Of Maggie and the Falkland Islands

… from the perspective of an American lady who recalls the time. We have writers, regular and occasional, over at Unherdables. One is Toodles, from southern Alabama, and that’s what makes these recollections so different on Maggie Thatcher and the Falkland Islands. Without any further ado:

James, starting with your second post first. 

1. Maggie, Margaret Thatcher?  I know her. I have met her. She gave me a lovely porcelain clay tea pot. The lid was fashioned into a magnolia flower and leaves and stem. Sounds tacky but wasn’t. I used it for years. 

She came to our town on a speaking tour sometime in the 1990’s. There was a dinner and a speech, as is the fashion of a visiting dignitary. It was in the smaller ballroom in which there were probably no more than a hundred guests.  There was limited seating. I cannot recall just why we were there, well except too see her.  I will ask Cuddles who was sponsoring the shindig. I am sure we paid, but not sure if we just reserved or if we were invited. 

She was a delight. She made a great speech. Personable and charming, seems to have been intelligent, smart and sharp. Not everyone who is smart is sharp. She spoke of her friendship and working relationship  with Ronnie R . She showed him much respect … almost wistful at times talking about different conversations and joint plans, so on. She appreciated his sense of humour. 

I recall she had lovely skin.  I’ve forgotten the colour of her outfit. I actually  recalled it for a long time but that section of the brain chamber has been shut off.  Her hair was that strawberry-ish soft red. And it was slightly out of style which was nonetheless attractive on her and I thought, “Good, the former PM wasn’t trendy but instead classic.” 

Who knows if it is all a sham and if  it was part of the Truman Show put on just for us🤷‍♀️.  At the time we so enjoyed meeting her and listening to her speak about many things and guess what? She definitely spoke about the F. Islands.

2. Speaking of that, I heard about that ‘incident’ in the early summer of 1982. June maybe, well unless it was late May. It was fitted in the cusp of  either two months. 

We were en route to the Great  Smoky Mountains … went with friends. On the day the war started we  were also attending the Unofficial World’ s Fair in Knoxville TN.  We had been married some months. That is why I recall the F Island time line as to when it started. We had never heard of the F I’s. We were very nervous for you countrymen.  It was all over the radio on our long ride up and over to the mts! 

How ‘bout those Falkland Islands … they became a tagline for all of us. We had two cars between us. Back then the cars were spacious and nice for traveling. None of us young adults or teens of course had children yet.

So yes, to the Falkland Islands, we say. Interesting about the political aspect. Wow. We were actually pulling for Spain in the soccer. Argentina  cheaters?  Pro sports are wicked and now is our college sports.

We Already Know What Would 'Better Protect Children'...

..and it's responsible parenting.

A mother suing TikTok over her teenage son's death said a decision to hold a landmark new inquest would help better protect children.

Oh? 

Jools Sweeney, a 14-year-old from Gloucestershire, died in April 2022 and his parents believe social media played a role in his death – pointing to an 'online challenge gone wrong'. There are fears he may have been a victim of attempted 'sextortion', too.

The first inquest wasn't so very wrong, but it clearly didn't exonerate the negligent parents enough: 

The fresh ruling overturned an inquiry held four years ago, which only lasted 23 minutes and heard no oral evidence. Jools's mother, Ellen Roome, challenged the narrative conclusion recorded in 2022, taking legal action against the senior coroner for Gloucestershire.

Her lawyers told a hearing on Thursday that a 'number of lines of inquiry' had not been pursued. And, in the High Court in London, Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Heather Williams on Thursday quashed the original conclusion and ordered the inquest be reopened.

And so we're off to the races, and the only people to benefit from this are the lawyers. Oh, and the government, which relishes any excuse to crack down on social media, of course. 

Ms Roome said: 'Every bereaved family deserves to know that every possible avenue, including a child's digital life, has been properly investigated. We hope this is a turning point, not only in finding the truth about Jools, but in making the online world safer for every child. 

'Our greatest hope is that one day no family has to walk this path. No parent should ever have to bury their child because dangerous content was allowed to reach them.'

Who allowed it to reach him, then, if not you? A 14 year old doesn't buy a phone without help from his parents, and most social media has age-restrictions and warning for use, which you as a parent should have known.  

Thursday's ruling came as Ofcom announced an investigation into the social media platform over potential failures in stopping children accessing harmful content. The watchdog has questioned whether the social media giant's age checks are fit for purpose.

