Trump Is Abandoning Democracy and Freedom. That Creates an Opening for Europe – and Britain

THE GUARDIAN — OPINION: Whether it’s sweeping up disgruntled US scientists or rejoining the EU, a bold Starmer must capitalise on Trump’s extremism

Thanks to Donald Trump, a vacancy is opening up in the international jobs market. For decades, if not centuries, and always imperfectly, the US offered itself to the world as the guarantor of democracy and the land of the free. Now that it’s pivoting away from that job description, there’s an opportunity for someone else to step in.

The evidence that the US is moving, even galloping, away from basic notions of democracy and freedom is piling up. Just because the changes have happened so fast doesn’t make them any less fundamental. We now have a US administration that blithely ignores court rulings, whose officials say out loud “I don’t care what the judges think”. In a matter of weeks, it has become an open question whether the US remains a society governed by the rule of law. » | Jonathan Freedland | Friday, March 21, 2025

Britain’s New Nicotine Addiction that Could Be More Dangerous than Vaping

THE TELEGRAPH: The dangerous rise in these oral pouches is taking a worrying toll on the health of the nation’s youth

A screenshot from this article in the Telegraph | Experts are concerned that the pouches are another attempt by the tobacco industry to keep people addicted | Credit: Getty
Last year, Jessica Kent, a doctor working in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Toronto, found herself with an unusual patient. Confused, nauseous, and slumped on the floor of the emergency department, readings showed that his blood pressure had soared to levels far higher than would be expected for an otherwise healthy 21-year-old university student. When medical staff attempted to ask some simple questions, his responses were nonsensical.

But this patient wasn’t drunk or high on narcotics. It would later transpire that these symptoms were the consequence of a binge on nicotine pouches. While studying, the man had used 15 extra-strength pouches in the space of just 12 hours. » | David Cox | Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Just what exactly has been gained from the war on smoking that has been waged over very many years is difficult to imagine. It seems to me that young people these days are getting up to far worse than smoking a few cigarettes. This habit, for example, is fraught with health dangers. Further, it is hard to imagine a more off-putting habit than sucking on a nicotine pouch! And God only knows what these pouches are doing to the user’s gums. It must surely be hard to have healthy teeth and gums when stuffing nicotine pouches in one’s mouth incessantly. – © Mark Alexander

Revealed: The True Scale of Britain’s Illegal Drug Use

THE TELEGRAPH: National Crime Agency exposes increasing ketamine use in England amid surge in ‘drug cocktails’

Ketamine usage more than doubled in England last year amid the rising popularity of designer “drug cocktails”, The Telegraph can reveal.

The largest and most accurate study of its kind, conducted on behalf of the National Crime Agency (NCA), has exposed a dramatic rise in the popularity of the drug.

Almost 25 tonnes of ketamine were consumed in England last year, up from 10.6 tonnes in 2023.

The drug is now more popular than heroin, with the worst hotspots in Norwich, Liverpool, and Wakefield.

The findings are revealed in Home Office data, seen by The Telegraph, which will form part of the NCA’s annual threat assessment next week. The agency, dubbed Britain’s FBI, will warn of a rise in the use of several recreational drugs in Britain, including a 10 per cent increase in cocaine. » | Tony Diver, Associate Political Editor | Friday, February 21, 2025

It is astonishing indeed that our politicians worry about people enjoying a cigarette when all this is going on! How much sense does it make for Starmer and his clique to introduce a generational smoking ban when so many in the country are as high as kites on drugs? – © Mark Alexander

Apple Pulls Data Protection Tool after UK Government Security Row | BBC News

Feb 21, 2025 | Apple has removed its highest level data security tool from customers in the UK after the government demanded access to user data.

Advanced Data Protection (ADP) means only account holders can view items such as photos or documents they have stored online through a process known as end-to-end encryption.

But earlier this month, the UK government asked for the right to see the data, which currently not even Apple can access.

Now the tech giant has decided it will no longer be possible to activate ADP in the UK. It means eventually not all UK customer data stored on iCloud - Apple's cloud storage service - will be fully encrypted.

One in 10 Young Adults in UK Identify as Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual – ONS

THE GUARDIAN: Stonewall CEO says data should be ‘wake-up call’ to organisations rolling back on LGBTQ+ rights

Around one in 10 young adults in the UK identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB), a proportion of the population which has doubled in the past five years, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

Just over 10% of 16 to 24-year-olds identified as LGB in 2023 – the most recent window polled – up from 4.4% in 2018, according to data from the Annual Population Survey. The largest rise came among young women, with 9.2% of women aged 16-24 identifying as bisexual, compared with 5.9% of males.

