COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS 16.01.25

Council by-elections are back, but it's a slow start with just a couple of Lib Dem defences in the West Country to report.  It was 50 per cent success rate for the Europhiles, with an independent swiping a Somerset seat from them by the margin of just five votes...

Saltford, Bath and North East Somerset Council

Ind: 587 (29.8%) +5.4%

LDm: 583 (29.6%) -10.5%

Con: 375 (19.0%) -1.7%

Ref: 205 (10.4%) New

Grn: 159 (8.1%) +1.4%

Lab: 60 (3.0%) -5.0%

Ind GAIN from LDm

Chesterton, Cotswold District Council

LDm: 296 (48.1%) -15.8%

Ref: 152 (24.7%) New

Con: 106 (17.2%) -7.6%

Lab: 61 (9.9%) New

LDm HOLD

CAPLIN'S POWERFUL FOLLOWERS

Just a few of the prominent faces who follow Caplin's sordid X account

*** UPDATE *** Caplin deleted his X account on Thursday afternoon

Earlier this week we exposed the sickening debauchery of Ivor Caplin's X feed.  It was a small microcosm of something that would take Caplin hours, if not days, to delete now that he has been released from custody.  While it's not yet clear if he has been charged or released on bail, we know that he began using his X account again on Wednesday, because he retweeted several (non-pornographic) posts.  If no charges are brought against Caplin it would be an outrage, as the self-styled 'paedophile hunters' who snared him will have supplied police with all the proof they need.  Furthermore, police officers are known to have raided Caplin's Hove flat while he was in custody and according to neighbours the search 'took several hours'.

However, we also know that Caplin has powerful friends.  As soon as news broke of his arrest, X users began to make notes of who followed his account and the names were huge...

The official Labour party X account was following Caplin's account at the time of his arrest, although it was quickly unfollowed after the news broke.  Many other high profile Labour figures also followed Caplin on X, some of whom have since unfollowed him - including the likes of Yvette Cooper and Wes Streeting - but not before eagle-eyed X users screenshot their names.

At the time of his arrest, serving Labour MPs who followed Caplin's X account included Luke Akehurst (North Durham), Phil Brickell (Bolton West), Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill), Jim Dickson (Dartford), Clive Efford (Eltham & Chislehurst), Fabian Hamilton (Leeds East), Sharon Hodgson (Washington & Gateshead South), Dan Jarvis (Barnsley North), Gerald Jones (Merthyr & Aberdare), Alison McGovern (Birkenhead), Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North), Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View), Gareth Thomas (Harrow West), Matt Turmaine (Watford), Paul Waugh (Rochdale) and Catherine West (Hornsey & Friern Barnet).

Serving Labour ministers who follow or followed his account include Janet Daby (Lewisham East), Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South & Penarth), Nia Griffith (Llanelli), Andrew Gwynne (Gorton & Denton), Peter Kyle (Hove & Portslade), Luke Pollard (Plymouth Sutton & Devonport), Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge & Hyde) and last, but not least - Yvette Cooper, Dave Lammy, Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting.

A fairly recent photo of Caplin with his local MP and current frontbencher Peter Kyle

At the time of writing, Caplin's account is also followed by Lord (Michael) Cashman, Baroness (Janet) Royall, Baroness (Jacqui) Smith, former MPs Wayne David and Julie Elliot, former PM Gordon Brown and the despicable Alastair Campbell.  However, the name of most interest is that of the deceased former MP Jack Dromey, who - along with Patricia Hewitt and his wife Harriet Harman - were involved in the PIE scandal of the 1970s.  P.I.E stands for the Paedophile Information Exchange, which campaigned for the abolition of the age of consent and was linked to a libertarian group of which the trio were prominent members.

For those who suspect that the total lack of media coverage over the weekend from the major news channels is perhaps indicative of some kind of conspiracy, it will surely be of interest to note that many journalists follow Caplin too - including the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, the senior editor of Newsnight, the i newspaper's Benjamin Butterworth, Dan Hodges of The Daily Mail and many more.  If they were able and/or willing to report freely, why did none of them expose the disgusting content of Caplin's X feed?

Finally, to cap it all off, Caplin's account is followed by the official X account of the Crown Prosecution Service.  It will be of no great surprise to anyone if no charges are brought...

WOKE WEDNESDAYS #13

The alleged 'wild-fires' raging north and west of Los Angeles have exposed a litany of woke policies in the socialist republic of California.  Now we use the word 'allegedly', because there is currently zero evidence that these fires occurred naturally and were not in actual fact the result of arson.  What we do know for certain is that the spread of the fires, and the death and destruction they have left in their wake, could have been contained earlier were it not for one crucial obstacle facing the fire service - a lack of water.

