MOST SHARED: WEEK 280

It was more than a week ago that The Times first broke the story that the BBC were thinking about dropping Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory from the Proms.  The immediate backlash put the Beeb in a spin, but they took full advantage of the absence of a live audience and announced that the songs would be included - but without words.  This was clearly pandering to the anti-British Marxists of Black Lives Matter, which the Beeb has spent the last three months promoting.

It's not likely we'll see Laurence Fox on the BBC again, especially seeing as the anti-woke actor has gone into full attack mode following the Proms censorship.  It was one of his tweets that featured in last week's most shared.

Shared 2,221 times via the Facebook page.

HULL'S LABOUR NIMBYS

Hull's MPs: Diana Johnson, Emma Hardy and Karl Turner

There's a strong whiff of hypocrisy on Humberside as Hull Labour Party are accused of NIMBYism.  The local council and three city MPs have raised objections to the presence of asylum seekers at a city centre hotel, despite the party's overwhelming support for open door migration.  In fact some of the same individuals complaining now have only very recently expressed backing for the migrant crossings.

Hull City Council, which has been controlled by Labour since 2011, has publicly lashed out at the Home Office for deciding to house up to 200 asylum seekers at the city's Royal Hotel.  Cllr Rosemary Pantelakis spoke to the Hull Daily Mail and she was keen to point out that the council had nothing to do with the decision to put the migrants in the hotel and that they objected to it: "We are keen that asylum seekers see Hull in the positive light that its residents do, as a friendly, welcoming city.  The use of the Royal Hotel is nothing to do with Hull City Council.  It is a private arrangement between Britannia Hotels, the Home Office and Mears.  The council does not receive any financial income relating to these measures.  We were informed of their plans and raised our objections to the use this site which we do not feel is appropriate, or has all the facilities".

Just to be clear, the Royal Hotel is a three star hotel based in the city centre, run by the Britannia chain and rated 'good' on Expedia and 'very good' on Booking.com.  What is not 'appropriate' about it?  What are the missing facilities?  Cllr Pantelakis did not elaborate, but went on: "Supported by the three Hull MPs we raised these objections directly with ministers.  The Home Office pressed ahead with their plans, with minor amendments.  It is not acceptable that the views of those with administrative responsibilities for the city as well as the local knowledge and insight, can just be ignored by Government.  Hull City Council is seeking to engage and meet with the provider and the hotelier to ensure we can be supportive.  Our issues are with the Home Office and it is not the fault of those seeking asylum".

The Royal Hotel

It's a deliberately mixed message that is being sent out.  On the one hand she is saying they are supportive of 'asylum seekers', while tacitly sending out a message to local people that they are not welcome and it's the Home Office to blame.  Despite representing a party that sees no limit to migration, the council know that the subject is emotive and indeed there was a protest outside the hotel on Saturday.

Also keen to send out mixed messages to voters are Hull's Labour MPs - Emma Hardy, Diana Johnson and Karl Turner.  Emma Hardy was more explicit about the impact migrants could have on the city: "Hull is a city of sanctuary and we have always offered support to asylum seekers, both through supporting formal national programmes and establishing local charities who support refugees facing persecution abroad.  This government has given no consideration to this inappropriate placement.  The number of people needing support has been increased without any thought of the wider impact on community cohesion and the resources needed to adequately help them".

This is a remarkable admission from a Labour MP.  She accepts that an influx of migrants can potentially have a negative impact on community cohesion.  Wow.  Hardy goes on to suggest that it's not just the hotel that is 'inappropriate', but Hull itself: "The city centre is totally unsuitable for the vulnerable individuals concerned and for the city because of the ongoing control measures required by Covid-19.  The Government made this decision even when Hull City Council and Diana Johnson, Karl Turner and I voiced our concerns about the suitability of the location for the vulnerable individuals concerned and for our city, but the Government refused to listen".

The hypocrisy is staggering, especially considering that these same MPs have repeatedly expressed support for so-called asylum seekers.  In the last week Karl Turner has shared numerous tweets critical of a Home Office video in which immigration lawyers are slammed for preventing deportations.  Earlier this month he retweeted a pro-migrant video with the caption: "The difference is luck".  In January Emma Hardy condemned the government's stance on unaccompanied child migrants and wrote on her website: "The UK has always been a haven for refugees fleeing situations not of their making and to not allow unaccompanied children to seek refuge in the UK is heart-breaking news".

