1. Still no verdict in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy.

The jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial resumed deliberations today. Remember they are 5 hours ‘behind.’ They have said they were unable to reach a unanimous decision. The judge sent them out again to keep deliberating. I will have a piece on it tomorrow, whatever the verd…

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The man who PM Andy Burnham begged to come and advise him on stuff, has said any tax rises would demonstrate that ministers were not “thinking about growth as sincerely as they claim they are.” The Times reported over the weekend, “The prime minister spent more than a month attempting to convince Lord O’Neill of Gatley to join his government as either a minister or an economic adviser, but was unable to do so. O’Neill is a former chief economist at Goldman Sachs and a former Treasury minister.

But then we know Labour are not thinking about growth, they are thinking about protecting welfare and cutting homelessness. The latter might be a nice idea but it will not boost growth. Do you know what can cut homelessness long term – creating the conditions for growth and job creation.

Lord O’Neill also called any increase in capital gains tax ‘stupid.’ The Times, “Economists believe that, one way or another, tax rises are coming. Senior Burnham allies have long advocated bringing capital gains tax — which is levied on the sale of second homes, shares and other assets — into line with income tax. That would be “stupid”, O’Neill says.

Lord O’Neill, “I think there is some evidence that if you push it up too much you end up losing money. Because it’s such a deterrent to ongoing activities of business owners that they just don’t sell anything. So the revenues go down.” Some evidence? There is plenty of evidence that increased tax rates do not result in increased tax revenue.

Indeed, decreasing a tax rate can increase tax revenue. In Iceland, as the corporate rate was gradually reduced from 45% to 18% between 1991 and 2001, tax revenue tripled. When the US cut the capital gains tax rate in 1978, 1997 and 2003 it all led to increased revenues from that tax.

We do not know yet what the Burnham Labour budget will be in October, much of it may be leaked. Government budgets are predictions for the future, not records of what has been. Often those predications do not come true especially in relation to tax. Governments like to predict that raising the tax rate will increase tax revenue. But this ignores the fact that people change their behaviour in line with incentives. If the government disincentives work or savings or investment or wealth creation then you end up with less of that, which means you have less growth and often a decrease in tax revenue.

(PM Burnham. As casual with your money as he with his attire.)

Further, people do not just change their behaviour according to the actual tax rate/burden, they change it response to speculation of a possible increase in the tax burden. There will people be right now looking for ways to avoid – legally – any increase in capital gains tax. And they are perfectly entitled to do this. But this can often undermine growth.

Indeed, O’Neill argued that unless there was a significant increase in public spending there was no justification for tax rises at all. “I don’t get why they would raise tax,” he said. “Because all that’s telling you is that they’re not thinking about growth as sincerely as they claim they are. They’re just being scared and lazy and constrained in dealing with the sacred cows.”

O’Neill added that the focus should remain on London, which is the main driver of growth. Tell us something we don’t know. “You’ve got to focus on London,” he said. “London is still as big as the next eight most important urban places put together. So if London were to continue showing trend-softening you can’t get the GDP numbers to rise.” However O’Neill did add that the Northern Powerhouse could be a “national game-changer.”

This somewhat undermines Burnham’s Number 10 of the North power switch, which surely undercuts efficiency. It also demonstrates how ludicrous it is that Burnham has now stripped the Treasury of the job of creating growth, transferring it out of London to Manchester.

None of it makes sense. Raising taxes, the jobs tax (the cost of hiring a 21-year-old for 30 hours a week is 78% higher than in 2019) increasing capital gains tax, splitting the administration between London and Manchester and empowering “Number 10 of the North” with the Most Important Thing that Matters (other than securing the border) economic growth is gimmicky and counterproductive. It lacks seriousness, which makes sense given Burnham’s refusal to dress in a serious way, namely with a suit and tie.

1. Man wanted for the murder of Jamey Carney to be returned to Ireland.

On Sunday the Times of London reported that Gardai have secured permission to extradite the man they suspect of murdering Jamey Carney in her Kerry home.

Ahmad Al-Saqar, 28, is being detained at a correctional and rehabilitation centre in Jordan where authorities arrested him after his American girlfriend’s body was discovered in Killarney, Co Kerry, last month. Arrangements are being made for his return to Ireland, according to gardai, in Kerry.

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Prince Harry had a big week last week. On Thursday he flew back to Blighty, where according to him and his wife all the racists live. They landed in Birmingham and then headed for the Cotswolds. Of course they did. The Cotswolds is well known for being one of the most ethnically diverse places in Britain. It is so diverse some Scottish people live there. But not too many. And the children, Archie and Lilibet, will be enrolled in school in one of those lovely Church of England village schools. Obviously. That’s the Cotswolds, not Sparkhill, Birmingham.

Back home to Blighty

A spokesperson for the Sussexes said they were bringing their dogs Mia and Pula with them but their chickens were staying in California. Lucky chickens.

Prince Harry has had a go at least three major British institutions. First, his own family which happens to be the Royal family. He spent quite a bit of time trashing them to the Americans. This is far worse than not being able to speak Irish by an Irish person, by the way. This is the ultimate in making a holy show of yourself and the family in public on the international stage by sucking up to the American cousins because they have all the money. It’s unforgivable.

Once he was done with his own family, (although there is always more when it comes to Harry) the Prince then set his sights on the press, and Associated in particular. The Duke, no doubt hates Associated (best known for publishing the Daily Mail) with the fire of a thousand suns but this was part of a bigger plan to muzzle the press. Between Hacked Off, Prince Harry and the fallout from the Prof Arday affair those who seek to control what the media report and what we the public read are feeling emboldened.

On Friday the 21^st of August Prince Harry was given seven days to pay his share of an initial £9.5 million in legal costs relating to the failed privacy case he brought against Associated Press. That is just the initial payment.

Harry and other “celebrities” including Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley face demands to pay a total of £34.4 million by the publisher of the Daily Mail. That is a lot of piano lessons.

A case that lacked evidential foundation

This legal action was brought by the motley group of alleged truth-seekers Prince Harry, 41; Elton John 79, and his husband David Furnish, 63; Elizabeth Hurley, 61; Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, 73, a Labour peer; Sadie Frost, 61, an actor; and Sir Simon Hughes, 75, a former Liberal Democrat justice minister. They lost their £50 million High Court privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, in July 2026. They claimed that newspaper articles had resulted from unlawful information gathering by the paper. All the claims were dismissed in an emphatic ruling by Mr Justice Nicklin.

Baroness Lawrence is the mother of the late Stephen Lawrence who was murdered in a racist attack on the 22^nd of April 1993. The Daily Mail took up the case after a botched police investigation. In 1997, the Daily Mail labelled all five suspected murderers on the front page as murderers. The headline read “Murderers: The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us.” Why Lawrence turned on the Mail, and was dragged into this case led by Prince Harry is not clear.

Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed all the claims that the group were victims of unlawful information-gathering, including hacking, bugging and blagging, after an 11-week trial at the High Court in London. The judge in fact said the claims “lacked an adequate evidential foundation.” This is unusual.

Prince Harry took on editor Paul Dacre and lost badly. Dacre, now editor-in-chief of the title’s holding company and the editor of the Daily Mail from 1992 until 2018, said the judgment “is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists — several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives — but a free press generally.”

Dacre added “this was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s media green paper.”

Among the journalists whose evidence the trial judge Mr Justice Nicklin praised was Paul Henderson, who worked at the Mail on Sunday from 1997 to 2005 as investigations editor and briefly news editor.

Henderson gave evidence addressing allegations he commissioned a discredited Gavin Burrows to carry out unlawful information gathering. Mr Justice Nicklin said “a striking feature of Mr Henderson’s oral evidence was the consistent and credible way in which he placed his career and professional focus in serious investigative journalism, rather than celebrity or showbusiness reporting.”

A strategy to ‘swarm’ the Daily Mail

The judge also highlighted the role of Evan Harris, a former Liberal Democrat MP who became executive director of Hacked Off, a campaign for press reform fronted by Hurley’s former boyfriend, Hugh Grant.

Harris was the executive director of Hacked Off when he began working as researcher for Harry’s legal team.

Harris, who went on to become a legal researcher for Harry’s lawyers, wrote in 2016 that he intended to use the case against the Daily Mail to lobby for a second stage of the Leveson inquiry into the press.

“For this campaign, I propose to use a unique combination of traditional and new media, print and broadcast, alongside activist groups and lobbyists, not forgetting various legal actions, to ‘swarm’ Associated,” Harris wrote.

Max Mosley, the former head of Formula One who was exposed by the press for attending an orgy, helped finance the investigation into Associated.

These are the people that Prince Harry decided to get involved with. And now he is back in Britain to cause more trouble.

The judge said in the 44-page written ruling: “This was litigation conceived and pleaded on an unjustifiably wide canvas. With limited exceptions, it was speculative at origin and depended substantially on inference.

Serious allegations, including allegations amounting to criminal conduct, were maintained over a prolonged period … in circumstances where the evidential foundation for many of them was inadequate.”

(The Duke and Duchess of Sussex do casual Friday. Haven’t the British public suffered enough?)

Costs – on an indemnity basis

On Friday the 21^st of August the judge ruled that the celebrities should pay more than the earlier “standard” costs agreed by the court and that costs should instead be calculated on “indemnity basis”. He ordered an initial payment of £9,544,355 by August 28. He refused to put a cap on the total costs.

The judge made the ruling because of the “exceptional breadth” and “gravity” of the allegations made by the celebrities, which “lacked an adequate evidential foundation” and for their failure to withdraw allegations that could no longer properly be maintained.

Awarding costs on an indemnity basis is unusual and means that if there is a dispute in relation to costs it generally favours the winner. The judge described Associated’s £34.4 million claim for legal costs as appearing “exceptionally high” and “largely unexplained.” He said justification for the increase “will be tested on assessment.”

Each failed claimant has to pay the publishers’ costs for defending their individual claims and they are also jointly liable for the far higher total common costs of the case.

The celebrities’ legal insurance only covers up to £16.2 million, leaving a potential shortfall of £18 million in the total demanded by the publisher.

That sum does not include the celebrities’ own legal costs, estimated to be at least £20 million, although their lawyers may have been representing them, at least partially, on a “no win, no fee” basis.

Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, sought an initial £111,767.50 in individual costs from Harry.

Never wrong – “whitewash”

How do you think Prince Harry, fifth in line to the throne, responded? He went after the judge, Mr Justice Nicklin. Prince Harry and Lawrence said the judgment was “a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected. However, the lengths to which the court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted.”

That is what Prince Harry thinks of the judiciary. Remember, last year Prince Harry lost a legal challenge over the level of security he and his family were entitled to while in the country. If I was on the losing end of this many expensive legal actions, I’d take some time for quiet reflection and contemplation.