When it came to tackling the fires, crews found that local fire hydrants were low to empty.  This made the disaster much worse and no-one was more puzzled about the supply issues than the frontline firefighters.  It was, after-all, the middle of winter and not exactly a time of year known for drought.  One of the reasons for the lack of water turned out to be the deliberate emptying of reservoirs into the Pacific, with the supposed environmental aim of aiding a tiny fish species called the 'smelt'.  This would explain why one reservoir was totally empty as the fires began to spread.

This led to awkward questions for the clown governor running California, the clown mayor running Los Angeles and the clown lesbians running the fire department.  Yes, that's right, because the LA fire service is about as woke as it gets, thanks to the fact both the state and the city are run by far left Democrat fruitcakes who are more concerned about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) than putting out fires and saving lives.

The LA fire department has in place a dystopian 'racial equity plan', which identifies every empoyee by their racial background in order to ensure that it doesn't hire too many white people.  New recruits are also made to undergo DEI training, so that they understand socialist concepts such as 'cultural competency' and 'unconscious bias'.  There is also a drive to employ more women firefighters, which was alluded to by the assistant fire chief (also a lesbian) in an outrageous news report in which she mocked genuine concerns about the physical demands of a firefighter.  She said that her response to a complaint from a bereaved widow that female firefighters couldn't carry her husband out of a fire would be:  "He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire".

It appears that the altar of DEI trumps everything, and all those heavy set individuals will just have to burn to death.

And lo and behold, as the fires began to rage, the fire chief declared that 'there are not enough firefighters'.  Well, perhaps if you employed people based on merit instead of rampantly discriminating against white men, there wouldn't be such a shortage...

The image below may well be AI generated, but LA fire hydrants have in the past been painted in the colours of the Pride flag.  Priorities...

Last week's they/them meme generated 195 comments and 15 shares on Facebook.

TULIP CUT BACK - FOR NOW

The loss of Tulip Siddiq will hit Starmer personally

Imagine an anti-corruption minister being caught up in a corruption scandal.  Well, that's what happened to Labour's Tulip Siddiq last month, but rather than fall on her sword or get the boot, she limped on for almost a month - with the personal backing of Starmer himself.

Siddiq and her prominent Bangladeshi family are being investigated over claims they embezzled almost £4bn from a 2013 infrastructure deal between Bangladesh and Russia.  The prime minister of Bangladesh at that time was Sheikh Hasana, who is Siddiq's aunt.  There have also been questions around various properties in London used by Siddiq, that have either been given to her or are owned by supporters of her aunt's political party.  Supporters of her aunt's party - the Awami League - are also alleged to have aided Siddiq's election campaigns, referred to in a 2017 speech in which she declared: "I want to thank you because without your support, I would not have been able to win my seat."

Finally, in a now deleted statement from her website, Siddiq announced that she worked directly for the Awami League as part of its 'UK and EU lobbying unit' and 'election strategy team'.

It all stinks of that 'foreign interference' that Keir Starmer takes selective umbrage to.  However, like his globalist comrades in Gates and Blackrock, Two Tier makes an exception for Tulip Siddiq and her Bangladeshi helpers.

For Starmer, it is not just about tip-toeing around the Muslim community, for he and his wife are said to be personal friends of Siddiq, who is the MP for a neighbouring constituency.  This explains his totally different approach to his departing ministers, of which Siddiq is the second.  Louise Haigh was immediately told to clear her desk in November when her fraud conviction was revealed, and while Siddiq has not yet been found guilty, the fact that Starmer allowed such an untenable and absurd situation to unfold over the course of almost four weeks speaks volumes - as does his response to her resignation.

"I want to be clear that the door remains open for you going forward", were Starmer's closing words in a letter accepting her resignation.  In the event that Siddiq is cleared of wrongdoing, her front bench return appears extremely likely.

Starmer would perhaps be wise to put aside their friendship and heed the advice of Sir Laurie Magnus, the 'independent standards commissioner' who spent a paltry eight days investigating Siddiq after she referred herself to him last week.  This whirlwind probe was confined to a single allegation that Siddiq took ownership of a London flat from an Awami League supporter and lied about it.  Sir Laurie's three page report to the Prime Minister - of the UK (not Bangladesh) - absolved her of breaking the ministerial code, saying that the gift of the property was all a misunderstanding and she had 'inadvertently misled' the public.  However, he ended his report with this closing statement: "It is regrettable that she [Siddiq] wasn't more alert to the potential risks to her reputation and that of the government of her close family's links to Bangladesh.  You will want to consider her ongoing responsibilities in the light of this."

