Free Republic

Hundreds lend support to Royal Marines charged with murder Hundreds of people today came out in support of five Royal Marines charged with murder - by holding a protest march near their barracks. By Telegraph reporters 12:42PM GMT 28 Oct 2012 The crowd of around 300 waved ''Justice For The Five'' placards as they marched through Plymouth in Devon near the home of 3 Commando Brigade. They held their march to support five marines who have all been charged with the murder of an unknown Afghan national. The protest started at Devil's Point near the brigade's Stonehouse Barracks and travelled...

School nurses have given implants or jabs to girls aged between 13 and 16 more than 900 times in the past two years, a survey by The Daily Telegraph has found. Girls aged 13 have been given contraceptive jabs and implants on more than 20 occasions. A further 7,400 girls aged 15 and under have been given contraceptive injections or implants at family planning clinics. Under the patient confidentiality rules, nurses are banned from seeking the permission of parents beforehand, or even informing them afterwards, without the pupil’s permission. Anthony Seldon, the master of Wellington College, said: “I think that...

Britain is facing a new wave of Eastern European immigration which will put British workers’ jobs at risk... Twenty nine million Bulgarians and Romanians will gain the right to live and work unrestricted in Britain in 2014 under European “freedom of movement” rules. Last night forecasters said it could lead to a significant number of new arrivals, in the same way as when Poland and other Eastern European countries gained the same rights in 2004, with the scale likely to be increased by the economic crisis gripping the rest of Europe. And a Government report was disclosed to show concern...

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My article last week about the radical Left’s defence of paedophilia in the 1970s provoked all manner of paroxysms from today’s Lefties. How dare I blacken the name of Hattie Harman by pointing out that she became legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) soon after it campaigned for a more relaxed approach to sex with children? But I had private communications, too, from people who encountered the “libertarian” Left during those years. “In the late Sixties and early Seventies, I worked at a school operated by the Inner London Education Authority,” wrote a retired schoolteacher. “The...

Yesterday, the Prime Minister was crystal clear. “No one should be in any doubt: prisoners are not getting the vote under this Government.” Human rights lawyers and prison reform campaigners whinge that such defiance puts Britain on a collision course with the European Court of Human Rights, which set us a deadline of November 22 to overturn the current ban. In reality, it is the Strasbourg court that is threatening the rule of our national law with its arbitrary edicts. This is a fight over a principle which Britain must pick. …

Police are on the verge of arresting up to a dozen household names accused of sex abuse but missed an incredible seven chances to trap paedophile Jimmy Savile while he was alive, it has been revealed. Scotland Yard is to act 'within days' as it emerged the pervert DJ abused at least 300 people because he was allowed to rape and sexually assault victims unhindered for decades. Savile is believed to have had accomplices and celebrities named by victims – some huge TV stars – will be quizzed over serious sex assault allegations as police warned: 'we will come for...

The arrest of over 53 people in the United Kingdom is the beginning of the end for once-great Britain. The leaders of the English Defence League (EDL), Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, were among those arrested, as well as Paul Weston of the British Freedom Party (BFP). I spoke with Kevin Carroll about his recent arrest and that of Robinson and Weston, and he told me the appalling details. Carroll told me that British authorities tried everything in the book to stop him from running for police and crime commissioner (PCC) for the Bedfordshire Police Authority. Nonetheless, he officially won...

A British executive for ExxonMobil has been shot dead in an assassination-style killing in Brussels. Belgian police imposed a news blackout after Nicholas Mockford, 60, was shot as he left an Italian restaurant in Neder-over-Heembeek, a suburb of the capital. The executive was shot three times, once as he lay on the ground, after leaving the Da Marcello restaurant in Rue de Beyseghem at around 10pm on Oct 14. His wife, Mary, was left beaten and covered in blood. Mr Mockford died on the way to hospital. Witnesses said they saw the couple walk across the street to their car,...

The British government rejected U.S. requests to use military bases in the United Kingdom as part of a build-up in the Gulf, citing legal concerns that a pre-emptive strike on Iran would violate international law, The Guardian reported. Citing unnamed U.K. officials, the Guardian reported that the United States has made informal requests for access to British bases in Cypress and British territories in the Atlantic and Indian oceans as part of contingency planning for Iran. But British ministers have responded with legal advice from the U.K. attorney general’s office that says Iran does not currently represent “a clear and...

