Companies that rip off their loyal customers by more than £4bn every year are facing a major crackdown.

The competition watchdog says there should be powers to cap prices, impose fines and name and shame firms that penalise households that do not shop around.

It follows a three-month investigation into five markets – home insurance, mobile, broadband, cash savings and mortgages – where existing customers are routinely charged more than new ones.

Brussels today threatened to curb British flights and kick out UK ex-pats if there is no Brexit deal.

As the bitter standoff deepened, the EU released details of its plans for what happens if negotiations fail.

According to the plans, British airlines would be allowed to operate flights between the UK and the continent.

However, they would be barred from flying between EU airports, or operating services from Europe to the US.

EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said a disorderly British exit would be a 'catastrophe', while one EU official warned of the worst border disruption 'since wartime'.

Tens of thousands of low-skilled migrants from the EU will be free to travel to the UK to look for work until at least 2025, the government has announced.

Under plans revealed in the immigration white paper, a new scheme will allow migrants to continue coming to the UK amid concerns that ending freedom of movement would have a damaging impact on British businesses.

The scheme will be open to all EU states and workers will be free to live and work in Britain for a year before being asked to leave for 12 months before applying again.

Islington Council has decided to prevent me from performing with the Blockheads at our annual London Christmas concert on 21 December. This ludicrous decision by the Council was in response to pressure from a single pro-Israel campaigner who said he would not attend the concert if I were on stage.

The Blockheads have twice written to the Council demanding its decision be reversed. I have played with the Blockheads for 25 years, we’ve performed more than a thousand concerts, including at least two in Islington, without incident. I appealed to the Council to reconsider, submitting two detailed letters that countered each claim made against me. In return the council shifted its claimed rationale for banning me and answered my appeals with a blitz of misquotes from my work and claims about me that were at best insulting and at worst slanderous, all of which were suspiciously similar to Zionist sources.

Emergency no-deal Brexit contingency plans must now be implemented across government, cabinet ministers have agreed, including reserving ferry space for supplies and putting 3,500 armed forces personnel on standby to deal with any disruption.

No 10 confirmed on Tuesday that ministers would “ramp up” no-deal planning, and that the departments would be expected to make it their main priority.

Downing Street said it would send advice on preparing for no-deal to all UK businesses and suggested they should begin implementing their own contingency plans as they saw fit.

Theresa May’s spokesman said the cabinet “agreed that delivering the deal that the prime minister agreed with Brussels remains the government’s top priority and our best no-deal mitigation”.

A PROMINENT campaigner for a second referendum received a powerful backlash when she voiced her objectives on a national TV show.

Gina Miller appeared on France 24 as a proponent of a ‘people’s vote’ explaining that, in the event of a second referendum, the vote would need to be “about the lives of real people.” But many people were not happy and took to the internet to vent their fury. One YouTube user said: “Real people did vote already and real people were given a choice about the future of Britain and real people want to save their nation and their sovereignty.”

Tory Brexiteer MP Steve Double lashed out at the European Parliament’s Brexit negotiator telling him “its not your job to tell UK MPs what to do”. Mr Double warned the Brussels chief it will be “as much the responsibility of the EU” if Britain leaves without a deal because it had backed the UK into an “untenable position”. He tweeted: “Dear Mr Verhofstast (sic). It's not your job to tell UK MPs what to do in representing our constituents. No one here is glorifying no deal but neither are we afraid.

For those who cannot get past the Telegraph paywall, the gist is that that the European Union has accused the British intelligence agencies of hacking the EU’s side of the Brexit negotiations. Apparently, some highly sensitive and negative EU slides about British Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for Brexit, the Chequers Plan, had landed in the lap of the British government, which then lobbied the EU to suppress publication.

Of course, this could be a genuine leak from the Brussels sieve, as British sources are claiming (well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?). However, it is plausible that this is the work of the spies, either by recruiting a paid-up agent well placed within the Brussels bureaucracy, or through electronic surveillance.

