UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

https://news.sky.com/story/row-over-new-greggs-vegan-sausage-rolls-heats-up-11597679 (https://archive.ph/5Ba6o)

A heated row has broken out over a move by Britain's largest bakery chain to launch a vegan sausage roll.

The pastry, which is filled with a meat substitute and encased in 96 pastry layers, is available in 950 Greggs stores across the country.

It was promised after 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the snack to be launched to accommodate plant-based diet eaters.


But the vegan sausage roll's launch has been greeted by a mixed reaction: Some consumers welcomed it, while others voiced their objections.

View image on Twitter


spread happiness@p4leandp1nk
https://twitter.com/p4leandp1nk/status/1080767496569974785

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs

7
10:07 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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Cook and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe declared she was "frantically googling to see what time my nearest opens tomorrow morning because I will be outside".

While TV writer Brydie Lee-Kennedy called herself "very pro the Greggs vegan sausage roll because anything that wrenches veganism back from the 'clean eating' wellness folk is a good thing".

One Twitter user wrote that finding vegan sausage rolls missing from a store in Corby had "ruined my morning".

Another said: "My son is allergic to dairy products which means I can't really go to Greggs when he's with me. Now I can. Thank you vegans."

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pg often@pgofton
https://twitter.com/pgofton/status/1080772793774624768

The hype got me like #Greggs #Veganuary

42
10:28 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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TV presenter Piers Morgan led the charge of those outraged by the new roll.

"Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns," he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Morgan later complained at receiving "howling abuse from vegans", adding: "I get it, you're all hangry. I would be too if I only ate plants and gruel."

Another Twitter user said: "I really struggle to believe that 20,000 vegans are that desperate to eat in a Greggs."

"You don't paint a mustach (sic) on the Mona Lisa and you don't mess with the perfect sausage roll," one quipped.

Journalist Nooruddean Choudry suggested Greggs introduce a halal steak bake to "crank the fume levels right up to 11".

The bakery chain told concerned customers that "change is good" and that there would "always be a classic sausage roll".

It comes on the same day McDonald's launched its first vegetarian "Happy Meal", designed for children.

The new dish comes with a "veggie wrap", instead of the usual chicken or beef option.

It should be noted that Piers Morgan and Greggs share the same PR firm, so I'm thinking this is some serious faux outrage and South Park KKK gambiting here.

 

[Airstrip One]

* Just Stop Oil (returning after Ed Miliband 'stabbed them in the back' over drilling in the North Sea)
* Youth Demand
* Palestine Action
* Stop The War (Socialist Worker)
* People’s Assembly (Unions)

The problem with these groups (along with the thick as mince Kneecap) is that they are largely performative in nature and widely regarded as twats, even by people who might sympathise with their aims. Their actions carry no weight and ultimately harm their causes. Added to that, Just Stop Oil and possibly Palestine Action have an air of controlled opposition about them - of useful idiots being herded. When Starmer falls, it will likely be on the economy, which won't stop these groups from stepping into the shoes of David Hassellhoff at the Berlin Wall and taking credit.

 

[Eekum Bokum]

Rape charge against asylum seeker in migrant hotel 'covered-up' to avoid inflaming 'community tension'A rape charge against a man staying in a taxpayer-funded migrant hotel was "covered-up" to avoid inflaming "community tension", it has been revealed.​

Archive

I think they covered it up to avoid inflaming something else ... the hotel perhaps.

 

[FedPostalService]

Burnham was possibly their last chance, maybe even Owen Smith, but no Labour can never make good choices - well, certainly not since not electing Benn as leader!

Burnham is a snake and no one in the PLP likes or trusts him.

His epic game of 4d chess managed to put Corbyn in charge and he buggered off to be mayor of Manchester to avoid the fallout.

 

[Crunkle]

NHS are to map the DNA of every single child "to be in front of disease". There's no mention of an opt-out.

