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The grieving mother of a heroic Sergeant-Major gunned down by a rogue Afghan policeman has accused Labour of treating British troops like 'peasants'. Heartbroken Elizabeth Chant, whose son Darren was killed last week, is calling on the Government to invest in better accommodation. Warrant Officer Class 1 'Daz' Chant, 40, of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was one of five off-duty British soldiers shot dead last Tuesday by a man dressed in an Afghan police uniform who opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle at a police station in southern Afghanistan. Mrs Chant, 59, said: 'Every day now we are hearing...

From The Sunday Times November 8, 2009 Army Wants To Retreat in Afghanistan Christina Lamb, Jonathan Oliver and Stephen Grey in Musa Quala ARMY CHIEFS are drawing up plans to withdraw British troops from outlying bases in Afghanistan. In what would be a significant change of strategy against the growing Taliban insurgency, they are considering abandoning several bases including Musa Qala, the scene of bloody battles that claimed 15 British lives. Army forces would attempt to hold only the larger towns in Helmand province. It is understood the new “retrenchment” strategy is backed by the head of the army, General...

November 8, 2009 I'm Doing 'God's Work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs [Pic in URL] Number 85 Broad Street, a dull, rust-coloured office block in lower Manhattan, doesn’t look like a place to stop and stare, and that’s just the way the people who work there like it. The men and women who arrive in the watery dawn sunshine, dressed in Wall Street black, clutching black briefcases and BlackBerrys, are very, very private. They walk quickly from their black Lincoln town cars to the lobby, past, well, nothing, really. There’s no name plate on the building, no sign on...

'Diary of a Kremlin insider reveals the hold Soviets had over Labour politicians'

'They are so familiar we take them for granted, but a new book reveals the full glory of our Great War memorials'

With her head held high, applauding and with a beaming grin, Christina Schmid did not look like a typical war widow as she watched her husband's coffin parade through the streets of Wootton Bassett this week. The brave wife of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, who died dismantling a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, even managed a thumbs-up as she watched her husband of two years return home. Yesterday she revealed that after the homecoming parade of 30-year-old Sgt Schmid, known as Oz, she cried so much that she did not have an ounce of make-up left. But she said he had...

A heavily pregnant woman and her fiance have gone on the run after social workers threatened to take away their baby at birth. Kerry Robertson, 17, and Mark McDougall, 25, had been told that she was not bright enough to raise their child and that they would have to give him up. It was another blow for the couple, whose wedding this year was halted just 48 hours before the ceremony in a row over whether Miss Robertson was intelligent enough to marry.   Miss Robertson, who is 29 weeks pregnant, has since been told the couple will be...

Muggers Attack Two-Year-Old Girl A two-year-old girl was punched in the head by two teenage girls during an attempted robbery in north-west London. By Julie Henry 07 Nov 2009 CCTV of two teenage female muggers who punched a two year old toddler in the head Photo: PIXEL The girl was with her mother when the pair were targeted by two female suspects in Preston Road, Wembley, at about 4.45 pm on Thursday. They demanded money from the mother before punching her in the arm and attacking her daughter. The attackers are described as being of Mediterranean appearance and aged between...

When Nick Griffin told BBC One’s Question Time that he found “the sight of two men kissing in public a bit creepy”, he may have been thinking about a traumatic adolescent experience. In an interview with The Times, Mr Griffin claimed that a former deputy leader of the National Front (NF) offered sex to him when he was still a teenager.

FEARS are emerging that vulnerable children might be groomed for religious extremism or even terrorism at taxpayers’ expense. Muslim pupils are being taken out of classes and sent to study at Islamic schools, or madrassas. A pilot scheme, the Open Madrasah Network, has received a £550,000 government grant to pay for under-achievers to attend lessons in Arabic, Urdu and religion. The classes, described as booster lessons for primary and GCSE age pupils, are already running at four madrassas in Bradford, West Yorkshire. If pupils show improvement, the scheme is likely to be rolled out nationally. But critics say it will...

