesn’t have to be that hard.   It should reverse the NI increase, freeze the living wage and cut business rates, and if backbenchers won’t contemplate controlling welfare spending to pay for that, it should increase income tax instead. It is a fairer way to raise money than by hammering retailers.  Next, it should immediately suspend all the planning rules that make it so hard to turn old shops into apartments or workspaces. Buildings that are not occupied get run down very quickly. It is better if they are used for something than left idle."

Profits are not immoral - "The Labour Party manifesto for the 2024 general election promised “a new partnership with business to boost growth everywhere”. After two years, business doesn’t seem to think much of its new relationship.  Rain Newton-Smith, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), has accused Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, of treating business like “a cash tap” and warned that “the cost of doing business is reaching a tipping point”. Too often, Mrs Newton-Smith declared, Government treats profit as if it were a “dirty word”. Instead of blaming private companies for the rising cost of living, the Chancellor “should focus on fixing the economic problems she has created”.  Some might wonder whether the CBI is a little late to recognise the dangers presented by Labour’s socialism. The business lobby group has offered full-throated support to net zero and long appeared to be more concerned with Brexit than with domestic economic policy.   So for it to condemn the policies of Ms Reeves in such stark terms speaks volumes for how bad the situation for British businesses really is."

What on earth does it mean to be Left-wing now? - "generally speaking, the more a group or its spokesperson refers to “the rich” with obvious distaste, the further to the Left it is. Confusingly, however, they all say that the interests of “working people” are the sacred measure of political value, without ever defining precisely what that means. This is obviously intended to replace the old Labour shibboleth that the party represented the interests of working class people as opposed to the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. So “working people” is imprecise for a reason: it performs an important function by relinquishing the old militant associations and avoiding the rather patronising note of snobbery implicit in the word “class”. Now, anybody whose heart is in the right place (and who works for a living) can be a part of the Labour movement. Unless and until they earn too much money whereupon they become part of the hated “rich” – even if they have earned their wealth through honest endeavour and in the process created opportunities for other people to become more affluent and therefore not reliant on the state for assistance. So the term “working people” perpetuates the problem rather than solving it. It preserves the distinction between those who work (probably very hard and at genuine risk) perhaps by creating their own businesses, and those who are employed by them. It is the latter group whom Labour notably seeks to protect from the possible predations of the former, through extended employment rights and increases in the minimum wage. Labour, in virtually all its guises, remains on the side of those who work for somebody else rather than embracing those who initiate new enterprises – and that is a sure fire recipe for undermining economic growth. If you want growth – which has been the endlessly reiterated goal of Sir Keir Starmer and his Chancellor – you must embrace the idea of creating new wealth wholeheartedly which means, as Blairite New Labour used to say, letting some people get “filthy rich”. If you want a free enterprise economy to succeed, and to bring the self-determination and social mobility which it can provide, you must not cast yourself as the enemy of entrepreneurialism, especially as the budding entrepreneur is as likely as not to be from what we used to call the “working class”.  Running through all this verbiage, there is a deep rooted contradiction which nobody from any of the factions seems prepared to address. Much of Labour’s policy – or lack of policy – is related to its attitudes to welfare spending. Supporting people who are not working, or helping to support those whose working income is too low to sustain them, seems to be the encumbrance which none of the party’s incarnations can confront. Even when the cost of this support is making it impossible for the state to spend money on improving the services which are important to its favoured “working people” – health, education, defence – the Left, even in its diluted modern form, cannot wind it down.  Paradoxically, this inability to reform welfare dependency is a major obstacle to reconciling Labour with what used to be its natural supporters. Working class people, whom Labour now call “working people”, are notoriously infuriated by those in their communities who live on welfare benefits. Unlike middle class sympathisers who manage to blame themselves for “social unfairness”, they are inclined to believe that the word “fair” means “you get out of life pretty much what you put in.” The Left’s position is obviously contradictory: if you revere working people and regard their interests as the sacred core of your political mission, then you should share in the resentment that they feel for those who choose not to work, or who calculatedly limit their earnings so as not to lose their in-work benefits.  What the welfare programme does, as most “working people” can see, is reward poverty and penalise those who begin to emerge from it by removing guaranteed state support from them. As Arthur Laffer put it: “If you pay people to be poor, you will get more and more poor people.” There are other perversities too in the Left’s message. In all its forms, but most stridently as it approaches the hard end of the spectrum, the Left urges the most extreme environmental measures. Ed Miliband, the hard-Left’s most plausible voice, is evangelical on this point. It seems not to occur to him that the voters whose cost of living would be most severely affected are precisely those “working people” whom he idealises. Telling them to sacrifice their precarious standard of living for the sake of future generations makes him sound more like an indulged aristocrat than a defender of the proletariat.  Add to this that many of his comrades on the “progressive” Left support Arab regimes which suppress women and murder homosexuals. What on earth does being Left-wing mean now, in any of its forms?"