Who is funding this madness, the expensive life in California, the ruinous legal actions and now the move back to the Cotswolds? Can it all be from Netflix deals?

Chutzpah

Prince Harry was once very much loved by the British public. The cheeky chap, he was spoiled no doubt by his late mother and grandmother. I lived in England at the time of the Royal wedding when he married Meghan. Everyone cheered them on and wished them the best. Harry and Meghan repaid this by turning their backs on them and leaving for the US. Now they are back. You have got to admire the chutzpah in that.

The only question is, who is next on Harry’s hitlist?

What’s with the annual summer holiday? I am not sure I want to do it again. Does this mean I am getting old?

The other day, I was on the mobile phone, the mobile now not the landline, to a friend of mine. She can be a bit fancy. How was the holiday? I asked her, 100% expecting her to say it was fabulous. I was only half listening, flicking through X as I normally do.

It was a bit of a disaster, she said, the first week anyway. I immediately perked up. I was listening now. A disaster, you say, why was that?

It was just too hot, she said, and the accommodation didn’t have air-conditioning. Goodness, how unfortunate, I commiserated. But you must have known that before you went, I added, somewhat slyly. They do have these details on the website, if you look closely. You have to check the small print (both she and her husband are lawyers.) Our apartment (which was admittedly too small for our family of 6) had air-conditioning, we couldn’t have survived without it, I finished smugly. It must have been a good holiday overall I said.

Well, the other problem was, we all got eaten alive by the mosquitos, she said. That really got my attention. I shut my laptop, a rare occurrence. Eaten alive, you say. That is absolutely tragic, I feel so sorry for you, truly I do. Really Laura, she said, you don’t sound like it. No, I do, honestly, well mostly I feel sorry for the children especially the little one. I’m not that bad.

In my defence I traded back a few stories of woe, at least I think I did.

So it got me thinking, this entire holiday fandango, why do we do it to ourselves? We went to Spain for 14 days and I enjoyed it, mostly. I did. But a fortnight is too long – I would have preferred 10 days. It is just the whole bother of it. If the weather had not been so wonderful and sunny in Ireland this year I would not be saying this but truly I just don’t think I’m able for this entire 2 weeks in the sun anymore, even to observe, Who’s Who at the Pool.

It starts with the packing, doesn’t it? The sheer effort. You have to drag the extra-large, super-duper, wheelie cases out from somewhere and dump them in the middle of your bedroom. Now your bedroom, which was once a place of serenity, is a reminder of the stress that awaits you. Those gigantic suitcases are clogging up your bedroom for days on end demanding to be packed.

The packing, heaven help me. You must wash and iron all the summer clothes. You pack all the clothes in (hunting down the swimsuits and flip-flops) and as you pack them in, the 5 year-old is taking it out just as fast. And the girls always overpack, and the teenage son, well he wouldn’t pack at all if you didn’t stand over him and make him do it. In fact I doubt he even knows he is in a different country, as his head is stuck in the phone all the time. If you ask me I don’t think I needed to fly for 3 hours to see him on Snapshot which is the exact same thing he does at home.

You have the hassle of the airport - the security line where you must take all your clothes off for the body scan, and the plane, and all the screens and this one wants an iPad and the other a laptop, and I know what you are saying, I can read your minds, you are just bad parents – you let them away with too much, but I’m tired. I am. Leave me alone.

A mere three hours later, you land in the much hotter country and then you must proceed through passport control. Great big queues await you. Finally, you must wait for the massive wheelie bags on the other end. You say a little prayer don’t you, maybe an entire decade of the rosary, that the wheelie bags come through the top of the carousel thing, and Lo, there it is! It bursts through those black flappy strip things so you immediately, in a very uncivilised manner, shove everyone out of the way, as if seeking the last lifeboat on the Titanic, and sprint towards the carousel.

Husband and teenage son (who has managed to take his head out of his phone) are ready to pounce! They haul the wheelie bags, one after another, off the carousel while you prevent your toddler from jumping on the carousel. If he does that he could zoom down the shoot with the rest of the bags and that would be a disaster. And joy, you have all the bags and all the children so you can now trundle your way through the airport like a bunch of nincompoops to find a taxi or bus or whatever to transport you to your living quarters so you can be baked alive for 2 weeks.

(John enjoyed his holiday which makes it worth while. He made us bring that Lilo home.)

Why? Why am I doing this?!

I have a perfectly nice house that I have spent quite a lot of money and time on, designed to my liking, in Ireland. Why have I left it? And do you know what, our house has a lot of bathrooms (we didn’t put them in), I’d be nearly ashamed to say how many but with two teenage girls (more or less) they are handy. But holiday accommodation does not have such amenities so the girls have to share a bathroom (can you imagine) and the make-up is everywhere, and the brushes and the sun lotion.

I’m just too old for this.

It hasn’t even been 24 hours into your so-called “holiday” and now you must unpack. But of course you have a lot less space in the place you have decided to stay for two weeks while paying the mortgage on your home in Ireland, that is much larger with all the stuff you need in it. I can’t even talk about unpacking. It is too traumatic.

On and on and on it goes, Lord give me strength.

Then there is all the eating out in restaurants, which I usually enjoy, but by night 5 I’ve had enough. Perhaps, I just want beans on toast. Is that such a bad thing? Must I peruse the menu again, get the waiter’s attention again, order yet again and stop John from getting apple juice again. Sweet Suffering Southampton! And all at 38 degrees! It is too much.

We had a good time. We did. Still, I did inform my long suffering husband the minute we got back, I’m never doing that again.

Now 5 nights in an all-inclusive hotel where people just hand me food, I can handle that. You are in - you are out. A trip, the Grand Tour, I still want to do. The truth is, I’d just prefer to go to London. Is that such a terrible thing? Or maybe Derbyshire or the Lake District. Can I visit any of my readers there?

It can be just as hot in England these days as Spain but it has museums and art galleries and concert halls and it is an hour away by plane. Why can’t I just have a holiday there? Or Scandinavia? Next year I might go to Sweden. Somewhere completely different.

Anyway, we all know my real holiday is about to begin. It is called the academic year when all my children go back to school. Roll on Wednesday.

We had a lovely time in Estepona a town that is kept spic and span by the local council but I noticed there was a serious increase in the number of dogs around from last year. I expect this kind of thing in London. I spent 20 years avoiding dog poo on the pavement in East Dulwich and then Hayes but now the dog craze has reached southern Spain. Why?

Big dogs and small dogs, furry dogs and less fury ones - they were everywhere.

And they were all being walked by their Spanish owners. That was the kicker, that was the eye opener. The dogs were not owned by British ex-pats but by the native Spanish.

The owners were mostly responsible, but there was still quite a bit of dog do-do on the pavements. Why do people do this?

Don’t get me wrong, I like a mutt, I can see the attraction. They are loyal (to anyone who will feed them), friendly (apart from the weapon dogs like Screwdriver who is being ‘walked’ by Gary the Dealer) and the kids like a dog, but are they really worth it? I grew up with dogs and I even agreed (like a fool) to get a rescue dog in London. Dogs are a massive responsibility but despite this we still got one after the three children and before John came along. Louis was his name.

I was assured, assured I tell you, that the children would walk Louis and pick up his poo. That didn’t happen, although my eldest tried her best. Muggins here was left to walk him, and he had a terrible re-call. The hours of my life I lost to that dog.

There are vet bills and the fact you have to worry about anyone coming to the door. Once Louis ate 4 Waitrose Duchy Organic British Beef Burgers that I had the temerity to leave on the counter to defrost. They are nearly 7 quid.

Louis didn’t make it to Ireland but don’t worry he is living his best life in Kent where he can hunt to his heart’s content. Honestly, never again. The nagging has already started from John but I will not be making the same mistake twice.

I do believe that dogs are starting to take over, Europe at least. If they can be so popular in a town like Estepona where everyone lives in apartments and must walk their dogs to then defecate in the street there is no hope.

Enough already with the dogs.

Louis was a lovely dog, don’t get me wrong. I’d almost miss him.. almost.

Update, as of 13:54 29.August.2026.

Below is prof of life photo of our dear Louis, he is in Kent with his lovely owner Andy. Louis is on Facebook and my husband checks in him now and again.

I think he has won a champion scent, or something. This does not surprise me at all. He was lovely though, he used to go to sleep with his legs up on my sofa.

Below. This is what I had to live with.

And then he’d take sunbathing seat.

However, we had to get fake grass after his handiwork.

It wasn’t cheap.

The one thing I do miss is how lovely he was with the children. Although I never left him one and one with the baby, he had a lovely nature. He also cleaned baby John’s highchair and the floor so that was handy.

But once he was let off the lead and in a wood he was Louis the hunter. It wasn’t his fault, that is his nature. Here he is with Emma in Emmett’s Garden in Kent looking out at the Weald I believe, an AONB.

Car Terrorism in Ireland on the terrible crash on the M9 went mega, mega for me at least. It had almost 13,000 views. The follow-up, Make Crime Illegal had 2.76k. Stupid White Liberals on DEI and the Prof Jason Arday affair before he took his own life had 5.53k views. The piece on Chancellor John Healey MP – Amadán got 3.25K views.

The much lighter and enjoyable Who’s Who at the Pool had 3k, you should read it if you need cheering up.

Considering I have been on holiday and the children are at home, I think I have done pretty well if I do say so myself. Thank you for all your comments which I read and your support through buy me a coffee.

Going forward

I am giving serious consideration to doing a second, brief blog in the afternoon for paid subscribers, when the children go back to school. The challenge here will be keeping it short and highlighting important news developments from the UK and Ireland. I am not sure how sustainable this will be or even how frequent. It is under review.

I’m invited!

In good news I will be speaking at the Battle of Ideas in London on the weekend of the 17^th and 18^th of October. I should be speaking twice on the Sunday. If any of my London readers are around that weekend, you can find me there. I have been invited!

Finally, it was a big week for ‘baby’ John. He started school, junior infants for Irish readers or reception for British ones. I am back in The Motherland.

Have a great weekend!

Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí - praise the youth and they will flourish.

I spoke about the Lindsay Clancy trial yesterday on UK Live, using my very fast voice. I shall have to slow down next time. I misspoke saying ‘guilty by reasons of insanity’ when it should have been ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ both obvious mistakes I hope. You can see that below.

Interestingly, although manslaughter was not at first discussed that charge has been left as an option to that jury. The jury has now gone out to deliberate after closing speeches yesterday.

The prime minister said that the public need to understand that “we are in a challenging position” when pressed on how he was going to fund his public spending commitments.

Economists believe that it is increasingly likely that John Healey, the chancellor, will have to raise taxes in the budget on October 28 because of the impact of the war in Iran and the need to find billions more for defence spending.”