Last week, academics concluded that women who claim they've been drugged and raped were usually just drunk... When she recalls the night she went off with a stranger, Daniella swears blind someone slipped something into her drink. How else could a man she never met before have managed to get the 29-year-old legal secretary from the nightclub in Bradford where they met, into his car?

The graves lie ready. All have been dug to identical dimensions, all laid out in perfect rows so that the headstones will face south to catch the sun, while the visitor looks north across the battlefield. ..... In a week when Britain has lost another lionheart of bomb disposal and six first-class troops in Afghanistan, tomorrow's Remembrance services up and down the land will have even greater poignancy. With 93 deaths in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, 2009 is now the bloodiest year for the British Forces since the 1982 Falklands War - and we still have another nine weeks...

'Chocolate On Your Face' Girl, 6, Branded A Racist COLIN FERNANDEZ 06th November 2009 Confused: Michelle Gower with Sharona, whose 'playground banter was taken as a sinister remark' [Pic in URL] The parents of a six-year-old girl are outraged after their daughter was branded a racist for telling a black girl she had chocolate on her face. They fear the incident could 'haunt' her throughout her time at school. Sharona Gower had been eating chocolate mousse and was playing with a friend when she was chased by two 11-year-old girls. When one of the older girls, who was black, said...

<p>LONDON – The reigning Miss England has relinquished her crown after being accused of a fight in a bar.</p>

Just how deep the tentacles of communism reached into the heart of British government has now been revealed with the emergence of an extraordinary diary by Anatoly Chernyaev, the Soviet Union's contact man with the West at the icy height of the Cold War. Meticulously detailed and written by hand on lined notepaper, the diary has come to light in the U.S. National Security Archive.

Controversial new European working laws mean all doctors, including surgeons, are allowed to work only 48 hours a week. Introduced in August they have provoked fierce criticism from surgeons who say that new trainees will struggle to master their complex specialism in such a restricted time. But the Government insists that having fewer exhausted doctors on wards means that patients are safer. However, experts writing in the British Medical Journal say that complications and readmissions increase when restrictions are placed on how long surgeons can work, they write in the British Medical Journal. They highlight recent working hours restrictions in...

No Respect, No Morals, No Trust - Welcome To Modern Britain Our political leaders are falling short as we sink under a tide of vulgarity and sleaze, says Jeff Randall. Jeff Randall 05 Nov 2009 Earlier this year, the BBC broadcast a documentary called The Death of Respect. It went out late and would have been missed by many. For those who did not see it, there was compelling evidence this week that the social decomposition chronicled in John Ware's programme is very real, when film of a Sheffield student relieving himself on a war memorial was shown in the...

The ideal of the coolly rational scientific observer, completely independent, free of all preconceived theories, prior philosophical, ethical and religious commitments, doing investigations and coming to dispassionate, unbiased conclusions that constitute truth, is nowadays regarded by serious philosophers of science (and, indeed, most scientists) as a simplistic myth...

Harriet Harman was yesterday slapped down by national statisticians over her claims that women are paid a fifth less than men. The Women and Equality Minister was told she must no longer use a single figure to describe the complex differences in the earnings of men and women. Instead she will have to give three measures - among them one which shows that far from earning less than men, women in part-time jobs are actually paid more on average than their male counterparts.

Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP, has resigned as European legal spokesman only two months after taking up the post in protest at his party's stance on the Lisbon Treaty. Mr Hannan, a leading Eurosceptic, became the Tory spokesman on legal affairs in the European Parliament in September. But last night on his Telegraph blog, Mr Hannan, the Conservative MEP for South East England, said he would be returning to the back benches in order to campaign for direct democracy that will see power in the hands of individual citizens.

Would Britain Really Be Any Worse Off If The Commons Was Blown Up Tomorrow? DOMINIC SANDBROOK 05th November 2009 Spool forward to Bonfire Night, 2019. Picture a typical, quiet English town where hundreds have gathered. Children's excited faces glow in the darkness. In a scene repeated in communities across the nation, the bonfire's flames reach the top of the pile of wood and begin to lick at the self-satisfied smile of the effigy of former Commons Speaker John Bercow. The crowds let out a roar of delight. These celebrations are not the traditional ones marking the failure of the Gunpowder...