Britain’s biggest company has consigned the UK to the history books - "“We can’t wait for the UK to keep pace with us.”  This damning indictment from the country’s largest company, delivered to a room filled with investors and innovators, is a serious concern.  Although, if we’re honest, it hardly comes as a shock.  The words came from Paul Williamson, who leads corporate ventures and investments at Arm, the $435bn (£324bn) juggernaut that built the chip architecture found in every smartphone, and which remains at the vanguard of semiconductor design today. It is the future, and yet has already consigned the UK to the past.  Famously, the firm opted to list in New York rather than relist in London in 2023 – and its market cap has grown eightfold since that decision. Despite being born in a barn in Cambridge, the city in which it remains headquartered, the company is withering about its home.  While Williamson was extremely positive about the scientific ambition of Cambridge, he decried the city and the nation’s “too modest, too cautious, too local” approach when it comes to business. And he was not alone in this assessment of the country’s prospects.   Speaking earlier at the same Oxford-Cambridge supercluster conference, boldly entitled “Creating a scientific superpower”, Irene Tracey, the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, defined the core issue: “There’s a really deep culture of anti-growth in the UK.”... Peter Freeman, of the Cambridge Growth Company, complained that Anglian Water and Thames Water were the biggest blockers of new developments.  These are providers of public utilities fighting planning applications for new homes that would allow these regions to thrive; a disgraceful and embarrassing state of affairs.  We have seen multiple times what happens if cities are allowed to fight the blockers and force regeneration. Just look at the financial hub of Canary Wharf, built from the ruins of the docklands, or the squalor of King’s Cross transformed into the “Silicon Roundabout” of AI... One of the most depressing issues is that money is desperate to flow into the UK, but we refuse it time and again – and even when we do manage to accept it, our country is little more than a staging post for its onward destination to foreign lands... Our dreams of becoming a data centre powerhouse are over before they’ve begun, Williamson says, thanks to a key economic disadvantage of the UK – incredibly expensive energy... If the best the Treasury can bring is failing to fiddle with the margins, the UK is set to remain little more than an incubator for the US’s next big thing."

Looking for Growth on X - "Do you know just how bad the current state of British planning is?  £800,000,000 is being spent on Heathrow’s planning for the runway.   Not the runway. The PLANNING.   We have become a country ran by the lawyers, for the lawyers.    Is this really “efficient spending?”"

Meme - David @david_stillwell: "The world's largest building cost less than a planning application in the UK."
"The building is so big it has its own microclimate (Boeing). World's largest building cost £740m to build and is so big it has its own weather. The colossal facility cost more than to build and has produced over 5,000 wide-body aircraft since it opened in 1967"

Meme - Total NIMBY Death @BarneyFlames: "1980-2000 was the only time England outperformed Europe in economic growth and the voters have never forgiven Thatcher for that."
prge @shguke: "there you go"
"Rarely had it so bad. Average annual GDP per capita growth over lifetime, %"
Left wingers hate economic growth, so