It is not just defence spending they need to find money for though, is it? The ever expanding welfare budget requires funding too. The last Labour Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer failed in his attempt to make modest cuts to welfare. The planned £5 billion welfare cut turned into a massive net spending hole of up to £3.2 billion per year after a Labour party rebellion. How the heck do you even manage that?

Labour has also made it much more expensive to hire young people and graduates because of an increase to the standard rate of employer Class 1 NICs. That rose from 13.8% to 15%. The “secondary threshold”—the point at which an employer must start paying National Insurance on a worker’s salary—was aggressively cut from £9,100 down to £5,000 per year. This has hammered the jobs market.

Many will blame AI for the graduate jobs drop of 50% in a year (reported this week) but I’m not so sure. Labour have simply made it much more expensive to hire people, graduates, low-paid and part-time jobs. According to Oxford Economics and my AI search, “retail, hospitality, and recreation—industries with high concentrations of lower-paid or part-time staff—have suffered the worst losses. Because the tax threshold dropped to £5,000, part-time and entry-level roles that used to be tax-exempt now carry a significant tax burden for businesses.”

These jobs are very important. They are often taken by young people or mothers who want part-time work. Surely this is the type of worker that Labour should be looking out for?

It makes perfect economic sense that the jobs market is shrinking. If you make hiring someone more expensive, if it costs a company/employer more to pay a potential employee than the value said employee can add, then it makes no financial sense to hire them. It is especially important to make low-paid work pay more than benefits. Labour is taxing job creation.

The problem with expanding the ranks of the non-working population is that when it all has to be paid for by rising taxes off the backs of those who do work and are already suffering from inflation (the thief in the night) the opposition to such tax-rises diminishes because the amount of people it impacts is smaller. Put simply, if the non-working population outnumber the working population it makes perfect political sense to increase taxes on the minority of the working population. They can’t vote their way out of the problem can they? They are outnumbered, so the tax transfers continue.

(The Treasury, a real and present danger to the working population.)

Although this might make political sense it is disgustingly immoral. It is immoral to make low-paid, part-time, starter jobs and graduate jobs too expensive for employers to offer. First, not only are you depriving a worker of an earned income (which is morally superior to benefits if you can work) but you are also depriving them of experience, developing habits necessary for work and a social network from working. To tax these jobs out of existence is wrong.

That wrong is compounded by taxing those who do work. It is especially wrong to this off the backs of young families. These tax rises will be sold as fairness, or simply taxing The Rich. But as I explained multiple times before you are not rich if you earn 50k in London. You are not even rich if the combined household income is in excess of 100k in London. You just aren’t.

What you are is at the peak of your earning power with a lot of expenses. You are not some Russian buying up property in Kensington. You are a middle-class lawyer or doctor or own a small/medium sized business who after two decades of hard work has built up your career or business so that you are now on over 100k. That doesn’t make you The Rich.

The Times, “the backdrop for the budget is challenging. Healey needs to find at least £4.7 billion for additional defence spending along with funding for a series of cost of living announcements that Burnham has made since entering No 10.” So let me get this straight – the cost of living measures must be funded by increased taxation? You are taking back in tax what you have given out with your generous cost of living measures?

Give me a break.

Labour knows only one way to govern: tax and spend and expand the state. That’s not going to change under Burnham.

The line from MAGA is, this case demonstrates that women shouldn’t be in positions of power; they shouldn’t be in politics; they shouldn’t really work; and we should repeal the 19^th Amendment, (guaranteeing to women the right to vote.) They are all ‘mad’ and hysterical. Lindsay Clancy was mad and evil, but not so mad as to be criminally insane. Just mad enough to further the MAGA misogynistic agenda.

It is a bitter coincidence that the trial of Lindsay Clancy is taking place in Massachusetts, the same state as the Salem Witch Trials of 1693. The MAGA right have their witch in Lindsay, an evil mother who plotted and planned to murder her children in a barbaric fashion – by strangulation. And all her supporters, all the women wearing pink, are witches too. They would burn them all given half a chance.

And it is not just MAGA. A Ben Leo, of GB News tweeted, “Anyone who defends this triple child killer or suggests it was anyone other than the crazed, psychotic and murderous mother who stole that man’s children should be sectioned. This is not a true crime documentary on Netflix. Sympathy with the devil.”

That’s that then.

I don’t know when the “line” went out to the American/MAGA right to say Lindsay Clancy is a cold blooded murderer, and all her female supporters are mad too but that’s the line. You can see it as clear as the Mason-Dixon Line written on the map. No derogation, no exceptions, and if you do you are defending child murder and should be ‘sectioned.’

I am going to say a few things now which you may or may not like. First, I do not think Lindsay Clancy is guilty of murder on the facts as I understand them, and applying the legal test of insanity. I explain why here.. If you after reviewing the facts as best you can without sitting through the entire trial and conclude she is guilty, that’s up to you. You are entitled to that view.

Secondly, I do not think Lindsay Clancy is a martyr, I am not celebrating her and I am not giving her a free pass for her actions. But what a jurisdiction labels as the offence of murder matters. And what might cause or motivate a person, especially a mother to kill her own children that up to then she has cared for, protected and nurtured certainly matters. It is a case worth carefully researching, calmly contemplating and cautiously discussing.

In the state of Massachusetts you can kill someone but be not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. The state of Massachusetts does not have the offence of infanticide (England and the Ireland do) therefore the only avenue open to Clancy is to claim she is not criminally responsible for these killings. She did not have the requisite mens rea (state of mind) or even the actus rea, as she is saying she was obeying a command voice that she could not physically resist due to her psychosis. The psychosis was either postpartum psychosis or mania triggered by one of the drugs she was taking at the time.

These things matter, or at least they matter to me. That should surprise to no one given my 3 law degrees.

(MAGA men have their witch.)

We have limited time. As I have written before the stories you choose to cover matter, they indicate what you care about. What the MAGA right says on a subject really does matter. Some have audiences of over 1 million people.

And MAGA had a choice. They have claimed for years that they cared about mothers and babies, they were the family supporting side. So when a family is destroyed like this you would expect them to ask why and can we stop it from happening again.

MAGA could have used this case to place a spotlight on Big Pharma. Even if you think Clancy is guilty, she was still taking a cocktail of drugs. How safe are they really? What are the side-effects of these drugs? Why are so many American women and men on powerful mind altering substances? What about postpartum psychosis, what are the red flags families should look out for in these rare but very serious cases? What about the more common condition of postpartum depression, and the conditions of maternity care as a whole?

But no. MAGA do not to want to talk about any of these things. There is a group of people they hate more than Big Pharma, and that is women. They have metaphorically tied this woman to the stake and burnt her alive on social media, throwing her wheelchair in the pyre for good measure. And when they have done that they would quite like to tie the rest of the younger generation to the stake and burn them too. It will be easy then to ‘repeal the 19th.’

Look, I’ve had a go at millennial women when I thought they were doing something dangerous. Maybe I have used the term crazy a bit to loosely. But I don’t think it gets any more serious or more tragic than a mother who kills her three children. And maybe, maybe deep down I don’t want to believe a woman like Lindsay Clancy could do such an act if she wasn’t insane in the legal sense. If I have an agenda, that is it.

But my agenda is certainly not, and I hope never will be, to follow certain “talking points” that I think will get me the most clicks and likes. The MAGA right are making out that the women who stood outside the courtroom to support Lindsay Clancy are some sort of blood thirsty, baby sacrificing monsters. From the video I saw, these women wore pink, were dignified and mostly silent. They ‘gave a heart shape’ to Lindsay and mental health. I don’ think that makes them monsters or ‘Libtards.’ I think people who are monstering a mother on trial for clicks and likes are.

Finally, and what really disgusts me, is this pretence, certainly by the likes of Matt Walsh, that somehow the enraged MAGA right care more about what happened to those poor children than those who are not willing to condemn Clancy outright do. That is not true.

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused and some executed. In those times, when life was precarious people really did believe in witchcraft and acted accordingly to prevent any threats to society.

It is not 1692 and we don’t have to rely on mystical signs or worry about angering the gods to explain human behaviour. We have science. Yes there is evil, but there are also other explanations for such a terrible act – including psychosis. Trying to understand what happened in this case does not make me sympathetic to mothers who kill their children or a man hater or ‘cra-cra.’ It just means I am not willing to plug my fingers in my ears and say, the earth is flat.

The fact than only women can suffer from postpartum psychosis and MAGA’s outright refusal to even engage with it tells you a lot. Their misogyny burns as bright as any pyre.

PC Matthew Blades, a 37-year-old father-of-two, and PC Tom Clough, 38, died when their marked police vehicle was hit by a Volkswagen Passat on the A66 dual carriageway in South Bank, Middlesbrough, at about 3.40am on Saturday. The Telegraph understands PC Clough was a soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a police officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and later Cleveland Police.

The five men in the Passat who died in the collision were named as Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Theo Rae, 17, Cole Robert Worthy, 16, Jacob Matusiak, 23, and Makai Saddington, 18.

This is shocking. The police officers were serving their community and their country when they were in effect murdered by these 5 criminals.

The Passat had been flagged to police because it was linked to other offences, according to sources. It began fleeing officers through a nearby residential area, but the pursuit was called off as soon as the Passat drove the wrong way down the A66. The collision happened shortly after.

Blades and Clough were in the vicinity of the chase and had been driving in the correct direction along the A66 at the time of the crash, the source added. Their vehicle had not been involved in the original pursuit.

And just like Ireland, attention has turned to the new great evil of ‘social media’ that seems to have made – programmed I tell you – the 5 men, like the 5 young men in Ireland last week, to get into a car and drive the wrong way down motorway at high speed.

The Times of London reads very much like all the main papers in Ireland. I also note the Times saying the following, “Formal identification of the five other individuals killed in the crash had been completed by Saturday afternoon, according to Victoria Fuller, chief constable for Cleveland. The victims’ families were being supported, she added.” Victims, of what, exactly? Victims of their own stupidity. How dare the chief constable refer to these men as victims. It’s a disgraceful use of the term and until we stop referring to men who endanger others by weaponizing cars to maim and murder innocent civilians we are still not taking this seriously enough.

The real victims are the police officers, one of whom was a father of two young boys and was going to become a local football coach. This is a good indication of his character. PC Blades had recently become a football coach with Seaton Carew FC. The club said on social media on Sunday, “he was looking forward to being part of the team and, most importantly, to coaching his own son, who is going to be playing for the Seahawks this season. Matty and his oldest son are much-loved members of our club and our U10 Lions football family.”

(PC Tom Clough and PC Matthew Blades, killed in the line of duty by car terrorists.)

In Ireland there was a man “Blindboy” who over the weekend was drying his eyes over the car terrorists. “Blindboy” said, their behaviour was deplorable, but they’re still children. No, they were not. One was 18, 2 were 17. They were not children. The 7 year old in the car they smashed into and remains in hospital, was. (Blindboy like the men weaponizing cars, wears some kind of face covering.)

