Paul Broughton

Priceless comedy

I took the shilling of the late Queen and have worn the wig and gown of a barrister. I know what it is to fight fearlessly for a client, but also that you must never advance a case you know to be untrue, nor lend weight to vexatious claims. To pursue our servicemen and women through the courts on that basis is not justice; it is an affront. It diminishes the sacrifice of those who served and died for our country.

A young couple in England, the day before they were due to exchange contracts on what was to be their first home, received two phone calls in quick succession. The first was from their estate agent. The second was from their solicitor. The information was the same in both. The local council had outbid them for their house, by £20,000. The seller had accepted. The couple had been bidding for the house since the asking price was £150,000. The bidding had taken the price up to £190,000, already, by their own account, the upper edge of what they could afford. The council had come in at £210,000, a level they could not match. Their offer was abandoned. Their survey, costing £900, was wasted. They still owe legal fees of £2,200 plus VAT regardless. The fixed-rate mortgage offer they had secured, in a market where rates have been rising again, will now expire before they find another property. Their landlord has new tenants moving in to their current rental in the second week of June. They are looking, on the calendar in front of them, at potential homelessness inside two months. The reason the council bought the house was disclosed to them, after some pushing, by a councillor they happened to know personally. The council needed urgent additional accommodation for asylum seekers. The property they had been buying was already previously registered as a House in Multiple Occupation, which made the conversion straightforward. The taxpayer money the council used to outbid them comes from a £500 million national pilot scheme, established under the present government, in which local authorities are funded to buy properties on the open market in order to house asylum seekers and reduce the cost of asylum hotels. In other words, local government is, on the order of central government, using your own money to give housing that you should It's a representative case. 134,760 British households were in temporary accommodation as of September 2025, which is a record. 4,793 people were sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025, also a record, and 171% higher than in 2010. 28% of all new social housing lettings in England in 2024/25, approximately 75,000 households, went to people deemed statutorily homeless. The number of new social housing lettings that included a member of the Armed Forces community was, in the same year, approximately 2,600. The number of new lettings that went to non-UK nationals, on the basis of the nationality data published by central government, was substantially in excess of that veteran figure, by, depending on how the data is cut, about 10x. This is the British state, in 2026, using the working tax contributions of two young people in the first weeks of trying to buy a home, to outbid those same two young people for that same home, in order to provide free accommodation for foreign nationals whose claims to be in this country have not yet been assessed and may well be completely worthless. The young people will, on the present trajectory, be made homeless in the same June in which the asylum seekers move into the property they were trying to buy. The young people will be paying, through their council tax for the rest of their working lives, for the accommodation in which the asylum seekers will live. It is likely, given the number of migrants to Britain whose lifetime tax contribution is net negative, that they will be paying tax to offset these new arrivals for the rest of their lives. It goes without saying that we need the most fundamental imaginable reconstruction of our asylum, housing, planning, and immigration laws to prevent such travesties of justice from happening again. We all know what is required by way of change in those areas. Progress has written a more extensively policy testament on this subject than any other political organisation in Britain. Beyond that there is one last thing worth saying. The young couple, on the available account, are not in a position to fight any of this through the courts. They cannot afford to. Their solicitor, on their telling, was pressing them for the legal fees on a debit card before the rest of the conversation was over. They will, in all likelihood, lose the home, the deposit, the survey, the rate deal, and the remainder of their tenancy in a single short summer. They will then watch the property they were trying to buy be filled, at the public's expense, by the people the British state has decided to prioritise over them. If that does not make you furious enough to do something about what is happening in Britain, nothing will.

That’s crazy, the Government has allowed Citizens to live in fear!

We’d like to thank every single one of you that attended one of the Love Is The Answer gigs. Our biggest ever tour. It was an incredible experience for us and we all hugely appreciate your love and continued support. NBLx #LoveIsTheAnswer #JamesLive2026 #livemusic

Just pathetic !

So that was the 2025/26 season 11th place in the Jump Trainers Championship and another Grade 1 winner along the way Thanks for all your support through the year

He ran incredibly well, to battle on for second giving a lump of weight away in very good company, he’s looked so well all season

بازپخش کردن این ویدیو تا میلیونی شدنش مهم‌ترین کار امروز ماست. لطفا تا میتونید بازپخش کنید.

🚨PRINCE REZA PAHLAVI JUST WENT FULL NUCLEAR ON THE ENTIRE EU PRESS & PARLIAMENT! 🔥🧨 I want to speak DIRECTLY to the people of Europe. In the past two weeks I held TWO MAJOR press conferences — one in Stockholm, one in Berlin. Over 150 JOURNALISTS showed up. We spent MORE THAN TWO HOURS with them… And guess what? NOT ONE SINGLE of those 150 journalists asked about the 40,000 IRANIANS SLAUGHTERED on the streets of my country on January 8th and 9th! NOT ONE asked about the 19 political prisoners EXECUTED in the last two weeks. When I told them 20 more are currently sentenced to death — CRICKETS. Not a damn question. I stood right next to a grieving mother and father who lost their sons in that massacre and begged them to listen to their stories… NOT A SINGLE ONE of those 150 journalists asked them a thing. Let that sink in. My 40,000 BRAVE INNOCENT COMPATRIOTS who were butchered fighting for liberty? They don’t give a damn. They are too busy criticizing America and Israel for taking out the dictator who’s been slaughtering our people for 47 YEARS — instead of going after the regime that’s actually doing the killing! They’d rather dig up Iran’s history than talk about what’s happening RIGHT NOW or the free democratic Iran we’re fighting for. One EU parliament member even had the nerve to say Iranians aren’t ready for democracy. To that coward and to every fake journalist in the room I say this: Iranians aren’t just “ready” for democracy… 40,000 of them just DIED for it! And I will NOT let their blood be in vain. SO HEAR ME LOUD AND CLEAR: Whether Europe stands with us or not… Whether your journalists do their damn jobs or not… Whether your politicians grow a spine or not… I WILL FIGHT FOR MY PEOPLE AND MY COUNTRY. Even if we have to do this ALONE — we are fighting until IRAN IS FREE! 🇮🇷💪 #RezaPahlavi‌ForIran @PahlaviReza

Jack Hyde is gleaming in the Perth sun

Ditto, they will want next year

One @PerthRacecourse runner today, Jack Hyde and @tombroughton3 go in the 3.47pm #TeamFOB

Perth looking spectacular this morning

BOYCOTT ALL SPAR STORES PASS IT ON!

What a course, can’t to play again this year

As Johnny showed today, he’s a heck of a jockey and we wish him well going forward Jack, Tom, Liam and Fern will be in pole position to ride our horses over the next few months

I’m no vegan, but this is disgusting and unsustainable

🌎 it’s EARTH DAY today. I thought I’d show you this! The FV Margiris, one of the world’s largest supertrawlers. It catches 250 tonnes of fish per day, Since Brexit, Britain has had the power to stop ships like this from plundering our waters, but we haven’t. The government says there’s no definition of a “super-trawler,” …. while continuing to let these giants destroy marine ecosystems. They tax us more to “save the planet” while helping to destroy it 🤡

This is Sean Egan. He joined Morrisons at the age of 17. After 29 years of dedication at supermarket chain, he was dismissed for confronting a shoplifter, which led to a scuffle with thief who spat at him. A shameful decision by @Morrisons. He should be thanked, not sacked.