The judge said: 'How are they expected to live? It seems to me the appropriate punishment for taking food which is of no value is an absolute discharge.

'I clearly can't make any financial order.'

Prosecutor Jeanette Smith said the pair were seen in the rear compound of the Hetton Road Tesco Express store, Sunderland, removing a pallet of food.

She explained that although the items were to be thrown out they were in a secure compound, adding that Tesco's policy is not to give away discarded food.

Angus Westgarth, defending, said that when the offence occurred the couple had not been given benefits and had no way to buy food.

The UK’s new Justice Secretary, Michael Gove is pushing forward with controversial Conservatives’ plans to scrap the Human Rights Act.

Well before the conflict for establishing a National Bank in America or the eventual surrender to the money changers with the betrayal in instituting the Federal Reserve, the history of the Bank of England needs to be studied. Relying on British historians may seem to invoke a cultural bias; however, the range and wealth of information on this topic comes from an earlier age. Further research will expand this understanding and many of the sources cited can fulfill this objective.

It was there that the “hipster cop” photo — showing a man with a large, waxed beard who was mocked for being part of a largely mythical subculture — was taken.

We know what the election victory for the Tories in the United Kingdom signifies. Britain, festooned in the confetti of democratic freedoms, is heading for a further trimming, a pruning that will privilege surveillance powers over that of privacy. Home Secretary Theresa May has been at the vanguard of this movement for some time. Even as David Cameron seemingly runs out of gas – his own campaign having been oddly disengaged – there are others nipping, not merely at his heels, but his arteries.

On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America’s self-image as the “exceptional, indispensable” country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war. Neither Russia nor China will accept the vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia. The Wolfowitz Doctrine makes it clear that the price of world peace is the world’s acceptance of Washington’s hegemony.

Therefore, unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future.

Very much like the Greeks, the Scots unambiguously voted down austerity. And in very much the same fashion, they face an entity that claims to be more powerful and insists on forcing more austerity down their throats anyway. It seems inevitable that at some point these larger entities will start to crack and break down into smaller pieces. As empires always do. Now, the EU was of course never an empire, there’s just tons of bureaucrats dreaming of that, and Britain is a long-decayed empire.

Larger entities like empires are more powerful only for a limited period of time, for as long as the center can make the periphery benefit; once the center starts feeding off the periphery, the endgame starts. This can take a while, but it will happen, it’s a law of nature. When periphery regions figure out they have nothing to lose by splitting off, they will elect to stand on their own two feet and be their own boss.

And it’s not as if either Scotland or Greece lack a history of fighting for their independence. Just a reminder.

Civil liberty advocates warn the soon-to-be implemented measures would erode the right to life, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, the right to protest and the right to freedom from torture and discrimination.

"Just what we want!" - Number 9 3/4

A farmer who rejected a £275million offer for his land from housing developers has said he is 'not afraid to stand up to them'.

Robert Worsley said he feared 'country bumpkins' like himself would be 'steamrolled' and that he believed the community was ready to stand together to protect their homes.

The 48-year-old father of two has run his 550-acre, near Haywards Heath, West Sussex, for the last 15 years.

He was approached by agents for housebuilder Mayfield more than two years ago. Since then, the company has contacted Mr Worsley a number of times, trying to persuade him to sell.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has dismissed the possibility of another referendum on Scottish independence, saying Scots had once rejected a breakaway from the UK.

British aircraft and unmanned drones have attacked Islamic State targets in Iraq with more than 200 bombs and missiles in military operations that have been largely ignored, a Guardian analysis has shown.

The air strikes, which began in the autumn, have been undertaken by the RAF’s oldest bombers – Tornado GR4s and its newest weapon – the remotely piloted Reaper.

Tornados have dropped at least 87 Paveway IV bombs and fired at least 47 Brimstone missiles. Reapers have fired more than 80 Hellfire missiles.

Former MP George Galloway has launched a legal challenge over his defeat at Thursday’s general election and claims to have evidence of “malpractice” in postal voting.