Diana Johnson has also expressed support for the UK to take in unaccompanied children (later, of course, to be joined by their families) - joining in a call back in March to take them directly from the Greece/Turkey border.

So this Labour trio appear to find it perfectly acceptable for Kent to be flooded with unaccompanied child migrants, while adult migrants are dispersed all over the country - but don't send them to Hull please!  It smacks of NIMBYism and hypocrisy, but it is also a self serving tactic.  Support for Labour crashed in the last general election as the Brexit Party polled strongly across the city.  Two of the three Hull seats are now classed as marginals in a city that has returned nothing but Labour MPs since the 1950s.

Hardy, Johnson and Turner have an eye on the next election and if Nigel Farage can keep taking votes from Labour then their places on the Westminster gravy train could be under threat.

2019 General Election

Kingston upon Hull East

Karl Turner (Lab) 12,713 (39.2%) -19.1%
Rachel Storer (Con) 11,474 (35.4%) +5.5%
Marten Hall (Brexit) 5,764 (17.8%) New
Bob Morgan (LD) 1,707 (5.3%) +1.9%
Julia Brown (Green) 784 (2.4%) +1.1%

Kingston upon Hull North

Diana Johnson (Lab) 17,033 (49.8%) -14.0%
Holly Whitbread (Con) 9,440 (27.6%) +2.4%
Derek Abram (Brexit) 4,771 (13.9%) New
Mike Ross (LD) 2,084 (6.1%) +1.1%
Richard Howarth (Green) 875 (2.6%) +1.0%

Kingston upon Hull West & Hessle

Emma Hardy (Lab) 13,384 (42.0%) -11.1%
Scott Bell (Con) 10,528 (33.0%) +3.2%
Michelle Dewberry (Brexit) 5,638 (17.7%) New
David Nolan (LD) 1,756 (5.5%) -0.9%
Mike Lammiman (Green) 560 (1.8%) +0.8%

ON THIS DAY IN 1973, CORBYN'S MATES...

The Provisional IRA launched a co-ordinated attack on the border village of Tullyhommon in County Fermanagh.  Two carloads of terrorists crossed the border from the Republic just after 11am and split into two.  One group went to a garage in order to murder the off-duty soldier who owned it, while the other planted bombs at the village post office and a customs post.

Staff at the garage were forced outside at gunpoint and asked to provide their names.  When the owner gave his name one of the terrorists raised his pistol to shoot him.  However, the part-time UDR man was light on his feet and made a run for it while he dodged bullets from his would-be assassins.  He managed to get to his house, a hundred yards away, and returned fire with his personal protection weapon.  A 13-year-old boy from the Irish Republic, who was at the garage, was struck in the arm during the shoot-out.  The UDR man continued to fire at his assailants as they fled back over the border and said at least one of his bullets struck their vehicle.  This was the second time his business had been targeted, having been bombed earlier in the Troubles.

During the botched garage operation the second group was planting their bombs.  They robbed the post office before leaving a bomb concealed in a plastic bag.  They left another bomb at the temporary customs post before returning to the Republic.  The permanent customs building had been destroyed by an earlier bomb and had been replaced by a caravan.  The whole operation was over within 30 minutes and both groups were safely back across the border, despite the best efforts of the garage owner.

While the IRA failed to kill their intended target, they would still claim a military victim that day.  At around midday the device at the caravan exploded, but no-one was hurt.  The device at the post office failed to detonate and a bomb disposal squad was called.  Staff Sergeant Ronald Beckett of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps was tasked with making the bomb safe.  He examined the device and found that it contained around 20-30lbs of explosive and was connected to a ticking clock.  He attempted to disrupt the device remotely and then entered the building armed with wire cutters in case the bomb was still active.  Around two minutes later the device exploded, gutting the post office and killing S/Sgt Beckett.

Staff Sergeant Ron Beckett

S/Sgt Ron Beckett was 36 and came from Hereford.  He was survived by his wife and two daughters.  He had been present during an IRA bombing a month earlier in which another soldier had been killed, Cpl Bryan Criddle.