Not if it's ignored by the very people now clamouring for Big Daddy Governmement to step in and parent their children for them, no. 

A TikTok spokesman said: 'We are confident that we meet our Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate this.'

I'm confident they will too, and I'm also conifent it won't make a blind bit of difference. 

The egregious licence fee

This is from the TPA's newsletter today:

The TaxPayers’ Alliance calling out the licence fee is hardly breaking news. It’s been six years since we launched our Axe the Tax campaign, calling for the outdated licence fee to be abolished. While the telly tax remains, Aunty’s annual report released this week had some eye-opening figures. 

Half a million fewer people shelled out for a tv licence last year, meaning the number of people paying for the Beeb is now at its lowest level since 1999. Despite the fall in licence fee payers, the BBC still raked in a whopping £3.88 billion from it, up £36 million on the previous year, thanks to the licence now costing £180 a year.

This perhaps explains why they felt able to pay yet more enormous salaries to their so-called ‘top talent’. While households were switching off from our scandal-hit state broadcaster, BBC stars will have been popping the champagne corks. Scott Mills, the former Radio 2 host who was dismissed earlier this year, topped the table taking home between £745,000 and £749,999. Greg Mills, another DJ came in second getting between £440,000 and £444,999, while Stephen Nolan, a presenter on Northern Irish radio rounded out the top three with between £425,000 and £429,999. Naturally John O’Connell was more than happy to speak up for hard working Brits, telling the Telegraph: “Failing public trust, repeated scandals and six-figure salaries for star presenters make it harder than ever to justify this outdated and hated TV tax.”

To make matters worse, rather than face up to the fact people are switching off the BBC due to bias or poor content, there are now calls to force people using streaming services to cough up for the licence fee too. John was bang on when he told Mail readers “Forcing streaming service subscribers to pay the licence fee would be an outrageous expansion of an already deeply unpopular tax” while telling the Sun it was “one of the most bonkers ideas ever concocted.”

The inexorable ratchetting of Digital ID

... any which way, without end.

Again, on Sunday … a news reference is what we’re looking for in soc-med, setting straight the legacy truth-creativity lot … but after three or four references have been read by you, you start to see a bigger picture emerging.

I could have run just the first in three parts, but once the Burnham piece came along, the westwide plan became clearer. This first is the last of a three parter on the Canadian situation (all three go up at UHC a bit later):

Against that, we can put Burnham’s “sort of promise” to kill Digital ID … do you, personally, trust that, given the global pressure by Them?

Two comments from me on Monty Toms … one of the youthful wing of Restore (male side) … these guys are the powerful future of Britain, vitally important for the country henceforth … but oh so young! So trusting.

At the same time, the girl Lydia (youthful wing, female, rape gang survivor in the inquiry report) … she “came out” and took her first role.

Wham! In came the Lowles gang, other parties … suddenly The Times had doxxed her. Get that … the bleeding Times! Doxxing a girl victim (genuine victim), just as she grows out of the horror and into the limelight. Report is over at UHC at about 0800.

Of sustained assault on the little people, plus the nature of friendship

There’s an auspicious date. It might have been July 8th (why … I’ve no idea) and on or around that date, a few attacks were dropped … not just on “our type” on soc-med but on me personally … most interesting. Julia at Orphans has seen it happening as well, thank goodness I say.

Part of that is the blog NOWP which has started playing games with our contributors/droppers at the posting level. That is … it’s trying to make the experience trying. Now I already have this at Orphans, which prevents me from posting screenshots and sometimes even refuses to let me post under my account name. But there, Julia can step in to help, thank goodness.

We in this line of political “work” on soc-med are no strangers to the old conspiracy versus coincidence conundrum and this one’s a real doozie, to coin an Americanism. Oh dear, how sad, let’s move on. I’ve just posted this at NOWP in reply to our “senior member” who’s just been mucked around by the platform.

DAD, IYE, Steve, our most regular … we are almost certainly being hit. I say this from the overview of also being hit on other fronts, even from past blogging … at the same time. As IYE might ask … coinky dink?

In our line of work, we’d say no, not entirely. We’d say we’re being silenced.

Now, in practical terms, how to get our patron’s work up for people to see? I might suggest just email it to me but that might also be subject to the censors.

There is another way and that is to give a page url and you can drop it there. I can even change that page from time to time, putting a new url. You would post at that page, it is not visible to readers, my job is then copy and paste whole … first here or if that fails, then just make that page visible at HQ for readers.