Today in the UK, people are waking up to their first week of a five-year rule under a Conservative majority government. It’s been the first time the Tories have managed to form such a government since 1992. Only 37 percent of those who bothered to vote actually voted Conservative. In fact, the current administration is in government with 24 percent of support from all those who were eligible to vote.

This week BBC Worldwide reported a record number of infringing links to Google, targeting more than 25,000 webpages. We decided to go through the links and it wasn’t hard to find several URLs that are clearly not infringing.

For example, one of the notices targets the IMDb pages of Top Gear, The Game and Top Fails.

The Internet Movie Database is one of the prime sources for movie and TV fans to get information and doesn’t host or link to infringing content, so taking these pages offline only hurts the BBC.

Perhaps even more worrying is that the same notice also lists the British home of the video site Dailymotion as “infringing.” While this page may have linked to unauthorized material in the past, it’s certainly doesn’t warrant the removal of the entire homepage.

The almost total blackout on broadcast media of the police attack on the popular protest by thousands outside Downing Street – with 30 injured and 17 arrests – is in stark contrast to the wall to wall coverage of the staged fake “riot” in Glasgow in which 6 people were slightly rude to Jim Murphy with no arrests and no injuries.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was labelled "Britain's most dangerous woman" by some sections of the tabloid media during the run up to the General Election. Some people fear that she's on a mission to break up the United Kingdom in a bid to fulfil her independence ambitions. That may well be the case, but that soubriquet was also used by some of Britain's most committed members of the pro-Israel lobby whose main national interests lie well beyond these shores. They saw some of their biggest political supporters fall in an astonishing electoral performance by Sturgeon's Scottish National Party (SNP).

The Conservatives have won the 2015 elections with a slim majority. Labour and the Liberal Democrats suffered unexpected crushing defeats, prompting their leaders, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, to resign. And despite winning a significant percentage of votes, UKIP only managed to win one seat, with its leader Nigel Farage also resigning after losing to a Tory MP.

But the Tory victory reveals precisely why British democracy is broken.

The ultimate determinant of which party won the elections was the money behind their political campaigns?—?the winning and losing parties correlate directly with the quantity of funding received. Yet there is also compelling evidence of another factor?—?interference from Britain’s security services.

A future Little Britain: separated from Scotland, subservient to America, outside the European Union and beholden to the conflicting agendas of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) lobby and the SNP is a frightening prospect.

There’s much that could be said about the Conservative party’s victory today in Britain’s election. Not least David Cameron has emerged stronger: he now has a small but absolute majority in parliament, compared to his last government, in which he had to share power, a little of it anyway, with his minor coalition partners, the Lib Dems.

A plane so technologically advanced that it would give Britain and the US air superiority in any future conflict and billed as the world’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, could be one of “the biggest white elephants in history”, according to a former defence minister.

Tom Goodrich has been a professional writer for the past thirty years. In addition to articles, blogs and movie scripts, Tom has written a dozen books. Kyle Hunt received his Bachelor of Arts in psychology and is best known for founding the Renegade Broadcasting network. Tom and Kyle return to the program to discuss their monumental collaboration, the documentary film Hellstorm, based on Tom’s book and produced by Kyle. In the first hour, we discuss the impetus of the film, which is to expose the mountain of hate, lies and propaganda that was heaped upon the defeated German nation in the time period surrounding WWII, in what is truly the darkest and best kept secret in world history. We look at the relevance of unmasking the accepted history of WWII, a narrative that fundamentally excludes the truth about the horrific slaughter of tens of millions of innocent German civilians by Soviet communists.

The anti-austerity group behind a protest that escalated into violent clashes with riot police outside Downing Street on Saturday is planning another demonstration outside the Bank of England next month.

The People’s Assembly has told campaigners to assemble “right on the doorstep of the very people who created the crisis in the first place” in central London on 20 June, sparking what could become a summer of anti-austerity protests across the UK.

Hundreds of people attended the group’s impromptu demonstration outside Downing Street on Saturday after David Cameron was returned to No 10 with a Conservative majority.

