Free Republic

BBC children’s programs should include more lesbian, gay and bisexual people, a report of the corporation recommends. A panel of nine experts said youngsters should be introduced to sexual diversity in their early years.While there has been a gradual increase in the representation of these people, they remain “still relatively invisible” in the media, they said. The experts added that the BBC should be “more creative and bolder in its depiction of such groups of people, taking care to steer clear of stereotypes.” …

The Army has been ordered to take a 25-day Christmas holiday to try to cut its electricity and gas bills. All 110,000 military and civilian personnel must take ‘block leave’ from December 14 until January 7, a leaked memo from a senior officer said. The decision, communicated by Major General David Cullen, means all barracks, Territorial Army buildings and other military sites will be closed for almost a month. General Cullen, the chief of staff for land forces, said it was an ‘opportunity for utility savings’. He added that the measure aimed to ‘fully exploit the utility efficiencies available by...

Patients experience “coldness, resentment, indifference" and "even contempt” in some hospitals, the Health Secretary has claimed in a hard-hitting speech about NHS care. In the worse cases staff have overseen “a kind of normalisation of cruelty”, Jeremy Hunt told an audience of health professionals at The King’s Fund, a London-based think-tank. Managers were so “buried in spreadsheets” that they had become “blind” to the fact that patients were not being treated with dignity or respect, he said. Poor care had become “perhaps the biggest problem of all facing the NHS”, Mr Hunt claimed in his strongest speech yet on the...

I periodically compare moronic decisions and policies by governments in the United States and United Kingdom. You can peruse some jaw-dropping examples by clicking this link. To show that politicians and bureaucrats don’t have a monopoly on stupidity, I’ve also shared a pair of examples that expose foolishness in the private sector.“Won’t anyone take free money?” I think the contest has been pretty even to date, but now we have an entry from the United Kingdom that may be hard to beat. The government created a new boondoggle program, but managed to make it so convoluted that no households have...

Street lights turned off in their thousands to meet carbon emission targets Huge swathes of Britain are being plunged into darkness as more and more streetlights are switched off by councils and roads authorities. Lights are being turned off on motorways and major roads, in town centres and residential streets, and on footpaths and cycle ways, as councils try to save money on energy bills and meet carbon emission targets. The switch-off begins as early as 9pm. They are making the move despite concerns from safety campaigners and the police that it would lead to an increase in road accidents...

Lights are being turned off on motorways and major roads, in town centres and residential streets, and on footpaths and cycle ways, as councils try to save money on energy bills and meet carbon emission targets. The switch-off begins as early as 9pm. They are making the move despite concerns from safety campaigners and the police that it would lead to an increase in road accidents and crime. The full extent of the blackout can be disclosed following an investigation by The Sunday Telegraph - which comes on the day that clocks moved back an hour, making it dark earlier...

Animal Rights Group Calls Sport Hunting Magazines ‘Shooting Porn’ and Wants to Ban Kids from Seeing Themby Liz Klimas Posted on August 28, 2012 at 3:17pm An animal rights group in the U.K. came out with a report Monday saying gun magazines are “shooting porn” that should be banned from sale to minors. In its report “Gunning For Children: How the gun lobby recruits young blood,“ Animal Aid says that such ”lurid, pro-violence content could have a corrosive, long-lasting effect on impressionable young minds.” The group believes these magazines should be considered “top shelf” and banned from sale to customers...

Actually, London, your opening ceremony was atrocious. It was horrific. It was a deeply troubling insight into a once-great nation. I recognize that, in the grand scheme of things, the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Probably, the summer Olympics themselves don’t have any true significance. After all, it’s just sports, and most of them are obscure sports. But they are entertaining nonetheless, and we look forward to them each four years, and we enjoy the spectacle as much as we enjoy the competition. Which is why on Friday night we lined our...

Oxford University has rewritten the laws governing its strict academic dress code following concerns that they were unfair towards transgender students. Under the new regulations, students taking exams or attending formal occasions will no longer have to wear ceremonial clothing that is specific to their gender. It will mean men will be able to sit tests in skirts and stockings and women will have the option of wearing suits and bow ties. The new laws, which will come into force next week, comes after a motion put forward the university's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer society (LGBTQ Soc) was...

The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, says five battalions will disappear and 17 units will be axed in the biggest overhaul of the British army for decades.