BBC article: Link / Archive

If there's one thing I trust the NHS/government to keep secure, it's my mapped DNA and full health history.

The consequences of a foreign power gaining the entire DNA map of a population would be catastrophic.

 

[Amin Yasister]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14824461/amp/Justice-Secretary-Shabana-Mahmood-calls-major-reform-European-Convention-Human-Rights.html

Yep, a Judge in Britain won't deport a murderer and child rapist to Brazil to face the consequences of his actions, because of his Human Rights

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

However, many of these Disabled people will have Social Justice campaigners backing them and I believe that the never-had-a-job-nor-a-bath Socialist Worker types are going to hammer Parliament into voting no.

@Airstrip One covered much of those groups but I wanted to add that the big thing with those sort of campaigners and social justice causes in general is very few if any actually want a change or to improve things for people. They make insane demands so they can have infinite funding to pursue impossible causes.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14824461/amp/Justice-Secretary-Shabana-Mahmood-calls-major-reform-European-Convention-Human-Rights.html

Yep, a Judge in Britain won't deport a murderer and child rapist to Brazil to face the consequences of his actions, because of his Human Rights

We all know the answer is to leave the ECHR, we also know Labour will refuse to do so because that would be advancing what people voted for with Brexit.

 

[SirCliveSinclairdabbing]

even some of them reaching out to Reform UK and Tory voters asking them to join in a unilateral and universal march against Starmer and Labour.

 

[Zoot]

Rupert lowe's petition just passed the 100k needed to be considered for parliamentary debate. Link Archive

Review possible penalties for social media posts, including the use of prison​

We call on the Government to urgently review the possible penalties for non-violent offences arising from social media posts, including the use of prison.

There is serious public concern about the proportionality of sentencing in cases involving opinion-based online speech. We believe imprisoning individuals for posts on social media sets a dangerous precedent and raises wider questions about freedom of expression, proportionality in sentencing, and the misuse of limited prison resources. We consider that alternative sanctions, such as fines or community service, would be more appropriate.

 

[teriyakiburns]

There's something going on between Kim Leadbeater (she who came up with the assisted dying bill) and Starmer. I'm sure of it. She's Jo Cox's younger sister; Starmer obsessively brings up cox whenever he can get the chance (though that might just be a freudian thing?), such as when he brought her up for no reason in his open letter after the Liverpool drver thing. He loudly supported Leadbeater's bill from the moment she proposed it. Something is there.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

There's something going on between Kim Leadbeater (she who came up with the assisted dying bill) and Starmer. I'm sure of it. She's Jo Cox's younger sister; Starmer obsessively brings up cox whenever he can get the chance (though that might just be a freudian thing?), such as when he brought her up for no reason in his open letter after the Liverpool drver thing. He loudly supported Leadbeater's bill from the moment she proposed it. Something is there.

The bill is Keir's, his support for it is due to that.
Jo Cox gets brought up by Labour on every occasion they can because they use her death as a weapon.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Pop quiz, is this:
A) Kim Leadbetter
B) "Every boys fantasy"
C) The drummer from Iron Maiden.

Answers on a postcard.

 

[Crunkle]

View attachment 7535761
Pop quiz, is this:
A) Kim Leadbetter
B) "Every boys fantasy"
C) The drummer from Iron Maiden.

Answers on a postcard.

D) Anne-Marie Duff

 

[Zoot]

I was going to ping >Implying as were talking about his a while back but I don't know how to do it

C.H. Douglas writing in 1940 and earlier. He was the guy whose economics inspired Ezra Pound. He came up with a social credit scheme (which is not the New World Order stuff that was designed to make people see this guys economics negatively).

Links provide from this Twitter account who I've just come across

 

[DreinMeinVein]

Rupert lowe's petition just passed the 100k needed to be considered for parliamentary debate. Link Archive

I was about to post this but you beat me to it.
Wanna know what pisses me off about Lucy Connolly's prison sentence? I'm going to tell you anyway.

