Free Republic

BORIS Johnson has appeared to have achieved the impossible by taking back Labour heartlands as early general elections polls today revealed voting intentions for the north west of England have shifted to Tory paving the way for a landslide win thanks to support from the south and the Midlands. Pollster YouGov showed Labour support is collapsing in the north, with prominent industrial counties - some of which that have voted Labour for decades - Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside now jumping ship to Tory in a spectacular show of support for the Brexiteer Prime Minister. The poll shows...

A DAD has died in hospital just weeks after both his ears were chopped off in a horrific machete attack. Tragic Sajed Choudry, 42, was left in a coma after the violent attack on him and his son Ahsan Choudry, 24, in November. Sajed also suffered a collapsed right lung and sustained a bleed on the brain after the assault in Blackburn, Lancs. He underwent a 14-hour operation to have his ears re-attached, using a skin graft from his legs to complete the surgery. Last week daughter Mariya Choudry, 22, said the family are in shock about the attack as...

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Hamas-CAIR works energetically to block all measures outlawing sharia. If they continue, this will be America’s future. President Trump needs to revive the investigation and prosecution of Hamas-CAIR that Obama scuttled. ... A sinister British Sharia court and one girl’s tireless hunt for her father’s killer: How a brutal murder in Pakistan uncovered revenge killings in Lancashire,” by Martin Sixsmith ... The Muslim council of elders, or Sharia court, listened intently as the plaintiff outlined his case. He’d been disrespected by a neighbour, he told them, and in such a small Pakistani community, people talk. As...

Evidence of a previously unknown Viking king has been discovered in a hoard of silver found by a metal detectorist, stashed in a lead box in a field in Lancashire. The 201 pieces of silver including beautiful arm rings, worn by Viking warriors, were found on the outskirts of Silverdale, a village near the coast in north Lancashire, by Darren Webster, using the metal detector his wife gave him as a Christmas present. It adds up to more than 1kg of silver, probably stashed for safe keeping around AD900 at a time of wars and power struggles among the Vikings...

Mohammad Liaqat, 34, verbally abused white teachers and assaulted a headmaster after two pupils were excluded for refusing to shaveA Muslim who assaulted a headmaster after launching racist rants in a row over beards has been jailed. Mohammad Liaqat, 34, verbally abused white teachers after two 14-year-old Muslim pupils were banned from school for refusing to shave on religious grounds. Even though he was not directly affected by the case, Liaqat launched a ‘racist tirade’ on staff at Mount Carmel RC High School in Accrington, Lancs, where one of his children is a pupil. He was ordered to stay away...

Lying under a thin veil of desert sand, a bag belonging to a Second World War soldier has been discovered intact 65 years after he dropped it. Its contents, buried for decades under the Sahara sun, have remained in remarkable condition, providing a fascinating insight into a bygone era. There are letters written by family who have long since died, photographs and personal belongings. Now Alec Ross's family are hoping to have the bag returned to England. Mr Ross was a despatch rider in the 8th Army when he lost the backpack in Egypt in 1942. It was found recently...

Engineers have said they were "stunned" to unearth a 17th Century cottage, complete with a cat skeleton, during a construction project in Lancashire. The cottage was discovered near Lower Black Moss reservoir in the village of Barley, in the shadow of Pendle Hill. Archaeologists brought in by United Utilities to survey the area found the building under a grass mound. Historians are now speculating that the well-preserved cottage could have belonged to one of the Pendle witches. The building contained a sealed room, with the bones of a cat bricked into the wall. It is believed the cat was buried...

An energy firm which has been test drilling for controversial "shale gas" in Lancashire has said it has found vast gas resources underground.Cuadrilla Resources began testing for gas on the Fylde Coast in March, using a technique known as "fracking". It said it had found 200 trillion cubic feet of gas under the ground, which if recovered could provide 5,600 jobs in the UK, 1,700 of those in Lancashire. Opponents to the process believe it produces damaging carbon emissions.

A burka-wearing student has been banned from enrolling at a college after staff claimed the Muslim garment was a barrier to ‘safety and communication’. Shawana Bilqes, 18, was forced to abandon her learning plans after she refused to remove the head-to-toe gown which reveals only her eyes. She had been asked to show her face as a check to avoid identity fraud in case she was posing as someone else. But when she explained she could not due to her religious belief she was forced off her Access course for an HE Diploma at Burnley College, Lancashire. Today Miss Bilqes...

Dramatic daylight terror raids on a university may have been linked to a plot to blow up a shopping centre or nightclub, police fear. Students at Liverpool John Moores University watched in shock yesterday as two men were hauled outside and forced to the ground by armed police.  Witnesses said the duo  -  students at the university's Business School  -  were wearing combat trousers and hiking jackets, and claimed there were rumours of 'a bomb' on the premises.  (edit) The raid was one of a series carried out simultaneously across the North-West in which 12 suspects believed to be...

The Dean of Blackburn is a holy man and, as such, is not generally touched by earthly desires. He has serious misgivings about the Iraq war. He is a sensible, mild-mannered sort of fellow, not given to unnecessary exaggeration. But that was yesterday. That was BC. Before Condoleezza. "Oh, I thought she was charming," says the Very Rev Christopher Armstrong, reflecting on his hour-long meeting with the US Secretary of State in Blackburn Cathedral. He pauses. A playful half-smile curls his lips. His eyes glaze over slightly and gaze into the middle distance. It is as if he is recalling...

October 5 Today is the Anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus! The Flying Circus debuted this day, 35 years ago, on television at 10:50 PM on BBC-1. The world was never the same. (October 5, 1969)