Here it is!!!!!!!!!

A woman 'rescued' from an attack by a group of girls, by London mayor Boris Johnson, has spoken about the incident. Franny Armstrong called for help as she was surrounded and pushed by the girls, one of whom had an iron bar, in Camden, north London, on Monday night. The mayor, who was cycling past, stopped and chased the girls down the street, calling them: "Oiks".

We’ve had it with sexism, racism, religious prejudice – all now considered utterly unacceptable in the workplace. Will employees across UK Plc now have to start watching their tongues in case they are guilty of greenism? After yesterday’s legal landmark ruling, “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief” akin to religion. This judgment means a company must not discriminate against someone because of their deeply-held environmental convictions. So no more jokes about the office hippy at the sustainable water-cooler then. It has all come about because Tim Nicholson, 42, of...

Darwin’s bulldog—Thomas H. Huxley --snip-- Huxley, although an unbeliever, was thoroughly familiar with the gospel, and had little time for Christians who compromised their position by supporting the anti-biblical belief of evolutionary naturalism. He wrote: ...

London Mayor Boris Johnson rescued a woman attacked by a group of girls wielding a metal bar after answering her plea for help during an evening bicycle ride, a spokeswoman for his office said on Wednesday. Documentary filmmaker Franny Armstrong was confronted by a group of young teenage girls as she was walking in North London on Monday night, media reported. "I was texting on my phone so didn't notice the girls until they pushed me against the car," the Guardian newspaper quoted Armstrong as saying. "I saw that one of them had an iron bar in her hand. It...

Sir Ian Blair thinks that policing should be run by people like him. Prof David Nutt thinks that drugs policy should be set by people like him. José Manuel Durão Barroso thinks that the EU should be administered by people like him. And, to a large extent, they are getting their way, these apparatchiks.Britain, even more than other states, is run by and for its standing officials. Our lives are less impacted by the decisions of our MPs or councillors than by those of the Local Education Authority, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, the Child Support Agency, the Financial...

The Glasgay! arts festival is staging a play called Jesus, Queen of Heaven, in which in Christ is a man who wants to become a woman. As soon as I read about it, I thought: “I bet some public money has gone into that”. But even I was taken aback when I visited the festival website:If there’s one thing gay activists love, it’s public money. Though, as you can see, they’re only too thrilled to pick up a bit of commercial sponsorship along the way.Unsurprisingly, Jesus, Queen of Heaven has provoked protests from Catholics (who are probably unaware that they’re...

Three Grenadier Guards and two Royal Military Police were attacked as they rested inside a compound. The soldiers, who had removed their body armour and helmets, were shot by an Afghan national policeman who then fled. It is not known whether he was a member of the Taliban or being coerced by the insurgents. The gunman is thought to go by the name Gulbuddin and is believed to have had an accomplice. There are also suggestions that he had animosity towards his superiors after being repeatedly moved around the country as part of his duties. He is now being hunted...

Five soldiers have been shot dead by a "rogue" Afghan policeman in an attack at a police checkpoint. Three Grenadier Guards and two Royal Military Police were attacked as they rested inside a compound. The soldiers, who had removed their body armour and helmets, were shot by an Afghan national policeman who then fled. It is not known whether he was a member of the Taliban or being coerced by the insurgents.

Isi Leibler has written a fierce denunciation in the Jerusalem Post of Britain’s Jewish community leadership for their supine and craven response to the way Britain’s political and intellectual class is throwing Israel ever more brazenly under the bus. I agree with all that he says. However, I fear that his hope that British Jews get rid of these leaders and replace them by individuals who are prepared to mount a proper defence of Israel in the face of this verbal pogrom is tragically unrealisable.

Patients who do not get the treatment that they need from the NHS within 18 weeks are to be given the legal right to free private care. The Cabinet agreed this week that the legislation, placing maximum waiting times on the statute book for the first time, should be rushed through Parliament before the next election. Cancer patients, in particular, will receive funding for private treatment if they have not seen an NHS specialist within two weeks of GP referral. Downing Street says that the two legal rights, which will be unveiled in next month’s Queen’s Speech, are designed to...