Okay, let's say somebody with a massive Xitter following of malleable idiots posts a credible incitement to violence. That's bad. That probably passes the limits of free speech.

Some nobody writes something that could be construed as incitement to arson and almost nobody reads it? That's nothing of consequence. Is that really worth two and a half years in prison? You'd get less for IRL attempted arson, I suspect.

BUT. During a mass outpouring of national grief – because once again a 1st or 2nd gen immigrant has committed something fucking heinous – a woman heartbroken by the mass stabbing of little girls writes some angry words into her phone about burning it all down, but she deletes it a couple of hours later once she's calmed down.
No fucking way should anyone get sent down for 2.5 years for a spicy tweet in that context. Least of all the mother of a young girl.

It really boils my piss. The fact that so few in the HoC want to talk about it makes me want to post about burning it all down too, but I won't because I also have children to look after.

 

[Made In Wales]

View attachment 7535761
Pop quiz, is this:
A) Kim Leadbetter
B) "Every boys fantasy"
C) The drummer from Iron Maiden.

Answers on a postcard.

Except that Nicko is now (sadly) no longer in Iron Maiden due to health issues.

One of the best drummers and a damn nice bloke as well.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

Rupert lowe's petition just passed the 100k needed to be considered for parliamentary debate. Link Archive

Key point: 100k signatures after ONE DAY.

Some nobody writes something that could be construed as incitement to arson and almost nobody reads it? That's nothing of consequence. Is that really worth two and a half years in prison? You'd get less for IRL attempted arson, I suspect.

The key point is that the laws are so sinister that you can't really say 'not guilty', if they were being charged with inciting the public then they could argue they were not guilty.

"Connolly was arrested twice and interviewed, and was charged under section 19(1) of the Public Order Act 1986, which provides a person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting is guilty of an offence if they intend thereby to stir up racial hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."

I mean look at how autistic the wording is there, it's such a complete clusterfuck of phrases that makes it almost impossible to argue against writing the twitter post despite it allowing zero context.

Saying that, I wish more people had said 'not guilty' so it'd have resulted in the courts being completely clogged up and the chance of cases being dropped.

 

[Made In Wales]

Key point: 100k signatures after ONE DAY.


The key point is that the laws are so sinister that you can't really say 'not guilty', if they were being charged with inciting the public then they could argue they were not guilty.

"Connolly was arrested twice and interviewed, and was charged under section 19(1) of the Public Order Act 1986, which provides a person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting is guilty of an offence if they intend thereby to stir up racial hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."

I mean look at how autistic the wording is there, it's such a complete clusterfuck of phrases that makes it almost impossible to argue against writing the twitter post despite it allowing zero context.

Saying that, I wish more people had said 'not guilty' so it'd have resulted in the courts being completely clogged up and the chance of cases being dropped.

Agreed, what's happened to Lucy is nothing short of a national scandal.

When released, she needs to take legal action.

Some brilliant news for Reform UK as, according to Ipsos, over a third of the electorate is now backing them and want Nigel as the next PM.

In addition, 95% of Reform UK voters at the 2024 GE have stuck with the party, and 1 in 3 Tories have switched to Reform UK.

In contrast, Labour has lost 12% of its 2024 GE voters to Reform UK, 8% to the Liberal Democrats and 5% to the Green Party.

With Reform UK's trajectory going upwards, with only the Liberal Democrats the only other main party to make any growth (up to 11%) the death spiral of Labour and the Tories is not far away.

https://www.gbnews.com/politics/reform-uk-ipsos-poll-nigel-farage-keir-starmer-labour

Archive: https://archive.ph/wip/EbyfR

 

[Zoot]

Agreed, what's happened to Lucy is nothing short of a national scandal.

When released, she needs to take legal action.

Some brilliant news for Reform UK as, according to Ipsos, over a third of the electorate is now backing them and want Nigel as the next PM.

