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Obese people will be routinely refused operations across the NHS, health service bosses have warned, after one authority said it would limit procedures on an unprecedented scale. Hospital leaders in North Yorkshire said that patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above – as well as smokers – will be barred from most surgery for up to a year amid increasingly desperate measures to plug a funding black hole. The restrictions will apply to standard hip and knee operations. The decision, described by the Royal College of Surgeons as the “most severe the modern NHS has ever...

Obese people will be routinely refused operations across the NHS, health service bosses have warned, after one authority said it would limit procedures on an unprecedented scale. Hospital leaders in North Yorkshire said that patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above – as well as smokers – will be barred from most surgery for up to a year amid increasingly desperate measures to plug a funding black hole. The restrictions will apply to standard hip and knee operations.

The leaders of EU heavyweights Germany and France on Friday called for a new push to invigorate the bloc after Britain’s shock Brexit vote. Twenty-seven EU leaders will meet without Britain in Slovakia on September 16 and France’s François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a joint statement that a “new impulse” was required. “With Brexit and the rise of populism and even questions on the very idea of Europe, a new impulse is needed for the European Union,” they said. “France and Germany will assume their responsibilities” to do this, they added. …

Hundreds of Highlanders marched through the glens of Aberdeenshire at the weekend to mark the 175th anniversary of the Lonach Gathering. The Lonach Highlanders, the largest body of non-military men to carry ceremonial weapons in Britain, were joined on their marches by Europe’s only private army, the Atholl Highlanders. Around 9,000 spectators turned out to celebrate the games, with organisers hailing the day’s events as the best attended in recorded history. The day featured six pipe bands from across Scotland including who were joined by the pipes and drums of the Royal Guard from the Royal Highland Fusiliers. Drum major...

Funny, that. The “experts” were not just a little bit wrong but horrendously, hopelessly so. The Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) jumped to a 10-month high of 53.3 in August, after tumbling to a three-year low of 48.3 in July in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote; it was the biggest month-on-month surge in a quarter of a century and one that confounded the doom-mongers, yet again.

Police in Telford have been accused of ignoring child sex abuse after it emerged volunteers have been passing evidence of grooming to them for three years. Officers have been criticised for failing to make progress on sex gangs in the town, dubbed the “child sex capital of Britain”, while sitting on 150 pages of abuse allegations. One victim who was forced to have sex with a string of men told The Mirror: “The police have betrayed the children of this town for a second time. “I dread to think how many victims there have been over the years ... “It...

Manufacturing in Britain rebounded in August from a slump in the immediate aftermath of the shock vote to leave the European Union, an indication that the economy may be weathering the uncertainty better than expected. A measure of business activity in manufacturing, the purchasing managers’ index, jumped to 53.3 points from 48.8 in July. The index is on a 100-point scale, with figures above 50 representing growth. The survey found that a plunge in the pound had helped companies selling abroad. Also, business was resuming after being frozen in July amid the initial surprise over the vote and political chaos...

When the Queen Elizabeth 2 set sail for Israel in April 1973, the hundreds of passengers on board were blissfully unaware that Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi had ordered a submarine to torpedo Britain's most famous cruise ship. Blood-thirsty Gaddafi was seeking revenge on Israel after a Libyan passenger plane was shot down by Israeli fighter jets on 21 February, 1973, killing 108 people. He'd set his target as the QE2 which was packed with Jewish passengers undertaking a chartered cruise through the Mediterranean to Israel in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the state's founding. Details of the failed QE2...

The British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag in his flat had illegally hacked into secret data on former U.S. president Bill Clinton, it has been revealed. Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered in a holdall in the bath at his London home five years ago this month, but the mystery surrounding his death has never been solved. Today, it has been revealed the spy had dug out a guest list for an event Clinton was due to attend as a favour for a friend. The hack breached Mr Williams' security clearance and this sparked anger among MI6...

see link in post below __ some interesting comments in article regarding reservations about TTIP

Economy minister Sigmar Gabriel warns UK must take responsibility for vote that has left Europe as an ‘unstable continent’ __ German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel has said that Britain must not be allowed to “keep the nice things” that come with EU membership without taking responsibility for the fallout from Brexit. As Theresa May called a cabinet meeting to discuss the UK government’s Brexit strategy on Wednesday, Gabriel warned if the issue was badly handled and other member countries followed Britain’s lead, Europe would go “down the drain”. “Brexit is bad but it won’t hurt us as much economically as...