War is forcing Britain to rethink the triple lock on pensions - "“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,” warned Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former Nato secretary general, in a speech this month.  He is right that the resources dedicated to welfare are slowly ratcheting up. At the start of this parliament, it accounted for 10.7pc of GDP.  By the start of the next decade, this figure will have expanded to 11.2pc – equivalent to £406.9bn, the biggest ticket item for government expenditure... Despite the hefty price tag, the British electorate wants to keep it. Since the triple lock’s introduction, it has become one of the most universally popular policies.  Whether young or old, Labour or Tory, rich or poor – a large majority of Britons back it. YouGov polling shows that two thirds of voters support maintaining it while only 11pc say it should go. The remainder say they’re unsure. Such polling is flawed, however, says Sir Charles: “Whenever you ask people about any spending policy, the surveys never associate the cost. People always like having money spent on them if there’s no price tag attached to it... Even without the need to increase military spending rapidly, Britain’s ageing demographics were already making it a costly choice... While the most common trope from pensioners is that they have “paid into the system”, the truth is that Britain’s pension system is pay-as-you-go.  There is no ring-fenced account for the state pension. Rather, workers pay for their parents and grandparents, hoping that they will be entitled to the same benefit one day.  But as deaths are poised to outnumber births this year and net migration could fall to zero for the first time in more than three decades, the burden on a shrinking base of taxpayers grows... Among Britain’s pensioners, many feel strongly that scrapping the triple lock is unaffordable and unacceptable.  But economists say the problem it set out to address has largely been solved.  A typical British pensioner’s income in 2023 was equivalent to 84pc of the average across the population before factoring in housing costs, according to the OECD. This marks a jump of 11 percentage points since 2000.  As the vast majority of retirees own their own home outright, this often leaves them with a similar or higher living standard than working-age families... Children grow up in homes with almost double the rate of relative poverty as in families that are retired, Hale says. She highlights that today’s pensioners also went to university for free and benefited from the right-to-buy policy, which significantly boosted homeownership... Supporters of higher state pensions often point to international statistics showing the state pension as far lower than in other countries.  But experts caution that such comparisons are highly misleading, as Britain’s pension system differs from those of many neighbouring countries. Comparing the generosity of the UK state pension with that of another rich country is therefore apples and oranges."
Time to double down on net zero to destroy the economy

The welfare juggernaut is out of control - "How has the country managed to get itself into a position where more than 600,000 households receive welfare payments greater than the average worker’s post-tax salary of £32,200? In some cases the benefits are far greater, with 16,000 households paid £60,000, the equivalent of earnings well over £80,000.  There is supposed to be a cap on the total amount a household can receive, but so many exemptions have been applied as to render it pointless"

Labour is not 'the party of the workers'. It is the party of those who leech off them - "The last Labour MP who constantly sounded the drum for radical reform that would make an actual difference to the disastrous dependency on benefits of too many citizens was the late Frank Field, and he was dismissed from his role as minister for welfare reform after just a year in office in Tony Blair’s government.  Since then, despite the occasional glimmer of sense from the Labour benches in the House of Commons, there have been few attempts at benefits reform that the party has not opposed. The benefits cap announced by chancellor George Osborne in 2010, the so-called “bedroom tax”, which reduced the benefits of claimants living in social housing with a spare or unused bedroom, the two-child benefit cap and the introduction of Universal Credit to replace various predecessor benefits. Labour promised to reverse them all, even if the two-child benefit cap is the only one they’ve got around to so far.  Yet with the benefits bill costing taxpayers £155bn a year – and rising fast – we face either radical reform or bankruptcy. The former is at least politically manageable, if difficult. But is Labour, the so-called party of the workers, in a position to effect the kind of change that is needed? The recent record suggests not. When the former work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, brought forward modest reforms that would have shaved just £5bin off the benefits bill, it only took a modest rebellion by Labour backbenchers to force Keir Starmer into one of his many high-profile, humiliating U-turns, undermining his own minister in the process. As John Major said this week, governments with very large, three-figure majorities tend to be unmanageable because the back benches are packed with MPs who know they’re only there for a single term, and therefore have little to lose by rebelling and forcing the government to compromise on unpopular policies, even the necessary ones.  Real reform of the sort that is needed in our welfare system would cause national uproar. It would provoke anger in housing estates and in the House itself. It would make the government of the day tremendously unpopular. While an administration committed to putting country before party might seriously consider the reforms needed, this Labour one certainly won’t. For good governance we need a government – and a prime minister – prepared to say “No” to his back benchers, and prepared to suffer the unpopularity that comes with real leadership. Because government is not just about doing what’s popular – in fact, it’s almost never that. It is about, or should be about, deciding what’s best for the country and getting on with it. At a time when the consensus across the political centre is for massively reduced levels of net immigration, the need for more workers earning their living rather than feeding off the state has never been greater... if “the party of the workers” won’t do what is necessary to avoid the imminent cliff edge, then another party will have to step up and remove that mantle from Labour once and for all."