THE WEEK IN CARTOONS 23-29 AUG 2020

24.08.20 - Christian Adams, Evening Standard

24.08.20 - Morten Morland, The Times

24.08.20 - Ben Jennings, Guardian

25.08.20 - Christian Adams, Evening Standard

26.08.20 - Patrick Blower, Daily Telegraph

26.08.20 - Paul Thomas, Daily Mail

27.08.20 - Bob Moran, Daily Telegraph

27.08.20 - Paul Thomas, Daily Mail

28.08.20 - Paul Thomas, Daily Mail

28.08.20 - Dave Brown, Independent

29.08.20 - Bob Moran, Daily Telegraph

29.08.20 - Graeme Bandeira, Yorkshire Post

29.08.20 - Morten Morland, Spectator

29.08.20 - Kathryn Lamb, Spectator

29.08.20 - Kipper Williams, Spectator

ASHFIELD MP CHALLENGES COYLE

Lee Anderson and Neil Coyle

A Tory MP has invited Labour's Neil Coyle to come and explain his recent remarks about Brexiteers to Leave voters in his Midlands constituency.  Lee Anderson wrote to the London MP and dared him to travel north and visit a working man's club in the former coal mining communities of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.  Here he could meet some ex-Labour voters and discuss how Labour were going to win them back, albeit Anderson seemed fairly confident Coyle would fail - as if the keyboard warrior would ever agree to it in the first place...

In 2016 Ashfield had returned one of the strongest Leave votes in the country with 70 per cent backing Brexit.  At this point it had been a Labour seat since 1979, when the Tories lost the seat following a stunning by-election win two years earlier.  Until 2019 those two years were the only period a Tory had represented the seat in its 64 year history.

The road to victory for the Tories began in 2017 when the huge UKIP vote from 2015 crashed and the Tory vote doubled.  Two years later the sitting Labour MP - Gloria De Piero - knew she was finished and stood down rather than defend her seat.  It was perhaps a wise move as the Labour vote plummeted by more than 9,000 votes in 2019, handing victory to the Tories.  Anderson won Ashfield despite a 1,600 vote decline in the Tory vote.

Labour will find it particularly hard to regain this seat in four year's time, primarily because of Anderson himself.  Lee Anderson is not a typical Tory, in fact just nineteen months prior to the 2019 election he was a Labour councillor.  He was one of two Ashfield Labour councillors to defect to the Tories in March 2018, both of whom cited the influence of the hard left and Momentum as the main factor behind their decision.  It was a bold move to install such a long-standing former Labour activist as their candidate, but the ardent Brexiteer was just the kind of candidate that Boris Johnson needed to get Brexit done.  And unlike so many other MPs who were parachuted into constituencies around the country, Lee is a local lad and he got his hands dirty in the coal mines.

As for Neil Coyle, he deleted his abusive tweets on Thursday and apologised (see below).  Clearly he'd received a phone call from Sir Keir and a reminder that the message was now that Labour was no longer ashamed to be patriotic.  Too little, too late - the cat was already out of the bag.  It's clear that the metropolitan elites who dominate the modern Labour Party - whether that be privately-educated centrists like Coyle or privately-educated leftists like Nadia Whittome - are no different from those who run the Brit-hating BBC.

Coyle's assertion that he is a 'patriot' is laughable and insulting in equal measure, but perhaps it's Lee Anderson who summed him up best earlier this week: "They say a drunk man is a sober man talking.  He must have had a skinful last night".

FEMI'S SINISTER T-SHIRT

On Wednesday morning the BBC Proms decision was debated on Good Morning Britain by Nigel Farage and Remain activist Femi Izawally.  Kicking off the debate Femi made the issue about race in three seconds flat before going on to criticise the BBC over their use of the 'n' word recently (never mind the fact that the 'n' word is used by rappers and grime artists ad infinitum).  The deviation from the issue in question irked presenter Eamonn Holmes and the pair would later clash over whether Femi had got the memo.  Femi responded by deviating further and returning to his favourite topic of Brexit, at which point Farage put him in his place by alerting viewers to the fact that Femi represented a 'tiny, extremist minority'.  Given that Femi had just referenced Black Lives Matter while wearing a t-shirt featuring a molotov cocktail Farage had hit the nail on the head.

Watch the full exchange below.

For those not convinced that Femi's bizarre t-shirt features a teddy bear hurling a petrol bomb, the origin of that motif is a Banksy mural in Bristol (see below) - in which said character is throwing the device at the police.  Let that sink in.

Femi was clearly rattled by his rinsing on national television and spent the rest of his day endlessly tweeting and retweeting about it, including a call for 'racist' Eamonn Holmes to be sacked.  Narcissist Femi was still tweeting about his TV appearance at 03:52 this morning, but then he doesn't have a proper job...