Thea Cox, 54, was originally given a suspended 12-week prison sentence for having an offensive weapon with her as she carried out four burglaries last year. She returned to the same student flats this summer and carried out two further raids – on each occasion while wearing an electronic tag. Under normal circumstances she might have expected to go straight to prison for being in breach of her suspended sentence. But Recorder Kevin Hann, sitting at Exeter Crown Court, decided to suspend a new nine-month term for a further two years. He told Cox: “This is such an unusual case...

The Home Secretary admitted yesterday that the Government had made mistakes in its handling of immigration and had overreacted to the 7/7 bombings in London. In his first speech on the subject, Alan Johnson said that ministers had ignored immigration problems and the growing pressure on jobs and services in parts of Britain. Some communities had legitimate concerns because they had been particularly affected. (snip) Mr Johnson is the first Labour Home Secretary to admit mistakes on immigration. He said his predecessors had not addressed problems that led to huge backlogs of asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. It emerged...

The deal for the Chancery building in London’s Grosvenor Square with Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment was agreed by the US Ambassador to the UK, Louis Susman.

An Iraqi man who tried to flee to Britain from the United States after allegedly running down his daughter for being "too Westernised" faces a possible murder charge after she died from her injuries. Arizona police said that Faleh Hassan Almaleki ran down Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep as the women crossed a car park in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria on October 20. (snip) Police said that Mr Almaleki, 48, fled the US after the attack, crossing the Mexican border and leaving his car at the town of Nogales. He then took a...

David Cameron promised yesterday to cut the cost of running the NHS by a third while handing day-to-day management of the health service over to an independent body. The Tory leader guaranteed that up to £1.5 billion of savings on bureaucracy would be reinvested elsewhere in the health service. He also pledged to extend “patient power” and to create a rebranded Department of Public Health if his party won the next election. Experts said that the plans to make the NHS more independent under a new executive board lacked detail, risked the health service becoming an unaccountable quango and could...

I don’t often write about alternative remedies for serious medical conditions. Most have little more than anecdotal support, and few have been found effective in well-designed clinical trials. Such trials randomly assign patients to one of two or more treatments and, wherever possible, assess the results without telling either the patients or evaluators who received which treatment. Now, however, in describing an alternative treatment for asthma that does not yet have top clinical ratings in this country (although it is taught in Russian medical schools and covered by insurance in Australia), I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria...

LEEDS, United Kingdom - Protestors converged on the town of Leeds in northern England in a face off over Islamic extremism over the weekend. Radical Islam is on the rise in Great Britain, but so are demonstrations by those who say enough is enough. Leeds has a large Muslim community and a new group known as the English Defence League wants their government to do more against the growing influence of radical Islam. Protestors were angry with the government, and took it out on police. The night before the protest, leaders of the English Defence League took CBN News to...

LONDON (AFP) – David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party, widely tipped to be the next prime minister, is to drop plans for a referendum on the European Union's key reforming Lisbon Treaty, a newspaper said Tuesday. Cameron is set to announce he will abandon a pledge to hold a vote on the treaty if his party wins the country's general election due by next June, the Daily Telegraph said. A referendum had threatened to cause a headache for the European Union amid delays over the introduction of the treaty in the 27-nation bloc, which must be ratified by all...

According to a new Climate Confidence Monitor survey released today, support for action on climate change is plummeting in Canada. Just 26% of Canadians consider global warming among their chief concerns, down from 34% in 2008. Concern in the U.S. is even lower - just 18% , down from 26% in 2008. The UK's level of concern is the lowest of all, a mere 15%, down from 26% in 2008. Worldwide, the drop in concern over climate change has also dropped by 8 percentage points, from 42% to 34%...

