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Theresa May’s leadership has been plunged into turmoil as she had to axe her second Cabinet ­ minister in seven days. Priti Patel, 45, quit over her damaging secret ­meetings with Israeli officials and PM Benjamin Netanyahu that could have left the impression Britain favours Tel Aviv over Palestine...Mrs May also had to deny claims she knew about some of her minister’s Israeli meetings earlier than thought and had told her to cover them up.

New research has revealed a shocking number of Brits don't know much about the birth of Jesus. The History Channel survey found 20 per cent didn't know Jesus birth was remembered on Christmas Day and one in 20 thought Jesus was born over Easter. Around one in 10 were unable to name Bethlehem as Jesus' place of birth while another 10 per cent were unaware he was born in a stable, despite the prevalence of nativity plays and Christian teaching in schools. A spokesman for the History Channel, which commissioned the research to mark the launch of its new show...

The British government is set to keep the UK in both the Single Market and the Customs Union until at least 2021 in a move that will cripple any real political change for years to come. [snip] Remaining in the Single Market will mean that the UK will unable to end freedom of movement, the key motivation for the millions of Brits who backed Brexit on June 23rd 2016. Uncontrolled mass migration will now be able to roll on into the 2020s. Staying in the Customs Union means that the UK will not be able to sign up and enact...

A planned “working visit” to the United Kingdom by U.S. President Donald Trump has been cancelled following Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to publicly upbraid him over Twitter retweets. The prime minister said the president was “wrong” to share videos purporting to show Muslims committing acts of violence while on a visit to the Middle East, where she is attempting to curry favour with local dictators. President Trump did not hesitate to rebuke the British politician, telling her: “Don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing...

London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Thursday urged the British government to cancel any official state visit by U.S. President Donald Trump, after Trump retweeted a series of videos posted by the leader of an extremist British political group. The videos, which sought to portray Muslims as violent and dangerous, were originally posted to Twitter by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the Britain First group which demands that Muslims be removed from Britain. In a statement on Thursday quoted by Politico, Khan accused Trump of promoting a “vile, extremist group that exists solely to sow division and hatred.” “After this latest...

Archaeologists have pinpointed an obscure spot in Kent as the scene of the first encounter between Rome and ancient Britons. Pegwell Bay on the Isle of Thanet is believed to be where Caesar first attempted to land in 55 BC, and later more successfully in 54 BC. Now the site is more than half a mile inland - but at the time it was closer to the coast. The location matches Caesar's own account as it was visible from the sea with a large open bay and was overlooked by higher ground. His army immediately built a fort on the...

LGBT charities and campaigners have welcomed the Church of England’s new guidance for schools urging them to refrain from making pupils conform to gender stereotypes. The updated guidance for the church’s 4,700 schools, titled Valuing All God’s Children, and timed to coincide with anti-bullying week, followed advice issued three years ago that covered homophobic bullying. It has now been expanded to include transphobic and biphobic bullying. The guidance met with outrage in some quarters, drawing sceptical newspaper headlines and furious commentary from some conservatives. But the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the guidance was “big progress for a church...

Ground-breaking research shows six in 10 Muslim wives in England and Wales are not legally marriedWhen Rukhsana Noor completed her online dating profile, she thought she had taken her first step towards finding love. In reality, she had set off on a path that would lead her to a lengthy legal battle that would cost her hundreds of thousands of pounds. Ms Noor had many good things in her life: a university education, a professional career and a good salary, but she had always dreamt of having children. As a single woman, she, like many other British Muslims, was...

The first is a trip down the river Thames and a look at the Pool of London, then one of the busiest ports in the world. Lots of steamships. The second, linked in the comments below, shows scenes along the Great North Road which was a major coaching road in the 18th and 19th centuries passing through lots of very old small towns and villages.

A pair of World War Two machine guns were among over 140 firearms handed in to police on the first week of the National Gun Surrender. The two weapons, which had been deactivated, were among five automatic guns handed in to the Metropolitan Police along with 31 shotguns, 11 pistols, 10 handguns, nine revolvers and six rifles. Some 3,859 rounds of ammunition were also handed in, as well as 48 air weapons, to the Met. The national gun surrender drive was launched on November 13 and ends on Sunday. Detective Superintendent Mike Balcombe, of the Met’s Trident and Area Crime...