Appearing on British television this morning, former UKIP-leader Nigel Farage issued a stark warning to Theresa May, Great Britain's new (Tory) Prime Minister. Although kindly giving her the benefit of the doubt for the time being, he made clear that he expects her to trigger article 50 before the end of January 2017. If she does not, he implied, he'll take action. May has, since becoming Tory-leader and, therefore, prime minister, made clear she intends to follow through on the referendum results in which British voters opted to leave the European Union (called a Brexit). So far so good, Farage...

Nicolas Sarkozy has joined other conservative French politicians in demanding that border controls for thousands of migrants in Calais be shifted to Britain. The former centre-Right president made the call in a speech in Le Touquet, the northern town where he signed agreements in 2003 allowing British officials to check passports in France and vice-versa, when he was interior minister. The accords were part of a bilateral deal to close a former migrants’ centre at Sangatte, near Calais. But Mr Sarkozy said France can no longer tolerate the presence of about 9,000 migrants living in the squalid “Jungle” camp in...

Full Title: You MUST deliver Brexit: Civil servants are warned by May after former chief sparks fury by saying that leaving EU is not inevitable -Theresa May has ordered all Europhile civil servants to embrace Brexit -She said it was their job to implement the decisions made by ministers -Came after a top mandarin said that leaving the EU was 'not inevitable' -Gus O'Donnell made the comments saying the UK could remain 'aligned' to the EU Theresa May has ordered Europhile civil servants to embrace Brexit after a former top mandarin sparked fury by saying leaving the EU was not...

The British Foreign Office has recently declassified documents that allegedly prove that Israel sold weapons to Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War between the Latin American nation and the UK. The British government's National Archives department released the files dated November 16, 1984, which include a memorandum from a senior British diplomat who provided details on the Israeli arms sales to Argentina, the London-based Telegraph reported Wednesday. “Israel was one of the few countries to supply Argentina with arms during the Falklands conflict and has continued to do so,” wrote C.W. Long, the UK Foreign Office's then head of the...

When the siren sounded, the RAF pilots dashed for the cockpits of their Typhoons. Within minutes, two jet fighters were streaking across a summer sky, their wings laden with air-to-air missiles, searching for unidentified intruders they know as “bandits”. Over the next half hour, Wing Commander Roger Elliott and his wingman would make three separate interceptions of Russian military aircraft. “You do have adrenalin pumping and when you launch, you don’t know what’s out there,” said Wg Cdr Elliott. “But it also makes you feel very satisfied because that is what we’re here to do.” These pilots from II Squadron...

Britain's most notorious Islamist extremists were bankrolled by more than £1 million of taxpayers' money while waging their campaign of hate, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. A dozen supporters of Islamic State recruiter Anjem Choudary – many of them now convicted terrorists or jihadis who are fighting in Syria or have died there – were paid wages by a businessman who was handed huge sums of public money to run computer training courses in libraries and job centers. And now a judge has found that the man – a close associate of Choudary's – funnelled tens of thousands of...

Farage appeared at a rally with Donald Trump in Jackson, MississippiThe event on August 24 was seen by thousands of spectatorsFarage: 'The atmosphere in the room was more like a rock concert' Since I announced that I was going to stand aside as Ukip leader in the wake of the successful Brexit campaign, I've had more time to do other things. This included a trip to Cleveland for the Republican Convention and the adoption of Donald J. Trump as their Presidential candidate.I was astonished that everybody I met wanted to talk about Brexit – not just the delegates to the...

he drama of Brexit may soon be matched or eclipsed by crystallizing events in France, where the Long Slump is at last taking its political toll. A democracy can endure deflation policies for only so long. The attrition has wasted the French centre-right and the centre-left by turns, and now threatens the Fifth Republic itself. The maturing crisis has echoes of 1936, when the French people tired of 'deflation decrees' and turned to the once unthinkable Front Populaire, smashing what remained of the Gold Standard. Former Gaulliste president Nicolas Sarkozy has caught the headlines this week, launching a come-back bid...

Perth kept the City of Culture launch party going with its own military tattoo. Around 400 performers from across the globe took part in a scaled-down version of the Edinburgh Castle spectacular. Thousands lined the streets to watch a procession of colourful troupes including the world renowned King’s Guard of Norway. An arena was set up on the North Inch for an hour-long show. The event was organised by Perth and Kinross Council to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the Treaty of Perth. The historic document ended a bitter feud between Scotland and Norway. As well as performers from Scotland...