The old British phrase that ends with 'nine bob note' may well be aptly dedicated to the former 'anti-corruption minister', but we couldn't possibly put that in writing...

While Tulip maintains her innocence, there is clearly much more to this story that is yet to unfold.

Tulip Siddiq pictured with her aunt during a meeting at the Kremlin in 2013

An in depth analysis of the Awami League's assistance given to Siddiq can be found here.

TOON TUESDAY #40

After asking regulators for advice on how to kick-start economic growth in Labour's faltering economy, Starmer now says that Artificial Intelligence is the answer.  Well, when you've got little intelligence on your front bench, suppose you've got to look elsewhere...

Guy Venables for Metro

CAPLIN'S X DEBAUCHERY

As the world beyond the entrapment of mainstream news awaits further information regarding Ivor Caplin's arrest, real journalists have been delving into the online depravity of the ex-Labour minister.  We can tell you from very personal experience - it is not a pretty sight.  In fact, it's sickening.

As Telegraph columnist Madeline Grant put it: "Caplin's Twitter feed is 10 per cent praising Keir [Starmer] and 90 per cent sharing gay porn... and asking random people to bum him".

It may be hard to believe that a former Labour minister would routinely publish such debauchery for the world to see - let alone for the viewing pleasure of such prominent followers as Rachel Reeves, Dave Lammy, Yvette Cooper and Gordon Brown to name but a few - but his account is still live at the time of writing.

Here are a few screenshots we've grabbed, censored for your stomach, as well as some others courtesy of Guido Fawkes and others.

As mentioned above, Caplin's X account is followed by a large number of establishment figures - including serving Labour MPs, former MPs, serving ministers, secretaries of state, peers, journalists and a former PM.  We will publish a list of names shortly.

LAMMY'S TRUMP TURNAROUND CONTINUES

Of all the name-calling and online posturing directed towards President Trump during his first term in office, one of the worst offenders was undoubtedly the then backbencher David Lammy.  Now Foreign Secretary, and with Trump set to return to the White House a week today, Lammy is having to bite the bullet and back track in humiliating fashion.  Who'd have thought that calling the President a 'tyrant' and 'a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath' would have come back to haunt daft Dave in such a way?  It sure is a joy to watch him consume a huge slice of humble pie every time he is asked about his previous remarks.

"That's old news" Lammy told ITV's Shehab Khan in a recent interview, before declaring that he found the President-elect 'very gracious' during their meal together last November.  Khan then prods Lammy with the zinger:  "Is that all it takes for you to change your mind, a free meal?"

Lammy tries to laugh it all off, but inside he is dying.  Watch the clip below.

MEME MONDAY #18

The grooming gang scandal resurfaced this month, as Jess Phillips vetoed an inquiry requested by Labour-led Oldham Borough Council.  This set in motion a chain of events driven by Elon Musk, who savaged Phillips on his X platform and guaranteed that the scandal was once again a major talking point across the nation...

Wed 1 Jan - 332 shares on Facebook

Thurs 2 Jan - 1,179 shares

Fri 3 Jan - 242 shares

Sun 5 Jan - 149 shares

Tues 7 Jan - 640 shares
The result was Hearts/Musk = 454 and Wows/Starmer = 3

Fri 10 Jan - 532 shares

Sat 11 Jan - 217 shares

Sun 12 Jan - 141 shares

As always, feel free to download any of our memes and share away - just so long as you keep our watermark!

EX-LABOUR MINISTER ARRESTED

A former minister in Tony Blair's government has been arrested after a sting operation by self-styled 'paedophile hunters'.  Ivor Caplin was the MP for Hove between 1997 and 2005.

Caplin was collared by the activists after he allegedly arranged to meet a 15-year-old boy for sex.  The clip below shows an exchange between the former MP and his captors just moments before Sussex Police officers arrived and apprehended him themselves.

The sting took place in Caplin's home town of Brighton.  The former Veterans' Minister was suspended from Labour in June last year over 'serious allegations'.  Those allegations were not made public.  Caplin is openly gay.

His last prominent role in relation to Labour was as chair of the Labour affiliate group the Jewish Labour Movement.  He spent a year in that role before being voted out in 2019.