In shocking video footage, the furious rider screamed “get off my horse” and struck out wildly at the masked man as he tried to grab onto the reins A woman on horseback appears to repeatedly whip a hunt saboteur with a riding crop after he tried to stop her “charging down” his fellow protesters in shocking footage. In the video the furious rider screams “get off my horse ” and strikes out wildly at the masked man as he tries to grab onto the reins during an alleged clash with the East Sussex & Romney Marsh Hunt Club on Saturday....

The idea is to encourage people to hand their wartime souvenirs or heirlooms over to police. With four days left of the great guns amnesty, Torquay police have been showing off the latest haul of firearms handed in at the town's police station. The guns and ammunition add to an already-impressive collection of guns taken out of circulation. The idea of the fortnight-long firearms surrender is to encourage people who have guns at home - possibly wartime souvenirs or heirlooms - to hand them over to police. The amnesty period runs until Sunday November 26 and they can be handed...

Nightmare neighbours smoking cannabis inside their own homes is a common problem for communities across Britain. The notoriously pungent stench may be a sign of a recreational user smoking the odd joint next door or the drug being grown in large quantities close by. And while you may not be bothered by what other people get up to in their own homes, there’s no denying the smell can be off-putting. So what action can you take if you suspect the drug is being used near your home? The Derby Telegraph and DevonLive took a closer look at the law surrounding...

In the wake of three high-profile mass shootings — Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs and Rancho Tehema — I wonder if firearms freedom fence sitters are starting to get the message: gun control doesn’t work. Background checks don’t stop criminals, crazies and terrorists from tooling-up and going postal. Background checks don’t stop them. Assault weapon bans don’t stop them. Ammunition capacity laws don’t stop them. A bullet to the brain? That stops them! Here’s more proof [via dailyrecord.co.uk] . . . An eccentric pensioner who was found to have a massive arsenal of weapons after the fire brigade rushed to...

The man behind a website to help Muslim men find 'second wives' has insisted the service can 'empower' women. Azad Chaiwala, from Sunderland, set up SecondWife.com, for the 'small section' of Muslims who are looking to have multiple wives. Appearing on ITV's This Morning, Mr Chaiwala said his website would discourage women from being mistresses and instead 'empower' them by legitimising the relationship in a way that allows it to be regarded as more than just an affair. Viewers were shocked by Azed's beliefs, saying he was using the website to justify cheating. One tweeted: 'He says it empowers women......

In January, I wrote in these pages about the Democrats’ dossier on Donald Trump. Much of what seemed likely about it at the time has since been confirmed. No surprise there. Hillary Clinton has confessed. But what is surprising is the general lack of appreciation for the significance of this sordid episode. Democrats have elevated delusion to an art form by insisting the funding of the dossier is irrelevant, and that what really matters is its unverified and unverifiable allegations of collusion between President Trump and Russia. Alternatively, the White House has asserted that the dossier proves that it was...

A British tourist facing execution for taking prescription painkillers into Egypt is crammed into a tiny cell with 25 other women and a hole in the floor for a toilet. Laura Plummer, 33, was arrested with the tramadol tablets in her suitcase after she flew into a Red Sea beach resort for a two-week break with her Egyptian husband. She’s being held on drug trafficking charges at Hurghada 1st Police Department with “murderers, heroin addicts and prostitutes,” her family told Mirror Online.

A Brit tourist facing execution for taking prescription painkillers into Egypt is crammed into a tiny cell with 25 other women and a hole in the floor as a toilet. Laura Plummer, 33, was arrested with the tramadol tablets in her suitcase after she flew into a Red Sea beach resort for a two-week break with her Egyptian husband. And now, she’s being held on drug trafficking charges at Hurghada 1st Police Department with “murderers, heroin addicts and prostitutes,” her family told Mirror Online. Plummer’s sister Jayne Synclair, 40, said she fears her little sister will try to end her...

ritain's reaffirmation of Peel's proposed "two-state solution" is long overdue Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has acknowledged that Jordan and Israel represent the only viable “two state solution” that can end the Arab-Jewish conflict. Writing in the Daily Telegraph on 29 October—ahead of the centenary of the Balfour Declaration on 2 November—the Foreign Secretary stated:

They are the last remaining heroes of the glorious Few, whose daring and bravery saved Britain from Nazi tyranny. Of the dwindling band of men, who were part of the near 3,000-strong aircrew who served with the RAF Fighter Command between July 10 and October 31 1940, just eight surviving members of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association remain. Many of the men were still teenagers or in their early 20s when they repelled Hitler's Luftwaffe in what may be the most important battle this country has ever fought.