A 26-year-old white British male has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Ann Widdecombe. Police say not terror related.
Kemi Badenoch said:
“I’ve been stunned to hear this awful news.
To be honest, I’ve really struggled to find the words to say. Ann Widdecombe was a very fun and feisty woman who spoke her mind and she was 78 years old, she was an elderly woman.
I don’t understand how someone could do something so horrific to an elderly person. It was a nasty, horrific attack and my heart is breaking for her family.
It’s one thing when someone dies, but to know that they’ve been murdered in this horrible way is just awful.
The Conservative Party is reeling. Ann was a long-standing member of the Conservative Party, she was a Conservative minister, and then she moved to Reform.
I’m sure they’re just as stunned as we are, and I extend my condolences to Nigel Farage and everyone in Reform on behalf of the Conservative Party, because we’ve both lost a friend.”
From Peter Tatchell earlier today:
Tatchell has now tweeted:
“Contrary to the responses to my earlier post, I did NOT “celebrate” Ann Widdecombe’s death. RIP
I highlighted the harm & suffering she helped cause to LGBTs
My post was scheduled long before reports that she was murdered were published. I only heard this 10 minutes ago
No one deserves to die – let alone be murdered. RIP Ann”
Poor form.
Fun sponge EU bureaucrats have effectively banned original Nintendo Switch consoles as part of a new raft of regulations on battery technology. Don’t hate the player, hate the game…
Brussels bigwigs just dropped “upcoming changes in European battery regulations coming into effect in mid-February 2027,” which affects the Lite and OLED models of the popular handheld device. The EU has mandated that all portable games consoles must have fully replaceable batteries by next year…
Gaming site IGN reported: “Nintendo will no longer sell to retailers hardware in the Nintendo Switch family of systems – specifically Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite and Nintendo Switch – OLED Model“. An insult to old school gamers or anyone looking to get a bargain with a cheaper old-gen system…
Models without replaceable batteries can still be sold in the UK. Brexit benefit…
The EU is currently negotiating its ‘Multiannual Financial Framework’ or MFF – the bloc’s long-term spending plan. Member states pay in, the EU splurges the cash, the cycle begins again…
Incoming PM Andy Burnham let the mask slip when he was recorded saying he would like to see the UK rejoin the EU. He walked that back, but only once he’d been caught out and his comments blew up…
Under the current MFF proposals, if the UK were to rejoin, it would have to restart contributions to the EU budget. Brexit stopped those contributions….
The MFF for 2028-2034 will land at somewhere around a staggering 2 trillion Euros. Using the EU’s own MFF formula, given reasonable estimates, this would leave the UK contribution at around £37 billion in 2025 prices. If you make a liberal estimate of what the UK would ‘get back’ through EU spending programmes here, that results in a net annual contribution of £960 per household, £535 per resident or £720 per income taxpayer. Put it another way, that’s roughly 70% of the MoD’s day-to-day budget, or a quarter of the UK’s net debt interest. This would make the UK’s payments something like £500 million a week, so the Brexit bus was right, and would in fact be an underestimate this time around…
If Guido adds this to his previous estimate of Burnham’s bill – the uncosted spending proposals put forward by the incoming Labour team – it puts his tally at approaching £300 billion. What planet is Burnham living on?
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”