The party of the workers has brought back mass unemployment - "The statistics speak for themselves, as do the repeated testimonies of business leaders up and down the country.  An organisation that claims to represent working-class people has instead brought unemployment back to levels not seen in the UK for many years...  it is indisputable that Reeves has sent the cost of running a business – whether small, medium, or large – rocketing through the roof with all sorts of dire knock-on effects.  The next shoe to drop is huge increases in the minimum wage, something Sir Keir Starmer described this week as an example of how the “Government is choosing to provide security in an increasingly dangerous world”.  Yet as usual, the hype simply isn’t even close to being a reflection of reality.  Labour’s changes are undoubtedly full of “good intentions”, as Cressida Hogg, the chairman of the Confederation of British Industry, put it on Thursday.  The problem, in her view, is that the minimum wage reforms are having the opposite of their intended effect, instead freezing young people out of work by making it too expensive to hire those at the start of their careers. Labour has vowed to axe age bands for minimum wage rates, meaning those aged 18 to 20 will be paid the same as those 21 and over. Hourly pay for younger workers has leapt 26pc from £8.60 when Labour came to power to £10.85 today. The move will “create worse outcomes and fewer jobs for young people”, Hogg told an audience of business leaders in the North West.  As a City grandee in charge of one of Britain’s most influential business lobby groups, Hogg’s intervention is something of a bombshell. This was a flagship policy at the heart of Labour’s election manifesto, with the party promising to “remove the discriminatory age bands so all adults are entitled to the same minimum wage”.  Yet Hogg said “the cost of doing business has become a bar on the door of opportunity” for the young. What a spectacular own goal on the part of ministers.  Labour will baulk at the suggestion it has sent a wrecking ball through the jobs market but the evidence is irrefutable.  Youth unemployment is up to 16pc – a level not seen in more than a decade and threatening to leave behind a lost generation. Nearly one million youngsters are classified as Neets – not in employment, education or training – at the same time as nine in 10 employers complain of a shortage of skilled workers. Unemployment at a five-year high of 1.8 million but on course to surpass the two million mark for the first time in 10 years.  Meanwhile, under Labour, taxes on work are rising at a faster rate than any other major economy on the planet, with the UK experiencing the biggest jump among 40 mostly rich countries last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  At the same time, many of those on welfare now earn £2,500 a month, which is more than the minimum wage.  Under this ham-fisted, economically illiterate Government, the incentive to employ people is disappearing fast and so too the motive to work. It is a twin shock that will exact grave and lasting damage on the economy."

Will Tanner on X - "It's annoying to see people frame this as a good thing.  The decline in drinking just indicates people are being less social, not that they're getting healthier; whites actually have better health outcomes if they have a few glasses of wine a few days of the week.  More importantly, alcohol is a social lubricant and has long been a part of our Western culture for that reason. It helps bring people together, particularly in mixed male and female spaces or when it's just the guys, and so to see it decline is to see the other neuroses of the present--particularly childlessness and atomization--increase"
The Old World Show on X - "The death of the famous pubs of Britain is another example of this. Men once got together and built bonds while drinking and smoking in Britain's pubs, which dotted every village and town across the country. Then smoking was banned, and extortionate taxes and fees piled on top of drinking in pubs, to make it unaffordable.  That has gradually killed pub life, and destroyed the social bonds between British men that were once strengthened by it.  An atomized and lonely populace is exactly what the bureaucratic regime wants, so this has succeeded wildly for it"