Sussex Police have released the following statement:

"We are aware of footage circulating on social media showing a man in Brighton being detained on suspicion of engaging in online sexual communications with a child.  Officers can confirm that a local 66-year-old man was arrested on Saturday January 11 and currently remains in custody.  This is an ongoing and active investigation."

WOKE WEDNESDAYS #12

On Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, Emma D'Arcy is a picture of regal splendour.  However, the chracter does not reflect the actress, because off screen she is a mess.  She often sports an androgynous cropped haircut, a far cry from the flowing blonde locks of the Targaryen princess she plays on screen.  For Emma D'Arcy is non-binary you see!  She is neither male or female.

Of course that last statement is utter bollocks.

The absurdity was perhaps no more apparent than when Emma rocked up for the recent Golden Globes awards ceremony to find out if she had won an award.  D'Arcy was nominated for her Targaryen performance in the category "Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series".  This was her second Golden Globes nomination in that category (she won neither), and she is also nominated again this year for the Saturn Award of "Best Actress in a Television Series".

So it seems that being non-binary in the entertainment business is a selective emotion, asides from the fact that all the characters she plays are female, because that's exactly what she is in real life.

As the name suggests, D'Arcy had a privileged upbringing.  The middle classes are where the woke non-binary and trans nonsense largely proliferates.  No working class child or teenager would dare utter this trash in the playground or the factory floor, for they would face nothing but ridicule - and worse.  Unfortunately, Miss D'Arcy is no spring chicken and announced her make believe biological status at the age of 30.  It remains to be seen whether 30-year-olds can grow out of such nonsense...

Last month's 'animal rights' pub meme generated 166 comments and 32 shares on Facebook.

LABOUR'S NOTTS WOES

Labour lost control of a borough council last week after 20 of its 26 councillors sensationally ditched the party and set up its own - the Broxtowe Independents.  The party immediately replaced Labour as the largest party on Broxtowe Borough Council, which shifts to no overall control.  Existing council leader Milan Radulovic will continue in his role, but no longer under the Labour banner.  The Conservatives remain the opposition party with 10 councillors.

The Labour councillors quit the party in protest at the national leadership, with particular grievance being felt towards the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners.  This appears to have been the tipping point, with existing tensions already present over candidate selections and a row about access to a bank account that had been used to fund a community hub.  The hub ended up having to close, with the Broxtowe Labour group claiming that their own party had barred them from using funds from the account.

The mass resignation from Labour also had a knock on effect for the county council.  Labour had been the joint opposition on Nottinghamshire County Council, but one of its departing Broxtowe councillors was also a county councillor, meaning that Labour slip into third place there also.  Up to that point they had formed an equal joint opposition alongside the Nottinghamshire County Independence Group.

A statement from the now dramatically reduced Broxtowe Labour group played down the resignations, as if only three or four had quit:  "It is incredibly disappointing that some Broxtowe councillors have decided to leave the Labour Party and sit as independents when they were elected on a Labour ticket just over 18 months ago.  These defections have no effect on the commitment of the remaining Labour councillors in serving our residents."

No effect?  Your party no longer controls the council!

With Labour now third and its national popularity in free fall, the Tories will be eyeing up Broxtowe for a gain.  Labour and the Conservatives have competed for control of the Nottinghamshire authority for decades, with Labour having only regained control in 2023.  For almost half of its 51 years, Broxowe has been held by the Tories, thanks largely to the fact they held it for 21 years from its inception in 1974.  It then passed directly into Labour hands, before spending 12 years in no overall control.  The Tories took it back in 2015 and it fell back into no overall control four years later.

There are no local elections scheduled for Broxtowe until 2027, meaning Labour look set to be the third party for the foreseeable future.

Council leader Milan Radulovic (front) launches the Broxtowe Independents

TOON TUESDAY #39

From New Year we go to darts, before morphing into Musk and a cold snap for which Starmer has made pensioners poorer and colder - speaking of which we end on net zero!

Enjoy this week's selection of toons... 

Andy Davey for The Daily Telegraph

Christian Adams for The Sunday Telegraph

Morten Morland for The Times

Morten Morland for The Times

Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph

Nicola Jennings for The Observer

Dave Brown for The Independent

Patrick Blower for The Sunday Telegraph

12 MEMES OF CHRISTMAS 2024

With Twelfth Night upon us, it's time to get those Christmas decorations down and reveal our favourite BTLP meme of 2024.  Here is the full list from 12 to 1...

