Bexley is Bonkers - Bonkers blog August 2024

21 August - Bexley Council has employed another misguided loyalist who, despite overwhelming evidence, will not accept that they broke the law

Over several years Bexley Council has been plagued by the most awful incompetent managers. In general terms they admitted as much only a few months ago.

Probably the worst examples involved care services. Some very poor decisions led to the death of a three year old boy in 2011 and a criminally stupid bit of budget saving led to the death of an old lady and a huge cover up involving paying off staff with gagging clauses.

And then we have the liars who value their jobs so much that all thought of integrity flies out of their mind. The last time Bexley Council attacked me with lies which they had the News Shopper repeat they were intent on covering up a minor indiscretion by a Councillor.

The correct response would have been “Whoops, sorry, we got that wrong. It won’t happen again” and end the matter there and then.

Instead several witness statements, from Councillors as well as members of the public, went to the police who thought the lies were sufficiently serious to warrant a file being sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. A year later the police apologised to me for the CPS having lost the evidence and the whole thing petered out; but that merely illustrates the corruption that pervades such organisations and in no way lessens the Misconduct in a Public Office which was rife within Bexley Council.

I thought such days had gone but I was wrong. Kevin Taylor, Bexleyְ’s recently appointed Deputy Director of Children’s Services, has written to me to confirm the view expressed earlier that blocking the King’s Highway is acceptable. What is it about Care Services managers? How many inadequate OFSTED ratings have they achieved?

He begins as you might expect of a complete idiot by saying that I [that is me!] do not accept that Madam Wilkinson was legally parked while he thinks she was. No one at Bexley Council can see that yellow line offences are not on a par with road blocking as defined by The Highways Act 1980.

He like everyone else involved believes that as there are no yellow lines Kelly Wilkinson can park where she likes. The police and Bexley’s Highways Department both think otherwise. My Stage 2 complaint gave a link to the Highways Department’s report. Kevin Taylor ignored it.

Mr. Taylor says the photograph does not prove the road was blocked. Tell that to the driver of a fire engine. Taylor also ignores the fact that I had two neighbours as witnesses to the fact that my car would not fit through the gap that Kelly Wilkinson left. (One had returned home before Wilkinson appeared.) Three residents and a photograph are subordinate to Kevin Taylor’s need to back his staff at all costs; to whatever reputation he might once have had.

“My Officers refute any suggestion that the offence [road blocking] occurred.” Black is white in Kevin Taylor’s tiny mind.

His logical brain goes on to claim that the July CPZ consultation proves his case that no offence occurred. It is totally irrelevant to my complaint. It proves only that he is not as clever as he thinks he is.

I can assure you that Council Officers do not believe that they have the right to block the Kings Highway and from my investigation, I can find no conclusive evidence to support your complaint that Ms Wilkinson did this on 28 May and I can therefore not uphold this element of your complaint.

Not a word of apology anywhere. The fact that I was unable to drive away from home was a figment of my imagination and of no consequence whatever compared to Bexley Council’s requirements.

Mr. Taylor confirms he is not very bright by sending me a Word document which can be edited, instead of a PDF which any professional would have used. He also says that I can appeal his decision to The Social Care Ombudsman; as if they would be interested in an offence against The Highways Act 1980.

Mr. Taylor is already wasting more than £100,000 of taxpayers’ money every year by being paid for uttering nonsense. I do not intend to add to that bill.

I think a more fitting memorial to his stupidity is an Index bearing his name to help Google find him, a permanent link from the Bonkers’ banner and maybe regurgitate it here every day I am short of material.

For the record, this was my Stage 2 complaint to the long suffering and always helpful Lorraine Hand.

Dear Ms. Hand,

I am afraid I cannot accept Ms. Clark’s contention that that Ms. Wilkinson was legally parked or that “we deem Kelly’s behaviour to be appropriate”.

I did not refer to any yellow line contravention and therefore Ms. Clark’s reference to Parking Services was not appropriate and their response irrelevant. My complaint, though not stated in great detail, was that Ms. Wilkinson was in contravention of Section 137 of the Highways Act 1980. If reference had been made to your own Highways Department they would have been able to confirm.

In their submission to the Cabinet Member a year ago https://democracy.bexley.gov.uk/documents/s110206/Decision%20Report.pdf they confirm in the opening paragraphs that activity identical to that of Ms. Wilkinson has indeed resulted in police activity in my road.

Part 1 of Ms. Clark’s response to me is wrong in law and must be withdrawn. It was originally not uppermost in my mind but I did not expect to be answered by a manager so ignorant that she does not know that Council staff are no more able to go around blocking the King’s Highway than anyone else.

Part 2 is more subjective but more important. I would contend that any reasonable individual upon realising that they had blocked a road to through traffic would hurry along and make an excuse for their criminal behaviour and instantly defuse the situation. There were at least 30 seconds in which to do that. It was only in the final moments that I spotted the Bexley Council badge and momentarily impeded door closure to give time to read it.

If that is intimidatory it does not explain why Ms. Wilkinson said nothing on her 70 metre 30 second return journey to her car and is in no way an excuse for the preceding behaviour. i.e. Total silence. The ‘Facebook’ excuse offered is pure desperation. It was a comment made while Ms. Wilkinson was driving off. Totally irrelevant to what went before which was the subject of my complaint.

Do you really believe that after committing a criminal offence, albeit one which fell short of becoming a police incident, any Council employee including managers such as Ms. Clark may legitimately offer no explanation or apology and that is judged to be “appropriate”? Is it really acceptable that any Council employee, especially one whose job is visiting vulnerable people is so lacking in people skills that he/she cannot communicate with residents?

You ask what can be done to resolve this situation. It requires only that Bexley Council accepts that it and its employees are subject to the law of the land, in this case the Highways Act, instead of claiming otherwise, and that the arrogance on display on 28th May is not appropriate behaviour in any circumstances.

regards,

18 August (Part 2) - Not a riot

I should have been reducing the height of a Yew tree but instead found myself watching yet another live-streamed protest. This time it was held in Bournemouth where Rent-A-Mob had gathered around the war memorial waving Palestinian flags chanting River to the Sea, Nazi Scum and Refugees are Welcome Here. In reality, shouting in favour of ever longer GP queues and the grooming of young girls.

Across the road in the Town Hall car park was a smaller number of people with Union and St. George’s flags who were much quieter. Between the two groups were police from the Dorset, Hampshire, Thames Valley, Avon and Somerset and Devon and Cornwall forces who didn’t have much to do. They asked Rent-A-Mob to remove their masks but few did and they told off an old man who lived nearby who crossed the road.

Rent-A-Mob didn’t like being photographed and they had physically attacked the cameraman the previous day in Piccadilly so he was naturally reluctant to get too close. It is odd that they are so shy about being photographed if they truly believe in what they are doing. Some say it is a paid mob which might explain things.

They have also learned to play unrelated popular songs very loudly to drown out any YouTube commentary and sometimes trigger the YouTube copyright algorithm which causes the stream to close down.

Over fewer than three hours all the patriots drifted away but Rent-A-Mob remained which may confirm that they are paid by the hour.

Anyway, not a lot to report, to my mind the most interesting thing happened later. A Muslim friend phoned and after we both condemned the rioting of a couple of weeks ago he told me that all the protests such as today’s in Bournemouth were orchestrated from overseas by Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage. As anyone who follows these things will know, the two men don’t get along together. I have learned to keep quiet and studiously avoid the J word but such misinformation among the Muslim community is worrying.

But who can blame them? The Daily Telegraph initially described the scene in Bournemouth as “a riot” and so did an idiot Conservative MP. Specifically about Bournemouth, “These rioters must be stamped out”.

He knows as much about what has been happening recently as I do about the Conservative’s Leadership Election. Absolutely nothing. They still deserve annihilation.

18 August (Part 1) - Another dump dumped by a Housing Association

No sooner was the Social Housing sell off updated and another one showed up. 60 Heath Road, Crayford.

It is a year since the first of these sales was noted and I am finding it difficult to check on whether any are repeat auctions of any that were not sold first time around. This one required a careful check on Google Street View. It is time to generate an Index to the Houses lost.

17 August - Pile ’em high; sell ’em cheap

One of Labour’s pie in the sky plans is that they will build far more houses than the Conservatives ever did and hope that nobody remembers the abysmal failure Sadiq Khan who has catastrophically missed his housing target in London.

It’s quite likely that Angela Rayner will not build quickly enough to even keep up with the rate of sales by the Housing Associations. Here’s another unattractive bunch being sold off at a relatively low price in and around Bexley.