Gavin Williamson, or ‘Private Pike’ as Philip Hammond is said to call him, has been Defence Secretary for a year. One word you might think he had learned to pronounce was ‘adversaries’. But no. Out it comes with the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble.

A Defence Secretary is meant to fill people with trepidation, so in some ways Mr Williamson is superb at his job. Trouble is, he frightens us loyal British subjects. Pointing in the wrong direction, old bean. It’s the enemy you’re meant to terrify. Or en-EM-y, as he would possibly say.

Yesterday he gave a Commons Statement on the ‘MDP’. Everything in the military world is reduced to acronyms. The MDP is the Modernising Defence Programme, but it may equally stand for Minister Deploys Prattle.

Jeepers, what pseudo-business drivel we heard. It came hosing out of him like mud from an elephant’s trunk.

Tory manifesto commitments could be torn up as the government ramps up preparations for no deal Brexit, it emerged today.

Pledges on social care and new technical qualifications are in the firing line for 'reprioritisation' amid the desperate scramble to get ready for crashing out of the EU.

The PM's de facto deputy, David Lidington, has been tasked with identifying which policies cannot be delivered while the Government is tackling Brexit.

The shredding of promises made at last year's election comes after the Cabinet agreed yesterday to activate all no deal contingency plans with just 100 days until Brexit.

A Lords select committee that scrutinises the country's international relations has spoken out on recent geopolitical shifts and Britain's place in the tumultuous global community. Specifically, it stressed that the Trump administration's policies have been negatively influencing US-UK relations.

The House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations issued a 117-page report on Tuesday focused on wide-ranging issues, from international relations to cybersecurity, and from the rise of China to the "Russian threat".

The paper in large part is dedicated to London's ties with Washington, its closest and biggest ally, and says that the UK should "continue to resist US challenges to the multilateral system" and seek to boost key international institutions such as the UN, NATO and the WTO.

With mounting problems at home, the UK Establishment is stepping up its campaign to divert our attention on to non-existent dangers from abroad. The so-called 'Russian threat,' is not only good for the arms industry, and defense budgets, but for politicians who have no answers to the very real threats the British public face in their daily lives.

A knife crime epidemic. A significant rise in the murder rate. The NHS at breaking point. A 60% rise in homelessness since 2010/11 and a sharp rise in child and pensioner poverty. A hideously expensive and unreliable public transport system that is not fit for purpose.

While negotiating a deal with the EU is preferable, the No Deal scenarios of food shortages and lack of medicines, put forward by Project Fear doom-mongers, are preposterous

The last twelve months have revealed massive structural flaws in the current political model. The Tory Party has, just like the Labour Party, always been a coalition of different views. At different moments, different factions were in the ascendancy, but the glue that held the party together was a set of core beliefs based around the role of the individual, liberty and freedom plus a respect for other people’s views. In essence, there was a basic level of tolerance …

The modern Tory Party is a fractured political organisation – not just over Brexit – but around beliefs that in the past would have been taken for granted. Unlike Thatcher, the current PM has no discernible ideology or vision. As a result, the government reacts to events. In these turbulent times, the result is a shambolic chaos. What makes this difficult situation almost terminal is the absence of tolerance. The different Tory factions hate each other.

It’s been over a month since hackers began exposing the Scotland-based 'Integrity Initiative' as a UK government-funded propaganda outfit — and gradually new details of the organization's clandestine activities have come to light.

The documents were leaked by a group which claims to be associated with the Anonymous hackers. The first batch of leaks revealed the Integrity Initiative (II) was stealthily operating “clusters” of influencers across Europe working to ensure pro-UK narratives dominate the media. The second batch showed that the organization was also running disinformation campaigns domestically — specifically a smear campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn; all done under the guise of combatting “Russian propaganda.”

The defence secretary also revealed his ministry had not yet received any formal requests from other government departments about using armed forced in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has announced 3,500 service personnel will be on standby "for any no-deal Brexit disruption."