SO MUCH FOR LABOUR'S NEW-FOUND 'PATRIOTISM'

Neil Coyle

Labour's Neil Coyle waded into the BBC Proms row on Tuesday night with a couple of late night foul-mouthed tweets.  The outspoken MP didn't hold back as he singled out prominent Leave politicians for criticism.  The first tweet came at 23:32 in response to Nigel Farage who had earlier shared a video of a rendition of Rule, Britannia!

Remainer Neil was clearly triggered and said Farage's tweet was justification for hatred of an anthem that only 'shitlickers liked' anyway.  Coyle will have been equally miffed that Farage's video had been viewed over a million times and had registered more than 30,000 likes.  At the time of writing, Coyle's retweet had registered 162 likes.

It's not clear if Coyle had been on the sauce last night, but just four minutes later he was off again and this time he had Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg in his sights.  Rees-Mogg had earlier tweeted a video in which the PM criticises the Beeb's decision.  Rees-Mogg commented: "Britons must never be enslaved by political correctness".  The combination of two prominent Vote Leave architects had poor Neil spitting feathers.  "Absolute shitbag racist wankers" he ranted, followed by one more tweet at 00:05, before he presumably retired for the night.  Both tweets are still up at the time of writing.

The second tweet doesn't make much sense and perhaps lends credence to the possibility that Neil had over-indulged himself.  Somehow the bitter Remainer had turned a tweet about BBC censorship into a tweet about Brexit.  As for 'fat old racists', at 41 Coyle is no spring chicken himself and there's only ten years between him and Rees-Mogg (who can't accurately be described as 'fat' either).

As a Labour moderate and outspoken critic of Jeremy Corbyn, Coyle's outbursts vastly undermine his current leader's position.  Keir Starmer declared earlier this year that his party should be 'proud to be patriotic' and in recent months he has delivered a marked change in tone from the overtly anti-British regime of Corbyn.  However, with messages like those above it's clear that Starmer is merely a front for a party that it is really just more of the same.

Coyle was one of the few Labour MPs to increase his majority at the general election.  Representing the 74 per cent Remain constituency of Bermondsey and Old Southwark, he increased his majority from 12,972 to 16,126, albeit largely at the expense of a collapse in support for the second-placed Lib Dems.  With London also the location of the only Labour gain in that election there is no doubt whatsoever that the capital is now the beating heart of Labour.

PLEASE BORIS, LISTEN TO NIGEL

Nigel Farage says the only way the British government can halt the flow of migrants across the English Channel is to opt out of the Dublin Regulation.  EU law currently allows asylum seekers to make an asylum claim in any member state - at present this includes the UK as we are still subject to EU law.  Speaking to TalkRadio's Mike Graham this morning, Mr Farage spoke about the ongoing migration scandal, but said he believed that Priti Patel genuinely wanted to resolve the situation.  However, in order to do so she needs the support of the Prime Minister and that may not be forthcoming.

Without the presence of the Brexit Party in working class seats the Tories would not have collapsed Labour's red wall on December the 12th.  Boris Johnson could do much worse than heed the advice of Nigel Farage here.  Listen below.

If you haven't seen the Anfield video that is referenced briefly during the interview, you can see it below.

MOST SHARED: WEEK 279

Labour MPs have been falling over each other to express support for the migrants sailing from France.  As we saw during the 2015 migrant invasion of Europe, they can't wait to declare the slogan 'refugees welcome', despite the fact these migrants are anything but refugees.  They have travelled through countless safe countries with the aim of reaping the rewards of soft touch Britain.  They are economic migrants and many of them are not even fleeing war zones.

Taking some of the recent pro-migrant tweets from Labour MPs, Karl put together the following meme - shared 808 times via the Facebook page.

COMRADE DEREK AND LEWES MAOIST ACTION

Earlier this month The Argus newspaper in Brighton published a hilarious interview with a communist revolutionary group based in rural Sussex.  A spokesman told the newspaper the group were plotting a UK-wide revolution and bragged how his group had infiltrated the local council and, bizarrely, a local brewery.  Watch this space for revolutionary beer from Harvey's Brewery in Lewes!

The Argus shared a photo of 'Comrade Derek' who wore combats and hid his identity with a makeshift balaclava.  He was pictured in front of his bike, from which he had been distributing leaflets to local farms entitled 'The Dialectics of Agricultural Labour'.  A Facebook user mocked Derek by asking him if he had purchased his combats from Amazon.  "We don't use Amazon, one day we plan to communise it" came the flat response.