...and scrap Human Rights Act
PM to capitalise on majority with raft of legislation in Queen’s speech on 27 May including EU referendum and repeal of act by new justice secretary Michael Gove

(*'We don't need no stinking Human Rights !'
His Majesty The Dork Of Downing Street )

The British establishment has witnessed a sharp decline in voter turnout during the past three decades, and the upcoming General Election is no exception. Many social and political analysts translate the decline as public growing disenchantment with the establishment. They warn if this trend continues, the low turnout will sooner or later threaten the legitimacy of the elected government. But what are the underlying causes of the British voter apathy and their political disengagement?

The closest fought UK General Election for many years has produced an unexpected victory for David Cameron and the Conservative Party. With predictions of a hung parliament built around Westminster fears of a tartan invasion by Scottish National Party MPs, the result of a clearly failing first-past-the-post electoral system is likely to fuel calls for electoral reform. Millions of votes for minority parties were, to all intents and purposes, wasted. This, though, is not the only negative aspect of the poll. It is bad news all round for peace in the Middle East, and the first to feel the effects will be Britain's 2-million Muslim citizens.

After the surprise win of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party in Thursday's national election, the spotlight has now fallen on American political operative Jim Messina, who led the pro-austerity party to victory.

The British General election was dramatic. On the superficial level because three party leaders— Miliband (Labour), Nick Clegg (Liberal-Democrat) and Nigel Farage (UKIP—a racist, right-wing populist outfit)…resigned on the day following the Conservative victory. On a more fundamental level because the Scottish National Party took virtually all the Scottish seats (56 of 59) wiping out Labour as a political force in the region where it had dominated politics for over a century. Scotland was where the Labour Party was founded. Scotland it was that gave Labour its first leaders and Prime Minster (as well as the last one). Scottish working class culture was in most cases much more radical than its English equivalent.

The victory of Conservatives in UK general elections has sparked hot debates among experts about the democratic nature of its political system and economic prospect.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is working hard to finalize the list of his cabinet by Monday.

Today is truly a historical day. For the first time ever the West has boycotted the Victory Day Parade in Moscow and, also for the first time ever, Chinese forces have marched on the Beautiful Square (“Red” square is a mistranslation – the “Red Square” ought be called the “Beautiful Square”) with the Russians. I believe that this is a profoundly symbolic shift and one which makes perfectly good sense.

Broxtowe Borough Council was forced to immediately disclose the accident after the two boxes were found and issue a recount for the Eastwood Hilltop seat, Nottinghamshire.

The embarrassing admission came just moments after Labour leader Milan Radulovic was announced as the winning candidate.

Among Mr Cameron’s first legislative priorities will be to enshrine an EU referendum into law, bring in the so-called ‘snoopers charter’ to give police greater powers to monitor internet communications and give English MPs a veto over legislation only affecting England. The Tories also intend to publish plans to scrap the Human Rights Act within their first 100 days. All proposals had been previously blocked by the Lib Dems.

The system can certainly be given some sort of name, but a functioning democracy it’s not. If anything, a democracy is “A system of government in which power is vested in the people”. Makes us wonder how many clients of the 421 foodbanks and counting have voted Conservative and figured they were proudly doing their democratic duty.

70 years since the great Victory! 70 years since Soviet people saved the world by smashing Nazism.

All accords with Russia were broken, whenever it suited invaders. The Scandinavians wiped out countless Russian lives, and so did the Germans, French, Poles, Brits, North Americans and Czechs, to name just a few. Russians never really ‘punished’ anybody, in the Protestant, Anglo-Saxon way. Punishment is mainly puritan, Protestant rubbish; the Russian way of thinking is too quixotic for that.

The West lied to Lenin, to Stalin, to Khrushchev and finally to Gorbachev. The West has been lying to Putin and about Putin.

My heart bleeds, my soul is sick and my land is broken and dying. How else can I describe how I felt when I learnt that the dis-United Kingdom was back in the greedy and unfeeling grasp of the ‘nasty’ party, the Conservatives. I was not alone.

There’s much that could be said about the Conservative party’s victory today in Britain’s election. Not least David Cameron has emerged stronger: he now has a small but absolute majority in parliament, compared to his last government, in which he had to share power, a little of it anyway, with his minor coalition partners, the Lib Dems.

