UK

Scotland Yard is set to use armoured vehicles for the first time in 15 years in a £4.5million operation to police protests this weekend.

In a package of measures billed as the toughest ever, 4,000 officers will be deployed to deal with the Tommy Robinson-led Unite the Kingdom rally and a pro-Palestine gathering to mark Nakba Day.

A total of more than 80,000 people are expected to attend the two demonstrations on Saturday when London will also host the FA Cup Final.

Dang, that’s a good and quick mask ,.. pic.twitter.com/T2PVnzuTkL

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) November 9, 2024

h/t Hermes

Britain will deploy autonomous mine-hunting equipment and counter-drone systems as part of a multinational mission to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey said that the cutting-edge technology would be dispatched along with Typhoon combat jets and HMS Dragon, a Type-45 destroyer. He addressed more than 40 nations at the opening of a virtual summit to discuss plans for the mission.

Too Jew For You Know Who?[/caption]So this is how technocracy ends – not with a bang but with the whimpering of one of its chief proponents as he hunkers down, hiding from the judgement of the people. This is the vision we now have of Keir Starmer: alone, reviled, skulking in his bunker at Downing Street. He’s a dead man blathering, talking about staying the course even though the people and much of his party would rather he didn’t. He’s ‘resolute’, say his dwindling band of apologists, but to the rest of us it just looks like pathological vanity.

For some time now, the political situation in Britain has been developing in such a way that it seems almost to have been scripted in Hollywood. On the one hand, British Muslims have asserted their power with growing audacity, illegals have continued to pour into the country, and the long-established Conservative and Labour parties have looked upon this nightmare scenario with apparent impotence, taking action only to quell the restive reaction by native Brits, especially members of the increasingly put-upon working class, to this naked takeover; on the other hand, those working-class Brits, trained for generations in polite obedience, have steadily become less polite and obedient, heeding the warnings of Tommy Robinson and other brave rebels and turning out in burgeoning numbers for marches and rallies where they do the unthinkable – namely, wave the Union Jack and sing “God Save the King.”

In the run-up to the local elections, the silence finally shattered: suddenly it was acceptable to talk about the problem of men without proper vetting crossing international borders. That v-word that working-class communities are so severely reprimanded for using was on the lips of every Westminster hack. Across SW1, manicured hands were wrung over the scandal of an unscreened bloke getting a cushy house and government money in a country that isn’t his own. Of course, none of this chatter was about the men from distant, regressive lands who rock up on England’s shores every day – it was about Peter Mandelson.

In 35 years at sea, HMS Iron Duke only ever fired her guns in anger a handful of times. She did so to hit a gun battery during the war against Colonel Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, and before that while seizing drugs in the Caribbean in 2009.

For a Type 23 frigate, designed in the 1980s to take on the might of the Soviet navy, it was small-scale stuff. But at a time when the Cold War seemed long over, it was a reminder that a well-resourced navy still had its uses.

Here are some phrases I don’t want to hear today. ‘Protest vote.’ ‘The cry of the “left behind”.’ ‘A bloody nose for the establishment.’ For while it’s true that the colourless functionaries of our two-party regime will be holding their bloodied snouts today following a bruising blow from the electorate, none of those trite phrases captures the historic nature of what is happening. This is not just a ballot-box ‘screw you’ – it’s an attempted reordering of politics itself by voters with nothing left to lose.

Keir Starmer is desperately fighting to subdue a Labour revolt tonight after a local elections bloodbath saw the party routed on English councils, and destroyed in Wales and Scotland.

Loyalist ministers and MPs have been deployed in a frantic bid to prop up the PM, after a series of backbenchers broke cover to demand his resignation.

So far no Cabinet ministers have publicly joined the mutiny – a moment that many believe would be the final nail in Sir Keir’s coffin.