Comrade Derek and his revolutionary delivery system aka his bike

Derek's group are calling themselves Lewes Maoist Action and claim to be the only active Maoist organisation in Britain.  Mao Zedong's regime is by far the deadliest communist regime in history, but Derek says his group "do not seek to deny the mistakes, horrors and corruptions of the past".

Despite its miniscule ranks, the fledgling group has already experienced corruption of its own.  According to their Facebook page a plot was afoot by "Comrade Nigel, Comrade Imogen and Comrade Gary to thwart the progress of Mao Zedong thought in Lewes".  However, the sabotage would not deter the cause and the post added: "We will be having our usual cake stand by the castle gate on Saturday".  Phew!

The Lewes Maoists aim to achieve their revolution by way of handing out leaflets and infiltrating organisations.  They claim to have 'syndicate' groups setting up in other Sussex towns including Brighton, Newhaven and Hassocks.  The Maoists' Facebook page has also enjoyed a boost since The Argus published the interview.  It has gone from 91 followers to 349 in the space of three weeks, albeit the page has been up and running since April 2016!

Lewes is a small town eight miles north east of Brighton.  The Lewes Maoists have adapted the town's crest and replaced the heraldic lion with a hammer and sickle.  Pictured below is one of their leaflets.

The full tongue in cheek interview can be read here.

That image of Comrade Derek is reminiscent of the scrawny little Antifa runt in America who was brutally mocked in a YouTube video (see below).

ON THIS DAY IN 1973, CORBYN'S MATES...

The Provisional IRA shot dead a middle-aged woman near the Irish border.  The gunmen were lying in wait at a rural crossroads near Newtownhamilton, County Armagh.  The intended target was reportedly a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment who drove a black Hillman Imp and lived near the junction.  The victim, Rita Meeke, drove a dark blue Hillman.  As she turned into the lane where the soldier lived she came to a halt and a witness described how she then tried to reverse back onto the main road.  However, it was too late and the terrorists opened fire.  Mrs Meeke was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the head and police discovered 61 spent cartridges at the scene.  The witness described how three gunmen had opened fire - one with a machine gun, one with a rifle and one with a handgun.

Mrs Meeke, 53, was an insurance agent.  Her husband Stanley had passed away several months earlier.  The Protestant couple owned a farm together and Mrs Meeke had continued to run it after her husband's death.  Mr Meeke was also a Unionist councillor.  On the day of her murder she had been visiting her brother-in-law who was seriously ill in hospital.  She was on her way home from the hospital when she was murdered.

The UDR soldier who had reportedly been the intended target later appeared at the inquest into Mrs Meeke's death.  He explained how he had driven home that day in a borrowed Mini because his own car had a broken exhaust.  No-one was apprehended for the murder and the IRA neither apologised or acknowledged the attack.

BURNHAM MAINTAINS SILENCE

For the second time in less than a week there has been a major violation of the local lockdown in Manchester and for the second time the Mayor of Greater Manchester has said nothing.  On Wednesday night it was the turn of Afghans to take over Wilmslow Road in Rusholme - the same location of the Pakistan Independence Day celebrations five days earlier.  The repeat performance was on a much smaller scale, but once again there was little respect shown for the lockdown rules and police were forced to close off the road while they tried to disperse the large gathering.  The occasion was the 101st anniversary of Afghan independence from British rule.

Silence from politicians, mainstream media, and also double standards from Greater Manchester Police have added to growing frustration among some Mancunians.  Two days later the force issued a series of tweets announcing they had broken up house parties across the region and issued homeowners with fixed penalty notices.  Homes targeted included a private gathering of seven people in Droylsden and a children's birthday party in Swinton attended by three families.  Many of those commenting on the tweets pointed out that when hundreds of people were gathering on Wilmslow Road there was not a single arrest or fixed penalty issued.  There was, conveniently, no tweet either.

Considering that we have been constantly bombarded with mainstream media propaganda in recent months about 'institutional racism', if anything the police in Greater Manchester seem to be favouring BAME communities rather than 'oppressing' them.  Unfortunately, coronavirus is less partisan.

