[Telegraph] While pursuing a hare on the Boughton Estate near Kettering, Philip Saunders, of the Pipewell Foot Beagles, blew his hunting horn to command a pack of hounds. The hare — a protected animal — was subsequently killed. For this offence, a court in Northamptonshire ruled that Mr Saunders should pay a fine.
That might have been the end of the matter. But the court also ordered the huntsman’s horn to be seized and destroyed. The court admitted their action might seem "petty". It is far worse than that.
A huntsman’s horn is of not only practical value, but deep, symbolic weight. It is passed down as a family heirloom and used on the same land for generations. Ordering its destruction is symptomatic of a broader turn against rural culture.
The Government is currently pursuing a ban on trail hunting, having already hiked taxes on family farms and tightened rules around shotgun ownership. This comes on top of Sir Tony Blair’s government’s ban on hunting with hounds (a move he later came to regret).
From a rich tradition of depicting hunts in prints and on canvas, to the hundreds of pubs named in honour of rural pursuits (think of The Fox and Hounds, The Plough or The John Barleycorn), the activities of countryside communities have long had a hold on our cultural imagination.
Unexpectedly. Still, that does mean that the Muslim inheritors of Britain won’t be getting a a military suitable for conquest any more than they’ll get an educated slave populace to fight with. That’ll make the second Reconquista, by the joint American-Israeli forces, that much easier.
[Breitbart] The British government persistently warns about the risk of war in Europe and the need to re-arm while dismissing the calls of its own military leaders to make funds available to allow that to take place.
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Rachel Reeves has ruled out the possibility of a boost to defence spending this year, stating the Ministry of Defence will have to wait for “future spending reviews”. While NATO’s best performing members — such as Poland — push their spending upwards in line with the leadership of President Trump calling for treaty signatories to dedicate five per cent of GDP to defence, the denial of a cash boost makes certain the British military won’t make it to three per cent in the life of this government.
The Treasury department expressed concern about wasteful spending in the Ministry of Defence, reports The Daily Telegraph, and said it would see no more money. Indeed, defence boondoggles have dominated headlines recently with the botched rollout of the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle, a project that has been underway under various guises since the end of the Cold War, grabbing headlines over Christmas.
Reeves defended the spending decision, claiming the present Labour government had already rolled out the “biggest uplift in defence spending since the end of the Cold War”.
While the decision to not make extra discretionary spending on growing the military may seem rational for a country which is not at war and which operates a considerably and decades-long government budget deficit, it does clash conspicuously with the actual rhetoric of the government. The Prime Minister himself, Sir Keir Starmer, spoke stridently just this past weekend at the Munich Security Conference of the need for military might.
In a speech that made clear the government’s position that Russia is a threat that has to be prepared for, Starmer had said:
…Russia has proved its appetite for aggression, bringing terrible suffering to the Ukrainian people. Its hyper-threats extend across our continent, not just threatening our security, but tearing at our social order… It is true that Russia has made a huge strategic blunder in Ukraine, and the Russian casualties number well over a million. But even as the war goes on, Russia is re-arming, reconstituting their armed forces, an industrial base.
NATO has warned that Russia could be ready to use military force against the Alliance by the end of this decade. In the event of a peace deal in Ukraine, which we are all working hard to achieve, Russia’s re-armament would only accelerate. The wider danger to Europe would not end there. It would increase. So we must answer this threat in full.
The answer, Starmer said, is expanding the armed forces. He said:
…in the face of these threats, there is only one viable option… We must build our hard power, because that is the currency of the age. We must be able to deter aggression. And yes, if necessary, we must be ready to fight.
This follows years of similar remarks by government ministers and military figures during this government and the previous Conservative governments. Indeed, the very highest military men in the land have openly lobbied the government for more defence spending.
The Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton was one of those, saying last week that “hard choices” are needed on spending, while the head of the Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal Sir Harvey Smyth blamed political calculations for the slow pace of rearmament in remarks only days ago.
Knighton also spoke on these themes in January, noting the United Kingdom had taken full advantage of the peace dividend of winding-down militaries at the end of the Cold War but now the world was shifting into a less easy period this put the country at risk. He said there were “difficult trade-offs” necessary which meant deciding whether to fund peacetime niceties like education or health, or whether to ensure there might be peace at all by spending on defence. He said: “we have taken a peace dividend and we are not as ready as we need to be for the kind of full-scale conflict that we might face. And that’s how we ultimately deter our principle adversaries, by being ready to fight and win.”
Last year a group of recently retired generals made an unprecedented public intervention to lobby against the government actively undermining the military, while in 2024 the government’s defence minister John Healey warned the military is not ready to fight as it has so few stockpiles. Indeed, months earlier the former Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Nick Carter said the British armed forces could fight for just two months if called to before exhausting itself for want on resources.
#3
...Don't ever forget that in early 1940 -with the Germans winding up for the invasion of France - the UK was actively planning an attack on the Soviet Union.
#5
Gee Mike, we were still operating under the Rainbow Plans that included invading Canada at the time. The famous naval wargames at the Naval War College alternated from fighting the Japanese navy and the British navy.
[Breitbart] The Peruvian Congress on Wednesday installed 83-year-old Marxist lawmaker José María Balcázar as new interim president of Peru following the impeachment of former interim President José Jerí.