Below is an updated list of properties which have been deemed to be almost uninhabitable and beyond hope of easy maintenance

Bourne Mead, Bexley
Marden Crescent, Bexley
18 Pengarth Road, Bexley
34 Pengarth Road, Bexley
53 Pengarth Road, Bexley
? Pengarth Road, Bexley
44 Stansted Crescent, Bexley
Parkside Avenue, Bexleyheath
Burnham Road, Crayford
Crayford Road, Crayford
Dale End, Crayford
81 Heath Road, Crayford
235 Iron Mill Lane, Crayford
234 Maiden Lane, Crayford
? Maiden Lane, Crayford (Not 234)
4 Medway Road, Crayford
Russell Close, Crayford
Stour Road, Crayford
Jenningtree Road, Erith
Springhead Road, Erith
Ellenburgh Road, Sidcup
50 Mallard Walk, Sidcup
56 Maylands Drive, Sidcup (a flat)
Maylands Drive, Sidcup (semi-detached)
Partridge Road, Sidcup
30 St. Andrews Road, Sidcup
19 Berwick Road, Welling
18 Burnell Avenue, Welling
39 Burnell Avenue, Welling
79 Darenth Road, Welling

16 August - Anti-establishment rhetoric

In April 2011 a tyrannical Council Leader called in her friends in the police and asked them to find a way to prevent me reporting on Council meetings in a less than flattering way. Someone with half a brain may have decided a more sensible course would be to call or write to me to ask why I did it.

The police duly obliged and threatened me with arrest if I continued to criticise Councillors.

With the help of my Labour MP - something that would be unimaginable today - the police eventually wrote to me to apologise for acting outside the law on the whim of an undemocratic Council Leader.

Today, under a Labour Government, a man charged with publishing anti-establishment rhetoric and having no love for Muslims has been sent to jail for three years. His first ever conviction.

The Labour Party under Starmer is a very different beast to that of 13 years ago. Harassment

15 August - Sir Flip Flop

14 August (Part 2) - Government Policy is criminal

Labour’s Deputy Prime Minister told us just before the election that she thought that every part of the Kingdom should take its fair share of asylum seekers and I suppose that until a way is found to disincentivise their arrival it is a reasonable point of view.

Presumably it has now become Government Policy and it is OK to spread the Socialist Word.

But don’t be tempted to help Angela out.

In particular don’t compress her desires down to six little words, even 100% polite little words, and post them twice alongside a photo of our new neighbours on a Facebook page.

That would be very silly indeed. Someone who did exactly that has been put behind bars for twelve weeks, discounted to eight after pleading guilty and deleting the comments. Backing or amplifying Government policy is now a criminal offence if it can be contorted into a perceived negative.

In the run up to the election I knew that a Labour Government would cost us a lot of money but consoled myself with the thought that it might be worth it if another generation learned that Labour Governments are a very bad idea.

What I hadn’t bargained for is that anyone who speaks up in public or even in private has to be watching their back in case an agent of the state is listening ready to pounce.

Why eight weeks for that?

In 2012 a Bexley Councillor accused his neighbour of encouraging all and sundry to put dog faeces through his letter box. It wasn’t true and I still have a copy of the ‘offending’ Tweet and the Councillor’s signed statement to the police.

Thanks to the perjury which comes easily to some people including police officers the accused was found guilty and given 80 hours of community service. The conviction was overturned on appeal by which time the community service had been served.

Eight weeks in jail for mischievously commenting on Government Policy, a bit of litter picking for dog crap through a letter box. It doesnְ’t make sense.

I repeat; the whole case was built on a lie and was eventually thrown out on Appeal but the legal costs were not reimbursed.

The Councillor still sits on Bexley Council.

Note: Screenshot from Daily Telegraph.

14 August (Part 1) - Back to basics

Bexley Council has conducted a survey on introducing Controlled Parking Zones which it hopes will improve the parking situation around Abbey Wood station.

Everyone I have spoken to is in favour so my guess is that in due course the CPZs will be introduced. Unfortunately as proposed it will not completely solve the problems caused by inconsiderate parking.

LX24 NNU created considerable danger on the corner of Carrill Way and Abbey Road today by parking on the corner. For more than an hour and probably longer.

The car displays a blue badge but that does not mean that the driver is not an entitled inconsiderate moron uninterested in anyone but himself, or herself.

The CPZ will not put an end to such stupidity.

The van YT69 VEF which belongs to Preservation Treatments 0800 980 4937 has blocked the road to all but the smallest of vehicles since early this morning. There is nothing in the CPZ proposals (although I have requested that there should be) to stop him doing that for at least part of the day and at weekends in future.

Incidentally, I had passed the cyclist in Photo 2 just a few minutes earlier on the Harrow Manorway flyover. He was wobbling along close to the middle of the road with a phone in his hand and none on the handle bars causing me to drive on the wrong side of the road to avoid splatting him. I am in awe of someone who can briefly do a wheelie while watching his phone on a bike. And here he is in Abbey Road doing much the same and entirely free of the fear of retribution.

13 August - It could get worse

As you might imagine I have become the pub bore, quite literally, passing on my live viewing of the so called and actual riots from Plymouth to Newcastle to people whose knowledge came only from the BBC and The Daily Mail. I think their eyes were opened. None were aware that Islamists waving machetes have become a protected species (the police in Stoke asked them to kindly return their weapons to storage) or that the brain-dead love to destroy their neighbours’ houses.

It was not a sample that would satisfy a polling company because none were aged under 45 and males outnumbered females two to one. Three were former Union officials - I didn’t learn until yesterday that I have a cousin who was a Union Convener, whatever that may be. Two were immigrants albeit not recent ones and two were off the scale Left wingers. The remainder were as far as I know normal law-abiding people but I do not know any extreme right wingers or hooligans to add balance to my informal survey.

The Left wingers absolutely believed that the disturbances were orchestrated by Nigel Farage and Vladimir Putin via the medium of Facebook bots. Full disclosure time: I do not know what they are or how they might influence people like me who only very rarely uses Facebook. The Lefties absolutely refused to countenance that a theme of an Antifa rally was cutting the throats of those who do not share their opinions.

Despite that there was an element of agreement across the board. People are very unhappy. Their principal reasons varied somewhat. Tony Blair started it. The Tories were absolutely useless throughout their 14 years. Austerity. Higher than ever taxation. Uncontrolled Immigration. Rising crime and two-tiered policing. The housing crisis and the loss of basic Freedoms.

It really doesn’t matter what the root cause of the discontent is; it is undeniably there and it has bubbled to the surface.

The new Government has taken sides by promoting Islam through two Prime Ministerial speeches and a meeting with their leaders. Public servants have been richly rewarded at the expense of other taxpayers, pensioners in particular. The native population has been shoved further down the Social Housing waiting list and tyrannical new rules have been introduced making it an imprisonable offence to observe criminal acts and one man is already in jail courtesy of a Judge in Northern Ireland.

Free speech has been curtailed to the extent that the police here speak of extraditing foreign citizens for calling our politicians scumbags.

In Australia, Canada, Continental Europe and the USA social commentators are comparing Keir Starmer with Kim Jong Un and encouraging their millions of followers never to set foot in the United Kingdom.

The long term affects on our economy are incalculable and no one who was unhappy a month ago is happier now.

That is dangerous. A discontented population rose up and now it is even more unhappy. What will they do next?

The only light relief I can offer is to look up Kier in a Farsi/Persian to English dictionary.

12 August - The Socialist revolution

When Labour was elected a mere five weeks ago I amused myself by creating what was intended to be a new short term graphic for the site banner. My Photoshop skills are basic but I managed to superimpose a nuclear explosion above a London skyline and plonk Sir Keir over the lot of it.

Quite separately I decided to log the new Government’s decisions because it is far too easy to forget what they are; in my case after just a few hours.

Using code that was new to me I created a two column format. The Bad on the left and the Good on the right. This may have been a bad decision as the page is already looking decided lopsided.

As you may have noticed the image of nuclear Armageddon has been retained and is now linked (click on it) to the Government decisions page. Just look what that 20% of deluded voters has done to our once great country.

11 August - Bang them all up

The EV charging point is fitted for my Pakistani Muslim friend. It took five hours instead of the hoped for two, maybe we should not have spent so much time setting the country to rights.

We agreed on the causes of the current disturbances and whether the right wing is responsible for the rioting or whether it is just simple mindless thuggery. The same on the subject of two-tier policing and two-tier justice and if Sir Keir Starmer and his motley crew are doing a good job or done their best to make the situation worse. And Nigel Farage over the past couple of weeks.

100% agreement on everything apart from the Jewish question which we skipped quickly over.

A new video showed up on YouTube yesterday showing the riot - there can be no other word for it - in Middlesbrough last Sunday, it was the most shocking thing I have ever seen on British soil. So were the potholes in residential roads. If filled with water they might make pretty good garden ponds.

This was the riot in which a woman pushed a burning wheelie bin into a line of policemen and has since been given 20 months inside. She was unlucky, not sure that is the right word, because she tripped under the nose of the police and was quickly nabbed. There were 50 of so doing much the same but they got away unless the video identified them for picking up later. There were far more flinging bricks at the police and they were very vulnerable. There may well have been 200 rioters with nothing but violence on their minds in the middle of a major road junction (Photo 3) and only a dozen cops in a line. What could happen does not bear thinking about.

But that was far from being the worst of it.

The video began with a large crowd, many hundreds, charging along what might usually be a quiet residential street in a run down area of Middlesbrough. (Photo 1.) (I suspect that the whole of Middlesbrough is run down.)

It was a typical poor old fashioned street with no front gardens; the doors opened directly on to a narrow footpath with residents’ cars parked outside.