In addition, 95% of Reform UK voters at the 2024 GE have stuck with the party, and 1 in 3 Tories have switched to Reform UK.

In contrast, Labour has lost 12% of its 2024 GE voters to Reform UK, 8% to the Liberal Democrats and 5% to the Green Party.

With Reform UK's trajectory going upwards, with only the Liberal Democrats the only other main party to make any growth (up to 11%) the death spiral of Labour and the Tories is not far away.

https://www.gbnews.com/politics/reform-uk-ipsos-poll-nigel-farage-keir-starmer-labour

Archive: https://archive.ph/wip/EbyfR

fuck I just hope that it ends up at least starting to turn around this immigration disaster ship. and can be pivoted harder. I don't like that Muslim chairman. I guess I can understand the tactic of having him, but they need to ditch him the day after they are elected

 

[Mound Dweller]

Well that was fast.
No protestor child, you will NOT vandalise my planes again, enjoy proscription!
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/a...ize-notion-raf-planes-s0kbfpqmh?region=global/https://archive.is/jC26l

Spoiler: Palestine Action to be proscribed as terrorist group after RAF attack

The activists Palestine Action are expected to be proscribed as a terrorist group within weeks, it is understood, after members vandalised two aircraft at the RAF’s largest base.
Security at all Britain’s military facilities is being reviewed after the incident in which two activists sneaked into RAF Brize Norton and rode across the runway on electric scooters in one of the most serious breaches of defence security for decades.
They sprayed red paint into the engines of two Airbus Voyager tankers, used for air-to-air refuelling, and caused further damage to the aircraft using crowbars. The cost of repairs is estimated at up to £1 million.


The activists also sprayed red paint across the runway of the Oxfordshire base before escaping undetected. Video of their actions was posted online by Palestine Action on Friday morning.

Counterterrorism police are leading the investigation. The video showed that the intruders were close to the Vespina aircraft, an adapted Voyager used by members of the royal family and the prime minister.
Sir Keir Starmer wrote on X: “The act of vandalism committed at RAF Brize Norton is disgraceful … It is our responsibility to support those who defend us.” Last week he announced that military aircraft including air-to-air refuelling tankers were being sent the the Middle East “for contingency support in the region”.
John Healey, the defence secretary, said: “I am really disturbed that this happened and have ordered an investigation and a review of wider security at our bases.”

Dan Jarvis, the security minister, is expected to make a statement in parliament on Monday announcing that the group will be proscribed as a terrorist organisation after months of legal discussions amid growing concerns that its protests are threatening public safety and national security.
The incident at RAF Brize Norton is understood to have accelerated efforts to ban the group, although it will take several more weeks to pass the necessary legislation to add it to the proscribed list of terrorist organisations.
That would make it a criminal offence to belong to Palestine Action, attend its meetings or show any support for its activities, with a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail. Even those showing support for the group by wearing clothing bearing its logo, for example, would face six months in jail and a maximum fine of £5,000.
This was a recommendation in a report carried out by Lord Walney last year when he was serving as the government’s independent adviser on political violence.

He told The Times: “The drumbeat of action from Palestine Action makes it clearly arguable that they actually reach the terrorist threshold and I hope ministers are urgently reconsidering that.”
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, and Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, had quickly demanded Palestine Action be proscribed as a terrorist organisation after the attack on Brize Norton.
Security experts said the incident highlighted the risk of sabotage at Britain’s military bases and speculated that Russia or Iran could covertly be behind it.
Palestine Action has previously targeted companies it claims supply weapons to Israel and vandalised a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University for his role in the creation of Israel.
The campaign group said in a statement: “By putting the planes out of service, activists have interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East.” It claimed the Voyager aircraft were used to refuel Israeli jets, although they do not use compatible systems.
Asked about the possibility of being proscribed as a terrorist organisation, it had responded: “When our government fails to uphold their moral and legal obligations, it is the responsibility of ordinary citizens to take direct action. The terrorists are the ones committing a genocide, not those who break the tools used to commit it.”
RAF Brize Norton has about 5,800 service personnel, 300 civilian staff and 1,200 contractors. It is the base for the RAF’s Air Mobility Force, providing strategic and tactical air transport and air-to-air refuelling.



