A Dangerous Amount Of Bull

The Fewest British Soldiers Since The 1700s.

Almost 18,000 British soldiers are unfit for the frontline, figures reveal.
Many troops have been medically downgraded after suffering wounds and mental health issues such as PTSD from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But thousands more have chronic knee and back problems, or conditions including obesity and diabetes linked to stodgy cookhouse food such as fry-ups, chips and puds.
MoD figures show 7,890 soldiers are classed as ‘medically non-deployable’, meaning they cannot go to war.
And 9,971 are ‘medically limited’ and unlikely to be sent on operations.

Freedom of Information statistics also show the RAF and Royal Navy have 10,000 personnel between them who are not fit for combat duties.
Britain now has just 60,000 soldiers fit enough to serve on frontline operations – the fewest since the 1700s.
( Sean Rayment, 12.11.2017 )

Tories Treat Children As ‘Guinea Pigs’.

A Cabinet minister who thinks allowing some pupils to fail is fine has been condemned for treating children as ‘guinea pigs’.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss has admitted she believes experiments that go wrong at free schools are a price worth paying.

Former Education Minister Ms Truss said, “With freedom there does come risk. There are free schools that haven’t done as well, or there have been cases where pilots haven’t worked. I believe in trying those things and seeing what impact they can have, rather than being risk averse and not trying them.”

Dr Mary Bousted, joint chief of the National Education Union, said, “Liz Truss’s statement amounts to an admission the Government has put its pursuit of ideology above the interests of children’s education.
This approach is both reckless and wasteful, and has resulted in real harm being done to communities where schools have had to close.”
( Nicola Bartlett, 28.10.2017 )

Tory Council Leader Made To Pay Back £12.3Million After Housing Scandal.

A play about a notorious social housing scandal is to be staged in a new theatre close to the site of the Grenfell Tower block in June, a year on from the fire that killed 71 people.
Shirleymander, by Gregory Evans, will tell the story of Westminster City Council in the 1980s, when the Tory council leader Shirley Porter was found to have operated a deliberate policy of altering the makeup of marginal wards to protect her power base.

In 2004, she personally had to pay back £12.3million after her “gerrymandering” strategy was judged to have “forced homeless families to substandard housing in order to manipulate the borough’s voting demographic”.

Porter, who now lives mainly in Israel, was found to have sold council homes in marginal wards to prospective Tory voters and to have pushed 122 homeless families likely to vote Labour out of eight marginal seats.
They were moved to tower blocks the council knew were contaminated with asbestos.
( Vanessa Thorpe, 26.11.2017 )  ..  theguardian.com

High Stake Gambling In UK.

Gamblers in the UK can stake more on machines than anywhere else in the world, outside Las Vegas.
A new study says Britain is the only country to allow £100 punts on fixed-odds betting terminals.
It adds that one in three problem gamblers earn £10,400 a year or less.
The report by think-tank ResPublica says Belgium allows the second-highest stakes, £21, but most European countries limit them to under £1.
( Keir Mudie, 22.10.2017 )

The Tories Secretly Blow £3million.

The Tories have secretly blown £3million of taxpayers’ cash in a failed bid to privatise the NHS staffing agency.
Ministers spent the money on consultants in a desperate bid to sell the respected NHS Professionals Organisation which supplies doctors and nurses to hospitals.
But they were forced into a u-turn by angry MPs, medical chiefs and health unions.
( Andrew Gregory, 14.10.2017 )

A Group Of Ex-Israeli Soldiers Turned A Small Fishing Village Into A “Sex And Drug Den”.

A former Israeli soldier was deported from Colombia for alleged links to a criminal network suspected of drug trafficking, child prostitution and tax offences that spanned across several countries in Latin America.
Forty-three-year-old Assi Moosh was expelled by Colombia and returned to Tel Aviv under escort by immigration officers.

In a statement confirming the deportation, security officials said: “Police in Santa Marta, capital of the Magdalena department, hereby announce the removal of an Israeli citizen who owns a spa hotel frequented by many foreign tourists. Deportation procedures have been commenced as per law and will be carried out due to the Israeli’s conduct, which has harmed Colombia’s national security.”

Colombian news agencies reporting on the deportation revealed details surrounding the expulsion of Moosh who was exposed as being part of a group of ex-Israeli soldiers that had turned a small fishing village in Taganga into a “sex and drug den” from their base in a luxury resort that was known to locals as “little Israel”.
( Middle East Monitor, 29.11.2017 )  ..  middleeastmonitor.com

A Dangerous Amount Of Bull.

The more we learn about Boris Johnson the more we discover the Foreign Secretary talks a dangerous amount of bull.
His backing of the Spanish bloodsport, in which animals are cut and wounded then slaughtered for fun, is totally obnoxious.

Johnson paid as little attention to detail to what really happens in bullfighting rings as he did before opening his big mouth and potentially doubling by five years the jail sentence of a British woman in Iran.
The Foreign Secretary never knows what he’s talking about.

Killing animals for kicks is uncivilised and Johnson appears ignorant of the opposition in much of Spain.
If Johnson really thinks opposing bullfighting is political correctness gone mad, let him argue his case for animal cruelty in public.
( Daily mirror, 11.11.2017 )