As Williamson explained during an exchange with Tory MP Will Quince in the House of Commons, the Ministry of Defence had not received "any formal requests from any government departments" about using military personnel in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

He said: "In the last few months in Thornaby we have seen a notable rise in crime and anti-social behaviour and it has really angered our residents.

"Unfortunately, the way I see things is there are far too many individuals out there who see the lack of police presence on our streets as an opportunity to commit crime, and secondly, do what they want because they get away with it and they won't get caught."

The Labour councillor said he'd been told there were just three police officers patrolling Thornaby , Yarm , Ingleby Barwick and Eaglescliffe at one time.

Cllr Rowling added: "It's not going to work.

Islington Council has decided to prevent me from performing with the Blockheads at our annual London Christmas concert on 21 December. This ludicrous decision by the Council was in response to pressure from a single pro-Israel campaigner who said he would not attend the concert if I were on stage.

Britons whose ancestors' nationality was stripped away by the Nazis reconcile their roots and gain EU passport.

Rescue vessels were heading to assist a Russian bulk cargo ship after it ran aground off beaches in southwest England, Britain’s coastguard said on Tuesday. The 180-meter long ship ‘Kuzma Minin,’ with 18 Russian crew on board, dragged its anchor in strong winds and grounded between the Swanpool and Gyllyngvase beaches near Falmouth in Cornwall, Reuters reports. “There is no cargo on board… There is no report of any pollution,” the coastguard said.

Three of Britain's largest childcare charities have been accused of child abuse, with detectives investigating allegations that children were abused while in the care of Barnardo's, Quarriers, and the Aberlour Child Care Trust.

Police Scotland was reported to announce it was investigating claims of historic abuse relating to all of the organisations.

The childcare organizations came into spotlight amid scrutiny by the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI), which has heard a catalogue of abuse claims from survivors formerly in charities' care.

The UK has negotiated an agreement to stay in the Common Transit Convention (CTC) even if there is no Brexit deal between the two sides. This means that goods can continue to be transported freely between the UK and the EEA with customs declarations and import duties only being paid when the goods arrive at their final destination. It is particularly important for the Republic of Ireland which transports the majority of its exports to the EU across the UK “land bridge”.

Brexit watchers who are not informed on Irish history might recently have been fooled into believing that the ‘Irish Question’ is something new; some strictly Brexit-related conundrum. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the ‘Irish question’ is a phrase that has been bandied about by the British ruling elite for hundreds of years to refer to the political challenges posed by its colonial entanglement on the island and the ‘problem’ of Irish nationalism and republicanism. In reality then, it is not so much an ‘Irish’ question as a British one.

Since 2015, Taiz has been one of the major front lines in a complicated civil war that turned into a proxy war between regional rivals of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. And it’s not just Taiz, the whole of Yemen has been on the edge of collapse, with food supplies so disrupted that an estimated 14 million people are close to starvation. It is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. Death is everywhere.

Earlier this year, the UK government announced a £170 million aid package to Yemen, to address this growing humanitarian catastrophe. Sounds quite a lot of money, I suppose. But there is something more than a little ridiculous about the UK giving aid to Yemen, when so many of the bombs and weapons that have destroyed it have originated in our country. According to a new Christian Aid report, over the last five years, the UK has sold over two thirds of its major arms exports to Gulf states, 49% of these to Saudi Arabia.

Tony Blair today suggested that he would not seek another referendum on the EU constitution if it was rejected by the British people.

Under repeated questioning from reporters on whether the poll would be rerun if the answer came back negative, Mr Blair responded: "If the British people vote no, they vote no. You can't then start bringing it back until they vote yes.

"Once the British people make their decision, they make their decision."

This would appear to unambiguously reject a second vote - or futher referendums - although several reporters at the hour-long press conference appeared unconvinced.

The Integrity Initiative, a British pseudo-NGO tasked with running anti-Russian propaganda operation, was recently exposed. Further digging into it revealed a much wider operation. It seems to involve a mole British spies inserted into the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Three weeks ago internal budget proposals and member lists of the Integrity Initiative were posted anonymously on some website. We discussed those in detail under the headline: British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns:

In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.