The strategic defence review published this month highlighted “the changing nature” of threats and said “particular attention should be given to contingency planning for RAF Brize Norton, the main hub in the UK for much of what the RAF delivers globally.”
Air Marshal Greg Bagwell, the UK’s first director of joint warfare and now a fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, said: “This is another wake-up call for our domestic security on bases — whether it be enemy drones, or activists on e-scooters, we need to be better prepared and protected.”
He added: “We need to look at the full range of threats and decide what we need in place to counter these threats. We have been lucky in recent decades because there has not been that threat, but the situation has changed.”
Bagwell speculated that Russia or Iran may have had a hand in the security breach. “It is certainly the sort of activity carried out by foreign agents and they could have influenced the activists,” he said.
“They [Russian or Iran] were either behind this or rubbing their hands with glee. This is exactly the sort of thing a foreign power tries to do to paralyse military activity.”
A government source confirmed that the group would be proscribed, pending a vote by both houses of parliament within the coming weeks.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/palestine-action-uk-defence-industry-3dxq5zgwm/https://archive.is/8XJMc

Spoiler: Palestine Action group shows no signs of slowing down

We are tired of being ignored. It is up to all of us to stop this complicity” were the words that launched Palestine Action almost five years ago.
Founded by Huda Ammori, who has Palestinian and Iraqi heritage, and Richard Barnard, a veteran left-wing activist, the fledgling group said direct action should be taken against Elbit Systems, a weapons manufacturer that they claim “profits from Israel’s war crimes”.
Two months later, in September 2020, they did just that. Activists occupied a factory in Shenstone, in Staffordshire, smashing windows, drilling holes into ceilings, throwing air conditioning units to the ground and dousing the building in red paint.


The demonstration marked the start of co-ordinated attempts to damage both the defence firm facilities and finances across the country, which have propelled the group on a path towards proscription.

Throughout 2021 Palestine Action widened its activities, occupying a drone factory in Leicester. The occupation lasted six days, and ten arrests were made for conspiracy to commit criminal damage and aggravated trespass. The defendants were cleared after the trial judge instructed the jury to consider the common law defence of Necessity.

After launching their Scottish branch, they targeted Thales, another defence firm. Having infiltrated its Glasgow facility in 2022, the activists allegedly caused more than £1 million of damage. Five were jailed after members of the group threw a smoke bomb into an area where staff were being evacuated.
Protesters in red suits and balaclavas also caused hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage to an electronics plant in Wales that year, which they believed was making circuit boards for Israeli drones.


The group’s activities ramped up after the October 7, 2023 attacks. As Israeli forces announced a “full siege” on Gaza, Palestine Action published a list of over 50 targets “complicit in Elbit’s murderous arms trade”.
A few days later they sprayed the headquarters of the BBC — which wasn’t on the list — with red paint to “symbolise complicity in genocide”. Protestors also blockaded Lockheed Martin in Bedford, smeared red paint over the Foreign Office and targeted the headquarters of aerospace firm Leonardo, at which two men were arrested for what the Met called racially aggravated criminal damage.
Their actions began to go beyond scaling roof tops and breaking factory windows. Members of the campaign group allegedly used a modified prison van to ram the entrance of Elbit’s Bristol HQ last summer. Once inside they dismantled weapons, allegedly caused £1 million in damage and assaulted two officers were with a sledgehammer, police said. Eighteen people were charged and held on remand over the break-in.
Less than a month after members of Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting, two Palestine Action members squirted tomato ketchup at a statue of former prime minister Arthur Balfour.

