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Skillfully crafted from tin cans, matchsticks and off cuts, one can only imagine the satisfaction a prisoner of war derived from finishing this stunning model aircraft as he languished in Stalag Luft III. Constructed almost perfectly to scale, his detailed version of a Lancaster Bomber like the one he flew before his capture even bears what appears to be the skull and crossbones logo of RAF 100 Squadron, famous for its night-time raids.Little is known about its maker, other than that he was an airman named E Taylor.     The model was found during a clearance sale at house...

The number of terror plots targeting the UK has dropped over the past 18 months and the threat must no longer be 'hyped up', the head of MI5 said last night. In the first ever interview with a serving head of the Security Service, Jonathan Evans warned there was no room for complacency in the fight against Islamist extremism. But he claimed a series of high-profile convictions in the courts has had 'a chilling effect' on would-be terrorists. 'They are keeping their heads down,' he said. When Mr Evans started work as a spy 30 years ago, MI5 was a...

EXCLUSIVE Brits fight off deadly pirates                      By DAVID WILLETTS Published: Today       A TEAM of hero Brits battled back deadly pirates four times in 24 hours armed only with Molotov cocktails and flare guns, The Sun can reveal. The three-man ex-military security team were hired to protect cargo ship S. Venus in the pirate infested waters of the Gulf of Aden off the Africa coast. On four separate occasions between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day Somali pirates – armed with AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades (RPG) – tried...

  Professor Richard Dawkins told the launch ceremony that the existence of God was as likely as the tooth fairy     The archsceptic professor Richard Dawkins today launched Britain's first atheist campaign posting the message: "There's probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life" on the side of 800 British buses. The posters – launched in conditions cold enough to freeze a presumably non-existent hell over – co-incided with the Christian feast of the Epiphany, when according to tradition three magi from the East presented the baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Dr...

Memo: don't rely on the Brits during a battle Never mind our colonial past. Confidence in the Armed Forces is the biggest threat to the special relationship Rachel Sylvester Tony Blair used to say that the British voters wanted him to have a Love Actually moment - and tell the President of the United States to get lost, as the Prime Minister played by Hugh Grant does in the film. As Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House, Gordon Brown is more likely to find himself in a Mamma Mia! situation. He is one of several people competing...

Britain must set a maximum population level if it is to avoid destroying the environment and putting national security at risk, say experts. The Optimum Population Trust has written to ministers calling for a policy of 'zero net migration' - matching numbers allowed into Britain each year to numbers leaving. The UK's population is projected to increase from 60 to 70million over the next 20 years, and to 85million by 2081. The trust, a panel of academics and environmentalists, says achieving zero net migration would cut Britain's population in 2081 to 57million. Mass immigration 'feeds through into rising greenhouse gas...

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant. The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws. The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home,...

Before the "public intellectual" became fashionable, academia nurtured a deep abhorrence of anything "popular". Writing to a friend in 1950, British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, for example, apologised for hibernating in Oxford "writing a book of infinite pedantic exactitude on a character of infinite dullness; but I must rehabilitate myself with the learned world after writing a bestseller." The influence on the wider public discourse by the likes of Edward Said, Henry Kissinger, and even Amartya Sen, and the glamour surrounding their interventions, may have eroded the Senior Common Room's faith in the recondite but it hasn't destroyed it altogether. From...

Protestors burn the Israeli flag outside Leinster House during the Ireland Palestine demonstration in Dublin today. Photo: Matt Kavanagh A man attempted to set himself alight at a protest today in Dublin over the continued bombing of Gaza. The man, who appeared visibly distraught, set his arms and shoulders alight before onlookers managed to extinguish the flames. He was not seriously injured. The incident happened at around 1.45pm this afternoon at the Central Bank in Dublin where around 600 people had gathered to protest at Israeli attacks in Gaza. The protest continued without incident to Leinster House and finished this...

The demonstration for solidarity with the people of Gaza was earlier today. A few points, and more pictures if you continue reading. 1) I know some people will be disappointed, but I saw no mention of Jews, a bit of shouting of ‘down with Israeli terrorism’ and rare, scattered Hizb ut-Tahrir flags. Didn’t see anyone carrying the sign ‘We Are Hamas’ (and rightly too, because I’m bloody well not expressing solidarity with terrorists). This reminds of the controversy around the earlier ‘March for Free Expression’ demo, following the Motoons, whereby various Muslims were accusing free-speechers of siding with the BNP...