There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India - as horrible as it may have been - was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to Britain. So the fact that the empire was sustained for so long - the story goes - was a gesture of Britain's benevolence.

New research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik - just published by Columbia University Press - deals a crushing blow to this narrative. Drawing on nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade, Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938.

Jaguar Land Rover is planning to announce thousands of job cuts in the new year as part of a £2.5bn savings plan to ward off the threat from Brexit, falling sales in China and a drop in demand for diesel cars.

Britain’s biggest carmaker employs 40,000 in the UK and has already cut 1,000 temporary contract workers at its plant in Solihull, which builds Range Rovers and the Land Rover Discovery SUV. It has also reduced working hours for some workers, including at its Wolverhampton factory in the run-up to Christmas.

Plans for further job cuts come after the firm, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata and is a major employer in the West Midlands, made a £90m loss in the three months to September, hit by falling sales in China and Europe.

THERESA May has told MPs that the only options for Brexit are either her deal or no deal as she warned a second referendum would cause “irreparable damage” to the country.

On Wednesday, the European Commission, Brussels’ powerful executive arm, will release more new contingency plans covering up to 13 areas that will be plunged into chaos if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal. Express.co.uk understands the plans will include an offer to Britain to ensure that both parties’ planes can continue land and takeoff in each other’s airports. The Brussels' offer would only be made under the same strict reciprocal terms offered as part of a bid to keep the UK off of the bloc’s ‘visa-required’ list of third countries.

The BBC are reinventing Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot story The ABC Murders as a morality tale comparing Brexit to the rise of fascism.

Showrunner Sarah Phelps, previously a writer for the long-running EastEnders soap opera, will shift the story from 1935 to 1933 for her three-part Christmas drama, and “bring Brexit into the mix, inviting audiences to draw parallels between the rise of fascism in 1930s Britain and the state of the nation today,” according to the Telegraph.

The correspondence of the journalist of the BBC Russian Service, Olga Ivshina, in which she asked to find any evidence of “Moscow’s interference” in the mass protests of the yellow vests in France, is an example of propaganda in which the Western media are “most closely” involved. This was announced by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, on Sunday, December 16.

European Union Cheif, Donald Tusk, has delivered perhaps his most stinging rebuke yet of Brexit supporters, calling upon them to consider their "ethics."

Speaking at an event in Dortmund, Germany, over the weekend, Mr. Tusk said that he wanted to remind world leaders that political decisions have potentially cataclysmic consequences, pointing to Brexit as an example of a situation where leaders need to consider their choices and actions clearly.

Neoliberalism and a decade of austerity have left many parts of Britain looking very shabby. Only a return to the more dirigiste post-war economic model and a major program of public investment will reverse the decline.

Unlike 'Inside the Tent' members of the ‘punditocracy,’ most of whom show no evidence of ever straying beyond London and the big metropolitan centers, I travel a lot around the UK.

I have never seen the country in such bad shape.

Once prosperous market towns are full of boarded-up shops and businesses. Seaside resorts that used to be thriving places have a distinct down-at-heel feel. The trains we travel on are overcrowded, overpriced and unreliable.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is a politician who holds on to power through defeats. Even though she survived a no-confidence vote held within her own Conservative Party this week, it was also a sort of defeat.

She achieved high office (Home Secretary) thanks to David Cameron, who failed to gain a majority in Parliament at the 2010 election, in spite of the fact that Labour had been in power since 1997 and that the outgoing prime minister, Gordon Brown, was deeply unpopular. Cameron had to govern in coalition with the Liberals.

Theresa May then became Prime Minister in 2016, after Cameron resigned having been defeated, like her, in the referendum on Brexit. She and her boss had campaigned for Remain.

Iraqi President Barham Salih has renounced his British citizenship in adherence to the country’s Constitution, according to the Iraqi presidency on Sunday.

The Iraqi Constitution bans dual nationality for officials.

“All legal measures to give up the British citizenship have been completed,” presidential spokesman Luqman al-Feili said in a statement.