This is the kind of weapons grade idiocy we have to deal with on the British Isles.

But as I said all eyes now are on Evil TikTok and how they are fuelling a trend of wrong-way and high speed driving. It was the lead on the Times on Monday. The headline was, TikTok clips encourage dangerous driving for online kudos. “The video is one of hundreds shot in the UK and posted online to encourage young drivers to act recklessly for kudos, analysis by The Times suggests. Social media companies are being urged to crack down after the “horrifying” videos were linked to a number of fatal accidents.”

The lead on the Irish Times was “Wrong-way driving ‘out of control’ amid 32% rise in incidents detected in 2026. Nearly two detections of wrong-way driving every week.” The focus on social media companies has been relentless. But we also found out, as we suspected, that the 5 young men killed in the collision in Kildare were known to the police. So were all but one of the men in the Middlesborough men. The Telegraph reported that Makai Saddington, 18, Theo Rae, 17, Cole Worthy, 17, and Jakub Matusiak, 23, had each pleaded guilty to multiple offences in the three years before the crash. Only Michael Cahill, 23, did not have prior convictions.

There has been much talk of “early intervention.” Look, there is a place for early intervention for young teenagers up to the age of about 15. After that I suspect it is of limited use. And the age profile of the offenders in the UK and Ireland was higher. In Ireland one was 18, 3 were 17. The window for intervention has pretty much closed there.

The case of early intervention in the case in Middlesbrough is even weaker, the age profile of those murdering joyriders is higher still. Michael Robert Cahill was 23 – Cahill is an Irish name. He had no previous convictions.

Intervene in the early teenage years if you want, take down the TikTok clips if you must, and then do what all law abiding citizens expect: enforce the criminal law.

Indeed, it was reported that the mother of Kamil Pustkowski, one of the men killed in the Kildare attack, wanted a judge to send him to jail so he could get help. Evidence that a soft on crime approach helps no one, including the criminals.

Early intervention and a youth criminal justice system that takes crimes seriously are costly. It is notable that because both the UK and Irish criminal justice systems have been chronically underfunded, early release schemes have been introduced. Funding prison spaces and decent conditions for those spaces is rarely a vote winner, but if presented as a tough on crime package could be. Also it could mean making cuts to the government’s favoured useless NGOs such as the Irish Penal Reform Trust and the National Women’s Embarrassment Council of Ireland. It is, as always in politics, a question of will.

These young men are a menace to society and themselves. The biggest crackdown should be on young men driving dangerously at high speed, the wrong way down motorways. They can tell me their sad tales of woe from behind bars.

Blindboy. Amadán.

Lindsay Clancy, 36, is on trial for the murder of her three children, a trial that has gripped America. On the 24^th of January 2023 Lindsay Clancy strangled, with an exercise band, her three children, her daughter Cora who was aged 5, her son Dawson aged 3, and her 8-month-old baby boy Callan. Lindsay Clancy then attempted suicide by cutting her neck and wrists and jumping out the second floor bedroom window. She was left paralyzed from the waist down.

The two older children died on the day of the killing, the little baby survived for three days before his life support was switched off.

When a mother kills her children, in this case three under the age of 5 including an infant, it outrages us all. Rightly. It is a shocking event that destroys motherhood. Mothers sacrifice themselves for their children. Society is built and orientated on this belief. The idea a mother would hurt, let alone end the life of the child she gave life to, goes against all logic and morals. It demolishes all that is right, innocent and good.

Such an act, the killing of a defenceless child in a brutal manner by a mother’s own hand, the same hands that will have carefully cared for and nurtured that child, is against the natural order.

The outrage and trauma of this tragedy is well placed. The target of the blame, I believe, is not.

The legal position

Lindsay Clancy does not deny that she killed her three children. The defence say she is not legally responsible for the crime of murder because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, in part due to over-medication for postpartum depression.

This trial is taking place in the state of Massachusetts. Unlike most other common law jurisdictions, including England, the offence of infanticide is a not available in any State in the US including Massachusetts. The defence is claiming that Clancy is not guilty by reason of insanity, although insanity is not the exact term used in court.

The test to avoid criminal responsibility read in court by Judge William Sullivan is

“A defendant is not criminally responsible for their conduct if they have “a mental disease or defect, and as a result of that mental disease or defect, lacks the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law.”

In most states, the defence has to prove a lack of criminal responsibility, more commonly known as an insanity defence, but Massachusetts shifts that burden onto the prosecution.

The case

The prosecution says Clancy planned and executed the murders by sending her husband, Patrick Clancy, out of the house on errands, then strangling the children with exercise bands in the basement of their Duxbury home. Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham called Clancy a “controlling, meticulous and manipulative” mother who committed the murders because she could no longer control “every little detail” of her and her family’s life.

The defence argues that Clancy is not guilty of murder because she was experiencing a psychotic break induced by postpartum psychiatric disease aggravated by overmedication.

Prosecutors argue that Clancy manipulated her providers and sought quick fixes for her depression and anxiety. Clancy’s defence argues that she repeatedly sought treatment and was overmedicated before the killings.

If Clancy is found guilty of murder she will receive life imprisonment without parole. If she succeeds in her defence she will be detained at a psychiatric facility.

(An tragedy beyond words. Cora, baby Callan and Dawson.)

Postpartum depression to postpartum psychosis

The defence say Clancy experienced hallucinations and delusions after giving birth to Callan and she was undergoing medical treatment for psychiatric problems. She checked herself into a psychiatric hospital for a few days just before the killings.

Lindsay Clancy and her ex-husband are suing the medical personnel who they say over medicated her, to the point where she was psychotic and receiving command responses to hurt herself and the children. The medication triggered a bi-polar condition. She was prescribed Zoloft Prozac, Fluoxetine, Remeron, Mirtazapine Amitriptyline, Trazodone, Seroquel, Lamictal, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, Ambien Buspar, Benadryl and Hydroxyzine. The drugs were changed about 30 times and she was taking about four at the time of the killing.

Taken together, these drugs may produce sedation, dizziness, impaired judgment, slowed cognition, confusion, low blood pressure, and fall risk.

Serious or uncommon side effects include suicidal thoughts, worsening depression, agitation, restlessness, confusion, worsening of mania, and abnormal movements. Almost every single one of them carries warnings involving things like serotonin syndrome, new or worsening suicidal thoughts, particularly after starting or changing a dosage, and activation of mania or hypomania in susceptible individuals.

Clancey was in the care of two doctors, where one did not know what the other was prescribing. Her condition deteriorated which resulted in practitioners increasing her dosage of powerful drugs, including those with “black box warnings” of suicidal ideation. In addition, all of the 14 visits between one practitioner Dr. Jennifer Tufts and Clancy were conducted via telemedicine. The first time they were in the same room together was at trial.

The switching of drugs and the increase in dosage was according to some, evidence that she was not responding well to them and they were causing serious side-effects. This includes triggering bi-polar depression and mania. This psychiatrist described Clancy as being “tortured” by these drugs. Her nervous system was under attack. Once she starts hearing voices, he explains that other patients have described it as a ‘kind of hell.’

Dr Phil, described this postpartum psychosis as a “psychiatric emergency” with a number of red flags that had been missed. Clancy told her husband and others she had dark thoughts about harming the children and therefore, according to Dr Phil, she should not have been left alone with them.

It will still be difficult for Lindsay Clancy to succeed on this defence which juries are highly sceptical of.

The American Right wades in

Depressingly and predictably this has turned into a culture war. The American Right, (Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly for instance) argue Clancy was a cold and calculating killer, too “selfish” to care for her own children. Others say, this was the logical extension of abortion on demand, or something.

The trial has been a rallying call for women and mothers in America. Many see themselves in Lindsay, it could have been me. Statistically, that is not the case, as postpartum psychosis occurs in about 1 to 2 per 1000 women after delivery, but many women do feel they are not being heard when it comes to other serious conditions that are triggered by giving birth.

Begging for help

From what I have read and listened to Lindsay Clancy was a good mother. In fact, she did everything that the American right wanted her to. She got married and had three children, three children under 5 years of age, in fact.

The experienced nanny Elaine Rossi, who looked after the children briefly for a few months before this tragic killing, described Lindsay Clancy as a ‘wonderful mother’ and a doting mother. Lindsay didn’t want to leave her baby so she decided to extend her maternity leave. This meant giving Ms Rossi notice but they left on very good terms. The nanny gave evidence that she loved Lindsay. Ms Rossie described two wonderful children in Cora and Dawson. Cora was a girly girl and Dawson had a lot of energy. The baby Callan was just a ‘smiley baby’ a love. If this is how the children were, then they were well cared for and nurtured by a devoted mother.

Ms Clancy’s now ex-father-in-law Christopher Clancy, said she was very mothering and protective of the little ones when they were babies.

Lindsay’s now ex-mother-in-law Sue Clancy, who worked as a nurse in the labour and delivery room for 38 years, said Lindsay was very nurturing and very loving. “She was a wonderful mother. She loved her children, all of them, very, very much.”

Lindsay Clancy reached out to her mother, mother-in-law, her husband and medical practitioners for help. She was struggling, had insomnia, was anxious and sad. Her mother-in-law said Lindsay was ‘begging for help.’ The ex-mother-in-law testified that Lindsay was struggling during the holiday period of 2022 and “we were all very concerned.”

The question is, was Lindsay Clancy in such a psychotic state that either, she didn’t know that her conduct was criminal, or if she did she could not control her actions because she was involuntarily intoxicated due to being over-medicated or in a psychotic state.

Logic

It was Ms Clancy’s tragic misfortune to suffer from postpartum depression after she gave birth to her third child. She did not choose to have postpartum depression.

It was Ms Clancy’s misfortune to suffer from the condition serious enough to warrant medication. It was Ms Clancy’s misfortune to receive allegedly negligent care from medical practitioners in a country that dispenses powerful mind altering drugs freely, sometimes known as Big Pharma. She was a medical professional, desperate for help, who relied on other medical professionals in good faith.

It was Ms Clancy’s deep, deep misfortunate to suffer serious side-effects from the cocktail of drugs she was prescribed by two practitioners who were not communicating with each other and never met her in person. Lindsay Clancy did not choose to suffer from serious side-effects that included 48 hours without sleep, the triggering of bi-polar disorder and perhaps hallucinations and psychosis.

No, I do not believe Lindsay Clancy chose, in a rational sense, to murder her three children, one by one, by her own hands.

The prosecution and the conservative right, who like to think they are telling us all hard truths, the brutal unsayable truths that ‘softies’ like me would prefer to avoid, believe otherwise.