Hundreds of mourners lined the main street through the Wiltshire town to honour Lance Corporal Liam Tasker, of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, who was shot while on patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan on March 1. The crowds were swelled by family pets and a dozen police and Prison Service dogs at the repatriation ceremony for the 26-year-old soldier, whose dog Theo died from a seizure three hours after his master was killed. L/Cpl Tasker’s family said they believe the dog died from a broken heart. The body of L/Cpl Tasker, from Kirkcaldy, Fife, and the ashes of Theo had...

'To the casual Victorian visitor, Runnymede could have been any English country town. Locals would gather at the Runnymede Arms to discuss the cricket or the failings of Runnymede Wanderers Football Club. There was a tennis club, polo ground and a thriving amateur dramatics society full of people speaking in the assured tones of the British upper class. You might have thought you were in Berkshire, if it wasn’t for the fact that the local hunt chased coyote and some of the town’s polite young men liked nothing better than to swagger down the High Street firing rounds from six-shooters...

The EU commission on Tuesday (24 October) proposed that a group of 11 countries move ahead with a common financial transactions tax, after years of wrangling failed to produce a deal among all member states. Estonia late on Tuesday joined an earlier group of 10—Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain—willing to go ahead with the tax. The proposal still needs the approval of a majority of the EU’s 27 countries and the European Parliament, after which a joint legal text will be issued. EU tax commissioner Algirdas Semeta said this will be “the epitome of...

In a wide-ranging interview with EurActiv.de, Romano Prodi, former European Commission President, says moves towards a two-speed European Union were now well underway. Regarding the UK's disengagement from Europe, his assessment is simple: Britain will lose influence and eventually face "grave difficulties". Prodi, who served as Commission president from 1999 to 2004, said the European Central Bank's intervention on sovereign bond markets as well as recent decisions on banking union had put the eurozone back into safe territory. "The danger of breakup is not on the table anymore," Prodi told EurActiv Germany in an interview. However, he appeared concerned about...

Forget black swans, Nigel Farage is rapidly turning himself into the black sheep of the EU Parliament with his constant stream of truthiness and honest pragmatism. It seems the broadly nodding-donkeys that fill the chamber remain cognitively dissonant to any and everything in the real world - hanging instead on the next soundbite from Van Rompuy or Barroso on how well things are going, or how the crisis is 'almost' over. If only the Germans would bless them all with their money. In one his plainest-speaking rants, Farage provides clarity to his 'peers' on just exactly what the bailouts of...

Children as young as 13 are being advised they can flout the age of sexual consent by a sordid NHS website. The service, which is partly EU funded and is publicised in schools, even offers tips on sex acts. In total defiance of the law, it advises that while sex under the age of 16 is illegal ‘you are the only one who knows when you are ready’. The Respect Yourself website and phone app aimed app, designed to be used by children as young as 13, has sparked outrage with its explicit descriptions of sex acts MPs and family...

To all intents and purposes, the UK is already out. We stayed still. Europe galloped away without us. No doubt we can find some elegant formula to paper over the split. As my friend Daniel Hannan puts it, we could devise a Swiss arrangement while pretending that we are still EU members. No point frightening the horses. For those readers who missed it, the UK is preparing to pull out of almost all areas of "Justice and Home Affairs", the so-called Pillar III of EU jurisdiction. (Pillar I is the single market, and Pillar II is foreign affairs) This is...

LONDON (Reuters) - A crisis gripping Britain's BBC deepened on Monday after it emerged a senior producer had warned the broadcaster could be accused of a cover-up when it axed its own expose into alleged sexual abuse by a one-time TV star. Allegations that flamboyant BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, who died last year, operated unhindered as a paedophile for years while working for the BBC have rocked the publicly funded broadcaster. Its new head, George Entwistle, is now under pressure to explain why the BBC dropped an investigation by its Newsnight program into Savile last year. ........ "I was sure...

They may not seem the most obvious of dangers. But scattered twigs and slippery leaves are now considered a hazard. Children as young as four are swapping their uniforms for high visibility vests, hardhats and clipboards as they become health and safety inspectors.

I’m not a fan of the American healthcare system. It suffers from huge inefficiencies because of problems such as third-party payer, which is caused by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid along with a system of tax code-driven over-insurance in the supposedly private sector. But regardless of how much I grouse about the damage government causes in the United States, I can say with considerable confidence that the government-run system in the United Kingdom has even larger problems.Here are some of the shocking details from a report in the UK-based Daily Mail.Patients having major surgery in NHS hospitals face...