Salih was elected president of Iraq on October 2.

A BBC stringer has admitted that the broadcaster is in the search of any proof of Russia’s alleged role in the "Yellow Vests" protests in Paris, demanding that its journalists seek any leads that would point to Moscow, a correspondence obtained by Sputnik showed.

Sputnik has obtained the correspondence of the BBC journalist, who wrote a message to one of the stringers covering Yellow Vest demonstrations in Paris, trying to find out whether Russia had something to do with the protests in the French capital. The stringer, in turn, explained that she had not seen any Russians at the protests.

France has “fought for 40 years” against Britain striking a deal that would hand them frictionless trade with the EU without the laws. According to Tory MP Neil O’Brien, who voted Leave in the referendum, the contentious backstop agreement is Emmanuel Macron’s “worst nightmare”. Despite what hardline Brexiteers claim, Mr O’Brien claims that the backstop could actually hand Britain a huge economic boost while tearing at the fabric of the EU.

Speaking on BBC’s Week In Westminister, Mr O’Brien said he would have taken this deal if the EU offered Britain this before the referendum.

He explained: “The backstop is France’s worst nightmare.

“If we ended up in it, which I don’t think we will, we would have complete tariff-free access to the EU but not have to obey any new laws.

“That is what the French has been working for 40 years to try and avoid.”

One of the sillier Project Fear scares has been that if we just leave the EU there will be no agreements in place to allow planes to fly to and from the EU and the UK.

The Transport Secretary has recently reported that the UK has now concluded all of the third country aviation agreements needed with non EU countries, save four small countries still to be completed. Those agreed include the USA, Canada, Switzerland and Israel.

Within the EU the Commission has made clear that in all circumstances including a so called No deal exit there will be an agreement between the UK and EU after Brexit allowing routine aviation to continue as before between the UK and EU.

Individual member states have also expressed a willingness to put in place any arrangements needed to ensure continuation of air services.

BBC director general Lord Hall of Birkenhead has declared that the Corporation is on a mission to counter fake news.

He announced this in June at the Prospect annual conference – the day before the white-collar trades union announced it would be campaigning for a Brexit ‘people’s vote’. Others who addressed the conference included arch-Remainers Hilary Benn and Rain Newton-Smith, the chief economist of the CBI.

It might be a little unfair to judge Lord Hall purely on the company he keeps, but latest research by News-watch shows that under his stewardship the Corporation has morphed into a major purveyor of the commodity he allegedly so despises – and especially that which will thwart Brexit.

London has played host to the biggest Palestine festival of 2018 with over 3,000 guests attending and a variety of shows, exhibitions and stalls showcasing Palestinian art, culture and history.

The event, hosted by The Biggest Palestine Festival group, is held over a period of two days every year in an exhibition centre that holds up to 30 stalls as well as hosting musical performances, conferences, lectures and an array of art exhibitions.

“Palestine has become synonymous with politics and conflict and whenever you see Palestine being mentioned on the news, it is solely about its conflict with Israel and the illegal occupation taking place on its lands” said Sasha, a 23-year-old postgraduate student who is half Palestinian.

The Swiss Government have announced that a trade agreement has been reached between the UK and Switzerland to “maintain existing economic and trade relations with the country after its departure from the European Union” whether or not a deal is reached with the EU. The Swiss Federal Council announced that if the UK leaves the EU in a disorderly manner, it could sign and apply the agreement from the date on which the UK leaves the EU.

They won’t admit it in public, of course, but several Cabinet ministers are flexing themselves to stand as the next Tory leader whenever Theresa May decides to step down.

The PM herself put them on standby after foolishly signalling that her days in No 10 are numbered by making it clear she won’t lead the party into the next General Election.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid openly covets the top job. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt would like to be PM one day but is more discreet about his ambitions.

Jean-Claude Juncker was captured ruffling a woman's hair as he arrived at the European Council summit today before claiming he had 'kissed' and made up with Theresa May following a confrontation.