Simon Blake, the chief executive of LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said the data should be “a wake-up call to organisations and governments who are rolling back on their commitments to LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion”.

“Lesbian, gay and bisexual people are a growing part of UK society, with more LGB young people than ever before,” he said. “The more than one in 10 of 16-24 year-olds identifying as LGB will be a crucial part of our workplaces, politics and lives. They will have colleagues, friends and families who support them, and they will deserve – and demand – equal rights and opportunities.” » | Alexandra Topping | Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Being attracted to someone of the same sex is one of the most normal things in the world. I don’t know what all the bloody fuss is about. People have been attracted to people of the same sex since the beginning of time. And people will go on being attracted to people of the same sex until the end of time. It is high time that people grew up and accepted human nature. We cannot fight human nature any more than we can influence tomorrow’s weather. And for those who believe in a god, if God truly does exist, and if He truly is omnipotent as we are told to believe, then, if same-sex attraction is contrary to His will, He wouldn’t have created same-sex attracted people in the first place. Surely, it is as simple as that! People make such a fuss about inconsequential matters! To each his own! Whatever floats your boat! – © Mark Alexander

The British Public Dislikes Elon Musk. He Can Still Sway Politics.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: His influence is partly the result of a very online political establishment, and partly thanks to a right-leaning media that is hostile to Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

Elon Musk at an event hosted by President-elect Donald J. Trump in Palm Beach, Fla., shortly after the U.S. election. | Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
He is a deeply unpopular figure in Britain, according to opinion polls, and his social media channel has lost users in the country since he took it over in October 2022. Yet when Elon Musk put Britain in his cross hairs on X in recent weeks, pounding the political establishment over a decade-old child sex abuse scandal, he instantly catapulted the issue to the top of the news agenda.

Mr. Musk’s success is rooted in two obvious factors: his mammoth fortune and his alliance with the incoming president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. But it also reflects a British political and media establishment that is divided and deeply in flux, all of which has made Britain easy pickings for an outside influencer with vast resources and a single-minded mission to disrupt.

Britain’s right-leaning newspapers have picked up and amplified Mr. Musk’s call for a new national investigation of young girls who were sexually exploited in several towns in the 2000s, including in Rotherham, where an estimated 1,400 girls were exploited by “grooming gangs” composed largely of British Pakistani men. » | Mark Landler | Reporting from London | Tuesday, January 14, 2025

The US Is Exploiting Britain | Angus Hanton

Jan 11, 2025 | "The profits go to the US." Angus Hanton says the too much of the UK economy is owned by American companies, like Boots, Manchester United, Cadbury's and Costa Coffee.

We are Europeans, we are NOT Americans. Thank God! FA!

The pro-USA dude speaking in this video — is his name Gabriel? — is talking BS. One should ignore him. – © Mark Alexander

West Must Respond to Trump and Musk's 'Bullying' and Threats to Greenland | Michael Binyon

Jan 10, 2025 | “It’s absolutely ridiculous, what are they thinking about?”

The West must “get tough and face up” to Trump and Musk’s “bullying” of their allies, such as their threats to seize Greenland, says The Times's Michael Binyon.


I hate to say I told you so, but I actually did. Over and over! Hopefully, people can see now how stupid it was for the UK to leave the European Union. It has put us at the mercy of Trump and his henchmen. What a pickle we are now in! We have demeaned ourselves as a nation. – © Mark Alexander

‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’: World Leaders Ignore Musk

Jan 8, 2025 | “When [Starmer] was asked about it at a press conference, he deliberately didn't use Elon Musk's name.”

World leaders are not acknowledging Elon Musk’s name, but are still tackling the discussions he has himself brought up on X, says Times Radio’s political editor Kate McCann.

Elon Musk Has a Strange Fixation With Trolling Britain

THE NEW YORK TIMES: In a barrage of posts rife with misinformation, he revived questions about a child sex abuse scandal, vilified the prime minister and defended a jailed far-right agitator.

He demanded the release of a convicted criminal and far-right agitator. He falsely accused the prime minister, Keir Starmer, of failing to go after child rapists when he was head of public prosecutions. He endorsed a post calling on King Charles III to dissolve Parliament and call elections to remove Britain’s seven-month-old Labour government, a constitutional impossibility.

Elon Musk has once again set his sights on Britain, putting the country in the bull’s-eye in the capricious world of his online obsessions. In a fusillade of posts that began before the new year, Mr. Musk moved on from his enthusiastic boosting of a far-right party in Germany to targeting Britain on multiple politically sensitive fronts.