The former foreign secretary has been a focus of activist anger as he was the signatory of the Balfour Declaration, a 1917 document that pledged support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
In March 2024, the group used blades to slash a painting of Lord Balfour hanging in the University of Cambridge. Seven months later — to mark the declaration’s anniversary — they reportedly stole two busts of Israel’s first president from the University of Manchester’s chemistry building.
As Palestine Action grew in notoriety and numbers, the British state also became a target. Early in 2024, six members were arrested for allegedly plotting to prevent the London Stock Exchange from opening.
Activists have inevitably attracted the attention of authorities and received jail time. Among the first to be hauled before the courts were five members in November 2022, who had covered Elbit’s Kingsway offices in their, now signature, red paint.


They were, however, acquitted by a jury of “conspiracy to commit criminal damage” and the offices later closed. Palestine Action declared a victory for this and for the closure of an Elbit factory in Oldham, where their sustained protests had resulted in 36 arrests.
In August 2024, five members of the group were handed custodial sentences for protest action. It took two years for the courts to hand out suspended prison sentences and order the protesters to pay more than £5,000 in compensation after seven activists broke into the Bristol headquarters of Elbit to destroy equipment.
Zoë Rogers turned 21 in prison. She had been charged with criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary in relation to the Bristol incident after telling her mother, Clare, that the pro-Palestine marches “weren’t working”. She was denied bail and is on remand with a trial set for November 2025.
Fatema Zainab was arrested and charged as part of the same operation.
As the court system caught up in December 2023, two members of a group known as the Elbit Eight, Genevieve Scherer and Jocelyn Cooney, were acquitted on charges relatingfrom July 2020 to January 2021. Their defence had argued that they were justified in “working to disrupt manufacture of Israel’s weaponry”.
Richard Barnard was convicted of one count of criminal damage at the now-closed Elbit factory in Oldham.

100% glow op IMO, they started being too annoying went off the plantation and needed shutting down.

 

[Made In Wales]

fuck I just hope that it ends up at least starting to turn around this immigration disaster ship. and can be pivoted harder. I don't like that Muslim chairman. I guess I can understand the tactic of having him, but they need to ditch him the day after they are elected

I'm tempted to agree, as Zia has been a distraction, but he has also chipped in and sadly we can't turn the big bucks down at the moment.

My hope is that the Right can eventually unify into one solid mass and that a few years of Farage as PM will then morph into phase two which will be long term stability and the ability to Make Britain Great Again.

Despite the problems Reform UK have had (needless and senseless) they've treaded water well but cannot rely on just Labour cocking everything up in order to get in - Reform UK have got to hammer home the Common Sense policies and that they are the only option if we want to return to how things used to be, when this country was great, prices were affordable and people were happy - remember happiness... before 2020 and the world going to shit in a kettle.

Zia will probably go within six months of Nigel becoming PM and some of the 'elder statesmen' of the party will also not last five years including Richard Tice who has been very loyal to the party and funded it alone until Nigel's return.

The key will be getting enough young people to pick up the mantle once Tice, Anderson, Farage etc. have retired - even Arron Banks as a donor is 59 and not getting any younger. Once that is solved, I can honestly hand on heart say that Reform UK (or whatever they'll be called in the future) will do at least 25 years in Government unless the opposition ditches Woke and can actually outdo the Government. Perhaps a new Socialist Movement of 'by-the-people-for-the-people' types can make a difference, but they will face the same challenges and issues that Reform UK did unless the system is completely abolished and changed into something which benefits the ordinary people first.

Currently, I have little faith in any other opposition being able to outdo Reform UK on the things that really matter, and this should make it easier for Nigel to move into No. 10. That's not his or Reform UK's fault, it's due to the fact that we have a weak and pathetic hierarchy in charge which would rather jail a White man for misgendering a penguin than arrest an Asian man for rape.

Edit: @Mount Dweller is right about the 'Glowies' and if they have indeed gone 'off script' and 'rogue', then we need to watch their next steps carefully, especially with the new DEI hire at MI6.