Bizarre footage captured the EU commission president walking up to Pernilla Sjölin - the EU's deputy head of protocol - and erratically running his hands through her hair before kissing her cheek.

Shortly afterwards Mr Juncker brushed off his extraordinary confrontation with Theresa May - insisting they ended up 'kissing' after he explained he had not insulted her by calling her 'nebulous' and 'imprecise' .

The PM and the EU commission president had a 'robust' showdown in the full glare of cameras as she demanded to know why he had branded her with those words in a late-night press conference.

But as the summit in Brussels drew to a close this evening, Mr Juncker insisted Mrs May is a 'great friend' and the incident was down to a misunderstanding.

Research into members of the Integrity Initiative's Spanish 'cluster' has led to some extremely troubling conclusions.

On December 19 2017, the House of Commons' Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee convened its ‘fake news' inquiry's first oral evidence session, hearing testimony from a number of witnesses.

Among them were David Alandete, Editor of El Pais, Francisco de Borja Lasheras, Director of the European Council on Foreign Relation's Madrid Office, and Mira Milosevich-Juaristi, Senior Fellow for Russia and Euroasia at Elcano Institute.They'd been invited to discuss an alleged Kremlin effort to interfere in the October 2017 Catalan independence referendum via a dastardly nexus of social media, bots, trolls, Sputnik News and RT — and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Yellow vest-wearing activists took to the streets of London on Friday, blocking traffic and chanting pro-Brexit slogans. They spoke to Sputnik about their mistrust in politicians and hopes for a clean exit from the European Union.

An activist told Sputnik they voted for Brexit because they wanted to reclaim control of their own country.

"We don't want to be part of the federal European superstate that's going to erode our rights and take away democracy. This is Britain. We are not European. We have never been European. This is our land and we are taking it back. If the political class don't like it, they will see a revolution like they've never seen before. It is time to take up the spirit of Oliver Cromwell, rise up and reclaim what's rightfully ours," a protester told Sputnik.

The Integrity Initiative, a British pseudo-NGO tasked with running anti-Russian propaganda operation, was recently exposed. Further digging into it revealed a much wider operation. It seems to involve a mole British spies inserted into the Bernie Sanders campaign.

German news website Merkur.de said the mood in the meeting “was very bad” as EU leaders gave Theresa May an ultimatum to explain exactly what Britain wants. EU patience is wearing out with the Prime Minister as Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said after last night’s meeting the discussions “did not get much further” because the bloc still did not know what Theresa May’s exact demands were. Meanwhiel Jean-Claude Juncker said it was unacceptable for the UK to expect the EU to offer solutions and put the onus on the Prime Minister to make suggestions about what she wants for the EU to decide.

The balance of economic terror over Brexit has shifted over the last year.

The eurozone is more vulnerable to the shock of no-deal rupture on punitive Macronesque terms than it was at the point of peak hubris in December 2017, when EU negotiators set the trap of the Irish backstop.

Europe’s QE boomlet has since deflated. The underlying pathologies of monetary union are again in evidence. The bloc is stuck with a North-South chasm in competitiveness that has left a string of countries in near permanent malaise, starved of public investment and left with no way out other than internal devaluations. This has led to the Gilets Jaunes in France, and Lega-Five Star revolt in Italy.

May’s survival in the vote last night has not changed her fundamental predicament that there is no Parliamentary majority for her deal in its current form. May’s civil servants should be paying attention to an alternative proposal published yesterday with the support of Arlene Foster and her two former Brexit Secretaries, which proposes sensible limited amendments to the Withdrawal Agreement and a legally operable alternative text to the backstop. No unicorns, just concrete proposals.

Nor have the proposals come out of nowhere, the report was written specifically in response to the meeting in October between Michael Barnier and two of the reports’ co-authors, Shanker Singham and Hans Maessen, alongside senior Tory MPs.

Homicides in London have reached their highest point in a decade under the mayoralty of Labour’s Sadiq Khan, despite huge strides in trauma care and lifesaving infrastructure.