After the surprise win of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party in Thursday's national election, the spotlight has now fallen on American political operative Jim Messina, who led the pro-austerity party to victory.

The Conservatives are already planning to introduce the huge surveillance powers known as the Snoopers’ Charter, hoping that the removal from government of the Liberal Democrats that previously blocked the controversial law will allow it to go through.

The law, officially known as the Draft Communications Data Bill, is already back on the agenda according to Theresa May. It is expected to force British internet service providers to keep huge amounts of data on their customers, and to make that information available to the government and security services.

Parliamentarian, writer, broadcaster, anti-war activist, human rights supporter, Israeli critic, and champion of Palestinian rights among other credentials Respect Party member Galloway was defeated in Thursday's general election.

He lost his Bradford West constituency decisively to New Labour's Naz Shah - 19,977 to 8,557. Down but not out, he commented, saying:

I don't begrudge the Labour members here their moment of celebration, of course."

Just as the SNP sweeps to utter domination of the Scottish presence at Westminster, the future of Scottish nationalism must move to a rejection of Westminster rule as illegitimate. That is the victory paradox.

There is no doubt that this is the best possible election result for achieving Scottish independence in the near term. The one thing that I believe might have postponed independence for decades, was a Labour Party government of the UK with SNP support, governing as Tory Lite but making the dreadful repressive UK state that little bit less openly vicious, the abuse a little bit more disguised, the wealthy corporate elite less openly triumphalist.

A returning Conservative MP giggled like a schoolboy after one disgruntled voter drew a penis next to his name on their ballot slip - only for the vote to count.

Britain's voters have delivered a painful blow not just to the Labour Party but also to the opinion pollsters, who had suggested a very different outcome to Thursday's election.

With votes counted in almost all of the 650 constituencies, the Conservatives were on course for an overall majority of over 326 seats in the House of Commons with Labour doomed to languish on the opposition benches with almost 100 fewer seats.

The result came as a complete shock to everyone after polls had been suggesting for months that the two big parties were neck-and-neck and neither of them would come close to winning an overall majority.

Gellar’s ‘Draw the Prophet’ charade was the perfect bait for any would-be radical trying to make a name for himself, yet they allowed the provocation to proceed under the pretext of ‘upholding the first amendment.’

As the Garland police spokesman confessed, this had all been pre-planned months beforehand. Only the very naïve or hopelessly deluded will put any faith in the FBI’s lame-duck denials that they deliberately allow attacks of these sorts to take place, or organize them directly by way of informants, such as the one linked to Simpson.

David Cameron’s Conservative Party has won an overall majority in the UK General Election. Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has resigned after a crushing defeat, with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and UKIP's Nigel Farage also stepping down.

Addressing the nation on Friday afternoon, Cameron confirmed the Tories would form a Conservative majority government.

Cameron, who had just returned from a meeting with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, said Britain "is on the brink of something special.”

"It's a hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it." (Madeleine Albright, then US Ambassador to the UN, on the "embargo related" deaths of half a million Iraqi children, 12th May 1996.)

"Nutritious food and clean water", had, of course, been deliberately destroyed on US Central Command's order to bomb all water facilities in Iraq in 1991. Food was poisoned by the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons, contaminating all fauna and flora. DU's "half-life" is 4.5 Billion years. And it is not "depleted."

The Scottish National Party was on course for a virtual clean sweep of Westminster seats in Scotland after the exit poll predicted Nicola Sturgeon would win 58 out of 59 seats.

The SNP, which won just six seats in Parliament in 2010, was on course to wipe Labour off the map north of the border and place the stability of the Union back in question.

But Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said she was "puzzled" by the poll and urged people to wait for the results before making predictions.

"It doesn't reflect any of the conversations and responses we've had," she said.

With projections showing the Conservatives only 10 seats short of a majority, Labour is in shock. Exit polls have been wrong before, but if this one holds, there’ll be inquests aplenty

Elections: "Shock" after "shock"...

People in Bedfont also received an apology, with 3000 people being affected by a misprint on their Polling cards sending them to the wrong address. A shuttle bus system had to be set up to transport voters between polling booths in Southville Road and Bedfont Library.