THREE thousand Britons a year die because of a lack of lung cancer treatment, it emerged yesterday. Vital areas of care are "woefully inadequate" and there are shortages of key surgical staff, according to new research. A review has revealed a shambolic postcode lottery where treatment varies from one part of Britain to another. In some areas, fewer than one in TEN patients get any kind of treatment at all and there are "huge variations and vast inequalities" in others, the UK Lung Cancer Coalition reported after a review of services. There are only 44 thoracic surgeons - specialists in...

mother-of-six who today admitted hiding an explosives manual in her burka wrote a note suggesting she was willing to blow up herself and her children, a police source said. Houria Chahed Chentouf, 41, from Manchester, was sentenced to two years in prison for the terror-related offence but walked free from court after serving her time on remand. Officers found the chilling note written by Moroccan-born Chentouf at her home in Holland.

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall arrive in St. John’s today for an 11-day visit that will bring them to Hamilton Thursday. It’s the 15th time Charles has toured Canada, but the first time with his wife Camilla by his side. One of the first things the couple must deal with is H1N1 flu... Charles is also up against an apparent apathy that could see him received with at least as much indifference as enthusiasm. A leaked poll, phone-in shows and online comments have suggested growing ho-hum feelings ... “Just when you thought things couldn’t get much worse around...

A British soldier was killed as he tried to defuse a roadside bomb on the last day of his deployment to Afghanistan, it has emerged. Staff Sgt Olaf Schmid, 30, from Winchester, was serving in the Royal Logistic Corps when he died on Saturday near Sangin in Helmand province. His wife, Christina Schmid, said he was her "soulmate" and she took comfort knowing he had saved "countless lives". A total of 224 UK military personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001. 'Phenomenal husband' Staff Sgt Schmid, who had been in the Army for 13 years, had been commanding a bomb...

Three Beefeaters are facing an inquiry for allegedly bullying the Tower of London's first female Beefeater, the Tower authorities revealed today. Two of the Tower's 34 male warders have been suspended and a third is under investigation over the alleged harassment of Moira Cameron, 44. She became the first female Yeoman Warder in the Tower’s 1,000-year history two years ago. One Beefeater, officially known as a warder, has received a police caution for “inappropriate use of the internet”, which is believed to have included defacing her entry on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. It is also alleged that Miss Cameron’s £1,400...

Michael Caine switches allegiance to Conservatives British film icon Sir Michael Caine has abandoned his support of the Labour party and announced he will vote Conservative at the next general election. By Nick Collins Published: 4:58PM GMT 01 Nov 2009 Michael Caine as Harry Brown The actor, 76, a former Labour supporter, condemned the “terrible state” that has been allowed to develop in Britain and said he planned to change his allegiance at the next election. For his latest film, Harry Brown, about violence on Britain’s streets, Sir Michael spent time with a gang from a tough inner London estate,...

Covered in blood, this is Marlon King's victim minutes after he smashed her in the face. Emily Carr was punched so powerfully by the footballer that she felt she had been hit with a brick. Her nose is permanently disfigured. King, 29, a £35,000-a-week striker for Premier League Wigan Athletic, was jailed on Thursday for lashing out at the 20-year-old student when she spurned his crude advances in a club...

A MAN has told how he was pulled over and viciously kicked in the head in an unprovoked attack as he walked home through Savile Town. Robert Dyson, 45, of Ouzelwell Crescent, Thornhill Lees, was on his way home at 11pm last Friday when he was assaulted in Savile Road, near the playground. Labourer Mr Dyson was set upon by two Asian youths, who were with another Asian man and two white girls. Mr Dyson suffered nasty cuts to his nose and left ear which needed 27 stitches. He will be scarred for life. The Press has previously reported how...

Sir Elton John has been forced to cancel a string of concerts after contracting E.coli and an aggressive bout of influenza. The 62-year-old had already pulled out of a series of concerts in Dublin, London, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield citing ill-health. But gigs in the U.S. cities of Seattle, Washington and and Portland, Oregon were yesterday shelved after the singer was admitted to hospital. Yesterday, a spokesman for Sir Elton was keen to play down reports of his condition, saying: 'He is recovering from a case of serious influenza with minor complications. We are confident he will be back on...