THE WEEK IN CARTOONS 16-22 AUG 2020

16.08.20 - Keir Mudie, Sunday People

16.08.20 - Andy Davey, Sunday Telegraph

17.08.20 - Katy Balls, Spectator

19.08.20 - Ben Garrison, Grrr Graphics

19.08.20 - AF Branco, Flag & Cross

19.08.20 - Brian Adcock, Independent

19.08.20 - Patrick Blower, Daily Telegraph

20.08.20 - Bob Moran, Daily Telegraph

20.08.20 - Morten Morland, The Times

21.08.20 - Len Hawkins, Spectator

21.08.20 - Len Hawkins, Spectator

22.08.20 - Bob Moran, Daily Telegraph

22.08.20 - Brian Adcock, Independent

REMAINERS THREATEN TO SUE GOVT

A cross-party group of MPs and peers have joined forces with a group calling itself 'The Citizens' to launch legal action against the UK government.  According to a website belonging to The Citizens they have written to the Prime Minister giving him a two week ultimatum to answer questions about alleged Russian involvement in UK elections - by which they mean, of course, the 2016 EU referendum.  Although the group is playing down its real agenda, there is no doubt about who is driving this legal threat and why.

Before we look at who is behind The Citizens, let's look at the list of MPs and peers who are reportedly signatories to their threat of legal action.

Ben Bradshaw (Labour MP for Exeter).  Bradshaw is one of the most extreme Remainers on the Labour benches.  He went against the party whip and refused to back the triggering of Article 50 in 2017.  In December 2016 he was ridiculed after claiming that Russian interference in the referendum was 'highly probable', despite admitting that there was no evidence (see video below).  Bradshaw is still so bitter about Brexit that he recently announced he now supports the breakaway of Remain voting Scotland and the end of the United Kingdom.

Chris Bryant (Labour MP for Rhondda).  Another ardent Labour Remainer who refused to back the triggering of Article 50.  He is a former chair of the pro-EU Labour Movement for Europe.  Like Bradshaw, Bryant has form when it comes to making unfounded allegations about Russia.  In 2012 he blamed Russia for exposing the picture that led to him being nicknamed 'Captain Underpants'.  He also later blamed Russia for trying to oust him from his position as chair of the all-party Parliamentary group on Russia.

Caroline Lucas (Green MP for Brighton Pavilion).  Another unapologetic Remainer who refused to back the triggering of Article 50.  A former MEP, Lucas has twice led her pro-EU Brexit-blocking party and was a prominent figure in the so-called 'People's Vote' campaign.

Alyn Smith (SNP MP for Stirling).  Remainer Smith was elected to Parliament in the 2019 general election, prior to which he was an MEP.  Last year he was forced to apologise after making unsubstantiated claims about the Brexit Party, labelling it a 'money laundering front'.  Despite being a so-called Scottish nationalist, on Brexit Day he addressed a crowd in Stirling announcing that he was 'born European' and wants to 'remain European'.

Lord Strasburger (Lib Dem peer).  A Remainer peer who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to his anti-Brexit party.  He was pictured at a Remain rally in 2018 alongside Westminster's resident remoaner Steve Bray.

Baroness Wheatcroft (Conservative peer).  A Remainer peer who has spoken out many times against Brexit, including a pledge to sabotage the Leave mandate by stalling its progress through the Lords.  She addressed a Remain rally in 2017 and in 2019 claimed that Britain is a 'Remain country' and Leave voters were 'wrong'.

So these are the six politicians named by The Citizens as co-signatories, some of whom have enthusiastically confirmed their support on Twitter.  All of them are unquestionably Remainers, but what about the people behind The Citizens group?

More than thirty people are named on the 'About us' section of their website, the most prominent of which is journalist Carole Cadwalladr.  Carole is famous for spreading conspiracy theories about Brexit, in particular claims of Russian involvement.  She has earned many nicknames among Brexiteers, including 'Conspiracy Carole' and 'Carole Codswallop'.  The BBC's Andrew Neil once likened her to a 'crazy cat lady' in a 3am tweet he later deleted.

Cadwalladr appears to be one of the main actors behind The Citizens and last year organised a GoFundMe site on their behalf which raised more than £350,000.  Although the page is titled 'Democracy: The Fight Back', the description makes it very clear that the campaign is solely dedicated to fighting Brexit and proving that the referendum was somehow fixed by Russia.