The mob, mainly men but some women and youngsters on bikes stampeded towards some unknown goal clad in balaclavas and masks. As they passed front windows on both sides of the road, they were caved in with hammers - Sidcup style. Others walked over the top of cars kicking in the windscreens. Two (in a different street) were set on fire.

Two houses had their doors kicked in. Two men took flying leaps across the road with their leg outstretched and the PVC doors disintegrated. A section of the mob invaded the homes.

What sort of dehumanized thug can destroy the lives and property of their fellow citizens and neighbours? Nearly everyone who spoke on camera lived locally. There was barely a brain cell between them.

The cameraman four times described it as a war zone and that he would never return to Middlesbrough ever again. His judgment was right on both counts.

There was absolutely zero police officers in evidence while homes and cars were destroyed so hundreds of people who should be behind bars for a very long time will be free to do it all over again while their innocent victims struggle to rebuild their lives and their finances.

One of the cars destroyed by fire was owned by a care worker who returned to find he no longer had any way of doing his job. The cameraman was so moved that he started a GoFundMe and the care worker has a new vehicle, or will soon.

All absolutely horrifying. There were no chanting Antifa flag wavers present and only two bystanders wearing English flags.

When the cameraman returned to his own car in a car park 15 minutes away he found that every single parked car had had its windscreen smashed. He had left his girlfriend in his which was perhaps a stupid thing to do but fortuitously, because it was occupied, the thugs left her and the car alone. She was terrified and hysterical as you might imagine.

Now that we live in police state Britain where innocent bystanding is an imprisonable offence I don’t think I can provide you with a link. However in the 24 hours since I found the video 1,238,501 people have viewed it. Three times the circulation of the Daily Mail.

Do yourself a favour. Never go to Middlesbrough. Unlike other Northern cities the architecture was crap even before the local Neanderthals let rip last Sunday.

10 August (Part 2) - Looking for Newcastle Brown shirts

The anti-hate cult was on the streets of Newcastle this morning looking for Brownshirts. Same old amplified chants and new songs imported from Crawley. There were no Brownshirts in Newcastle. Not even a Union flag to be seen however one of the cultist’s songs said that if they saw any they would ֹ“Fight Fight Fight” them. That’s the Peace Lovers for you.

It seems to me that the anti-hate cult exists mainly to spout hatred for anyone who might disagree with them but they stopped well short of wishing folks’ throats to be cut. Nevertheless I bet they convinced no one of the righteousness of their cause.

The police had a Section 60 Order in place so were randomly searching anyone who wished to enter the main shopping district. Every single one of the cops interviewed was polite, helpful and civilised. That may be a first. Many of them were from South Wales.

I must say these Northern towns have some beautiful architecture. If only we had the same ambitions as the Victorians and Edwardians. What have we become?

Thankfully South East London remains calm. Keep it that way.

10 August (Part 1) - Creepy Crawley

On a sunny Friday afternoon about 250 Antifa activists assembled in the car park of The Holiday Inn Express in Crawley. They did not arrive in dribs and drabs as one might expect if they were local residents but in several large groups which one might assume had walked from the nearby Three Bridges railway station.

Another well organised demo.

The cameraman, the same one who covered Plymouth, arrived well before the start and spoke to several police officers. None knew what they were expecting to see.

The Antifa mob had a wider repertoire of chants than I have heard elsewhere, some set to song. As well as the usual “Get the Fascists off our streets” and the usual claim that the streets belonged to them, “Queers for Palestine” and something about Transvestites could also be heard. It was very noisy and muting the TV sound was a temptation.

Then they spotted just one man standing close to the car park perimeter who was wearing a Union Jack shirt. That was all they needed to turn ugly. As they moved in on him the police walked over to provide protection.

Not quite enough of it. Banners were thrust in his face while the peaceful decent folk (as described in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph) shouted at him from point blank range. “There are more of us than you” was the repeated chant. The police moved Jackman backwards for his own protection and he began to sing Rule Britannia as loudly as he could. Brave, Foolhardy or Provocative? Your guess is as good as mine.

The mob rushed him and one woman broke through the police line to assault him.

The police dragged her away but in what you may consider to be a fine display of two-tier policing she was back again within seconds to do it again. No arrest. The cameraman withdrew for his own safety and the man in the Union flag was not seen again.

The mob didn’t like being video’d. They came after the cameraman in balaclavas and masks. Overall, the proportion with their faces obscured must have been around half. Covid must be running riot in Crawley.

At first they poked the cameraman with an umbrella and then blocked his view with backpacks and cardboard banners. Eventually they produced an enormous cloth banner and attempted to cover him in it so that nothing could be filmed.

The banner said ‘Fascists Get in the Sea’. Not sure why, if anyone needs a good wash it is probably not the so called Fascists.

I thought the idea of the Antifa protest was for as many people as possible to see and support their actions but perhaps like their counterparts in North Finchley they had little idea of why they were there.

Half a dozen policemen stood idly by doing nothing about very obvious harassment. When the threats to the cameraman rose to the next level just one police officer (Photo 2) offered to escort him to a safer place but the balaclava men merely followed with their banner so the cameraman had little option but to cease filming for a while and presumably beat a hasty retreat.

These are the good people remember, they are constantly telling us that they are. For the record one of the threatening gang came forward and tried to reason with everyone, but it was one lone voice within an unruly mob.

When filming resumed I saw two men, seventyish I would guess, with a ring of police officers around them being walked towards some police vans. There was some comment that they may have been arrested but as they were not handcuffed it was probably for protection from the surrounding mob. They had arrived on bicycles and the police carefully collected them and put them in another van.

One might guess that if the pair had been arrested the police may not have exercised such care.

As far as I could tell, no one parading signs saying Immigrants Welcome Here knocked on the hotel door and offered to take one home.

Elsewhere it is said that observers of a riot will be deemed to be just as guilty as those participating in it. Journalists everywhere must be in danger and what about those living in a riot struck street who happen to look out of their window at the wrong time?

The EV charger installation job has been deferred until tomorrow.

9 August - A divided nation. Divided friends

This is not quite what I had planned for today. I woke up this morning to a speech radio interview with someone very much in favour of what was said in Walthamstow on Wednesday evening. That is the Anifa protest which led to the Dartford Councillor today being charged with Encouraging Violent Disorder and remanded in custody until 6th September.

The man insisted that there were no abusive chants or Palestinian flags at that protest so the radio presenter played him the relevant clip. He still denied it. Everyone but him was liar and eventually the presenter cut him off. A moment or two later it was announced that the Left wing reality denier swore at the producer and was banned from being on the station in future.

The Daily Telegraph published a reader’s letter which described such people as “brave and decent” and another that said they were “peaceful”. Well in as much they did not vandalise property I suppose they were.

The Mail on-line told lies about the event which is not exactly newsworthy but I began to wonder if I was alone in thinking the people of Walthamstowe were deranged. Is it just my Rightist views which lead to that conclusion?

This morning I showed all 30 minutes of the video to a friend who leans slightly to the right and my view of events was confirmed. “They are mentally ill.”

Then this afternoon I was with another friend who leans a long way to the Left. I was lectured on how Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage had whipped up the weekend disturbances and how Antifa and their Nazi Scum message was entirely reasonable. The only thing we could agree on was that the brick throwing, police punching arsonists should be severely punished.

“Have you seen what happened in Walthamstow?” No. “I can show you the video.” I will not waste my time looking at it.

So the Left are not interested in the truth. They have their views and they are not interested in anything else. I expect they are saying the same about me despite looking at both sides in ten or a dozen cities.

I was then lectured on how important its is that Twitter/X is closed down and how the Prime Minister has massively increased his popularity in recent days. It tells you all you need to know about the Left.

The video of the Dartford Councillor that you will likely have seen on your televisions was taken from the original YouTube channel which as of this afternoon has been viewed fewer than 600 times. The extract has been seen millions of times.

Normally I would provide a link to the original 30 minutes of footage so that you can judge whether the Left is deranged or not but now that we live in a quasi-police state I am reluctant to do so. Fortunately you can see where to look on YouTube because the channel name is burned into the video.

Tomorrow I will be with a Muslim friend to help him install an EV charger outside his garage. I shall be very careful not to mention current (pun unintended) events.

All of these pictures were from the first minute of the video.

As you can see the numbers were absolutely massive extending down four major roads. Maybe those at the back had no idea of what was being said in their name at the front.

I think it is appropriate that this evenings film viewing should be 1776. (The American Revolution.) An American disc I imported a couple of months ago but never got around to watching.

8 August (Part 2) - Make them famous

Last night’s film was comic book violence well beyond what I have seen in the past week, but what about next? The film revelled in exactly the sort of blood letting that Antifa was advocating in Walthamstow, but portrayed in graphic detail.

For the record only the central character shown here is relevant to the following text but I wanted to show how quickly Dartford Council has removed the party affiliation of one of their Councillors from their website.

I watched events in Southampton live yesterday evening. Very weird. There was a huge crowd of Antifa, LBGTQ etc. supporters and Palestinian flag wavers marching under police direction along a footpath on a wide road into a park. My first guess was that there might be 2,000 of them; maybe an overestimate but there was a huge number. Far more than just a few hundred.