In fact, let’s try that now. Here’s a page:

|https://unherdablecats.com/july-18/

Procedure, in this case for DAD and or IYE, is … go there, drop it in comments. You know I do not alter your text … at times I add a “JH”. That way, your work is not lost but not only that … it is directed in a few other directions as well for safekeeping.

Why not just do that from inception? Partly as we’ve had different inception dates for different blogs but also to avoid all the eggs in the one basket.

Anyway, see how you go and again ta muchly for your perseverance.

We are also under attack at Orphans. To be specific, a crazy nutter is trying to reopen a fight I had in 2007 … yes, that is no BS … but is also trying to drag Julia into it and that is unconscionable. However, Julia is no one’s fool, so she does what she does.

Any surprise at any of this? Not really … only that I’m not exactly a major player on the soc-med stage and that’s been intentional (traffic, empires … what are they?). I’m thinking that the intention of our fabian masters and mistresses is to suppress ALL dissent, ALL networking by the antiWokeLeft, antiGloboPsycho, to fit in with the Beloved New World order of Replacement and human misery.

Anyway, there’ll be a regular political post at Orphans, if I’m allowed, a bit later today, maybe even tonight or tomorrow morning. Y’all have a wunnerful weekend now, y’hear!

Technology Working For Us? Who Could Disagree?

Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury’s, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to “alert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match”.Facewatch’s chief executive, Nick Fisher, said the “unique technical development” would be launched in autumn and would warn police in an average of four seconds when the “worst offenders” were flagged on its network.

Amazing! Who could object? Oh. of course... 

Civil liberties groups have voiced alarm at the development, saying it had “shot on far ahead of the regulation” and was “upending” the way retail crime was dealt with.

Well, it needs upending, doesn't it?  

Charlie Whelton, the policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, said...“It’s not against the law to walk into a shop even if you’ve committed crimes in the past,” he said. “The idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn’t committed a crime, but there’s a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it’s not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it’s very hard to argue with that when it happens to you.”

Evidence suggests black and Asian people are more likely to be incorrectly identified than white people.

Aha! This is the reason for the concern, clearly. 

Sarah Lasoye, the pre-crime programme manager at Open Rights Group, said the technology was “entrenching a climate of surveillance across public life”.

Newsflash, Sarah, we already have that, with the proliferation of video doorbells and smartphones. People are already surveilling themselves.

“Fundamentally, it’s an infringement of data and privacy rights,” she said. “People’s faces being scanned without consent and being added to lists is worrying enough, but the speed which Facewatch technology now makes it possible for someone to encounter the police force in the middle of their daily shop is a really dangerous escalation.”

Only if they are a known criminal, and surely you wouldn't want them to go free? Oh, but maybe you would, since you've drunk the socialist Kool-Aid?

She said the technology failed to address the social and economic root causes of shoplifting and “only served to further criminalise working-class communities”.

The working class aren't the demographic doing the shoplifting! 

Suicidal empathy

 A bit late today because I’m under attack … the latest, at 10:19 a.m., is flying bitey insects. Anyway, no matter:

That of course is correct as far as it goes, but it quite leaves out Them, inc. banksters and corporatists, fabians etc. Tag misses the original miscreants who even advertised new, paid lives over here, plenty of girls to rape at will. RNLI were there, with the Navy, to assist.

Whilst the invaders are a massive issue by sheer weight of numbers and too often shocking behaviour, true … the chief miscreants are still those at Davos, Chatham House, Bohemian Grove etc. etc. in lodges, in chessboard-floored upper rooms. Ask Netten the Yahoo or Bliar or Obama how it all works.

There’s also the issue of the female herself. So wishing to be “reasonable”, “loving”, “tolerant”, “welcoming” … others, esp. men of the old type and now Zoomers,, she says that not all are like that … therefore tolerate all wrongness. Wot, until the next rape or stabbing?

Our lot call it suicidal empathy, plus having only half the story.  Now I do not include Tag in that ... a canny lass, quite aware ... but still with a lass's kindness deep down.

And It Won't Have Been English People Happy To See You...

It was the first of four near-death experiences for Sahel, now 23. In the following years he would narrowly escape military conscription as a rebel fighter in Yemen’s brutal civil war, before coming close to drowning and then being shot at as he fled to Europe.

It's yet another ‘Guardian’ attempt to persuade their readership that refugees are all genuine, though if you’re buying the ‘Guardian’ wouldn’t you already believe that?