Their case is that Lindsay Clancy, a woman who worked as a labour and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital before having children, and was described by grandparents who lost everything as a wonderful mother, a protective mother, nurturing and loving, a mother who loved all her children very, very much, just woke up one day and said to herself, I don’t fancy this motherhood lark anymore. I am – as Matt Walsh says – just a bit too selfish for it.

The prosecution case and the ‘truth telling right’ say this mother then hatched an unspeakably evil plan over a number of days or weeks (neither the prosecution nor Meghan Kelly have specified) to murder, in cold blood her three precious children that up to that point she was very protective of.

The children she gave birth to, nurtured, comforted at night, read to, fed, and loved she just said, I don’t want it anymore. And to come up with an excuse she schemed that she would injure herself severely, cut my wrists and neck and throw herself out a second floor window, but survive.

That’s the case against Lindsay Clancy.

Do you think this is likely or logical?

Or do you think that her postpartum depression, followed by the cocktail of drugs and negligent care, her declining mental state, a psychiatric emergency, her insomnia, anxiety, bi-polar, and perhaps mania, that she was having hallucinations and on that terrible day she did indeed hear a ‘male commanding voice’ telling her to kill her children and herself. That this was her only way out.

Mothers on trial

If the prosecution is correct, that this loving, devoted mother could turn on a dime into a cold and calculating murderer, then that could be any loving mother right? This means any mother, myself included, could just wake up one day and do the unspeakable. Because that’s women, right? We turn on a dime…

This is what the American right think American mothers are capable of, the maternity nurse for goodness sake, who wanted to extend her maternity leave to spend more time with her baby.

So yes, the women of America are angry. Yes they feel under attack, because on this argument every mother in America is on trial.

I discuss the reaction to this trial, here.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123.

This was not how Burnham put it, but it is what he has done. Burnham chose his timing well – August and when many are still spilling ink over the ridiculous Jason Arday story. It received limited attention.

Civil Service World explains (yes such a publication exists) explains.

“Responsibility for economic growth policy is to move from HM Treasury to No.10 North in a “huge transfer of power,” Andy Burnham has announced.

The prime minister said the Treasury’s dual job of growth and control of public finances “sometimes clouds the growth mission” and No.10 North leading on growth will enable “maximum power to unlock the blockages where they exist in the wider Whitehall system.”

The Cabinet Office last month announced a series of machinery of government changes which included the transfer of local economic growth and devolution strategy from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to No.10 North and local economic growth policy from HMT to No.10 North. It said this would establish No.10 North as “the dominant driver of the UK’s economy”, while leader of the House of Lords Angela Smith noted that MHCLG and HMT would “continue to exercise some remaining functions in these areas,”

Stay with me, this stuff matters.

The Prime Minister told the Times that “it is actually a huge transfer of power.” He is absolutely correct. This is a huge transfer of power, away from London, the Treasury and the Chancellor. But Burnham would have us believe that the Chancellor has not been demoted. How’s that now? You strip Healey and the department of a key role, shift it half way across the country but it is not a demotion? I don’t think so. This is part of the entire decentralising power fandango.

Interestingly, the women are in charge Up North. Number 10 North is overseen by Caroline Simpson, the former chief executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and now Burnham’s deputy chief of staff.

Louise Haigh, the first secretary of state and de facto deputy prime minister, has ministerial oversight and is overseeing the shift in decision-making on growth policy.

What Burnham has done here is gone Irish. Ireland also (confusingly enough) has two departments controlling the money.

The Minister for Finance for Ireland is the never not annoying Simon Harris TD (also serves as Tánaiste.) Jack Chambers TD is Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Services, Reform and Digitalisation

So Number 10 North now has responsibility for generating economic growth. If you don’t care about the personnel involved you should care about whether this government can create the conditions for economic growth. Your entire standard of living depends on it.

The only things that are growing right now in the UK are immigration, small boat landings, the welfare bill, inflation and government borrowing. The cost of government borrowing reached its highest level in nearly two decades on Tuesday amid mounting concerns about inflation.

(Above. Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey MP just lost half his brief.)

The Chancellor is to be hauled out of the Treasury to give a major speech on the government’s economic agenda next month, with the publication of a “ten-year plan” for sweeping economic and constitutional reform coming after the budget.

Burnham also announced on Tuesday a new combined partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority to take control of bus services in the region. He wants to go significantly further by taking public control of what he describes as life’s essentials — including water, energy and housing.

So Burnham is going to expand the State. This is the exact opposite of growing the private sector and generating growth. He will put more debt on the State and as the State can’t do anything anymore Soviet Style, this will most probably be outsourced to the private sector, but under state control. Burnham doesn’t trust the private sector with water, energy and housing. We assume for now he isn’t going to take public control of food, also one of life’s essentials. He seems to trust British retailers with that for now, although he did accuse them of non-existent price gouging a few weeks ago.

This Labour government is no more going to produce the conditions for economic growth than I am going to become a model for Sports Illustrated. It’s not in their instinct. These are people that still blame Thatcher for everything, (one woman who knew how to generate growth), are deeply suspicious of the free market (which is just people who want to turn a profit) and believe most answers can be solved by expanding the welfare state.

After the Covid collapse and bounce back UK growth for the last four years has been: 2022 +5.2%;

2023 +0.3%

2024: +1.1%

2025: +1.3%

That is pretty low for the last three years. It should not be difficult to increase growth from these low numbers, but given the socialism that still lives in the hearts of so many in Labour I would not expect too much. My AI overview says “the UK’s annual real GDP growth rate over the last 10 years (2016–2025) has fluctuated significantly, marked by a sharp contraction during the 2020 pandemic followed by a strong rebound, subsequent post-pandemic stagnation, and modest recovery.”

Economic growth is not some dry subject for the ‘experts.’ It impacts all of us and our day to day lives as well are our children’s future. It is what drives living standards up, the reason you live in a nice house, consume decent food and can take a holiday once a year. When I was young I went on holiday once. My children get to go every year because of economic growth.

Burnham gutting the Treasury and moving the Department of the Only Thing that Matters up north is a big move and a demotion of Healey. It will take more than decentralising from London and departmental reorganisation to get growth going.

(Caroline Simpson, not making the tea. Burnham’s deputy chief of staff.)

(Louise Haigh MP. One of the most powerful women in Britain right now.)

I wonder if their move back home will be as stressful as ours was. A key difference is however that I did not trash my immediate family in the years before I moved back to Ireland. In fact my brother and sister-in-law (who sometimes read this blog) were incredibly helpful with the Big Move. My brother checked out the new house before I did, and my sister-in-law essentially sorted out the schools (three in all), so thanks for that.

This move by the Sussex peeps does not shock me. I wrote about Megxit quite a bit on TCW. I predicted that they would end up on Oprah Winfrey’s couch telling us all how racist their family and the good people of Britain were. I was right on that.

I did Channel 4 news at the time and I said, I said dear reader, that Megxit was a bad move for Harry. He was abandoning his family and evading his duty. This would in the long run make him deeply unsatisfied. I argued, I told the lefty academic beside me, that it would be one thing if moving to the sunny west coast of America would make Harry happy, but it would not. I was right on that one too.

The British press is wondering how this will impact the Royal family. Can Harry patch things up with his brother and father? It would be great if they could reconcile but a lot of ‘work’ as the therapists say is necessary for that. The first thing would be a personal apology to both of them.

As the Times points out, “What’s odd about it all, apart from everything, is that in the six years since Megxit, (Harry) has never stopped telling us how swimmingly it’s all going in America and how happy he is. He’s banged on and on about how awful his family are, and how beastly everyone in England is, going on American TV to describe Camilla as “the villain” who “left bodies in the street” on her road to becoming queen, but also sweetly clarifying, “I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother.” He described Prince William in Spare as “my arch-nemesis”, adding bitterly that his role as younger brother was perhaps to provide a kidney if required, or some bone marrow. Perhaps they’ll reminisce about it fondly, when hell freezes over and William meets him for a pint.”

I’m not interested in the comings and goings of The Royal Patriarchy. Nope. But I am very excited at the thought of Meghan heading the Parent’s Association of some lucky primary school. And the Watts App group. You just know she will be a frequent texter to the parents Watts App group.

We can assume, given the Netflix deal, that Harry and Meghan can afford private school for their two darlings, even with the vindictive VAT policy. And boy oh boy what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall on the first day of nursery or reception in that school.

Readers should know that my two favourite programmes, courtesy of the BBC, are Motherland and Amandaland. Motherland is the best of the two and written by Irish writer Sharon Horgan. There is even, and I’m not kidding here, a character called Meg and she is black. She was introduced in the last of the series.

I really like Meg, who is not Meghan. A ‘working mum’ with a real job she finds it easy to juggle it all with her husband and her two darlings living in a very expensive Victorian terrace in North London. She frequently shouts at Alexa to order copious amounts of wine. My kind of mum friend.

One of my favourite episodes is when all the mums and Kevin go on a night out. Meg gets quite drunk and has a great time. No Mum Left Behind implores Kevin at one point. The next day at the school gates, all the other mums are very hungover and down the month but not Meg. She turns up bright as a button, ready for the day. An absolute classic.

But we all know Meghan will not be Meg. The Duchess is closer to Amanda. Shiny, smiley and fake. The Alpha mum who always wears white. I can just picture the Duchess on the first day. Yes, little Archie is our first. We have the two (as is the law in England, the law I tell you). I am having a coffee morning at my place next week, she’ll tell all the mums. I can whip something up by hand, please do come over. She will be head of the Parents’ Association – the scariest women in Britain – by Christmas. When I was in The Motherland I called them The Mafia, to their faces. Morning Mafia I’d say at St Anthony’s East Dulwich every morning. They did a bang up job of wringing money out of you, don’t get me wrong.

(Julia, from Motherland. I am usually 5.)

The idea of the Duchess swapping sunny Montecito for rainy Slough or Basingstoke or Bromley fills me with absolute joy. Ok, the Duchess probably will not be dropping little Archie and Lilibet at Kingsdale academy or Harris primary any time soon (both good school foundations might I add) but I like to think she will.

The truth is, even with the extra cash, even if you are private there is no escaping the sheer agony, the exquisite pain, the relentlessness of The Motherland. The playdates, the PTA’s, the swimming pool parties, World Book day, the nativity play, sports day and courtesy of Michael Gove’s reforms the frontal adverbial. I write for a living and I still don’t know what a freaking fronted adverbial is. For a while I thought it was an extreme sex position. So why do I have to teach my 7 year old this? Why in the age of AI are they doing long division? Madness I tell you.

Just you wait Duchess, just you wait.

I wish the Duke and Duchess the best of luck, I really do. Christmas should be a real humdinger.

And to the Duchess, welcome to The Motherland.

The suicide of Jason Arday was a tragedy for his family. Clearly, he was unable to handle the loss of position and status of being a Cambridge professor. Prof Arday resigned after being exposed as an academic fraud. Cambridge University, who made him the poster boy for academic diversity, told us to be very interested in him. They are now attempting to deflect the blame elsewhere, anywhere but themselves.