On the other side of the road was a relatively small number of bemused bystanders and walkers. The police in evidence were perfectly friendly and chatty. Nobody had banners or flags. The spectators just happened to be there and decided to watch.

The road was wide and the cameraman unadventurous so that it was hard to hear exactly what the Antifa chants were. I think it was mainly “Get those fascists off our streets”.

Very few of them ventured across the road but one female thought it appropriate to get half way across and make sexually provocative gestures.

What is noticeable about the Antifa groups is that they are well organised; exactly the same posters and banners everywhere and the same puerile chants.

In North Finchley (London) things were much the same. A large Antifa group on one side of the road and some bystanders opposite. There was one man draped in as St. George flag and he was unnecessarily aggressive towards the cameraman.

The cameraman acted dumb and asked the police where the Far Right group was but they didn’t know. (Some refused to answer.)

The man crossed the road to ask Antifa where the Far Right were and they didn’t know either. He then proceeded to ask three Anifa men and a similar number of women why they were there. None of them knew. They were asked if they were in favour of unlimited immigration or not. None of them knew. Two of the men assaulted the cameraman, not very seriously but it shows what sort of people they are.

Probably they did not know that the cameraman has 2·54 million subscribers to his YouTube channel so their faces will soon be well known across the world.

In Walthamstow outside a pub where I drank a pint only a few weeks ago there were thousands of people stretching into the distance on all four roads of the major crossroads outside Walthamstow Central station.

Not to put too fine upon it their leaders were mentally insane. It was a constant amplified F*** Farage, F*** Braverman, and so on down a long list of political personalities. They were wanting to F** all the ‘racists’ and cut a few throats if necessary. The Communist Revolutionary Party representatives and their Amnesty International counterparts cheered the idea to the rafters.

There were Palestinian (“Free Free Palestine” etc.) and Bangladeshi interludes but the overall message, clearly stated, was that the streets were theirs. The Police, the Council, the MP and racists (white people presumably) were not in control of the country, they were. It belongs to them.

This is seriously depressing and frightening stuff. How can so many people be so full of hate? Thousands of them intent on violence. No police made a video appearance in Walthamstow, neither were there any normal people in evidence.

I have taken the precaution of putting the local source of similar sentiments on my email Blacklist. The only address on it but I could really do without being drawn into more of their insanity.

Well done everyone for keeping well away from these demos although there is a Section 35 Dispersal Order in force at present to within a few feet of my house. Feral youths apparently. All power to Bexley police for keeping on top of it.

8 August (Part 1) - A bit of a dick

It may be time to ease off on the protest reports if for no other reason than everyone interested will have been watching the videos for themselves by now.

On the other hand, with Bexley Council in recess until October, local news is down at the trivial level.

Here are two examples…

Escorting a lady with a blue badge to a medical appointment in Bexleyheath this morning, there was nowhere nearby to park her car.

Well there was but Bexley Council had in effect taken two bays out of service. They were marked ELECTRIC VEHICLES ONLY but there was no charger and no sign on a pole. So could we park there or not? (We were not using my EV.)

We didn’t take a chance and instead parked on a single yellow line (with blue badge) 200 yards further away leading to a difficult and painful walk.

Thanks Bexley Council.

I had accumulated a lot of cardboard. Three big boxes and five or six smaller ones. I took them, flattened, to the nearby recycling bins, lifted the broken lid and tossed the boxes into an otherwise empty bin. Later in the day I collected some empty envelopes and took them across the road too. When I opened the lid I saw that someone had dumped plastic bottles on top of my cardboard.

Then I realised what had happened. Both paper and plastics bins have broken lids so that they are both easily lifted for easy access and effectively identical. Country Style in their infinite wisdom had swapped their positions around. Out of habit I had dumped a great deal of cardboard in the wrong bin.

Being more responsible than some I had to return home for a step ladder so that I could climb inside the bin and remedy my mistake. Or was it Country Style’s mistake?

Both of these issues are Cabinet Member Richard Diment’s responsibility, a man who is proving to be a big disappointment. I doubt he will be getting such a good press around these parts in future. You may wish to make allowances if his name crops up when Council meeting reports resume.

7 August (Part 4) - Eggs and a beating

Further and much longer video from Lancaster confirms what was said earlier; nothing much went on. Shouting Lefties alongside family groups. The police were wandering around town in pairs in a way which used to be common in every shopping centre on a Saturday afternoon and the streets were not especially crowded. A man was delivering a speech from the sidelines about the state of the country and the police didn’t like it but they were persuaded by bystanders that he was absolutely peaceful and merely stating facts. They shuffled off. The good thing was that a police presence was deterring shop lifters at least one of whom was apprehended.

Stoke
Later video showed that after the armed Muslims frightened the locals away, the police managed to contain them and observe their retreat to the safety of their Mosque. I don’t think any of them will be heading to jail.

Preston
There were not huge numbers of people in the town square, it was never crowded and maybe there were 200 in total if you count everyone on the periphery. Antifa had gathered somewhere near the middle of the square with families gathered all around them. They must have felt safe enough or they would not have stood in such a vulnerable position. There was no exceptional police presence and certainly not in riot gear.

Antifa felt obliged to resort to their standard taunts and before long two or three lads in hoodies who had climbed the main feature of the square, some sort of obelisk, threw eggs at them. Three according to the commentary; one landed harmlessly close to the cameraman.

The police who were not especially close made a move towards the obelisk and the culprits and everyone else nearby did a runner into the shopping street. The police couldn’t catch them so instead they brought down an enormous fat lady. Wrestled to the ground and her double chins pushed into the pavement by about five police officers with another half dozen or so surrounding them.

The woman was so fat that her arms could not hang by her side and there was no way she could swing them around her ample bosom. I doubt she could throw an egg across her kitchen, let alone half way across the town square.

But the police had claimed their prize.

Shoppers and protesters if there were any made their opinion clear but the police threw their victim into the back of a van. The video ended there.

Plymouth
Devon may have seen more mindless violence than anywhere else. Different to Rotherham and Liverpool where there was arson but the confrontations with the police were a good deal worse.

Mr. Bird showed a brief video of peaceful flag waving and marching but elsewhere or later it was very different.

The setting was outside a lovely old church alongside a dual carriageway with a very substantial central reservation. Continuous Iron railing close to four feet high.

On the church side of the road was a large Antifa group doing what Antifa does. In front of them was a long line of riot clad police, helmets, shields the lot.

Beyond the central barrier stood the opposing crowd. Very few mothers with children but quite a lot of young women, possibly only teenagers and quite a lot of ‘hard men’. Not all of them, some were pretty ancient and unsteady on their feet.

Mingling with the riot police were several officers liaising with the Antifa people and handing them notes. It was all very odd and gave credence to rumours that Antifa may include Government agents. It was also notable that Police Liaison Officers were videoing the protestors but not Antifa. Two tiered policing?

The stand off was menacing and the riot police decided that it was a good idea to jump the central barrier and confront the aggressors more directly. It turned the dual carriageway into a duel carriageway.

Missiles began to come over from the Antifa side but whether they were responsible for them or interlopers had squeezed behind their ranks is impossible to say. Whatever the case the church precinct had been transformed into a battle ground.

There were numerous acts of madness, generally by the same people over and over again. Their friends sometimes tried to drag them away but they seemed to be intent on getting a prison sentence.

One man in a pink shirt was well past his sell by date but he repeatedly confronted the police at very close quarters. One officer not unreasonably barged him with his shield and the old man rolled over backwards.

Meanwhile younger fighters brought a policeman who looked to be well past retirement age to the ground and several police and hooligans grappled on the floor before running away. There may have been an arrest.

Young women thought it was fun to open police vehicle doors, riot vans too. Why was access to the prisoner cages open to all?

Antifa seemed to have disappeared and the battle became very much thugs versus police with the occasional thrown firework. The police looked to be losing the plot or the battle or both and just as I was thinking why don’t they retreat for their own safety and leave the rioters with no one to fight, they did exactly that. A long snake of police officers disappeared into the distance.

And the riot was over. There was no one left to fight.

That’s it for today. Tired of reporting violence I will be looking for light relief in a new 4k disc of a film called ‘Boy Kills World’ and turn the Atmos up loud. I am sure it must be a peaceful story of misunderstood youth.

It is said that there will be disturbances in London this evening. Stay at home or be very careful. I don’t want to see Bexleyheath making headlines here.

7 August (Part 3) - The Left strikes back

There have been a few Thank Yous for the reports on the weekend disturbances, but no comment on the rights and wrongs of the situation.

Until this morning that is when a well known Labour activist objected to my coverage of Lancaster. I thought it was a bit odd to dispute what I had said because it was supported by the accompanying video.

Part of your latest article said “the Antifa crowd being far larger than the pro-children contingent who probably didn’t reach 25.”

Seriously, how many “pro children” people do you know that go rampaging thru the streets and create violence and mayhem? Stirred up by Yaxley Lennon and Farage.