A million young Britons are falling through the cracks - "one in seven of the UK’s 16 to 24-year-olds — almost a million people — are stranded outside employment, education or training (Neet), with the steep rise of the past three years taking the share of dislocated youth back to levels not seen for over a decade. This upward march is a stark outlier internationally, making the UK worse than its peers on either side of the Atlantic and decisively displacing Italy as the country where youth means being left high and dry. Most concerning, Britain’s lost million are increasingly locked into their isolation: 60 per cent of current Neets have never had a job — the highest figure since records began — and almost a third report a disability or chronic health problem that prevents them working. Governments can at times rely on a fair wind in the wider labour market to bring some economically marginalised youths back in from the cold, but hundreds of thousands in this group are now so far removed from the world of work that they risk becoming permanently stuck outside. Any serious attempt to reverse the trend should begin by understanding what is behind it. That must include acknowledging that government policy is at least partly to blame. As forecast in an analysis for the Institute for Fiscal Studies by Sam Ray-Chaudhuri and Xiaowei Xu, increases to the minimum wage and employers’ social security contributions have made hiring much more expensive in hospitality and retail — two of the main employers of the young. Sure enough, the number of 16-24s in those industries has fallen markedly in the past year or two, tipping tens of thousands into unemployment. But it’s worth remembering that the much larger and worst-hit group is those who have never worked at all; here we must turn to the education system. While common knowledge among most teachers and parents, the steep rise in chronic absence from school during and immediately after the Covid pandemic has derailed the crucial transition from compulsory education to the adult world for huge numbers of young people... despite local authorities having a legal duty to track and support these marginally attached young people, huge numbers are slipping through the cracks. About 10 per cent or more of 16 and 17-year-olds are either registered Neet or unknown to the authorities in some local areas.  Intersecting with all of this is the rise of reported youth mental health problems and disability claims — itself owing to a combination of underlying health trends and changes to the way benefits are awarded to claimants. Nowhere else has seen as steep an increase in young adult ill health as the UK, where the share of 16 to 24-year-olds reporting a problem that reduces their ability to carry out day-to-day activities has almost tripled from 7 per cent in 2008 to 21 per cent today."
Time for more "awareness" about mental health, to increase benefits and pay for it by "taxing the 'rich'" because only a monster bootlicker would advocate otherwise, because almost everyone is one paycheque away from being homeless.

Politics UK on X - "🚨 NEW: Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden told Peter Mandelson that Labour MPs always ask "who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others""