A regulatory expert says President Bush is flagrantly ignoring the law by using money from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) for a second bailout of General Motors. The government's bailout of the auto industry has swelled to $23.4 billion after the White House committed to send GM and its financing arm an extra $6 billion. The Treasury Department plans to purchase a $5-billion equity stake in GMAC, the financing arm of GM, and give GM an additional billion dollars to in turn buy stock in GMAC. The $6 billion will come from the $700 billion Wall Street...

Your unborn baby cast in bronze ... it's the new foetal attractionSophie Goodchild, Health Editor 02.01.09 A CLINIC is offering mothers bronze models of their unborn babies.The London Ultrasound Centre, near Harley Street, is the first in the country to offer the service, which allows parents to "celebrate" their babies in the womb.A 3D printer uses ultrasound images to build a cast of the child. The models cost £1,200, take up to two-and-a-half weeks to make, and are created when the mother is at a safe stage of pregnancy at 24 weeks.Doctors say the technology could also help improve...

Violence scarred celebrations and led to a bloody New Year across the country as emergency services endured a chaotic end to 2008. Ambulance control centres reported receiving 999 calls as often as once every seven seconds - the second highest volume of calls since the Millennium - as binge drinkers turned nasty in the freezing temperatures. Many of the calls related either to alcohol-fuelled assaults or excessive drunkenness.

<p>Two EMT workers in Britain were arrested after they were heard allegedly discussing whether they should bother to resuscitate a disabled man who had collapsed at home and subsequently died.</p> <p>Barry Baker, 59, who lived alone, dialed 911 saying that he thought he was having a heart attack. An ambulance was sent to his house while a controller kept him talking on the line.</p>

Guantánamo detainees would be entitled to £42 a week and NHS treatment Richard Ford, Home Correspondent It is little wonder that the prospect of Britain taking even a handful of the terror suspects being held in Guantánamo Bay is being described in Whitehall as a hot potato. Several departments must address issues ranging from any potential security risk the detainees pose to the immigration status under which they enter Britain, the housing and other benefits they can receive, and the inevitable public backlash. How people react to foreign terror suspects being given sanctuary in Britain with accommodation, weekly cash benefits...

  Ghanaian orphan ... Paul Apowida My duty to serve the country   Published: 30 Dec 2008     AN orphan has joined the British Army to repay the country that saved his life. Ghanaian Paul Apowida was sent to a boarding school and later college by UK charity Afrikids. He had been brought up in an orphanage after being rescued by a nun when his stepmum tried to poison him. Now rifleman Paul, 23, has joined the 1st Infantry Training Battalion in Catterick, North Yorks, to pay the debt he feels he owes. The talented artist, who recently...

A man was acquitted of sexually assaulting a young girl after medical experts said he was sleepwalking.Alan Ball, 35, climbed into bed with the child and kissed her on the lips after drinking heavily at a New Year's Eve house party last year.But a judge found him not guilty of sexual assault when he heard two experts agreed Mr Ball was sleepwalking at the time and did not know what he was doing.The former lorry driver today said he lost his job and became a social outcast following the allegations.  Fiorella Brereton, prosecuting, told Preston crown court Mr Ball...

RESIDENTS at certain addresses in the Gaza Strip have been receiving unusual phone calls since the Israeli air assault began on Saturday - a request that they and their families leave their homes as soon as possible for their own safety.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has said that at at least 15 per cent of those in operational roles should be female. That means they will fill one of the five or six places for crew on each engine.The LGA said an increased number of firewomen is necessary "to meet the needs of local people".But critics warned that political correctness was being put above the ability to save lives.Susie Squire, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Introducing this sort of quota to the fire service is a big mistake. "If ever there was a job that should be awarded on...

U.K.: Mosque "committed to peace, diversity and interfaith dialogue" hosts conference featuring "spiritual advisor" to 9/11 jihadists A spokesman for the mosque insists the conference organizers are just using their facilities. But no one seems perturbed enough about this "misunderstanding" and "hijacking" of Islam to cancel the conference or appearances by speakers like Anwar al-Awlaki and others named below. The full schedule of festivities can be found here.