If there was a larger crowd outside suddenly appearing opposing your so called “pro children” thugs have you ever thought that they were opposed to the violence that has suddenly exploded across the country? You do know Antifa is short for “Anti Fascist”?

If my correspondent had bothered to look at the video he would have seen around a dozen people sitting on the steps of a large statue of Queen Victoria, a couple on the bench behind and five people in the foreground either standing chatting or walking by. Twentyish people, as far as I could see, were standing by the entrance to the square. Two were police officers and the others were mums with tiny babies, old ladies with shopping bags, several old men all with their hands in their pockets, a young couple cuddling up on a bench and a young fellow talking on his mobile phone.

Why does my correspondent call them “pro-children thugs?” Nearer the police line is a couple of middle aged ladies, one with a microphone and a similarly aged bearded man wearing camouflage trousers. OK, the total number may have been 45 rather than 25 but they are quiet while 150 plus Antifa members were making a lot of noise on the Town Hall steps opposite.

I don’t know what Nigel Farage has been up to recently but I might guess he would be arrested if he was stirring up violence but I know that Tommy Robinson - you always know when someone is trying to be insulting when they call him Yaxley Lennon - has called many times for peace and calm; from his sun lounge in Cyprus and beforehand.

Your language may appear moderate but it is certainly slanted in favour of the violent thuggery that we are all witnessing and is certainly not “pro-children” I am not sure how many children would be happy to be amongst that or near to the violence and mayhem.

That is so utterly ridiculous. Lancaster was entirely peaceful and the babies were not involved in “violence and mayhem”. Apparently I am “in favour of violent thuggery”. Wow! Where do such people come from? I have acknowledged many times over recent days that there has been thuggery and nowhere has it been encouraged or in any way lauded but it cannot be denied that the chants coming from one side have been ‘Save our Children’ and similar while the Communist flag waving Antifa people restrict themselves to “Nazi Scum”.

I was marching last Saturday amongst 150,000 people calling for a Ceasefire in Gaza. No violence, no problems just simple peaceful protest, a UK tradition for effecting change. We will achieve our objectives and all of the marches over the last 9 months have been huge and peaceful. It is only your right wing supposedly “pro children” peeps that seem to perpetrate violence.

There is also an interesting take in this article that states a valid question

jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk

I do seriously think you need to write a first draft and re think it not just post it straight off. Suggesting that only one side is “pro children” whilst committing their thuggery and violence and the others protesting this violence are by implication somehow “anti children” is bordering on bonkers !!

As I said before, how is it that not especially well dressed people people who appear to be from the working class backbone of this country are right wingers in Northern towns that have always been Labour controlled? Doesn’t make sense. Why were Antifa out in force in Lancaster at all if it was not to shout down maybe 50 people with babies?

What will Antifa man have to say when he sees how I report Plymouth later on today? Maybe I should simply put the Labour activist on my email Blacklist if saying I am in favour of thuggery is the best he can do.

7 August (Part 2) - The Government controls the media

I have to be rather vague with this one, there are confidences to be protected.

My radio has five station Preset buttons on its front panel. I think it has 30 on each band if I use the remote control but I can be a bit old fashioned and the remote is just too much bother.

The five are set - in alphabetical order - to GB News, LBC London, LBC National, Talk Radio and Times Radio. I am not a news junkie really; well not all of the time anyway!

When I lived in Hampshire and liked to make my own FM radios I tuned into the London Broadcasting Company’s first programme in October 1973, broadcasting from their feeble transmitter in, well I have forgotten, Croydon probably, with studios in a back alley off Fleet Street. It was Britain’s first commercial radio station.

But I digress again.

Yesterday I was listening to one of those stations and they brought on an expert to discuss what I will calls riots, if for no other reason than it is an easy shorthand. The expert was going on and on only about right wing thugs and looters beating up the police etc. which is true up to a point, but it is far from being the whole story.

The radio presenter went along with it pushing out the same agenda. I was thinking, has this expert not watched any of the live streams and I am afraid the words “utter bollox” may have passed my lips.

As you may have read I had to visit my daughter yesterday. Who else can cultivate a computer that cannot do Control A, or C or V and loses the ability to drag and drop files from one hard drive folder to another hard drive? (Windows 11 on a six month old hugely powerful PC.)

Sometimes it would drag and drop but mainly it didn’t. The pattern appeared to be that it would copy across a folder if there were no sub-folders inside it - Russian Dolls as my daughter calls them.

Anyway enough of that; I mentioned the man who was spewing biased half truths on one of the above named radio stations. She knew him, has interviewed him etc. and filled me in on just one or two details. Only a discreet sentence or two but enough to make me better understand why I had heard what I did and why there was no kickback from the presenter, only encouragement of a jaundiced view.

You will have to guess what it was all about based on the associated X post.

7 August (Part 1) - Two Tier policing. It’s obvious innit?

It is only nine days since I was bemoaning the fact that there are no Council meetings until October and filling the gap here on BiB would not be easy. And then along came Kier Starmer to divide the nation with his comments about the priority being to protect Mosques and Muslims and not a word about murdered and groomed children, raped women and machete wielding gangs on our streets. Then, when that went down like a lead balloon, he doubled down on it next day

He is also on the record as saying there is no two-tier policing when the evidence is there before our eyes. After a night of mayhem in Birmingham when followers of the Religion of Peace were driving cars around a roundabout like lunatics, seeking out cars that might contain white people while armed with knives the local police Superintendent has done a TV interview to explain that he had spoken to the criminals beforehand and they had asked him not to police their activities.

Can you even get your head around the intelligence, or the lack thereof, of a senior police officer who thinks it is normal to ask permission to patrol the streets, to the extent he happily advertises Two Tier policing and attempts to defend it. Are they under Government direction? Presumably not as Kier says it just doesn’t happen. We know it does.

A pub hosting a Karaoke night was attacked and had to barricade its doors and a man was beaten up and hospitalised with bruises and a torn liver. He has been on the radio this morning saying he had earlier called the police to ask them to come out but despite the police station being only two minutes away they stayed away.

My near 24 hours of YouTube watching has shown clear cut Two Tier policing in Liverpool, Stoke, Bristol, Lancaster, Preston and Plymouth; the latter three not yet reported.

The video shown here is from Lancaster. The full length video - and the beginning of this extract - shows the Antifa crowd being far larger than the pro-children contingent who probably didn’t reach 25. This two minute extract is well worth listening to - unless perhaps you believe in chanting Nazi Scum at mothers and children.

An alternative view of Rotherham confirmed the unforgiveable attack on the immigrant hotel but also provided a clear view of the police response. Nothing!

The police, ten or a dozen of them, stood in a line backs to the hotel wall with their shields in front of them. Just standing there doing nothing while attacked with bricks, assorted furniture and fie extinguishers. One lone female did her job by confronting a rioter; the remainder might as well have not been there.

A drone view of the tooled up Muslims in Stoke who eventually ran the locals out of town with a knife charge shows the police - depending on the viewpoint - outnumbered by between two and six to one. Unarmed police against machetes and swords can do little more than stand and watch and politely request that the criminals put their weapons back onto storage. Which is what the police did. Pathetic.

At least London has been on its best behaviour. Keep it that way.

Note: I have noticed that some of the YouTube videos need a Page Refresh or two before they appear.

6 August - Don’t rise to the bait

You may be pleased to know that there will be no riotous reports today and you have my daughter to thank for that. A journalist who mainly works from home requires a time consuming, but hopefully not difficult, modification to her PC. As you may imagine she is a bit busy this week and the bosses are demanding twice the usual weekly output. Dad to the rescue!

With any luck London will be peaceful unlike Birmingham and Plymouth last night. Please do us all a favour if you are even slightly inclined to join in ‘the funְ’. It is not fun and the police have more than enough to do without you adding to their problems; what might happen politically will not be changed by Bexley people sticking their oar in. Best to sit at home. Maybe watch events on YouTube.

Meanwhile our Labour politicians have put out a statement. I offer no comment except that I think they may have opened their eyes a bit wider. Sod all from the Conservatives which is only to be expected.

For your convenience the Labour Press Release (PDF) is reproduced below as well as in the usual place - the Labour PR Archive.

Bexley Labour Group stand united against racism.

5th August 2024

Bexley Labour Councillors stand united with all communities across the country who have faced the appalling racism, Islamophobia and rioting we have seen in recent days.

There is no excuse for any of this thuggery which has been fuelled by the far right with their divisive agenda and misinformation spread on social media platforms, instead local communities have to clear up the mess and have made it clear this behaviour is not reflective of the inclusive nature of these communities affected over the last week

In Bexley, as a Labour Group we have been liaising with Senior council officers, senior police officers and local community and religious organisations to monitor community cohesion.

Cllr. Zainab Asunramu Deputy Labour of Bexley Labour Group said:

“I am devastated about the violence and disturbances we have seen across the country; we have seen people of diverse backgrounds and faiths being the target of hateful rhetoric, Islamophobia, violent attacks and verbal assaults.