The Chancellor Lord Chris Smith criticised the “racist feeding frenzy” that surrounded Jason Arday. Sure Lord Chris, it is all the fault of those who exposed Cambridge’s collapse in standards for this man’s decision to take his own life. The BBC, who also told us to be very interested in Prof Arday, have now made him a martyr.

The rest of the usual suspects that make up the crazy left – the leader of the Green Party Zack Polanski, the always ridiculous Jolyon Maugham KC of the Terrible Law Project (who are now attacking the Guardian, making this a left – on – left fight) and Labour MP Diane Abbott have been trying to outdo each other with the hysteria and attacks on the press.

Diane Abbott MP said Arday had been subject to a “vicious and bitter media campaign.” I am sure it was extremely unpleasant if not traumatic for Arday to be subject to a media feeding frenzy, and it was unfortunate for him that this fell in August when the press are always desperate for a story. It will also have been very unwelcome for Arday that so many of his achievements both academic and personal, fell apart so quickly under scrutiny. Being exposed as an academic fraud is stressful. It must have been difficult to keep track of the falsehoods. And it is true that once the press get going they can be a pack of piranhas. But this was clearly a story of “legitimate public interest.”

Also, who gets to decide what is legitimate or appropriate? They left say - we do. I beg to differ. Cambridge is one of the great academic institutions not just of the UK but the West. It receives millions of pounds of taxpayers money. The public has a right to know if they are not doing the basics – upholding academic rigour. In this case, they failed to do so. In the era of BLM Arday was useful to them. Until he was no longer useful.

Remember it was the left that gave us MeToo - media frenzy par excellence. What started out as a ‘legitimate’ inquiry into sexual harassment by men in the work place soon morphed into firings for putting your hand on someone’s leg nearly 10 years previous. Just ask Greg Wallace what a media feeding frenzy looks like.

The other quite disgusting part of the fallout is the accusation that Arday was subject to a modern-day lynching or public execution. Arday lost his life by his own hand, abandoning his wife and two children in the process. It is a tragedy but quite obviously neither an execution nor lynching. I can be extreme on the language now and again, but I don’t think this is either legitimate or appropriate and therefore I am demanding a public inquiry into the use of extreme language by leftist fools.

(Zack Polanski MP and Diane Abbott MP would like a world where they control the press, and they control what the public reads, watches and hears. There shall be no wrong think.)

The most serious demands made by the ever authoritarian and unhinged left are that there should be a public inquiry into the press. Sure, let’s do that. I’d quite like an inquiry into how a Times Higher Education journalist was put under investigation by the police for asking questions of Arday and his academic record and whether the subsequent legal letter sent by Carter Ruck solicitors was within the Law Society rules. Be my guest.

Others are just getting straight to the point. “Police should be impounding computers” wrote Will Self. “This is not an attack upon a free press—it is a necessarily immediate defence of one.” What a clever clogs! See how impounding the tools of the press is actually a defence of it. It is like when the abusive husband smacks his wife around ‘for her own good.’ I have never read the insufferable Will Self, yet another good decision.

Good luck with that one Mr Self but I’ll tell you now you will be prying my computer from my cold hands. I don’t think these demands by the authoritarian left to restrict press freedom, restrict our freedom of expression or to restrict the rights of readers to read whatever the heck they want will get very far but you can never be too sure. It just shows how precious these rights are and how you should support writers when you can!

One person who has lost out from this affair is the man who first exposed it. Nathan Cofnas, the academic who made the plagiarism allegations against Prof Jason Arday before his death, has been suspended by his university. Cofnas is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University’s department of philosophy and moral sciences

Academic freedom, press freedom and freedom of expression are unique to the West. The attack on all of them by the left is yet another attempt – along with the open borders experiment – to turn the West into a third world hellhole.

We will not let that happen without a fight.

I always enjoy watching families with young children on holiday. I think the tiny toddlers in their tiny togs are delightful to observe. As they said last year Michael McIntyre is completely correct in his description of children on holidays. The Spanish children always have wonderful tans, tiny togs and swim like dolphins. These Spanish wonders never have armbands, but may have a pair of goggles. My older children are all strong swimmers but John has been somewhat neglected. True to the stereotypes and in great contrast to the Spanish children he must wear the UV 50 top, the UV 50 shorts and the UV 50 hat together with his goggles and ginormous armbands.

The Perrins clan en vacances somewhere very hot and very sunny. It must have a Communal Pool which is a fantastic place to people watch. There are the usual characters at every communal pool which makes things both entertaining and predictable.

The chill-out group

The chill-out people are a group of middle-aged men and women who stand in the pool at the side, to keep cool and work on their tans. There is always one man in the club who stretches his arms out wide, across the edge of the pool for maximum tan effect. One woman might be out of the pool, sitting with her legs in it. This group are usually Spanish, Italian or maybe German. They never wear hats or sunglasses and they never swim. They just stay there, chatting in their foreign language, the unofficial Alphas of The Communal Pool.

Rocket launcher dad

The next person is the rocket launcher dad. This dad can be of any nationality but he is fun dad. He turns himself into some sort of rocket launching pad by putting a child of any age on his shoulder and then launching said child like an intergalactic rocket halfway across the pool. You have to be careful around rocket launcher Dad.

(Above, rocket launcher dad. A clear and present danger to anyone who wants to stay dry.)

The ICBM child

Next and in a similar category, is the intercontinental ballistic missile child. These children run and then hurl themselves into the pool with great force generating rather large splashes and creating waves. They may get your book wet if you have made the foolish mistake of sitting close to the pool. Often, the ICBM child comes with sound effects, a sort of warning before they plunge into the pool.

The shade-seekers

Then there are the shade-seekers. These men and women sit by the side of the pool in the shade wearing shorts, a shirt and a hat. They either read or go on their phone.

Sometimes they are older and often on their own. They just seem to enjoy the atmosphere and buzz of The Communal Pool. They never swim, and an hour or two later just up and leave poolside.

The older lady

The older lady is a woman who has aged like a fine wine. She sometimes is married to the shade seeker or on her own. Older lady has planned her entire day on getting a swim in but without getting her hair wet. She must never, ever get her hair wet. She will sit by the pool wearing her hat and very large sunglasses. Older lady will carefully monitor the activities of the pool staying well clear of rocket launcher Dad and ICBM child. She has carefully observed pool activity over the course of two, perhaps three days and understands when the pool gets quieter and the children leave to be fed. Then she will take her opportunity, walk over to the pool steps and ever so slowly lower herself into the pool and commence her gentle swim.

Older lady must do breaststroke, which keeps her head out of the water and therefore her hair dry. Once she completes her two lengths, she must decide whether or not to risk another two lengths. She could gamble it all by doing a little more breaststroke or call it quits and get out of the pool having completed that glorious swim, with her hair dry. Victory!

The ass-tanner

The ass-tanner is a young woman over the age of 20 with a fantastic figure. She only ever lies on her front to tan her ass. She will do this for the entire week and must wear teeny-tiny bottoms. Some may even call it a very small piece of material but they are sold as “bikini bottoms.” The workaholic Dad who would rather be in his air-conditioned office, wearing a suit in front of his laptop will now and again indulge in a very small glance at this young woman. He knows he shouldn’t, but you can’t beat evolution.

Young men

Next there are the young men or what I like to call fresh meat. These guys have been “looks maxing” and listening to the gym bro podcasts. They have been working on their physique all year and now finally can show it off. The mothers married to the workaholic Dad sometimes indulge in a quick glance at Fresh Meat while tending to the children. We deserve it.

The young couple

The young couple are glued to each other inside and outside of the pool. They are always very good looking. They often arrive poolside suspiciously late and slink off a little earlier than everybody else, to read their books. Workaholic Dad often remembers wistfully when he was once part of such a hot couple. But then he gets a ball in the head and one of his kids demands he be rocket launcher dad. He enjoys it, mostly.

The sun worshipper

Also at the pool and in direct opposite to the shade-seekers are the sun worshippers. I noticed a very attractive sun worshipper on my holiday. She had a beautiful figure and would come down to the pool at the same time every day, take out her accelerator oil and slather it all over her body, which was already deeply tan. This oil looked suspiciously like what I would pour over the family roast chicken every Sunday but it seemed to work for her. Said young lady would then very delicately lower herself down onto a floating lilo and sail off into the middle of the pool where she could avail of the cooler temperatures to prolong the tanning session. She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a hat or even sunglasses.

The swimmers

Finally, there are the swimmers. This was me. These strange creatures are hell bent on completing at least 10 lengths of front-stroke in The Communal Pool. At the very busiest times this is something of a challenge like the Krypton Factor.

First we must try and get around the young lady who is working on her deep tan on the lilo. You also must be aware of the children who are floating on various dolphin or crocodile shaped rings. Now and again as you are completing your front-stroke, you see a child submarine who has dived right underneath you to get to the other side. While the five-year-old Spanish boy is doing this, there is always a risk that his older brother will launch himself off the shoulders of rocket launcher Dad and land right on top of you.

This is the challenge but when you finally reach the other end, you have achieved something of significance. If you can do this eight more times without getting injured, you’ve essentially won the Olympics.

I can’t ever really see myself giving up the glories of The Communal Pool. I like hearing the foreign accents all around me. I enjoy seeing the rocket launcher Dad have fun. I even indulged in a few glances of the fresh meat. I think a private pool or worse a childfree holiday would just be dull.

Long live The Communal Pool which confirms every stereotype. The British and Irish are pale, the Spanish like to tan and youth is wasted on the young.

(Empty seats at the Communal pool attempting to reserve a place. This is a serious breach of the laws and customs of the Communal pool, but I didn’t complain.)

The five young men, all of whom died in the crash of their own making, weaponized a BMW to attack three sisters and a child. At 3.04am, the BMW being driven at high speed by the young men crashed head-on into the Hyundai which was being driven by the sisters.

Sisters Niamh and Alma Kinsella, both in their 30s, were travelling in the front of their second car, while younger sister Ella Hendricken, in her 20s, and Alma’s seven-year-old son Yemi were in the back seat.

Yesterday, a photograph of the three sisters whose lives have been changed forever, was released.

(L-R, Ella Hendricken, Niamh Kinsella and Alma Kinsella.)

According to reporting from the Irish Sun, one local who lived a few doors down in the quiet estate of Alam and her son Yemi said, “I used to see Yemi playing outside, he was such a happy boy. They were heading to the UK for a wedding with their aunties.”