Speaking of foreign interference, many of the team members named on The Citizens website are not even British citizens.  Paul Olivier Dehaye is a Swiss national.  The Citizens' video editor Thomas Héléta is thought to be a French national.  Also working on their video production is Irishman Sheridan Flynn who wrote an article last year labelling Brexit a 'festival of resentment' driven by English nationalists.  At least ten other members of the team - Karim Amer, Geeta Anand, David Carroll, Alexandra Kondracke, Jehane Noujaim, Matt Rivitz, Angela Robinson, Cyndi Stivers, Bina Venkataraman and Shoshana Zuboff - are American citizens.

How ironic that one in three of the team members at The Citizens are not actually British citizens.  When is foreign interference in our democracy not foreign interference?  Ah yes, when they're campaigning against Brexit.  Remember when David Cameron invited Barack Obama to come and lecture us Brits about the dangers of voting Leave?  There was no need for conspiracy theories about that interference.

Matt Rivitz is the co-founder of Sleeping Giants, a left-wing group in America that targets pro-Trump news outlets and tries to close them down by intimidating advertisers.  This defunding tactic has been emulated in the UK by hard left groups aiming to do the same thing to the likes of the Daily Mail and Express newspapers.  Remember that The Citizens is styling itself as a pro-democracy organisation, yet it has on its team individuals dedicated to shutting down political opposition!

Rivitz is by no means the only Trump hater at The Citizens.  Also named is Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer who spent six months compiling a dossier alleging collusion between Donald Trump's presidential election campaign and Russia.  Like much of the work carried out by his comrades at The Citizens, it is largely unsubstantiated.

Another purveyor of dodgy claims is Shahmir Sanni.  He claims to have worked for the Vote Leave campaign and has made several allegations about illegal spending, although he cannot prove them.

So there we have it.  The Citizens is undeniably a bunch of vociferous Remainers and like-minded Americans, all of whom share a hatred of Trump and a desire to rewrite history and portray democratic results that didn't go their way as the work of Vladimir Putin.

This legal challenge to the British government won't stop Brexit, it is merely a desperate act of vengeance by the bitterest of sore losers - something that we have already seen once this year already with the witch hunt against Dominic Cummings - a hate campaign that had nothing to do with lockdown travels, but everything to do with Brexit.

TORY POLL LEAD LOWEST SINCE JULY 2019

A drop of four percentage points in a week has seen the Tory lead fall to its lowest margin since July 2019.  Even at the height of the pandemic the Tories were still enjoying a whopping poll lead of up to 26 per cent.  According to YouGov it is now 2 per cent.

The current poll was carried out 18-19 August with a sample size of 1,652.  An identical poll was carried out precisely one week earlier, where the Tory lead was put at 9 per cent.

YouGov poll 18-19 Aug (changes from 11-12 August)

Con 40% (-4%)

Lab 38% (+3%)

LD 6% (+1%)

Green 6% (+1%)

SNP 5% (-1%)

Brexit 4% (+1%)

Plaid 1% (-)

Other 1% (-)

YouGov attributes the new figures to the A-levels fiasco.  However, not for the first time their percentages don't quite add up.  This time all the party percentages add up to 101 per cent.  One of their three Westminster polls conducted last month added up to 99 per cent.  Presumably this is because the figures are rounded to the nearest whole number.

YouGov also asked those polled on who they thought would make the best PM.  Starmer has now pulled ahead by four points to 35, while Boris is level pegging with the don't knows at 31 (four per cent refused to answer - making it another puzzling 101 per cent in total).  This is promising for Sir Squeaky as his predecessor was never seen as a better potential PM than even Theresa May.  He also consistently failed to poll better than the don't knows.

While YouGov are (somehow) the big name in polling, they are by no means the only team on the field.  Redfield and Wilton Strategies carried out a poll on August 19 with a sample size of 2,000.  Compared to an identical poll they conducted on August 12 they found that there was no change in the Tory lead at all, which they estimated to be at 7 per cent.

Redfield & Wilton poll 19 Aug (changes from 12 Aug)

Con 44% (+1%)

Lab 37% (+1%)

LD 7% (-2%)

Green 4% (+1%)

SNP 4% (-)

Other 3% (-)

And yes, that only makes 99 per cent in total.  Redfield and Wilton also posed the same question about who would make the best PM.  This revealed a stark contrast with YouGov's findings.  Redfield and Wilton put Boris Johnson eight points ahead of Starmer.  However, this lead was a marked decrease on their corresponding poll from a week earlier.  On August 12 they had Boris ahead by 14 per cent.