As Cllrs we must lead by setting a good example for a more inclusive and tolerant society, that is why I am disappointed that at the recent Council meeting the Conservative members of the Council could not agree unanimously to the motion proposed by Cllr. Ogundayo on fighting racism and celebrating cultural diversity. We believe that this would have sent a clear message of the council united against those who seek to divide us”

At the recent July council group we were disappointed that the Conservative Council could not support the motion below and instead decided to amend it to suit their agenda, rather than showing cross party unity on a particularly important issue.

Cllr. Stefano Borella, Leader of Bexley Labour Group.

“I fully support the measures taken by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to support the police and the court system to deal with those involved with this disgraceful behaviour, to feel the full force of the law and are brought to justice”

As local Councillors we will be working with our Members of Parliament, including Abena Oppong Asare MP for Erith and Thamesmead and Daniel Francis MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford to support the communities we represent and fighting the scourge of racism across Bexley.

All hate crime should be reported directly to the police for response. This should be done by calling 999 in an emergency or otherwise by calling 101, visiting a police station or reporting online to the Met’s dedicated platform, True Vision: www.report-it.org.uk. Residents can seek support from the London Victim and Witness Services if they are a victim or witness of hate crime by calling 0808 168 9291. There are also specific services for anti-Muslim hate: Tell MAMA,0800 456 1226; and for racist hate: The Monitoring Group, 020 7582 7438. More info:www.bexley.gov.uk/hate-crime

The linked Press Release also contains a copy of the Labour Group’s recent ‘Racism’ Motion.

5 August - Protests, riots and thuggery

It may be a sign of impending madness but I watched eight more hours of streamed video of the protests yesterday. I think the most important observation may be that the days of blogs like this one are over. An hour long YouTube video can get 15,000 views within an hour and pushing half a million within 24 hours. I would be overjoyed if this was read by 2,000 people over a month.

I must consider whether it is worth carrying on while being in awe of the data shifting power required to make YouTube happen.

One of the things missing from yesterday’s reports is that the anti-knife protestors were campaigning under the umbrella title of ‘Enough is Enough’. Their favourite chants were ‘We Want Our Country Back’, ‘Save Our Kids’ and ‘Stop the Boats’. The opposing side at their worst were calling out Allahu Akbar.

I woke up this morning to my newspaper headline ‘Far Right clash with Muslims in riotingְ’. If it wasn’t for the fact that they stopped charging for my Telegraph on-line subscription I would be thinking of giving it up. That is not a balanced headline, definitely there was some rioting but in 17 hours of video, and I looked at more this morning, only the Muslims arrived tooled up and given police protection.

As for Far Right; the thugs I saw, and there were some, by appearance and location (Northern cities) one would guess they have all voted Labour for ever. How else have Northern Cities been Labour Controlled since time began? How are their residents suddenly into Far Right politics?

So an update on what has gone before.

Blackpool
Yesterday’s report was based on an edited video, I have since watched the live feed. It was Blackpool’s ‘Rebellion Weekend’ whatever that may be and there was a whole load of men, mainly old enough to know better, dressed in what in my day we called Punk gear. Mohican haircuts and some more spectacular, that sort of thing. A smaller number of females too.

They were hugely outnumbered by more ordinary looking people, mainly couples of all ages, some with children plus a reasonable number of people who one might judge to be more of a threat. Tattoos and T-shirts, some bare chests. Nothing really out of the ordinary on a very hot day but people who looked as if they could handle themselves.

The police were surrounding the seafront Metropole Hotel which was said to house immigrants. They didn’t otherwise have much to do, why would they? If I didn’t know better I might think it was just a normal Saturday afternoon on the Blackpool seafront.

Later on the Punks decided they were on the side of the immigrants and said as much, it didn’t take long for a brawl to break out. Someone aimed a can of drink at a line of Punks and many more followed. Then there were chairs until five minutes later the police arrived on horseback.

Some sort of order was restored but tensions had been raised. To keep the two factions apart the police decided it was a good idea to unleash their dogs on men, women and children. I saw one man go down, I think the women and children got away.

The police had successfully roused the more foolish members of the public to brick throwing at their vehicles. They withdrew them. A small number of Punks intent on taunting the masses had to be rescued outside a seafront shop by the police.

A policeman returned to his car to find the windscreen caved in.

Meanwhile the police protecting the immigrant hotel ran en-mass to the nearby North Pier and encircled whoever it was who had upset them. There must have been 70 police in a neat circle around their intended victims. The circle contracted to entrap the target of police attention which must have traumatised the women and children caught up in it. Another generation that may go on to hate the police for their entire life. At least I was able to enjoy 50 years before my eyes were opened. Poor kids.

The immigrants were not at any time shown to be in the streets at all. Maybe the police cordon wouldn’t let them out but a wise move either way.

Liverpool
The cameraman I followed in Liverpool went home quite early to protect his own safety. I found a braver soul. His video started with the regular Save Our Kids chant and women with placards gathered around a War Memorial saying the same. For no obvious reason the police thought it was appropriate to search ladies’ shopping bags and handbags. Their antagonising skill knows few bounds.

A man holding a Crucifix aloft paraded solemnly by.

The commentator said that things took a turn for the worse when Antifa supporters were bussed in from Manchester. I saw no evidence of buses but the anti-British contingent had become quite a lot bigger, bolder and gone well beyond their Communist flag waving activities - although the Hammer and Sickle was still in evidence. While waving their own flags they aimed insults and V signs at the women pleading for the lives of children. Why is the Left so hateful? Elderly women included.

A lady, well not really a lady, probably as old as me, was waving a banner complaining about pensioners being robbed by Rachel Reeves which might be amusing if the lack of education was not so sad. However she still had a good pair of lungs on her because “Nazi Scum” spewed from her mouth more loudly than anyone elses.

Some of the child loving women were “shithouse cunts”. What sort of people have we bred?

The police did a reasonable job of separating the two lines until they decided that women and men with Union flags in favour of protecting their children were an easier target than thugs. So they charged at them with dogs. They have the Two Tier reputation to maintain.

From there on in the distinction between good and bad disappeared with fights breaking out and as darkness fell large wheeled refuse bins were set on fire and used as mobile weapons. One shop at least was looted, it was owned by an immigrant family and totally wrecked. A children’s library was burned out.

By morning a small shopping street was in a bad shape with nearly every shutter damaged to some extent. A car charger was on its side and innumerable wheeled bins were burned out with the road surface melted. Yes a riot and yes mindless destruction.

Shopkeepers aside, possibly, no obvious immigrants involved, just Antifa people hell bent on destruction meeting their opposite number allegedly protesting knife-crime. The families including women and children appeared to have had the good sense to buzz off home. Mindless destruction. It is not the way forward.

The above is sourced from three different videos.

Manchester
Liverpool was portrayed as a beautiful city and so was Manchester. Yesterday’s videographer left because it was quiet. She was in the wrong place.

The crowd was enormous but good natured for the most part. Families with the occasional chant of Save Our Kids and placards bearing similar messages. Unlike in Blackpool and Liverpool the Muslims were being provocative. The police were hopelessly outnumbered but on the other hand most protestors were there to be respectful.

The Antifa crowd was tiny compared to the Save Our Kids protesters, chanting about Nazis obviously, with a handful of them hiding their faces behind the black and white checked tea towels one sees on the pro-Palestine marches.

The Muslims were openly taunting the British. Two brave or foolhardy women in Burqas baited the British mothers saying they could go wherever they wanted which whilst correct may not have been the most sensible thing to say. Two of their menfolk dragged them away. In a near identical incident one Burqa woman singled out a white woman who tried to persuade her to get away from potential danger and failed. Two police officers made her see sense. They frog marched her away.

Various dark skinned men taunted the crowd and one was chased into the park by half a dozen men and later plenty more. He was quick on his feet and received only a minor duffing up. The police were nowhere to be seen, at least not for about three minutes.

I felt a bit sorry for the police at this stage, because control was slipping away and there was such a large area to cover and they did not appear to be particularly well organised at times. If they were scared it would be natural, they were hemmed in. Fortunately the white men did not see them as the enemy except to call out two-tiered policing, that was reserved for the balaclava clad Muslim gangs - quite a lot of small ones - rushing into the crowd armed with large planks of wood.

To their credit the police managed to round them up and disperse them to where I do not know. This allowed the formal march to begin. It was more a case of the police marching in the road and the protestors following on the footpath. A gang of youths went into Sainsbury’s and came out without paying. In and out with large handfuls of stuff in seconds being the clue.

Outside the Art Gallery the police decided on “a Containment” or kettling in street language. It was not well enforced and quite a lot of people were let out and the police could be heard arguing on whether it was a Containment or not. The cameraman got away.

Just outside the kettled area an old man in the middle of the road on a mobility scooter was for some unfathomable reason carrying a football. Maybe he had bought it for a grandchild, Who knows? Inevitably it was kicked skywards and the police were not happy at the distraction. The old man gave them a bit of lip so the police officer snatched his bottle of drink and threw it onto the footpath. Following that the old man came out with his worst word yet. “Knobhead.”

Presumably the officer is competing with Mark Rowley in the petulism stakes. Do we really have no adults left in our police forces?