Increases in social security benefits has produced a baby boom among poor families, Government-sponsored research showed today. Tax credits and big increases in means-tested state payments have resulted in 45,000 extra babies a year - around one in 15 of all children born. And it found that young women with the least education stopped using contraception after the benefits were pushed up because they were trying to get pregnant. The findings mean that Gordon Brown's benefit reforms now stand alongside immigration as the main reason why the number of babies born in Britain is going up. They also signal that...

Midnight in the middle of enemy territory in Afghanistan. Today we have repatriated four Royal Marines and one commando-trained Royal Artillery officer – all killed in action – to their loved ones. The best eulogies always come from the lads themselves and they are not always repeatable in polite conversation. But today’s were awesome. Some had known the dead men since they were boys, and the humour was rich and the respect profound.Sadly, while we were praying for their souls, another of our task force, a rifleman, was killed.  As I write, we are sitting in the back of...

The latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has dropped many words associated with Christianity and British history that were found in earlier versions. Christian-related words like "bishop," "chapel," "disciple," "minister," "sin," and "devil," have been replaced by words like "blog," "biodegradable," "MP3 player," "democratic," and "celebrity," in the 2007 edition of the popular children's dictionary in the United Kingdom. Although the newest version of the dictionary was released last year, the removal of words went largely unnoticed until Lisa Saunders, a mother of four from Northern Ireland, pointed them out. She first realized the omission of words during a...

At least in this case study from Absurd Britannia, the backtracking began almost immediately. "Mother told to take down her Christmas lights... in case they offend her non-Christian neighbours," from the Daily Mail, December 16 (thanks to James): A woman has spoken of how she was told to remove her Christmas lights by a housing association worker - in case they offended her non-Christian neighbours. Dorothy Glenn decorates her home in South Shields with hundreds of festive lights every year, including a giant tree and a 4ft Santa Claus. But she was left stunned this year when a South Tyneside...

The good doctor on the day of his grand jihad Cambridge alum guilty of plotting the jihad deaths of untold numbers. Poverty Causes Terrorism Update: "Iraqi doctor found guilty of Glasgow airport bomb plot," by Steve Bird in the Times, December 16 (thanks to all who sent this in): An NHS doctor who waged a terrorist car-bomb campaign intended to kill and maim hundreds of people in London and Glasgow has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder. Dr Bilal Abdulla was part of a cell that set up a bomb-making factory and bought five cars to convert into firebombs...

Sharia courts have operated in Britain for years. But previously they relied on voluntary adherence to rulings and their judgments were not legally enforceable. Enforcement of Sharia court judgments took effect one year after the Archbishop of Canterbury caused a major controversy by declaring that formal recognition of Sharia law “seemed inevitable.” Numerous politicians have expressed concern that the formal backing of Sharia courts marks the beginning of a parallel legal system based on Sharia law, such as exists in Lebanon. Dominic Grieve, shadow home secretary, made clear that he considers the court enforcement of Sharia judgments to be illegal....

LONDON: 36-year-old Sergeant Krishna Bahadur Dura made the ultimate sacrifice fighting for Britain in Afghanistan but his widow has now been warned that she and her children born here may be deported to Nepal. Dura's widow Uma returned to her UK home last week after travelling to Nepal with her two young daughters to bury her husband. But Home Office rules do not automatically allow Gurkhas' widows to remain here. Uma has been told that she may have to leave even though her four-year-old daughter was born in Britain and her 10-year-old is settled at school in Canterbury, Kent. "My...

Hazardous Caroling by: Deborah Lambert, December 15, 2008 First it was dodge ball, then it was tag. Now, a British shopping mall cancelled its annual children’s caroling event because it was deemed a health hazard, said The Daily Mail. The Brownies and Girl Guides, they explained, “could obstruct fire escape routes.” Mall management later admitted that because they had placed a 25-foot Christmas tree where the girls used to sing...

A man wanted by Interpol for his links to an alleged terrorist organisation has been advising Scotland Yard on countering Muslim extremism, a Times investigation has discovered. Mohamed Ali Harrath has been the subject of the Interpol red notice since 1992 because of his alleged activities in Tunisia, where he co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front (FIT). Tunisia has accused Mr Harrath, the chief executive officer of the Islam Channel in Britain and an adviser to the Scotland Yard Muslim Contact Unit, of seeking help from Osama bin Laden. It says that the FIT wants to establish “an Islamic state by...