A woman who has known Alma for 20 years and has lived a few doors down from her is also devastated by news of the crash. Speaking from her holiday in Canada, the woman told the Irish Sun: “I’ve been crying all day. Yemi is my son’s best friend. He’s an awesome, amazing boy. They’re an amazing family. Alma is amazing. On her lunch breaks she would bring my son and Yemi to the park for 30 minutes, get them ice cream, come back home. She’s just amazing. It’s so shocking to hear this.”

The five men have been named. The Gardaí believed that the BMW was sold (not stolen) on August 11 for €1,100 to an associate of one of the teenagers. I wonder where they got the funds for that? They also believe that the young men tried to break into three other cars in Athy before travelling to Moone. This morning the Daily Mail are reporting that “the same group of young men had carried out a burglary in the area just hours before they died. Garda investigators are also probing whether they were part of a number of attempted car robberies in the same region over the course of the night.

All five of the dead teenagers were wearing masks when gardaí came upon the grisly crash scene. Friends of the teenagers posted pictures of the young men wearing balaclavas and driving cars at dangerous speeds.”

It has also been reported that on the night of the collision that the men sped down the wrong way on the motorway at least on two occasions. Gardaí positioned a stinger device at an exit ramp at Junction 3, in the expectation the group would, again, turn off the motorway as they had once before. But the BMW continued on at high speed and collided with the vehicle carrying the family.

Meanwhile Irish politicians have implemented Standard Operating Procedure. They are looking to introduce a new criminal offence and blaming social media for this attack.

Unnecessary new criminal offence

Minister Jim O’Callaghan TD as well as blaming the five men for this horrific attack with a vehicle is proposing a new stand-alone offence of driving the wrong way down the motorway. A new offence of “wrong-way driving.” This is now amadán territory. You don’t need to have a law degree to suspect, to make an educated guess that perhaps, just perhaps, driving the wrong way down the fucking motorway at high speed might already be an offence.

For the record the Minister does have a law degree, three in fact from the same institutions I got mine – UCD, Cambridge and qualifying as a barrister in Dublin. Therefore I know that he knows that this is pure politics.

Don’t you think “wrong way driving” might count as an dangerous driving, an offence under section 53 of the Road Traffic Act 1961? That states a “person shall not drive a vehicle in a public place at a speed or in a manner which, having regard to all the circumstances of the case (including the nature, condition and use of the place and the amount of traffic which then actually is or might reasonably be expected then to be therein) is dangerous to the public.”

The Minister also wants an Garda Síochána to be able to pursue these criminals going the wrong way down the motorway, and will receive training in “high-risk vehicle pursuits.” If that sounds dangerous, that’s because it is.

First why do they need the pursuit if we already have the spanking new offence of wrong way driving? I thought the new offence was going to solve the problem – oh what’s that you say Minister, that offence will just be ignored the same way the dangerous driving offence is already ignored?

Secondly, I explained my caution on this issue yesterday. This has only been reinforced by the report in the Irish Times today that the gardaí are to get their specialist training from – wait for it – specialists at Devon and Cornwall police. They have a centre of excellence, allegedly. Excellence and Devon and Cornwall police are not words I’d usually put together in a sentence.

English and Irish readers should know all about Devon and Cornwall police from the episode of, when they told you the murder of Ann Widdecombe was a burglary gone wrong.

Blame social media

Also part of the Irish political handbook when something like this happens is to blame social media. It is all Tik-Tok’s fault. They are allowing these morons to upload clips of themselves driving at speed, driving the wrong way, and generally terrorising the law abiding citizens of this Great Republic. On the RTÉ airways yesterday was the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth over social media, how we need to regulate social media, bring in the regulator and just get regulating. There was some wee English fella – he was English I tell - you from the Ministry of Truth, Coimisiún na Meán informing us how they were in touch with and investigating various platforms and what they were going to do about the scumbags posting and boasting about their latest criminal activities. Interestingly enough, the radio waves were not filled with any information as to the background of these young men. I do not believe they were all never once involved with the police. In fact, the Irish Independent are reporting that the “Leader of M9 crash gang was on bail and banned from leaving his county. Kamil Pustkowski (17) was well known to gardaí and was facing charges before the courts.” Of course he was.

Look, TikTok should have obviously take down this material. You can ban TikTok completely for all I care. But neither this, nor the stupid new law of wrong way driving, nor the hot pursuit training are the real solutions here. What the government must do is fund the gardaí, get more of them on the streets to stop the car thieving and the burglaries and the general ‘low level’ crime committed and when they do apprehend these scumbags, they are prosecuted and jailed.

Getting criminals off the streets reduces their opportunities to commit more crime. This includes but is not limited to, weaponizing high speed cars like BMWs and smashing them into women and children causing them catastrophic and lifelong physical and mental injuries.

How can that be so difficult for the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan TD to understand? Do you really need three law degrees (one of the Minister’s was actually in criminology) to grasp that simple concept? Young men in prison are far away from the law-abiding citizens.

Every time you go easy on criminals you are not only permitting them to carry out more crimes, but you are signalling to them that the criminal justice system is not serious, and that they can do whatever they want. It is innocent people that suffer for the misguided compassion of others.

Enough is enough. Make crime illegal.

The family were all packed up for the short trip to England. The little one must have been excited. As they were travelling along the motorway, the M9 in Co. Kildare, a high powered BMW was driving the other way – the wrong way – and smashed into them in a head on collision.

The two-car collision happened at Moone on the M9 Northbound at Junction 3 at 3am. It must have been a devastating scene for the first responders.

Some of my English readers may have seen some headlines from the Telegraph, Sky News and others that gave the impression that the BMW, which was driving the wrong way, was being driven on its own. Or perhaps you thought that there was an accident in Ireland which resulted in the tragic deaths of five ‘teenage boys.’ That is not what happened.

What happened is that these 5 “teenage boys” drove a BMW, evaded an Garda Síochána (the police), before driving down the motorway the wrong way and ploughing into this innocent family.

The five “teenage boys” were all killed after they drove against traffic on the M9 and collided with the sisters. They were named as Jeremy O’Brien, 18, from Carlow; Alex McCarthy, 17, from Carlow; Joey Carthy, 15, from Athy, Kildare; Jack Kennedy, 17, also from Athy; and Kamil Pustkowski, 17, from Limerick. They were all pronounced dead at the scene of the collision.

Some people, the Taoiseach, the local parish priest and others have expressed sympathy for the young men and their families. I won’t be doing that. Also, can we stop calling them teenage boys – only one was 15 the rest were young men, 17 or 18.

Minister of State with Responsibility for Road Safety, Sean Canney said his thoughts were with those affected by this morning’s collision. “Every life lost on our roads is a tragedy, leaving families, friends and communities to deal with devastating loss.”

Local parish priest Father Seamus McEntee said all of those affected would be in the thoughts and prayers of the local community. “We are deeply saddened at this news and we extend our deepest sympathies to the families of those who have died and to those who were injured.”

The Taoiseach Micheál Martin said his thoughts and prayers were with the family who had been injured. “The lives of five teenagers have also been lost as a result. Every death on our roads brings untold grief to families and communities. There can be no tolerance for this reckless behaviour that we have seen on our roads recently. It must stop.”

One local councillor said that he hoped those injured fully recovered.

The Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan TD said “we saw outrageously dangerous criminal behaviour by five teenagers that resulted in them losing their own lives and also inflicting serious injuries on a family that were lawfully using the M9.” O’Callaghan added “I want to condemn in the strongest possible terms that reckless criminal behaviour.”

A few observations, much of it obvious. First, I understand that the Taoiseach and the local parish priest cannot call these four young men and the 15 year old what they are: thugs and scumbags who in their final act attempted to nearly murder an innocent family on their way to the airport. But that’s what they are.

Even making allowances for the fact that teenage boys and young men are the stupidest and most foolish people to ever walk God’s green earth, what these men were doing was not just reckless but evil. They each paid with their life.

The Minister for Justice (who seems to have engaged his brain) rightly said that this was “..using a vehicle as a weapon, and it is a lethal form of behaviour that, as we saw over the weekend, results in deaths and serious injuries.” Exactly. This was an attack not an accident.

(A horrific scene for first responders, who only discovered the fifth body later in the day. What is left of the BMW is on the left, the car carrying the sisters and child is on the right.)

Secondly, what has happened to the young family hit by these car terrorists is life changing. The three sisters and the little boy are all in hospital in a critical or serious condition. I don’t want to be too harsh on the councillor that wished them a full recovery but he should understand that no one, ever makes a full recovery from an attack like this. Their physical injuries will involve years of operations and further treatment. Their mental injuries will be lifelong. Who could ever recover from the sheer terror of seeing, perhaps at the last minute, a high speed BMW coming your way head on, on the motorway as you are carefully driving to the airport. It’s unspeakable.

If Alma and Niamh Kinsella and Ella Hendricken and her nephew eventually leave hospital after this horror, it is too a different life, a completely and utterly different life. The little boy should have been going back to school in a few weeks. The Lord only knows his condition now.

In the meantime an almighty political row has broken out over whether the police should be permitted to engage in a hot pursuit of these joyriding car terrorists. Irish police are not currently trained to pursue vehicles. Most people seem to think this is a great idea. I’m not sure I agree.

I remember quite a few innocent people being killed by police officers in pursuit in London. One police officer was found guilty of gross misconduct after he killed a woman and her child during a police pursuit. Another two police officers have been charged with death by dangerous driving after they killed a heavily pregnant woman and her unborn child while in pursuit. I remember this horrific case at the time. Andrew Brown was struck and killed by a marked police car in Whitton Road, Hounslow, on 1 November 2019. The police officer in that case pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and was given a suspended sentence. There are plenty of other examples.

If people think allowing gardaí to engage in hot pursuit of a high-powered vehicle driven dangerously by young men who have no regard for anyone else or indeed their own lives, will solve the problem then I urge caution. I think you have been watching too many police dramas on Netflix. This isn’t S.W.A.T. This is real life.

Indeed, if you truly understood the motivation and values of these men, “likes” on social media, you would understand that the possibility of being chased by the police either in a built-up residential area or the wrong way down the motorway will only encourage them. It will make car terrorism even more attractive as it will look great on the ‘socials.’ This is the kind of total idiocy you are dealing with.

On an educated guess, these young men will have been known to police before they destroyed the lives of four innocent people. I suspect they could have been stopped a long time before they drove that BMW and went on a rampage. That is what we should be focussing on.

(Edit. An earlier version of this piece, in the final paragraph said the BMW was stolen. Police believe this was not case.)

Further developments on this story are here:

Yesterday, the serious case review into the brutal and sadistic murder of Sara Sharif by her father Urfan Sharif and her stepmother Beinash Batool was released.

Sky News “a damning independent report into the failings by the various authorities who came into contact with Sara Sharif has said the 10-year-old should never have been placed in the care of her father and stepmother, describing the killers as a “lethal combination.”

The Telegraph reported “that Sara Sharif’s neighbours did not report concerns that she was being abused to police because they were scared of being called racist, a safeguarding review has found.”