Bristol
The Bristol protest covered a huge area and may even have been among the largest in terms of numbers. Men women and children were shoulder to shoulder. The usual stuff. Protesters Saving Our Kids and Antifa shouting abuse and separated by the police who were accused of being two-tiered again. Fewer flags and placards than usual making it harder to differentiate sides. However my cameraman didn’t capture any big incidents.

However another one did. There was a stand off on a bridge over a river. About 50 men fronted by four women who were singing the National Anthem and Rule Britannia and chanting We want Our Country Back and Save our Kids. Some calmer people were urging them to back off.

For some reason the police didn’t like it and they lined up against them with batons drawn and to be fair the songs did come across as somewhat aggressive. A few missiles came from the back of the crowd. It was likely that given time the King’s Choir would get fed up with it and go away but the police were less than patient.

They charged with their batons and let the dogs do their business. And now we have another bunch of protesters determined to see the police as their enemy. Maybe they already did but their ire should be reserved for the politicians that have brought us to this sorry state.

Rotherham
Rotherham, or at least what I saw of it, was unmitigated hooliganism. True the town has seen the worst of the grooming gangs covered up until recently by Labour politicians and the police and they have every right to be angry. However all I saw was a mob attacking an immigrant hotel. Bricks thrown, windows smashed, a small fire started and a few mobsters gaining entry. However contrary to reports, I saw no sign that the building was occupied. There were no faces at the windows and no one trying to get out and away from danger. I may be wrong, but there were no immigrants in evidence.

The police were not especially active when they had every excuse to be so.

Prime Minister’s statement
During yesterday afternoon Two Tier Keir decided it was time to pour petrol on the fire. He is going to make sure all Mosques are protected 24/7. The places we now know are used to store lethal weapons. I used to think Rishi Sunak had no political antennae; but Starmer! How useless can one man be? He is stoking up trouble.

Today he is vehemently denying two-tiered policing exists when it is obvious for all to see. How long will he last? Not long I hope.

4 August (Part 3) - Stabbing, Starmer and Stoke

I found a much better view of the stabbing and Muslim knife crime in Stoke. A large number of Muslims streamed out of their Mosque and headed for a major road junction nearby. The police were advised that a group of knifemen were heading their way but they did nothing but stand and watch. As a result two men - not one as reported earlier - received head wounds and their assailants were allowed to retreat to the Mosque unmolested. Unbelievable!

Four men returned - not two as reported earlier - brandishing knives. They were pepper sprayed to subdue them but yet more Muslims provided water to wash their eyes. They then all returned to the Mosque passing within a single carriageway width of half a dozen police who in effect escorted them back to the safety of the Mosque, knives and all.

A white man crossed the road to ask the police what the Hell they were playing at and he was immediately arrested for Aggravated Public Order and bundled into the back of a van.

Clearly the Prime Minister’s order that Muslims are to be given special protection reached Stoke very quickly.

I doubt you will find this published in any major news outlet but it may be seen on more than one YouTube channel.

4 August (Part 2) - Starmergeddon looms. Blood flows

After another shredding session occasioned by my refusal to pay Bexley Council’s garden waste collection tax I put on the TV and fired up YouTube to see if there were any live streams of the promised anti-knife protests. I began with one coming from Manchester and it became so addictive that I watched several videos for almost nine hours until after midnight. It is the only way of being reasonably sure of what is going on.

The BBC is going on with its far right narrative and even that least woke of radio stations Talk Radio is pursuing a less than honest agenda. The presenter claimed to have watched the live streams but in a later segment admitted being glued to the Olympics all day. Everyone lies.

This is what I saw streamed in real time with me catching up later in many cases. No editing except where noted.

In Manchester two groups were kept well separated by the police, some were helpful to the camera people and some were most definitely not. The left wing, pro-immigration people were shouting “Nazi scum” which as we shall see, seems to be their insult of choice. Anyone who didn’t agree with them was a Fascist.

At least a quarter of a mile away the group taking the opposite view were to be found. In between were ordinary people going around trying to do their Saturday shopping. Not huge numbers but just getting on with life.

There were not many people in the protest group, by no means a crowd, just a variety of people standing around either singly or in pairs with dogs on leads and interspersed with mums with pushchairs. There was a group of Venezuelans trying to attract attention to what is going on in their country. A very few placards were being waved around and after more than an hour of broadcasting their video the photographers became bored and decided to go to nearby Stoke instead.

I understand that things got livelier later.

In Belfast two groups were separated by a line of armoured Land Rovers. The commentator described the left leaning side as well dressed middle class people and the anti-knife side as working class people. His camera didn’t get close enough for this viewer to form an opinion. The former was chanting about immigrants being welcome and the mandatory “Nazi scum”. The opposing group could be heard shouting “peados out” occasionally and the Irish, being good at marching, that is what they did. All orderly with the Irish Tricolour and the Union flag flying side by side, the Nationalists and Unionists walking with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

A contingent had come up from the Republic to add their support. Who would have thought some ill-chosen words by an incompetent Prime Minister could bring peace to Northern Ireland?

In Aldershot things were very different. A large number of oppressed residents, most waving large banners standing alongside the A325 road which runs by the Potter’s immigrant Hotel. All calm and civilised and not even particularly noisy. If the police sought to antagonise them by being there in force in full riot gear and dogs, they failed miserably. I have a friend who is a retired Aldershot police Sergeant, I wonder what he thinks about them now.

At the other end of the county things were much the same. A few hundred people gathered in front of Portsmouth’s Guildhall. There were no police visible although it was said that a few were standing discretely in the corner of the square observing events. However they must have missed the only incident.

Two men who from their appearance one might assume to be Muslim yelled out “Fuck the English”. When challenged by a group of locals they pulled out their knives so that was the end of that. This was one of two edited videos so it is impossible to say if things were peaceful from that point onwards but what evidence there is suggests that the protest was over before mid-day.

It is perhaps noteworthy that the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire has decried two-tier policing on her website and even more noteworthy that she had to delete it later.

In Liverpool the left wing gang was waving a Communist flag, holding banners welcoming immigrants and, you’ve guessed it, chanting “Nazi scum” through a megaphone.

The police dressed in full riot gear complete with shields stood in a line to protect them. I suppose Nazi scum cannot be considered to be hate speech when the language has been borrowed from the Deputy Prime Minister.

For reasons that were not obvious to me the police decided to charge the opposing faction which ran away. An old man who was not quick enough on his feet was soundly beaten with batons. The protesters regrouped and pushed the police line back and produced a few water pistols and a pink smoke flare.

The cameraman decided it was time to get out.

In Stoke things were very grim. There were not many protesters, not a crowd by any means and sporadically populated by young girls wearing not a lot and older men who would be well advised to go on a diet and maybe give up smoking too. Many of the protestors were sitting on the kerbstones enjoying the spectacle and a couple of them had found somewhere to buy an ice-cream. Then things became more interesting while the spectators continued to spectate.

Quite what caused it was not shown but it seems likely that Agents Provocateur threw bricks at a mosque. A considerable number of Muslims emerged armed to the teeth. Knives, machetes, bats, iron bars and hammers. A police officer asked them to return their weapons to wherever they store them. They did not.

The video didn’t show how it happened but one group of Muslims ran towards the spectators and hammered two heads right under the noses of the police who did nothing to apprehend the attackers. One victim was bleeding profusely while surrounded by police. He left a large pool of blood on the ground. When one bystander asked a policeman why they weren’t calling an ambulance he was barged with a shield and told “if you don’t like it fuck off back to Manchester”.

A bystander called an ambulance which eventually took the victim away. He was able to stand but had lost a lot of blood as the large red pool on the road testified. Hopefully it looked worse than it is.

A group of Muslims went off in the opposite direction and in another video can be seen on a green mound taunting the police with their weapons. The police just stood there and in the face of a gang of swordsmen perhaps there is no other choice. A small group stood on an adjacent road bridge waving a Palestinian flag and throwing bricks. A woman was hit on the head and the commentary said a St. George’s flag was burned although it wasn’t obvious on the video.

Allegedly that group stabbed one or two (reports vary) youngsters playing in the park.

Two of the group that had run towards the protestors stood opposite them brandishing knives. Several police officers approached them but what happened was obscured by a police van.

Then things got really serious. The two separated groups of Muslims made a two pronged (pardon the pun) attack with knives and machetes. All the protestors, cameraman included, ran for their lives.

In Blackpool things were quieter. A lot of people unhappy with the PM and a great deal of police activity but nothing particularly untoward. This was another edited video.

I am beginning to lose track of what happened where so if there is more to come I need to do a bit of revision. In one (name forgotten) Northern town a long line of modern coaches emblazoned with Arabic script were lined up waiting to take the swordsmen to another battle ground.

Please don’t be drawn into law breaking, it is not worth ruining your life for. A video shot in Blackburn showed the police arresting alleged rioters in their homes. They don’t bother with door bells, it is an immediate boot through the front door. As my friend said yesterday, “animals’. Do not stoop to their level. Donְ’t give them the excuse they are looking for.

4 August (Part 1) - Cheap but maybe not too nasty

The new Bexley Magazine came tumbling through my door a few days ago which is good because there was a period a few years ago when it rarely showed up. However there was something very different about this one; it is a good job that the Covid or whatever it was has gone away because one powerful sneeze might have blown a hole through the new issue.