Balcázar is a highly controversial pro-child marriage Marxist congressman presently subjected to an investigation on 13 different corruption-related charges. He is Peru’s ninth president in ten years and will serve as head of state until July 28, 2026, when the winner of the upcoming April election is inaugurated.
Peru marked a new chapter in its convoluted political history and streak of multiple and consecutive presidential impeachments this week following the removal of José Jerí from the presidency on Tuesday on allegations related to a presumptive influence peddling scandal known as “Chifagate.”
Jerí, the former head of the Peruvian Congress, took office in October 2025 after his predecessor, Dina Boluarte, was impeached. Boluarte, who took office in 2022, succeeded Marxist Pedro Castillo who, in addition to also being impeached, was arrested and convicted after he unsuccessfully attempted to dissolve Congress and stage a “self-coup.”
At press time, no president in Peru has successfully completed his or her full term since leftist former President Ollanta Humala left office in 2016. Humala and his wife Nadine Hereida were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in April 2025 on corruption charges.
Following Tuesday’s removal of Jerí, the Peruvian Congress reconvened on Wednesday to vote on an interim president. The lawmakers’ votes are secret as per the rules of the Peruvian Congress.
Peruvian broadcaster RPP reported that the first round of votes on Wednesday saw the participation of 117 lawmakers and resulted in Balcázar obtaining 46 votes, followed by Congresswoman María del Carmen Alva, who received 43. As no candidate obtained the required minimum number of 59 votes to become interim president in the first round, a simple-majority second round was held, resulting in Balcázar’s election.
Balcázar is a member of the Marxist Free Peru political party, of which former President Pedro Castillo was a member until 2022. The new interim president is described as an ally of Castillo’s but has claimed that he will not grant a pardon to the convicted former president. Castillo’s lawyer, Walter Ayala, confirmed on Thursday that he will formally request a pardon from the new interim president. Balcázar left Free Peru in 2022 but rejoined the Marxist party in 2024.
The new Marxist interim president became the subject of widespread condemnation in 2023 after he publicly stood in defense of child marriage at a time when Peruvian lawmakers proposed a bill barring the practice, which continues to be an issue in the South American nation. At the time, Balcázar claimed that “early sexual relations” contribute to “women’s psychological future.”
“It turns out that marriage in Peru has become completely dysfunctional. Today, people don’t get married; they all live together. From the age of 14, as they said, girls are already pregnant,” Balcázar reportedly said at the time.
“So, with the law, we want to prohibit only those people who become pregnant while underage. We want to prevent that, but how? Sex continues beyond what has been said about parents selling girls in the jungle,” he continued.
Speaking to RPP on Thursday morning, Balcázar said that he “has not changed his mind” on the subject of child marriage, but claimed that his statements are “black legends” against him and that his comments were “taken out of context.”
In addition to his outrageous pro-child marriage statements. Balcázar is presently subject to ongoing legal proceedings on allegations that he committed 13 different corruption-related charges throughout his tenure as lawmaker and judge.
Some of the charges that Balcázar is being investigated on include allegations of malfeasance, fraud, embezzlement, misuse of institutional funds, bribery, and identity theft. Balcázar has publicly denied all of the allegations, claiming that, “I am used to facing criticism and attempts to discredit me, but my track record is transparent.”
Peru is slated to hold a presidential election on April 12, 2026, with a prospective runoff scheduled for June 7 should no candidate obtain the required vote threshold to win in the first round. At press time, there are 36 different presidential candidates on the ballot.
If he is not impeached like his predecessors, Balcázar will serve as interim president of Peru for roughly five months until July 28, 2026, when he will be succeeded by the winner of the upcoming election. In his inauguration speech, Balcázar claimed that he will guarantee a peaceful and orderly transition. He further claimed tor reporters on Thursday that his administration will be focused on three main areas: transparent elections, economical stability, and the fight against organized crime.
#3
History shows that most cultures have corruption. The 'less' likely are those in the Northern European region. They're more the exception rather than the rule. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
[Just The News] Federal prosecutors who are probing the weaponization of intelligence and law enforcement against President Donald Trump and his allies have sent a secret and rare request for evidence from the U.S. Senate regarding former CIA Director John Brennan,
Shhhhhhh — it’s a secret…
signaling that they are zeroing in on his questionable testimony going back nearly a decade on his now-debunked efforts to tie Trump's 2016 campaign to collusion with Russia.
The overtures to the U.S. Senate and its intelligence committee from U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones' team in Miami began over the last month and were formalized in a written request for documents, transcripts and testimony last Friday, according to multiple people directly familiar with the conversations.
Senate lawyers and prosecutors are negotiating the best way to transfer the evidence, including a possible visit by the prosecution team to Washington in the coming days.
#1
A future story for the BB or Main stream Media?
Headline - Brennan suffers heart attack.
Brennan suffered a heart attack, helping fight a sudden fire of its document storage vault, trying to save the contents.
#2
As long as the son of a bitch is dead I don't give a fuck what the headline says.
Posted by: chris ||
02/20/2026 6:32 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Lest we forget another former chief who decided around 9:30-10:00 PM of a Sunday evening in the midst of a fairly significant storm to go...kayaking on the Chesapeake.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