The number of deaths in the British and English capital has hit 130 since January 1st, according to the BBC — a figure that a spokesman for Mr Khan admitted was “shameful” — including some 73 victims who were stabbed to death and 14 victims who were fatally shot.

“The causes of violent crime are deeply complex and made far worse by huge government cuts over the last eight years to the police, youth services, councils and charities,” the spokesman wheedled, putting little if any responsibility on either the criminals as free agents or the Mayor.

For four years, police infiltrated the London chapter of the International Solidarity Movement, an activist group focused on Palestine.

Using the cover name Rob Harrison, one ISM activist was actually a member of the Special Demonstration Squad, information released by a UK government inquiry this week shows.

ISM volunteers, mostly from European and North American countries, join non-violent solidarity activities in Palestine, such as protests, accompaniment and olive picking.

ISM volunteers Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall were both killed after being fatally wounded by Israeli occupation forces in 2003.

ISM London ran sessions around the UK training volunteers on what to expect in Palestine and how to join the group there.

The Yellow Vest demonstration is underway as British Prime Minister Theresa May is holding negotiations with EU leaders in a bid to improve the contentious Withdrawal Deal.

Yellow vest pro-Brexit protesters, similar to those who took recently to French streets, have blocked Westminster Bridge this morning, paralysing traffic.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May wins a no-confidence vote, but the Conservatives remain split on the Brexit deal, says Jeremy Smith, Co-director of Prime Economics

THERESA May came through the biggest fight of her political life after she won the vote of no confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party. But who did you vote for as your choice to lead the Tories prior to tonight’s crunch ballot?

Against all reason, Theresa May – the worst Prime Minister in British history – has yet again survived an attempt to boot her out of office.

This has nothing to do with her merits: she has none.

Not everyone in Britain is enamoured with the government-funded Integrity Initiative (II) psy-op run by the Institute for Statecraft, political commentator David William Norris told Sputnik. According to Norris, this operation is likely to invoke sharp opposition from Britons who are tired of the anti-Russian propaganda in the media.

"Accusing Russia of meddling in the affairs of others, the UK is actively seeking to do precisely that and not even trying to hide the fact!" David William Norris, political commentator and former college lecturer, told Sputnik, commenting on the UK-funded Integrity Initiative (II) psy-op orchestrated by the Institute for Statecraft.

It’s cold in Auchtermuchty. Few people know it exists except as a Scottish tongue-twister involving Ecclefechan and Milngavie. It’s particularly cold in a derelict mill there around Christmas time, but this year it’s hotting up.

The British spies hiding out there have been brought in from the cold by good old-fashioned journalism. Or rather “ex-spies” if their legend is to be believed. Ex-military intelligence men who now work in the charity sector. Except their declared purposes are not charitable at all, however worthy some might think them to be.

Theresa May’s embattled leadership is under fresh pressure after Tory rebels claimed enough letters calling for her resignation have been collected to trigger a no-confidence vote.

The attempt to force Ms May from power has flared up again as anger grows over her refusal to allow parliament a vote on her Brexit plans, amid fears it would result in a humiliating defeat.

On page X of the document, it says: “NATO definition of PSYOPS. Allied Administrative Publication (AAP)-06 defines psychological operations as: planned activities using methods of communication and other means directed at approved audiences in order to influence perceptions, attitudes and behaviour, affecting the achievement of political and military objectives.”

On page IX, this footnote – “The term information strategy (its concept and definition) is not yet endorsed through official NATO policy. Its use here [in the UK], however, reflects current thinking on this subject and is coherent with current policy and doctrine initiatives in areas such as the effects-based approach, strategic communications and information operations.”

Theresa May tried to quell the Tory revolt today by delivering a broad hint that she won't be in charge at the next general election. Acknowledging widespread unhappiness among MPs, the Prime Minister (pictured in Downing Street today) insisted the no confidence vote tonight is 'not about who leads the party into the next election'. The signal from Mrs May that she is ready to step down once Brexit is delivered came after she vowed to fight with 'everything I've got' to beat the Eurosceptic coup bid.