Yet again a Pakistani man was given a free pass to abuse a girl, this time his own daughter. I’m calling it was it is - Pakistani privilege.

The Telegraph, “the report also found there were failures to properly consider the severity of Sharif’s history of domestic abuse.

It said: “There were numerous times before Sara was born and throughout her life, that the seriousness and significance of [Sharif] as a serial perpetrator of domestic abuse was overlooked, not acted on and underestimated by almost all professionals.” I wonder why Sharif’s abusive behaviour was overlooked? Do you think if he was called John Smith it would have been ‘overlooked?’ I don’t think so.

The report concluded that authorities must “maintain the capacity to “think the unthinkable” to support families and care for their children.

‘Think the unthinkable.’ Even the safeguarding review into systemic failures around the care of a child that resulted in her murder cannot be clear in their language.

No, no, no. It is not about thinking the unthinkable. We know Pakistani men in Britain live in patriarchal misogynistic cultures, where honour and shame are the key motivators in behaviour.

What the Diversity is Our Strength Tyranny did was to train social workers away from thinking the fucking obvious, namely that a man who has many previous instances of domestic abuse and is from Pakistan is capable of abusing his own daughter.

Instead, time and again they ignored concrete complaints of abuse made by his then partner and in fact Sara herself. “Sharif was awarded custody of Sara in 2019, despite the judge being aware of numerous allegations of abuse and domestic violence against him.” Of course he was awarded custody despite numerous allegations of abuse and domestic violence made against him. Urfan Sharif has Pakistani male privilege.

As I explained here Judge Alison Raeside gave Urfan Sharif custody of his child Sara despite the following:

1. Urfan Sharif had 4 arrests for suspected violence against 3 women, including Sara’s mother.

2. He has been accused of holding women against their will and threatening to kill them with a knife.

3. An accusation that Urfan Sharif punched, punched that is, a four month old baby, Sara’s sibling. What kind of person punches a 4 month old baby?

4. The judge also had a report in front of her that described how Sara’s siblings had “unexplained bruising, bites and burns”.

Yet despite all of this Judge Alison Raeside returned Sara Sharif to her father. You wouldn’t return a dog to its owner who had these kinds of accusations made against him but it is fine to send a child back there.

Back in December 2024 I wrote for TCW:

So, TCW reader, save yourself the hassle of reading the case review: I can tell you what will be in it. Chances missed. He was clever and manipulative. Blah blah blah. You know why Urfan Sharif got away with it for so long. I know why he got away with it for so long. And so do those who had multiple chances to save Sara Sharif from a life and death of unrelenting cruelty, barbarity and sadism. Shame on them.

I also said:

Do not be confused between this hearing at that family court, and the test to be satisfied, and who said what about whom. Let’s just keep this simple. If Urfan Sharif was called John Smith or Gregg Wallace and had this kind of history, I do not believe he would have been awarded custody of his daughter Sara in 2019. But because his name is Urfan Sharif he can do whatever the hell he wants, especially to women and children and no one says stop.

Other women, such as social workers or teachers, might try to stop him, but they are ignored.

These men from Pakistan come over to Britain on a nonsense study visa or work visa or whatever it is, and they do whatever the hell they like. They can rape their way through Rotherham and Oxford, and no one says stop.

They can traffic working-class white girls and rape them for years on end and no one says stop. They can threaten to set them on fire, or lock them in cages, and it will take years for the police to take action. Years.

And they can import their first cousin from their village in Pakistan to marry them, and that’s fine too. There’s no push-back until now, and when a scientist conducts research into how damaging cousin-marriage is, it gets memory-holed.

We all know why Sara Sharif, trapped in the family home after a family court judge awarded her abusive and sadistic father custody of her tiny body, ‘was the victim of repeated beatings and scaldings, forced to leave school and carry out laundry chores for her stepmother while wearing a hijab to obscure her growing number of bruises and wounds’.

We all know why ‘a post-mortem examination revealed the horrific nature of Sara’s death. Sara had endured 71 recent injuries, which included bleeding on her brain, multiple bruises on her lungs, a rare broken hyoid bone in her neck, and a large area of ulceration across her buttocks from an iron burn. Human bite marks were present across her body, with the evidence indicating that she had been hooded, beaten and restrained while scalding water had been poured over her ankles.’

This happened because Diversity is our Strength. We would not want to upset the multi-culti apple cart, would we? Wouldn’t want to point out that there can be vast cultural differences between immigrants. That would be racist. Even writing this might make me a Far-Right Thug. Remember it is much more important to sentence English grandfathers to entirely disproportionate sentences for Far-Right Thuggery than it is to charge and jail domestic abusers from Pakistan. Domestic abusers who treat women like trash.

I don’t know about you but I really have had enough of this Diversity is our Strength derangement syndrome. I’d settle for the basic principle that everyone is equal before the law, so that if you are accused of extremely serious offences, you are charged and tried, not awarded custody of your daughter who you go on to torture and murder.

Sara Sharif was returned to her sadistic father and murdered by him because because Pakistani men enjoy privilege and protection in Britain. For the Elite, it’s a price they are willing to pay for Diversity is our Strength. Shame on them.

A few words on the police and legal team that secured some justice for Preston Davey. This was an extremely difficult case to put together. It was (on my count) a 25 count indictment against Jamie Varley including murder and 4 counts against John McGowan-Fazakerley including the always difficult to prove charge of causing or allowing the death of a child.

Lancashire Police, (DCI Andy Fallows is from the Force Major Investigation Team) recovered Jamie Varley’s phone and without that phone the case would have been limited. The detectives put together over a number of years (Preston was murdered in 2023) an air-tight case of emotional neglect, cruelty, sexual assault and murder against Preston by Jamie Varley. The facts are here.

The CPS built a convincing case. They must have chosen the charges very carefully, including assault by penetration instead of rape.

Dr Gifford an expert in child sexual abuse and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s clinical lead produced a 173 page report for the trial. Home Office pathologist Dr Alison Armour ruled out drowning and concluded the cause of death was an upper airway obstruction. Both were critical in securing these convictions.

But it was prosecution counsel Peter Wright KC of Lincoln House Chambers (called to the bar in 1981, appointed silk in 1999) who presented this case to the jury. Simon Diver of 7 Harrington St Chamber was junior counsel. At the end of the 6 week trial this legal team together with the solicitors made the jury sure that both defendants were guilty of these charges.

Even getting a jury out to deliberate after such a long trial which included very distressing evidence was (in my opinion) an achievement. The first jury had to be discharged after about week. We do not know why but it was discharged in its entirety. This meant that Peter Wright KC had to open the case again to a new jury.

Over the course of 6 weeks Mr Wright KC with junior counsel Simon Diver presented the case for the Crown, including phone evidence recovered by Lancashire police.

Peter Wright KC’s cross-examination of Jamie Varley was forensic. It was a devastating dissection of the man. I believe Peter Wright KC may have been one of the few people to ever stand up to Jamie Varley. He pulled apart Jamie Varley’s claim that Preston Davey had to be pulled from the bath. He carefully and comprehensively exposed his lies to the jury.

(Preston Davey.)

Mr Wright KC put it to Jamie Varley in XX ‘This little boy was your plaything and you routinely abused him for your own gratification, didn’t you?’

Mr Wright KC further put it to Jamie Varley, “I suggest you were obsessed with this little boy in a sexual nature.”

It was a similar cross-examination of the co-defendant. You knew what was going on, you left Preston at the mercy of Jamie Varley.

At the final week right before closing speeches, the jury lost two members for family reasons.

The remaining jury retired before lunch on Thursday (11.6) and returned their verdicts after lunch on Monday (15.6). These either 10 ordinary members of the public took their time to decide this case, considered the distressing evidence including photographs and videos the police have refused to release. They returned unanimous guilty verdicts on both charges.

The trial judge Mr Justice Turner excused the members of the jury from jury service for life. Jamie Varley was given a rare whole life order for the murder of Preston Davey.

Court reporters who covered this trial, said it was the worst trial they had ever reported on. There should be a public inquiry as to why this child was given to these two men.

Three thousand seven hundred and fifty foreign men coming to a village near you. What can you say about this madness? Who voted for this?

The details as per the Times “the government is using an “urgent” planning process for two of the sites — Bicester and Barnham — under which the Home Office has submitted the applications directly to Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, rather than to the local planning authorities.”

Further, “the fast-track approach is being used because the sites are deemed to be in the national interest, but Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory MPs whose constituencies are near the bases are concerned that it is undemocratic. The applications will not involve a formal public consultation but are instead expected to use a “community engagement plan” to inform local areas about the decision and take feedback.

Only the main statutory bodies — including National Highways, Natural England, local highway authorities and the local planning authority — will be formally consulted.”

Undemocratic. Of course it’s undemocratic. Look, as I argued on Thursday, which some readers disagreed with, all conservatives should oppose this. Just because the Prime Minister is sticking it to the middle-class over immigration doesn’t make it right.

Before I get to my now familiar adjectives to describe this latest outrage I must point out that this is very similar to how the Irish government imposes its ‘diverse vision’ of the world over here yonder.

We don’t have ‘disused’ RAF bases to house these wondrous newcomers so instead the Irish government pays private companies to house international protection applicants (as they are called here) in local hotels, hostels and other places. My local hotel in Drogheda the D Hotel is currently an IPAS centre. The most well known one is City West.

And just like His Majesty’s government, our government of this great Republic also likes to by-pass local communities on what is a major change of use to a key community amenity such as a hotel. These IPAS centres are also exempt from planning laws and the Irish government puts these centres in small towns and villages in places such as Tipperary, Mayo and Donegal. It costs the taxpayer millions to house asylum seekers.

Parties like Sinn Féin have introduced the Repeal of Exempted Development Regulations Bill 2026 to terminate the exemptions and restore local democratic oversight but this unlikely to get very far.

I know my well informed and educated readers on both islands understand what’s going on. Maybe you were colonised, maybe you were the coloniser. It doesn’t matter. There are a boat load of military aged men from some far off land with a very different culture to either Yorkshire or Tipperary coming your way. And because of ‘planning exemptions’ there is fuck all you can do about it. Of course it’s undemocratic. No sane majority of people would consent or vote for this.

One reader rightly asked me, what can we do. Voting obviously doesn’t work and I never, ever advocate political violence. Some other reader suggested civil disobedience. Perhaps this is the only option.

The truth is little else matters if there are 4000 men heading to your tiny village. A 1% cut to income tax means nothing. Slashing your VAT bill is pointless. Hiring a few more doctors or teachers is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This can’t go on.

There should be some sort of general strike, and out right refusal to pay tax - a poll tax moment.

Citizens are not morally obliged to co-operate with a government that is fundamentally changing the make-up of their country.

Enough is enough.