12.  Elon Musk's ongoing war of words against the British establishment has
made him a national hero on this side of the Atlantic.

11.  It was a year of mass protest in London, with leftist Palestinian supporters
out en masse, many donning Arabic keffiyeh scarves.  The left can never
perceive their own hypocrisy.

10.  A series of corruption scandals put the brakes on Vaughan Gething's
Senedd reign and he resigned after less than six months, although he
continues to deny any wrongdoing.

9.  Count Dankula's take on Labour's general election victory served
up one of our most viral X posts of the year - and he was spot on.

8.  A month after a £1.25billion government bail out, bankrupt Birmingham City
Council announced a series of desperate cuts including hundreds of lay offs,
reduced bin collections and dimmed street lighting.  Oh, and residents can now look
forward to a 21 per cent rise in council tax to pay for Labour's mismanagement.

7.  Having twice failed to win election to Labour's ruling NEC and a
London mayoral campaign that never got off the ground, Eddie followed
up failure in Sheffield by getting rejected by the Brighton party too.

6.  It's unclear if Starmer's premiership can survive a single term, but one
thing is for certain - we will never let him forget the moment he dropped to
his knee for the people trying to burn America to the ground.

5.  Starmer's 180 degree turn on Corbyn, almost the moment he succeeded him,
was as predictable as it was brutal.  Corbyn's comfortable re-election as an
independent in 2024 will have irked Starmer.

4.  The 'mirage' of Labour's 'landslide' was seized upon by the Daily Mail's
Richard Littlejohn in a swipe at Starmer's three year campaign to reverse
Brexit.

3.  There have been plenty of humiliations for Starmer, but perhaps
none more embarrassing than the moment he called on Hamas to
'return the sausages' during his big conference speech.

2.  Starmer and his Trump-hating comrades were humiliated again in
November when the Donald completed perhaps the greatest political
comeback in history.

1.  The early months of Starmer's government will forever be remembered for
its response to both the murder of three little girls in Southport and the riots that
followed.  The way in which the establishment tried to conceal the identity of
the Muslim attacker must never be forgotten, nor the life of political prisoner
Peter Lynch, who hung himself in prison.  We must do all that we can to ensure
those who attack our nation from within must never return to power.

That's officially the end of Christmas for us here at BTLP, but a happy Epiphany to all our Christian readers.  Here's to a tenth year of BTLP memes, all thanks to Karl.  If you appreciate all that we do and want to see us continue, please consider a small donation here.

HOMES FOR HEROES? PULL THE OTHER ONE...

Three days before Christmas, Keir Starmer released a video praising our Armed Forces and promising them the earth - including 'guaranteed housing for veterans'.  With up to three per cent of homeless people already veterans, we can comfortably assume that this is yet another lie.  The lies have come thick and fast in less than six months of Starmer's reign, with WASPI women the latest to feel the knife in the back.

That Labour - or any governing party for that matter - truly care about the people they send to war, is absurd.  Thankfully, a peacemaker is about to enter the White House and the likelihood of Starmer sending our lads into foreign wars is greatly reduced, barring some major false flag operation by deep state operatives.

There is also something decidedly dodgy about Starmer's video message.  Supposedly filmed aboard a Royal Navy vessel, it has a very surreal green screen feel to it.  While the background is shaded in dark blue, Starmer is lit up in white.  However, the most telltale sign to it having being filmed elsewhere is the wind and lack of corresponding sound.  The huge Royal Navy flag in the background indicates that there is a strong wind blowing across the deck and occasionally Starmer's hair blows slightly as if to confirm he is also outside on deck.  However, he is wearing a small microphone on his lapel, which would not drown out wind noise and is more suited to indoor use.

Starmer was actually aboard HMS Iron Duke the previous week, wearing what appear to be the same clothes seen in the video.  Perhaps the video was an afterthought upon his return to London?

See for yourself below...

TOON TUESDAY #38

Happy New Year and all that shite - let's be honest, in Starmer's Britain, there's not much to shout about going forward.  As for the man himself, a poll released this week suggests that Starmer's Labour could lose up to 200 seats if an election were held today.  Labour would lose their majority, with senior frontbenchers such as Rayner and Streeting toast, while Reform would become the third largest Commons party in a sensational surge...

Andy Davey for The Daily Telegraph

TOON TUESDAY #37

It's (almost) Christmaaaaaaaaaas...

Morten Morland for The Times

Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph

Christian Adams for The Daily Telegraph

Graeme Bandeira for The Yorkshire Post

Christian Adams for The Daily Telegraph