General Sir Nick Carter warned Russia, China, Iran and sadistic terrorist organisations like ISIS are a colossal threat towards the UK. He said Britain’s security, stability and prosperity are being challenged by the “ambitious” superstates. He admitted, “the multilateral system that has assured our stability since 1945 is threatened” and mass migration was “arguably an existential threat to Europe”.

Mr Carter said, in his first lecture as Chief of the Defence Staff at the Royal United Services Institute, that Russia and China had “studied our strengths and invested carefully in new methods and capabilities that are designed to exploit weaknesses”.

These included ballistic and cruise missiles, low-yield nuclear weapons, cyberweapons, space and counter space weapons, and electronic warfare.

British Prime Minister Theresa May called off Tuesday's parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal after a conference call with cabinet ministers, an indication that she believes she would have faced a crushing defeat.

Poor Jeremy Corbyn. He’s in hot water again. His latest offense? Ignoring an invitation from the leader of the Israeli Labor Party to journey to Israel to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.

And the Israeli Laborites are incensed at the absence of a reply, while the Blairite centrists in Corbyn’s own party are reportedly in “shock” at the news.

“You’re a lying racist,” shouted Labour MP John Mann at former London Mayor Ken Livingstone last month after the latter pointed out–accurately, by the way–that Hitler had supported Zionist goals of having Jews immigrate to Palestine. But it seems the philo-semitic witch hunters out for Corbyn’s blood can’t be bothered with historical facts.

This is an expanding collection of declassified government documents on UK foreign policy. It includes: original government documents and transcripts, mainly from the National Archives in London; articles by Mark that analyse these declassified files; and online articles that cover such files.

What do these files and articles reveal?

These files highlight a range of British foreign policies since 1945, notably the UK involvement in coups, wars, covert operations, human rights abuses, arms exports, propaganda operations, and support for repressive regimes. They highlight much of the true nature of the UK’s role in the world, and especially reveal the actual interests and priorities of UK policy-makers – Prime Ministers, Ministers, ambassadors and civil servants. Click on the countries and themes below to view the files and articles.

The UK has long been divided by class, region and race, but these divisions have been masked by political and economic success. This has meant the English, as the dominant nation in the UK, are not good at coping with a sense of failure and a loss of self-confidence.

The current focus is on parliamentary turmoil and the acceptance or rejection of Theresa May’s muted version of Brexit but, whatever happens in the coming weeks, there will be no resolution of the overall crisis. On the contrary, the divisions exacerbated by Brexit will only get deeper and more toxic, dominating the national agenda to the exclusion of everything else.

Europe’s commentators have not been kind to Theresa May after she delayed the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal and dashed to the continent in search of further concessions.

“It’s like a long, slow agony,” wrote Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, the London correspondent for the French daily Libération. “You know the end is near, you expect the worst, then there’s a small flicker of light – before another collapse. And it always ends badly.”

May “blew her last bet”, failing miserably to convince parliament to vote for the withdrawal agreement sealed barely two weeks ago. “Rather than suffer the humiliation, she suspended the vote,” the paper said: “The latest plot twist in the infernal Brexit saga. Chaos is complete.”

The Prime Minister is surrounded by pro-EU campaigners, staunch Leavers, MPs who want to renegotiate her current deal, others who want to negotiate a totally different deal but the upshot of all this is that we're in for massive constitutional mayhem

ON she staggered, bruised and beggarly, dragging the rest of us along her personal Via Dolorosa.

Theresa May stepped to the despatch box at the precise moment the Commons digital clock clicked 3.33.33 – thirty-three seconds past three thirty-three in the afternoon, yet still an age before voters can be sure their decision to leave the EU will be honoured by a wriggling Parliament.

If there was something Harry Potterish about the hour, there was something weirdly timeless about watching such epic inertia unfold.

Has indecision ever been so dramatic? 'I have listened very carefully,' Mrs May told a packed, quivering Chamber. This won her ripe mockery. She said she had finally decided to 'defer the vote'.