Before the war began, growing up in Yemen had been a dream, says Sahel, whose father was a university professor: safe and friendly, with beautiful landscapes and a gentle climate, “the best location in the Gulf”. That all changed in September 2014, when the fighting started. “I woke up to the sound of bombs,” says Sahel, remembering the first day of Yemen’s civil war, in which more than 350,000 people died before last year’s ceasefire between the US and the Houthi rebel group.

And of course, he wasn't part of any war... 

His ambition had always been to start his own business. But it was his work as a part-time photographer and model that would ultimately catch the attention of the Houthis and force him to flee the country.“We were setting up a photoshoot in a park when they came with their weapons,” he says. The soldiers accused him of being a spy and photographing military sites. “They grabbed the camera and even after seeing the photos, still took me to their barracks and started beating me. “They kept telling me that I speak English and that I must be working for the UK and the US and taking photos for them. They told me I should come be a soldier with them. When I’d say, ‘Guys, I’m a civilian, I don’t want to get involved with any of you,’ they would say, ‘No, that means you’re with the enemy. Why don’t you fight with us?’”

So he fled. To another African country? Yes, at first.

In 2023, at the age of 21, Sahel left for Egypt, one of the few countries Yemenis could travel to without a visa. Once there, he says he was repeatedly threatened with deportation back to Yemen. Told that it was only a 15-minute trip from Turkey to Greece, he took friends’ advice to try to reach Europe.After finally making it back to shore, Sahel helped a group of people including his two survivors navigate a five-hour trek across mountains.Friends told him he would never be granted asylum in Europe. “They said the only country that still gives that is the UK.”

 More fool us.

In late 2024, Sahel travelled to Calais in France to try to make the perilous journey across the Channel.

His arrival has been a shock – in terms of the weather, and his relief at the welcome he says he has received. “I had gone a long time not seeing people smiling until I arrived in the UK. I felt welcome. You can find humanity and kindness here. I’m not going to be killed. I’m safe.”

Well, not by the State, and peobably not by the British people who have little choice but to tolerate your presence, but your fellow fake refugees do pose a threat.  

Legally able to stay and look for work in the UK since earlier this year, Sahel says he can reflect on both his good fortune and his sense of loss for Yemen, which he describes as “heaven in the hands of the devil”.

And so it will remain, if its citizens fail to fight for it. 

Ann Widdecombe

 This post is more a summary of what people have said (X posts) but it’s also signposts to quite a few youtubes and so on … it’s a complex post, this, but Ann Widdicombe deserves it.

You can criticise me for using this picture but I agree with Loulou here … it’s the real Ann, hopeful, with a future. Now let’s kill the mood:

Let’s face it … this is probably the red line where all except the Uniparty and globopsycho Them themselves are nauseated, appalled … far more than even they could have realised. They have serioysly misread the room.

A range of views:

One of our blog authors, IYE:

https://nourishingobscurity.wordpress.com/2026/07/13/reader-drops-1438/

https://nourishingobscurity.wordpress.com/2026/07/13/reader-drops-1439/

Maybe BBC Verify Should Look Closer to Home

 

"They grabbed me from behind and started punching me, hitting me with spades and machetes," says Daniel Uyirwoth Welo, one of four Red Cross volunteers injured when a crowd tried to open a coffin carrying someone who had died from Ebola.The assault was triggered by rumours - circulating locally and online - that the coffin was empty.

Some in the crowd said, "No Ebola doesn't exist," Welo told BBC Verify, adding that others believed the Red Cross team was there only "to get money".

This is, frankly, pure tribalism and ignorant beliefs about witchcraft that have plagued Africa for hundreds of years,  and to call it 'misinformation' is to imply that they'd take any notice of actual information if they had it.

The attack is one of a series of incidents linked to misinformation during the latest Ebola outbreak, which has infected more than 1,700 people and killed 580 in DR Congo since mid-May, according to government data. False claims circulating in affected areas include allegations that Ebola doesn't exist, that health workers are deliberately infecting people or harvesting their organs, and that the Ebola response is a money-making scheme.

Its in line with the belief that the body parts of albino children have value in muti and that sex with a virgin can cure AIDS - primitive ignorant beliefs that the people of this benighted continent are prone to. And unthinking violence, of course.

In late May, rioters set fire to equipment and two isolation tents at an Ebola treatment centre in Rwampara after relatives of a young man believed to have died from the virus were prevented from taking his body away for burial.

So why does the BBC seek to describe this as mere ‘misinformation’?