The paper is not only thinner but has also lost its gloss. It has gone from a good looking piece of work to, well, a bit cheap.

I took my Dad’s old micrometer to it but the scale has faded somewhat and my eyeballs are not what they were so I cannot give you a precise measurement to the nearest thousandth of an inch. (All my father’s aero engine designs were in Imperial measurements.) But it is quite obviously thinner.

The postal scales came up with 55 grammes while a two year old copy reads 75.

The content is of course much the same and might reasonably be described as interesting and worth looking through.

The Bexley Magazine has clearly been the latest victim of ‘the cuts’ but maybe I should be pleased about it. I have a collection of Bexley Magazines going back to before BiB started. A bit of space saving will be welcome.

Batteries are potentially dangerous. Don’t wrap your AA cell in wire wool (old schoolboy trick) or even keep one in your pocket with a bundle of keys.

3 August - The shortest honeymoon in history

I first referred to the Labour Government being in trouble within 18 months in February and again more recently. Predictions are always risky and I was hopelessly wrong again.

Most of yesterday morning was taken up showing video to an old friend, the things referred to here two days ago. For context she is a little older than I am and a lifetime Daily Telegraph reader until it became too expensive a year ago. She now has the Daily Mail delivered. Her TV viewing is limited to the main channels but far from being a TV addict. (Constantly borrowing my DVDs.)

Politically - quoting from yesterday - never much enthusiasm for the Conservatives but never really liked Labour either, despite being a Union official in her younger days. I am pretty sure she didn’t vote a month ago and may overall be more typical of the electorate in general than I am.

We watched four different videos of Wednesday’s anti-knife crime protest in Westminster including the organizer calling for calm and good behaviour and by and large it was peaceful. There will always be idiot exceptions and I saw two plus a third that I heard about. My friend heard the riot police say that they would just go in and snatch people at random from the footpath and some were punched to the ground for no reason whatsoever. Just standing there and wallop! Her verdict was that “the police are animals” which may be a bit hard on your pet Rotweiller.

If you only watch regular TV you will probably not know that.

We then watched the Muslim march held the following day. Oxford Street and Regent Street brought to a total standstill. Nearby roads were coned off so completely that no one could get in or out of the Mayfair area. A motorcyclist took a video tour around the area twice showing that he was kettled in. With one exception the police were rude and unhelpful. The exception was a young woman who phoned through to her bosses and obtained permission to open one road and release the taxis and buses.

Back in Regent Street the Muslim marchers were dancing on top of bus shelters while the police looked on admiring their antics. The police with no batons, shields or helmets admitted to having no prior notice of the disruption and according to the YouTube commentary the TfL website carried no warning of planned road closures.

How much is Sadiq Khan costing London’s economy? The white British, and some people of foreign appearance, at a protest authorised by the police, were kettled and brutally attacked by thugs in uniform on Wednesday evening and the Muslims who may be encouraged by the fact that they are protected by two-tiered policing were allowed to bring the West End to a halt on Thursday afternoon. Criminal behaviour ignored.

And then I showed my lady friend Kier Starmer’s speech which she knew nothing about. Instead of announcing a plan to counter knife crime he announced a plan to attack the knife protesters and hamper Social Media.

Since then I cannot find any support for him.

YouTube is not yet Main Stream Media and channels generally boast a few tens of thousands of subscribers though Mahyar Tousi has 600,000. When universally negative YouTube comments went further and referred to Starmer as evil, or a Nazi and mentioned the Gestapo they were attracting huge numbers of Likes within an hour or so or publication, 2,000, 3,000 or even 4,000 in one case I saw. All from a relatively small number of viewers.

Starmer has won no friends at all.

Similar videos have been produced in Ireland, Australia, the USA and Sweden which has a similar problem. All decrying the former Trotskyite who has quickly reverted to type and already wrecked the UK’s reputation for fair dealing internationally.

I was at the Oval last night so not able to watch Sunderland live but it is obvious that the hooligan element was out in force and playing into Starmer’s hands. He must be brought down by peaceful means and the police exposed for the thugs they have become. In London anyway. Rioting in the true sense of the word is not acceptable and must stop and arson is a good number of steps too far.

If I may digress for a minute there have been several references to disturbances in Aldershot which long time readers will know was ‘home’ for 35 years. Six addresses all within five miles.

The centre of the protests there has been the Potter’s International Hotel which I had never heard of. Its address and Google maps led me to its location. When I was there, when Britain had an Army and Aldershot was its main base, the hotel was the Officers’ Clubhouse. It was quite a way outside of town and I used to pass it daily on my way to school. Not on the way back as in the afternoon there was a more direct bus route.

The issue in Aldershot is not knife crime related it is simply that the hotel has been taken over by immigrants. My remaining few friends in Aldershot say the whole town has been taken over by immigrants but fortunately they live about as far away from the Hotel as it is possible to get without losing their Aldershot address.

Why Potter’s Hotel? The name was very well known when I was growing up there. The family grew rich from making and selling musical instruments from about 1800 onwards and in my time had a shop in the town centre. I vaguely remember the names Samuel, Henry, Robert and George, there were loads of Potters in Aldershot and one at least went to the same school as me.

Bob Potter was a bit older than I am and created the Lakeside Country Club in nearby Frimley. It is famed for hosting the Darts Championships and a few pop concerts when they were smaller affairs than they are now. I saw Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames perform there in the middle or late seventies.

I’m not sure if Lakeside Country Club still operates (Ah! Google say it does) but it looks like the Potters have moved on to housing immigrants and no longer the local heroes that they used to be.

And all from making a bugle and drum kit back in 1803.

The Officers’ Mess was bombed by the IRA while I lived nearby.

2 August - Mr. Khan will not be pleased

TV is not the only thing I seem to have given up on, I have very nearly given up on the refuse collection service too. With a week to go until the next collection there is absolutely nothing in any of my bins. There’s a few bits of Cellophane in my kitchen waste bucket and that’s it. Some weeks I have put two tiny bags of stuff in the green bin but sometimes only one.

Can I claim a discount?

Country Style, when they come, always move the communal bins across the road to a new position which is a nuisance but in their defence inconsiderate car parkers make life as difficult as possible - despite the risk of damage to their vehicles.

Not so happy a situation in Welling though, where for many weeks Country Style truck VE15 WOJ has been busy polluting the atmosphere.

They have been told but reports have been ignored.

Clean it up Country Style!

1 August (Part 2) - Tinderbox Britain

I gave up on the BBC many years ago when I came to the conclusion that they were not telling me the whole truth and eventually I gave up on TV altogether. My viewing is confined to feature films and YouTube.

Last night I followed the Southport related demo or whatever one should call it in Parliament Square and Whitehall. Three live streams of an hour and more each. Not all at the same time obviously; I have done a bit of catching up this morning.

One YouTuber claimed to be the organiser and when the chanting threatened to get out of hand he was seen and heard pleading for calm and asking the police not to provoke the crowd by behaving like thugs. Today’s Daily Telegraph said the event was organised by Tommy Robinson and Lawrence Fox. An obvious lie, Robinson is on holiday abroad with his family and Fox wasn’t there, indeed there were complaints that he had distanced himself from it.

I don’t understand why protestors don’t just sit on the ground and do nothing other than sing and shout, giving the police no excuse to get their batons out.

The video streams showed a few hotheads throwing beer in the direction of the police and another shouting encouragement to scale the gates of Downing Street. However the same video picked up the police giving orders to just pick off everyone one by one. Anyone, no reason necessary. They arrested a GB News journalist for simply doing his job from the edge of the road and a 73 year old lady who was there in sympathy with three sets of bereaved parents but guilty of leaning against a wall. Handcuffs for both of them.

And a lot more. Snatch squads dashed in to take whoever was nearest. The police were indiscriminate and their behaviour often disgraceful. Batons and helmets to tackle almost entirely peaceful citizens concerned for their children’s safety and the state of Britain generally.

I don’t know what the TV channels had to say about these events but comments on X suggest it is far right football hooligans again. The truth is very different. Out of several thousands out on the streets and maybe three hours of video watched until past midnight last night I observed quite a lot of patriotic chanting in Parliament Square and the aforementioned acts of stupidity in Whitehall.

This afternoon the former Conservative MP Nick du Bois broadcasting on TalkRadio repeatedly said that last night’s largely peaceful event was a riot and shouted down the event organiser who had tried to calm matters. He denied the facts of the videos. He is part of the problem.

However the overwhelming impression from in effect being there is that the police have become our enemies and speaking personally I would be wary of visiting the streets of Central London at present.

The Prime Minister and Home Secretary by their actions in Southport - a few photos and run - are failing us badly.

On a related note, another YouTube video was showing a pianist at St. Pancras station’s public piano surrounded by four threatening police officers all of whom claimed never to have heard of the term ‘Two Tier Policing’.

Neither the police nor the so called Main Stream Media have a clue where the truth lies.

For the truth, forget BBC and Sky, just watch events live on YouTube.

News and Comment August 2024

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News and Comment August 2024

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