Gordon Brown invoked the wartime spirit of Winston Churchill yesterday when he made a surprise pre-Christmas trip to the Afghanistan front line just hours after bombs killed four British troops in the area.He was flown to the top of Roshan Tower post, situated in the thick of the Helmand fighting zone – and, in so doing, out-machoed his predecessor Tony Blair, who never left the safety of a fortified British base. (edit)Downing Street aides claimed that no British Prime Minister had been as close to a major front line since Winston Churchill in the Second World War.(edit) But the...

In a blunt message to Islamabad in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, British Premier Gordon Brown said on Sunday that "time has come for action" against terrorists operating from the soil of this country as he revealed that the 3/4th of the terror plots investigated by the UK had links to al-Qaeda and Pakistan. Making a visit to Islamabad shortly after an unscheduled trip to India, Brown, who met President Asif Ali Zardari, also offered a comprehensive pact to Pakistan for controlling terrorism and extremism. Britain has asked both India and Pakistan to question suspects arrested in connection with...

A Church of England clergyman has banned the popular hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem from his Christmas services because he claims it does not reflect the true state of the town believed by Christians to be the place of Jesus' birth. “That just isn’t what it is like there at the moment. It isn’t still and peaceful, it is full of tension and anger and fearful people. Mr Coulter visited the Middle East last month along with a group of 30 parishioners and said he was shocked by the security wall.

The existence of a brain where no other soft tissues have survived is extremely rare, according to Sonia O'Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford in northern England who helped authenticate the discovery. "This brain is particularly exciting because it is very well preserved, even though it is the oldest recorded find of this type in the U.K., and one of the earliest worldwide," she said. The old brain is unlikely to yield new neurological insights because human brains aren't thought to have changed much over the past 2,000 years, according to Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology...

The golden age of steam was never more glorious than during the heyday of the Great Western Railway.  As these newly discovered photographs reveal, the everyday workings of God's Wonderful Railway (as it was dubbed) reveal a world of style, order and civility almost unimaginable to harassed commuters. (edit) Uniformed porters carrying bags, dining cars where you would actually want to eat and stations that seem more like temples than places of transit  -  all this is a world away from the crowded, ugly and noisy experience of train travel in Britain today.It is a timely reminder that there...

Helping someone to commit suicide is a matter of conscience, the Prime Minister said today. Gordon Brown condemned the idea of new laws to allow assisted suicide - but he did nothing to stop it in the wake of a landmark test case decision that paved the way for more deaths in the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. His response in the Commons to the outcry over the televised suicide of motor neurone disease sufferer Craig Ewert appealed instead for compassion for families agonising over the suffering of a loved one. The end: The moment motor neurone sufferer Craig Ewert, 59,...

More evil and violence from the ‘religion’ of ‘piece’. No wonder muslim kids grow up so full of hate and venom, the very people charged with protecting them are beating them down in the name of allah. Gee what a shocker there… Muslim children are being beaten and abused regularly by teachers at some British madrassas - Islamic evening classes - an investigation by The Times has found. Students have been slapped, punched and had their ears twisted, according to an unpublished report by an imam based on interviews with victims in the north of England. One was “picked up...

At least 100 police and prison staff, many dressed in riot gear, were deployed to the Aylesbury Young Offenders' Institute after a large group of Asian prisoners ran riot inside the centre. Sources said that they broke into the officers' mess and workshops and armed themselves with hammers, saws and chisels.

Flights at Stansted were today grounded after at least 50 climate change protesters broke into the airport and occupied a runway.Activists cut through fencing and once on the landing strip chained themselves together and surrounded themselves with their security fencing to create a ‘fort’.Members of the Plane Stupid organisation, who are protesting against the proposed second runway, grounded flights after achieving their aim of closing the airstrip. The occupied runway had been due to reopen at 5am. Airlines were told to divert their planes in the skies and, although the airport terminal has been opened to passengers, no aircraft...

The police are appealing for witnesses after a paramedic was shot at in Portsmouth while treating a man who had fallen from a lorry. video at the link

  World's No1 Exotico ... Cassandro      Meet the Queen of the ring     By SIMON ROTHSTEIN Published: 04 Dec 2008         HE’S a gay Lucha Libre wrestler who enters the ring wearing pantyhose and a woman’s bathing suit. Yet grappling fans everywhere, from his home country of Mexico to right here in the UK, can’t get enough of Cassandro. The self-proclaimed ‘Queen of the ring’ is back in Britain as one of 16 stars who will be performing on Lucha Libre London at the Roundhouse from December 6-9. And he says that while...