Of course opinion polls are not necessarily a reliable source of public opinion.  They famously failed to predict the outcome of the 2015 general election, for example.  However, if this month's polling range is within the margin of error then an election tomorrow could potentially end in a hung Parliament.  Given that only nine months ago the Tories romped to victory this is an astonishing turnaround.

A lot can happen in four years, but as we enter the worst recession in living memory it could take a monumental effort to stave off that hung Parliament.

ON THIS DAY IN 1995, CORBYN'S MATES...

Hamas bombed a passenger bus in Jerusalem, killing four people and injuring more than a hundred.  A fifth victim died from his injuries almost ten years later.  The suicide bomber struck as the No.26 pulled up outside a high school in the suburb of Ramat Eshkol.  It was 07:53 and the bus was packed with commuters, including many students and a number of police officers travelling to work.  A police chief superintendent and a US citizen were among the dead.

The wreckage of the Number 26 bus

Little is known about the bomber, except that he was named as 26-year-old Sufian Jabarin.  Some early reports suggested that the bomber was female, but Jabarin was a male recruited by Hamas commander Abed al-Majed Duddin.  Duddin was later killed in a shootout with Israeli forces who were trying to arrest him near Hebron in 2009.  Another Hamas commander thought to have been involved in the bus bombing was Mohammed Deif, currently the supreme commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades - Hamas' paramilitary wing.  He is reportedly still at large, having survived numerous Israeli assassination attempts.

The device used in the No.26 bus attack was built by Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas bombmaker based in the West Bank.  Known as 'the Engineer', Ayyash had constructed bombs used in a string of bombings in the mid-nineties, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Israelis.  He was assassinated by the Israeli security service in January 1996, by way of a booby-trapped mobile phone containing a small explosive device.  Following his death Yasser Arafat praised Ayyash and dubbed him a 'martyr'.  In 2010 it was reported that the Palestinian Authority had named a street after him in Ramallah.

The No.26 suicide bomber was reportedly given all the trappings of a state funeral, complete with a 21-gun salute from Arafat's personal guard.  Jabarin's family were also said to have received a financial reward from the Saudi royal family.

The five fatalities of the Number 26 bombing were as follows:

Noam Aizenman, 35, from Jerusalem, a police chief superintendent

Rivka Cohen, 26, from Jerusalem

Joan Davenny, 46, from Connecticut, an American schoolteacher who was visiting Israel

Hannah Naeh, 56, from Jerusalem

Yonah Peter Malina, 28 (at time of attack), a Swiss national who had emigrated to Israel the previous year.  He was paralysed from the neck down and he spent the rest of his life connected to a respirator.  He died on 30 May 2005, aged 38.

ZARAH'S MIGRANT LECTURE

Labour's Zarah Sultana is the face of a new pro-migrant video from commie media outlet Double Down News.  The hard left MP for Coventry South spends five minutes telling viewers how Britain has a moral obligation to accept migrants fleeing war and persecution etc.  The problem is that everyone knows that they're coming from France, having already crossed continental Europe with the purpose of reaching soft touch Britain.  Sorry Zarah, but they already stopped being 'desperate refugees' some time ago.  The people crossing the English Channel to exploit our generosity are economic migrants.

From start to finish there is barely a sentence that drops from Zarah's mouth that isn't total nonsense.  From her opening gambit about the 'enemy of the working class' this is class war student politics, full of communist soundbites like 'know your enemy'.  In fact the whole production has the feel of a media studies project straight out of the university classroom.  Interspersed with provocative images aimed at creating sympathy for migrants, while demonising the Tories and those with wealth, the biggest problem is that this doesn't speak to its intended audience.

Labour have already lost the working classes and the sight of a young female MP with a plum in her mouth is enough to have most ordinary people turning off within seconds - and this is without the knowledge that Zarah was educated at one of the finest grammar schools in the Midlands, followed immediately by university and a career in politics.  Like her idol Corbyn, this girl who is lecturing the workers has never had a proper job in her life.  She says that the Tories 'hold the working class in contempt', but in actual fact those who despise the working class more than anyone else are the metropolitan elitists of the left.  Insults like 'gammon' and 'boomer' haven't come from the Tory ranks, they're used by the likes of Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar and those who sneered at the working classes with the paper maché creation put on display in Bristol recently.

Watch below, if you have a strong stomach.

"No-one puts children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land".  How many times do we have to say this - they're boarding those boats from France, not Syria.