After mostly ignoring Mr. Musk’s trolling, which has been going on for months, the British government on Friday snapped back, though in characteristically polite fashion.

“Elon Musk is an American citizen and perhaps ought to focus on issues on the other side of the Atlantic,” the government’s health minister, Andrew Gwynne, said in an interview with LBC radio. Mr. Gwynne’s boss, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, told reporters, “Some of the criticisms Elon Musk has made, I think, are misjudged and certainly misinformed.” » | Mark Landler, Reporting from London | Friday, January 3, 2025

‘The Scale of Censorship Is Insane’ | Greg Lukianoff on Britain’s Speech Police

Dec 30, 2024 | Is the UK a free country anymore? An estimated nine people per day are arrested for making offensive comments online. In fact, more people had their collars felt in Britain for speech crimes in 2015 and 2016 than were arrested in the US during the entirety of First Red Scare. Here, Greg Lukianoff – president of the US’s Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression – warns that laws against so-called hate speech, and the elite panic over ‘misinformation’, have given licence to the British state to trample on our liberties. He also discusses the Trumpian threat to free speech, the explosion of campus censorship in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, and what it really means to ‘incite violence’.

SP!KED can be supported here.

Why Poland Will Overtake British Economy by 2030

Dec 17, 2024

Brexit was the stupidest, stupidest, stupidest decision that Britons have taken since World War II. Only a fool would have advocated that the UK exit the European Union, and we all know who that fool was! Unfortunately, there were many Britons who were ill-informed enough to follow him. Nobody with any understanding of economics could have voted to leave the largest, most successful customs union and single market in the whole world, more especially when that single market is right next door, on our doorstep. There will be a special place in Hell reserved for the loudmouth who pushed for this ridiculous outcome. Especially for a country such as ours which is anyway in steep decline. Now, not only have we lost an empire, but we have lost our influence and greatest economic opportunity that was not only open to us but to which we belonged. Would that clowns joined circuses instead of entering politics! – © Mark Alexander

Britain’s Bright and Ambitious Are Running Out of Reasons to Stay

THE TELEGRAPH: At this rate, we are bound to keep losing our young people to far-flung parts of the world

Another day and another friend reveals they are preparing to jump ship and head abroad to seek their fortune. It’s not hard to see why.

Outside of a job in the City of London, Magic Circle of law firms or professional services giants, the quality of life for most young professionals has stalled. » | Sam Brodbeck, Money Advice Editor | Saturday, December 14, 2024

This country is ONE BIG MESS. Money is tight for so many. Enjoyment is a thing of the past. You can't even smoke a cigarette for a little pleasure here anymore. The thought police and behaviour police are everywhere around. Food is so expensive Energy is unaffordable for so many. House prices have gone through the roof, so have become unaffordable for all but the privileged. (Who'd want to be young again?) All I ever do now is stay at home and do my own thing. Who wants to mix with miserable, judgmental people? One could go on and on. But that is enough to get a flavour of my thoughts on the matter. In short, you can't do this, you can't say that, and you can't afford the other. If I were younger, I'd be out of this hellhole in a heartbeat. – © Mark Alexander

Millions Sent Government Alert as Storm Darragh Approaches

BBC: Around three million people in parts of Wales and south-west England have been sent an emergency alert from the government as Storm Darragh approaches the UK.

It is the largest use of the warning system yet and has been sent to the mobile phones of people in areas covered by the Met Office red weather warning for the storm.

The alert made a loud siren-like sound when it was delivered to devices, even if they were set on silent, and lasted for around 10 seconds.

The Met Office issued a rare red warning - the most serious type - earlier on Friday for wind. It is in place from 03:00 to 11:00 GMT on Saturday.

The Met Office only issues red warnings when meteorologists believe that dangerous, potentially life-threatening weather is expected imminently. » | Imogen James & Anna Lamche, BBC News, Chris Fawkes, Lead Weather Presenter | Friday, December 6, 2024

More than One in Three Children in Poverty as UK Deprivation Hits Record High

THE GUARDIAN: Exclusive: Study finds almost quarter of UK population living in poverty, reaching the highest level this century

More than one in three children and a quarter of adults are living in poverty in the UK as deprivation levels rise to the highest in the 21st century, according to a landmark report.

The study by the Social Metrics Commission (SMC), which uses measures recently adopted by the UK government, found the cost of living crisis had plunged 2 million more people into severe hardship since 2019.

In total, more than 16 million people are defined as living in poverty, or 24% of the UK population – the highest since comparable records began in 2000.