“Pakistan Simply Has No Right to Exist.” Imagine if Pajamas Media had used that title for my article. All hell would have broken loose around the globe. Fatwas would have been flying everywhere. Well, way back on January 3, 2001, a major editorial by Faisal Bodi appeared in the Guardian newspaper entitled, “Israel Simply Has No Right to Exist.”... I remember sitting on a train from Wimbledon in summer 2001 and reading a long letter in a newspaper from a young British-born Muslim who said he earned a fortune in a computer consultancy but delighted in chanting “Death to England!”...

Hussein Onyango Obama, a British soldier in the second world war, was locked up as a Mau Mau rebel in KenyaThe past usually finds a way of catching up with us. Could Britain's colonial sins pose a risk to our relationship with the soon-to-be most powerful person on Earth? According to the Times, Barack Obama's grandfather was imprisoned and tortured by the British during Kenya's Mau Mau uprising.

Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in every Roman Catholic school, Church leaders have said. The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want special toilet facilities in schools to be adapted for Islamic cleaning rituals. Their demands will shock both Catholic parents and the Government because they go way beyond the legal requirements on catering for the rights and needs of religious minorities. But the bishops are keen to answer critics who say religious schools sow division - and to show that they are leading the way in building bridges between people of different faiths. The bishops acknowledge in...

(edit)Although the programme was on Radio 1, pictures were also relayed to online listeners via a webcam. And while Barrowman's genitalia were not actually shown, the crude comments which accompanied the incident made it clear what had happened.(edit) Grimshaw said: 'You're famous, we're told, for getting your willy out in interviews. Is this going to happen today? Should Annie be careful?' Barrowman asked: 'Is the webcam on?' When told it was, he declared: 'All right, I'll get it out for you then, no problem.' The webcam had been swiftly covered up but listeners heard Annie Mac screaming: 'Oh my God!'...

A rare amber necklace believed to be about 4,000 years old has been uncovered in Greater Manchester. Archaeologists made the find while excavating a cist - a type of stone-lined grave - in Mellor, Stockport. It is the first time a necklace of this kind from the early Bronze Age has been found in north-west England. Experts from the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit said a amber necklace was one of the ultimate status symbols of the period. The necklace consists of dozens of pierced amber beads of various sizes, linked together on a length of fibre. It was discovered...

Sterling has fallen sharply against the dollar as yet more bad economic data points towards a prolonged recession and further interest rate cuts. The pound was down 5.2 cents to $1.486, its largest one day fall in percentage terms since sterling crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in 1992. Sharp falls in the FTSE 100 index - down 5.2% on Monday - also served to undermine the currency. The pound was also down 3.5 cents against the euro, at 0.851 pounds. The poor economic data increases the likelihood that the Bank of England will cut interest rates on...

Official figures from each police force in the UK reveal a grim tally of 65 teenagers who have met a violent death since January 1 - almost two-thirds of whom were stabbed to death. The record level of teen killings, which has doubled in five years in London alone... Sir Ian Blair said in his last interview before resigning as Scotland Yard Commissioner last week that the figures were a "regret" but added that there had been an "enormous drive" to reverse the trend. High profile cases have included those of Jimmy Mizen, 16, an altar boy who was stabbed...

BRITISH men and women are now the most promiscuous of any big western industrial nation, researchers have found. In an international index measuring one-night stands, total numbers of partners and attitudes to casual sex, Britain comes out ahead of Australia, the US, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. The researchers behind the study say high scores such as Britain’s may be linked to the way society is increasingly willing to accept sexual promiscuity among women as well as men. They also believe that, among certain age groups and at certain times, men and women are equally liberal.

Indian officials suspect the Islamic terrorists in Mumbai may have British links after examining BlackBerry phones they used to monitor news reports. Key figures in the terrorist gang were equipped with the devices that meant they were able to monitor British news, even when the authorities turned off power. A senior officer in the country's elite Black Cat commando unit told the Telegraph, the gunmen were able to trawl the internet for information once they lost cable television feeds to the two luxury hotels and office block. The men looked beyond the instant updates of the Indian media to find...

‘You work your nuts off, you get to have a nice life. But the way the British tax system is, it’s like you work your nuts off and then they give you a big kick in them. It gets to the point where you start to think you can’t afford to live in your own country.’