A law to allow same-sex weddings will destroy the institution of marriage for future generations, leaders of the Church of England warned yesterday. They claim it will lead to a constitutional crisis, arguing that human rights legislation will force churches to treat gay couples asking for a wedding in the same way they treat heterosexual couples. The Church of England’s warning comes in response to the Government’s consultation on legalising same-sex marriage, which will close this week. The proposed reforms, formally launched in March, have been described by Church officials as ‘half-baked’, ‘very shallow’, ‘superficial’ and ‘completely irrational’. They claim...

A family of Somali benefits claimants living in a £2million home courtesy of the taxpayer admitted they couldn’t believe their luck yesterday. To the anger of neighbours, the family of ten are allowed to live in a six-bedroom end-of-terrace Georgian townhouse in one of London’s most fashionable areas, populated by high-flying lawyers and stockbrokers. The family use housing benefits to pay a heavily discounted rent for the four-storey house in Islington – close to Tony Blair’s former home – which boasts a variety of period features, including chandeliers and wood flooring. The family are understood to pay the council just...

A FAR right politician was held in cells for almost six hours for objecting to a pro-gay rights flag flying above a police station. English Democrat Paul Rimmer, who recently failed in his bid to become mayor of Liverpool, was arrested on Saturday after an argument in Admiral Street Police station, Toxteth. Mr Rimmer demanded to know why the Rainbow Flag was flying above the station.

The Health Service has removed the word ‘dad’ from a pregnancy handbook for fear of offending gay and lesbian parents. Officials decided to use the term ‘partner’ throughout the 200-page guide, titled Ready Steady Baby, after receiving a complaint that ‘dad’ was discriminating against same-sex couples. But the omission of the word has angered some campaigners who claim that traditional family values are being undermined. Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: ‘This is all part of an agenda to present as natural a type of family that cannot be created by natural means. ‘The NHS should not be...

The British State treats us, the good, kind and law-abiding, with officious scorn. We have learned, when we are the victims of crime or disorder, that the police don’t need us, and they expect the same in return. If we dare to travel abroad, we are terrorist suspects on the way out, to be poked and humiliated, and serfs on the way back in, herded, hectored and corralled. If we try to pay our taxes honestly and on time, we are held on the phone for half an hour. Happy families are torn apart in secret courts, where guilt is...

Police and social workers were last night accused of failing to investigate an Asian paedophile gang for fear of being perceived as racist, allowing them to prey on up to 50 young white girls.Complaints to social workers and the police were ignored because they were "petrified of being called racist", former Labour MP for Keighley Ann Cryer said. Mrs Cryer, who has campaigned to bring the issue of Asian sex gangs to light, said the girls had been "betrayed" and condemned to "untold misery" by the police and social services."This is an absolute scandal. They were petrified of being called...

Police and social workers were last night accused of failing to investigate an Asian paedophile gang for fear of being perceived as racist, allowing them to prey on up to 50 young white girls. The nine men from Rochdale were yesterday convicted of abusing five vulnerable teenagers after plying them with alcohol, food and small sums of money in return for sex. However, the true number of victims, who were "passed around" by the gang, is likely to be nearer to 50, police have admitted. Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have now apologised after they failed to...

A DOUBLE killer who had a sex swap and was moved to a women’s jail is divorcing the lesbian murderess he wed behind bars. Deranged strangler Douglas Wakefield, who had the sex change at taxpayers’ expense and changed his name to Tai Pilley, married fellow lifer Thelma Purchase. But now the relationship is over after the married couple had a violent bust-up over 47-year-old Purchase’s close relationship with another female inmate at New Hall prison near Wakefield, West Yorks. Prison bosses moved mum-of-three Purchase to a prison in the South of England and now Wakefield, who became best pals with...

Is London about to elect a mayor who has been accused of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Until last week, former mayor Ken Livingstone was trailing the incumbent Boris Johnson in opinion polls by as much as six points. But now, only days before the election on Thursday, May 3, the two are neck-and-neck, separated by just two percentage points, according to pollster YouGov

In a public letter, the influential members of the Anglican Church claimed that “God’s grace” was at work in allowing same – sex couples to marry. The group, including members of the General Synod, the CoE’s governing body, dismissed “mistaken” impressions that church leaders were “universally opposed to an extension of civil marriage”. Instead, they argued that same-sex couples who wanted to “embrace marriage should be a cause for rejoicing in the Christian Church”. They wrote: "Recent statements by church leaders past and present may have given the mistaken impression that the Church is universally opposed to the extension of...