Children accounted for the biggest rise of any social group falling into poverty, the report found, with an extra 260,000 on the breadline since before the Covid pandemic, meaning a record 36%, or 5.2 million children, were in deprivation. » | Josh Halliday, North of England editor | Monday, November 18, 2024

Truly, without any exaggeration, this is a NATIONAL DISGRACE! How could this once proud nation allow itself to sink to such depths? The ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ is clearly the land of neither HOPE nor GLORY! What a bloody farce that song is! The one that is sung so proudly on the ‘Last Night of the Proms’! This pathetic country is the land of hope and glory only for the HAVES. For the HAVE-NOTs it is a land of HOPELESSNESS and one BEREFT of GLORY!

It all started with the woman the Soviets called the “Iron Lady”, who believed that relative wealth/poverty mattered not a jot. Listen to the cr** here.

We can thank fourteen years of Tory rule and mismanagement for this sad state of affairs. Alas, this Labour administration under the seemingly heartless Starmer is little better. This country is now not only becoming ever poorer, it is also becoming increasingly heartless.

Brought up to be proud to be British, can I now honestly say that I am proud to be British? Certainly not! The country is on its uppers and the country’s values and morals are at rock bottom. A country that cannot look after its children or its elderly doesn’t deserve to survive! — © Mark Alexander

Peter Stefanovic: Millions of People Are Living in Poverty, Destitution & Using Food Banks - It’s Barely Mentioned

Oct 24, 2024

UK Must Prepare for Widespread Road Pricing, Says Infrastructure Tsar

THE GUARDIAN: Sir John Armitt says charging per mile ‘inevitable’, with move to electric vehicles likely to create £35bn tax shortfall

Britain must prepare for the widespread use of road pricing to make up a £35bn shortfall in tax revenues from the transition to electric vehicles, the country’s top infrastructure adviser has said.

Sir John Armitt, the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), said it was time for a “proper public debate” about the future funding of the road network and other critical projects.

“It’s politically a very difficult issue isn’t it? But many people will say road pricing is inevitable. Personally, I don’t see why it should be any different to anything else,” he told journalists on Thursday.

“We pay for all our other infrastructure services as we use them, and we pay for driving on the road, as we use it, via petrol tax. And if you’re going to lose the petrol tax, at [more than] £30bn a year, what is government going to replace it with?” » | Richard Partington and Gwyn Topham | Thursday, October 10, 2024

Brexit and the Empire: Is This the End of ‘Global Britain’? | DISPATCH | UK Politics Documentary

Sep 30, 2024

Britons who voted for Brexit were either duped by the system and the lies they were fed or were insane. Nobody in his right mind who has any understanding of economics would have voted to leave the largest single market in the whole world — a market which is right on our doorstep!

We Brits have paid a very high price for this INSANITY and ECONOMIC IGNORANCE. We have ended up poorer! Much poorer! People like Farage, Hannan & Co., and other clowns like them would belong in the stocks of their local public squares in an earlier age. Idiotic clowns all! Alas we, the people, must pay the very high price for the follies of the few. We have been forced to relinquish our rights as full-on citizens of Europe with all the attendant privileges. And for what in return? To become “subjects of the King”? What a trade-off! We even have an inferior passport now! Blue, it may be; but inferior it is for sure! How can Brits feel proud to be British anymore when the country is going to the dogs? – © Mark Alexander

Andrew Klavan — The Censorship Is Just Beginning | Konstantin Kisin

Erd 18, 2024 | Konstantin Kisin, co-host of Triggernometry, joins us for an insightful conversation about the rising threat of censorship in England and shares his perspective on the future of America.

Hillsdale College hosts Andrew Klavan »

Gain instant access to a free video series about the Great Reset here.

SP!KED : How Britain Fell to Censorship

Aug 21, 2024 | The UK has become a posterboy for the perils of censorship. In the wake of the recent race riots, the British state has set about arresting and jailing not just the rioters, but also those who posted hateful memes or spread misinformation during the unrest. Anglophiles looked on aghast, as this once liberty-loving nation appeared to suddenly fall to authoritarianism. The depressing truth, however, is that this was a very long time coming. Here, Tom Slater lifts the lid on the UK’s decades-long experiment with policing speech. Being arrested for posting something offensive online has been alarmingly normal for some time now. And the bar for censorship is only getting lower and lower. Britain is a warning to genuine liberals the world over. Censorship is poison. Never, ever let it in.

Very troubling developments indeed in Starmer’s unfree Britain. – © Mark Alexander