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They sound like a lovely person,

Graham Linehan accuser ‘is disgraced transgender police officer’

Watson was sacked by Leicestershire Police after being found guilty by a misconduct hearing of sending former police officer Harry Miller more than 1,200 messages over an 18-month period, branding him a “Nazi”, a “bigot” and a “wife-beater”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/04/graham-linehan-accuser-is-disgraced-police-officer/

As for Linehan himself:

"Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has gone on trial in London on charges of harassment and criminal damage against a transgender woman.

Westminster Magistrates' Court was told the 57-year-old allegedly used social media to "relentlessly" publish offensive posts about an 18-year-old trans campaigner."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0x2kx08wdo

The man who accused him has quite a record of offensive posts, writing in one that he wished acid had been thrown over a woman's face instead of soup. (According to the evidence given in court today.)

So you think Linehan is in the right?

What are you jumping to that assumption based on what I wrote?

I reported some evidence which has come out during the trial, during the cross-examination of the complainant. The cross-examination was, in my professional opinion, very good. (I am not surprised by this because I know the KC doing it.) Some of the admissions made by the complainant about what he was doing and why do not reflect well on him. He was also under-age at the time and was hanging round with some dubious individuals. So there is a safeguarding issue there as well. But I have not heard all the evidence and so I express no views on whether Linehan was guilty or not. He is innocent until proven guilty. As you know perfectly well.

There is the moral as well as the legal. Do you think a man in his fifties getting into a nasty Internet spat with a young person is right? Especially when that man is famous and has some influence amongst those of a similar mindset?

I also wish you'd refer to the complainant as 'she'. I know you won't.

I do not know enough about the facts here to opine.

I have given you my general view of Linehan in the header.

The complainant is factually and legally male. I am not going to call him something he isn't. He goes by the name Sophie Brooks.

This is, to say the very least, problematic.

It appears as though this might well be an extra-judicial execution, not within any existing legal authority,

The Pentagon is working—STILL—to make up a legal rationale for slaughtering 11 people, 1,500 miles from America, AFTER THE FACT? WHAT? You can’t do this after they’re dead. That is a crime. That is murder.
https://x.com/hissgoescobra/status/1963464928066711700

Whether or not they were bad guys is really not the point at all.

Yeah, all the explanations so far have been a bit Hague. Sorry, I meant vague...

Legal process and evidence do not appear to be high up the administration's list of priorities.

Further evidence that the Trump admin lied repeatedly (to the public and a judge) when it tried to deport 600 children to Guatemala in the dead of night.

They claimed that every parent had requested reunification. The Guatemalan government confirms that was false.
https://x.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1963427793775018489

Or indeed that of the highest court in the land.

"In rare interviews with NBC News, a dozen federal judges—appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump, and serving around the country — pointed to a pattern they say has recently emerged:

"Lower court judges are handed contentious cases involving the Trump administration. They painstakingly research the law to reach their rulings. When they go against Trump, administration officials and allies criticize the judges in harsh terms. The government appeals to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority.

"And then the Supreme Court, in emergency rulings, swiftly rejects the judges’ decisions with little to no explanation.

"'It is inexcusable,' a judge said of the Supreme Court justices."
https://x.com/gtconway3d/status/1963581976474267705

Do we really want to import all this into the UK via Farage and his crew ?

Farage is a traitor.

So is Trump, and it didn't stop him from winning election.

Indeed. But we need to make it clear who people are voting for when the vote for the Farage Party.

There is much evidence, but Farage's recent time in Washington is one piece.

But that isn't happening.

We have researched Farage's fiasco in Congress. The mainstream media and Farage fans won't be reporting that Farage was f*****' beasted and owned by Jamie Raskin. He was humiliated. But you won't see that on a TV screen near you.

Angela Rayner having her pants pulled down is far more newsworthy than Farage's modesty being exposed.

If Farage was 'beasted' by a US politician I am not sure that reflects particularly well on the politician or particularly badly on Farage.

He was there to give his views on the political situation in the UK. I don't know why the committee particularly wanted to know this, but apparently they did. As far as I'm aware he didn't wade into US politics, so what was the US politician's angle? That he knew UK politics better than a British politician?

I suspect the Dems saw Farage not as an objective analyst from a foreign land but as a Trump sycophant there to boost MAGA by contrasting the US under Trump favourable against Britain. If so, I can't see that they were mistaken.

They may well have done, and been right, but attacking him on the grounds of his UK political background would have been grotesquely crass and offensive. A UK Parliamentary committee wouldn't publicly dress down a US lawmaker who had come over to give evidence to their committee, though they might expect and understand that there would be biases in their evidence.

I saw a bit of it and it didn't reflect well on the US Congress. Politicians of both sides seemed more interested in grandstanding speeches rather than actually letting the witnesses speak.

Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed for the first time the government is looking at digital ID as a way to tackle illegal immigration.

The prime minister said a new identity programme could play an "important part" in reducing the incentive to enter the UK without permission.

The last Labour government started issuing ID cards to UK citizens, but the scheme was scrapped by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition over privacy concerns.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y5379djl3o

So the spin is going to be ID cards for all to stop illegal immigration.

The Home Office has been pushing for ID cards for decade after decade.

Every new HS for at least three decades has been told by the CS that ID cards are the #1 policy.

They can all feck off.

If every Home Office civil servant from top to bottom was sacked and replaced by a G4S Goon, the service would improve immeasurably.

Take it you've never had to deal with G4S - I can safely say that isn't the case....

This is the level the US republic has reached:


Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian

[Sen] Cassidy: Do you agree that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?

RFK: Absolutely.

Cassidy: But you just said that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.

America is so screwed. Essentially every normal country in the world thinks they have gone mad and no longer trusts them. The only countries that favour Trump and his government are places like Russia and China, and not because he is Making America Great Again.

The damage done to the US will outlast most of us here.

China doesn't given the big tariffs he has imposed on their exports

The US is driving all kinds of countries into the arms of China. Not to mention the economic damage that the US is doing to itself, that will hand dominance of many key economic sectors to China. The US has done a ludicrously bad job of containing China, and not just by Trump's administration, rather than slowing China down they have spurred China on. There won't be many measures by which the US is number one for much longer.

Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!

Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them

Telegraph is reporting:

Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.

The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.

The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.

Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.

Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.

“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.

“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.

“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”

A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”

Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”

Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.

She’s Donald Ducked.

The Telegraph has also been talking to local estate agents and is suggesting that the house may have been overvalued:

The price of any home is that which 'a willing buyer will pay a willing seller' so not really relevant

It will be when she wishes to remortgage.

That rather depends on the mortgage and LTV

My daughter has just agreed to buy a home and is only seeking a 25% morgage so no survey or valuation needed

The press are claiming it’s a £650,000 mortgage on a £800,000 flat. So already 80ish %

This is the crucial statement from the Verrico & Associates

“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator, based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.

Which is fine in and of itself, if she can brandish a piece of formal legal advice that says “you can tell your conveyancers that the lower rate applies.” But can she?

(PS, while I think this has come from briefings rather than from AR herself, the unravelling of the “advice from conveyancers” line tonight is enough in itself to feel a little problematic for her).

It is now very clear matter of what she said to the legal adviser and what did they say to her. It should all be in writing.

No lighty, no likely.