Britain is at a tipping point, and our future is in Ed Miliband’s hands - "sometimes history actually is at the fulcrum, when just a little pressure either way can send a system towards wildly diverging outcomes. It seems clear to me at least that Britain is entering such a period across several fields at once.  The long, slow run down of our military capacity has progressed to the degree that the consequences can no longer be denied. The automation of cognitive labour is threatening an economy built on the bet that manufacturing could be offshored and automated, but that labour-intensive services would remain big British employers forever.   The Boriswave of migrants is about to crystallise into a catastrophic fiscal burden unless their pathway to permanent settlement is blocked, or unless the next government takes action to reverse it.  Across multiple areas, the same pattern keeps emerging. Britain has run down its stock of physical and social capital, embraced short-term solutions at the expense of long-term costs, and now faces a choice between continuing down the current disastrous path or attempting to rebuild, finding that the damage is either exponentially harder or impossible to undo.  Energy might be the best example, as it ties so many fields together. In the United States and elsewhere, investment is pouring into the construction of data centres and power plants as firms race to build the clusters necessary to train and run AI models. In Britain, OpenAI is suspending its flagship investment. Its stated reasons – “regulation and the cost of energy” – have made the UK a marginal investment case, rather than a core one.  British industrial electricity prices (before taxes) have gone from 32 per cent higher than those in France in 1997 to 94pc higher today. They are, by some margin, the highest in the developed world. Over the same period, energy use per capita has fallen by 38pc in Britain, compared to 25pc and 17pc in France and the United States.  Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes  Sam Ashworth-Hayes is an Assistant Comment Editor and leader writer for The Telegraph, a role he took up in early 2023. See more Published 16 April 2026 11:30am BST Related Topics      Rebooting Britain, First World War Centenary, Ed Miliband, Labour Party, Artificial Intelligence, Energy   334 Miliband is making decisions which will shape the country for the next decade Miliband is making decisions which will shape the country for the next decade Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA  A philosophically inclined friend is fond of bringing up a particular line from Hegel: “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.”  It is a poetic reflection on how a true understanding of why events unfold and how they are connected is available only with the clarity of hindsight. To pick an extreme example, when Edmund Gerde failed to tell Leopold Lojka that the route of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s motorcade had changed, he had no reason to think that he was setting the events of the First World War in motion.  Even so, there are still times when we find ourselves obviously at one of those tipping points, or at least are told that we are. Sometimes they are confected for political reasons: Tony Blair’s 1997 claim that Britain had “24 hours to save the NHS” comes strongly to mind, as do its various imitators (48 hours to save the NHS, 72 hours to save the NHS, three months, six months and so on – time and standards in British healthcare apparently both move backwards). Catastrophic predictions followed by anodyne outcomes are part of Westminster’s standard operating procedure.  But sometimes history actually is at the fulcrum, when just a little pressure either way can send a system towards wildly diverging outcomes. It seems clear to me at least that Britain is entering such a period across several fields at once.  The long, slow run down of our military capacity has progressed to the degree that the consequences can no longer be denied. The automation of cognitive labour is threatening an economy built on the bet that manufacturing could be offshored and automated, but that labour-intensive services would remain big British employers forever.   The Boriswave of migrants is about to crystallise into a catastrophic fiscal burden unless their pathway to permanent settlement is blocked, or unless the next government takes action to reverse it.  Across multiple areas, the same pattern keeps emerging. Britain has run down its stock of physical and social capital, embraced short-term solutions at the expense of long-term costs, and now faces a choice between continuing down the current disastrous path or attempting to rebuild, finding that the damage is either exponentially harder or impossible to undo.  Energy might be the best example, as it ties so many fields together. In the United States and elsewhere, investment is pouring into the construction of data centres and power plants as firms race to build the clusters necessary to train and run AI models. In Britain, OpenAI is suspending its flagship investment. Its stated reasons – “regulation and the cost of energy” – have made the UK a marginal investment case, rather than a core one.  British industrial electricity prices (before taxes) have gone from 32 per cent higher than those in France in 1997 to 94pc higher today. They are, by some margin, the highest in the developed world. Over the same period, energy use per capita has fallen by 38pc in Britain, compared to 25pc and 17pc in France and the United States.  These facts are not unconnected. The result of choices made by successive governments is an energy structure in which system costs are compounding while reliability decays: the prospect of surpluses in summer and scarcity in winter means that the National Energy System Operator is increasingly focused on managing demand, rather than meeting it, and the costs of this system are making energy-intensive industries uneconomic. We have storage capacity for fewer than 20 days of average gas use, and our actual reserves are far below this level.  In the North Sea, meanwhile, the number of exploration wells drilled fell from 106 in 2019 to six in 2024. The decline is political, as well as geological and, as a result, the drilling rigs and skilled workers needed to revitalise it are leaving for jurisdictions with more activity. The energy tipping point has not yet passed, but it is approaching. The investment decisions which will shape the next decade and counting of British economic prosperity are being taken now.   Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, and his colleagues are doing their level best to bind the country to their preferred approach through long-running contracts with renewables companies and potentially new treaties with the EU. They may not succeed, and the measures could be undone, but there is only a limited window to change course. Another term of Labour – or indeed the Greens – and it will pass.  In this, the energy sector serves as a microcosm for Britain as a whole. Unless we confront our problems head-on soon, we will find ourselves locked into a pathway of national decline."