Bungling election chiefs were accused of 'gross incompetence' today after thousands of voters were denied the chance to cast their ballots after a series of bureaucratic failures.

Furious scenes erupted at polling stations in London after people were told they could not vote - despite registering before the April deadline.

Hackney council said its online voter registration system had been overwhelmed by a surge in people trying to apply at the last minute and admitted around 100 people had been stopped from voting.

It also emerged that thousands of voters overseas - including 'hundreds' of serving soldiers and other MOD personnel - had not received their postal ballots in time for today's election.

There have been “angry and chaotic” scenes in a London borough where more than 50 residents were warned they could be unable to vote in the general election due to a technical glitch with IT systems.

Many Hackney residents took to Twitter to complain about an apparent lack of organisation, meaning queues were growing and voters were becoming increasingly frustrated.

Twitter user Clare Qualman described “chaos” at Hackney Town Hall, where many were seeking advice this morning, writing: “Waiting with the disenfranchised at Hackney Town Hall - it's getting angry and chaotic.”

The Labour candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Diane Abbott, blasted the reported disorganisation as “ridiculous” on Twitter.

“This is so shocking. They have had five years to prepare for this election,” she said.

The survey taken at polling stations across the UK suggests the Tories will get 316 MPs to Labour's 239 when all the results have been counted.

It suggests the Lib Dems will get 10 MPs, the SNP 58, Plaid Cymru 4, UKIP 2 and the Greens two.

The exit poll was conducted by NOP/MORI for the BBC, ITV and Sky.

The first election results are due before midnight with the final result on Friday afternoon.

The finishing line needed to form a majority is 326.

About 150 postal voters in the ultra-marginal seat of Oxford West and Abingdon have not received their ballot papers for the general election.

The constituency saw one of the tightest races in 2010 when Conservative Nicola Blackwood won the seat from the Lib Dems by 176 votes.

The Conservatives are set to remain the largest party according to the first exit poll.

David Cameron's party is set to increase its seats but remain short of a majority.

And the SNP are expected to dominate in Scotland.

AN administrative blunder could prevent a number of residents from voting in tomorrow’s general election.

Some residents say they have never received their postal voting forms.

More than 20 residents posted on our Facebook page to say they have been affected in a matter of a few hours yesterday.

They said they phoned Colchester Council to report the problem and were told many people had been affected.

An investigation is to be launched into reports of missing postal vote papers in Wirral.

The local authority has confirmed it has had more than three dozen requests for ballot papers to be re-issued in the closely fought Wirral South marginal seat - but insists the papers had been sent out.

Wirral South is one of the marginal seats which could decide the General Election – Labour held the seat with a majority of just 531 back in 2010.

A last-minute deluge of postal votes allegedly sparked concerns about ballot rigging at Milton Keynes Council.

Instead of the anticipated four or five ballot boxes, 18 brimming boxes containing more than 4,600 votes turned up at the council offices yesterday.

Today election organisers insisted nothing seemed amiss – and blamed postal delays caused by the bank holiday.

More than 25,000 Walsall voters could be affected by ‘confusing’ postal vote envelopes that would see their cast votes being sent back to them.

Hackney Council has been forced to admit there has been a problem issuing thousands of voters with ballot papers – many of whom may have lost out on their chance to vote tomorrow.

Dozens of people planning to vote in the closest election for decades were turned away from polling stations on Thursday morning.

Voters in parts of east London and Dorset were told that IT glitches meant they were not registered on the electoral roll, despite many having polling cards.

Meanwhile, some Britons who live abroad have complained that postal votes have arrived too late to guarantee they can exercise their democratic rights.

In Hackney, where at least 30 people queued to complain outside the town hall, Alix Rowe was one of those left disenfranchised by the problems.

Nearly a quarter of British children under the age of five are overweight or obese, according to a new Europe-wide study.

The research found that out of the 28 countries involved in the study, the UK boasted the second highest proportion of overweight children under the age of five.

Voting has continued as normal in Darlington after it was revealed the name of one candidate was missing from ballot papers.

Some 89 voting slips were distributed to one polling station without the name of UKIP candidate David Hodgson.

Darlington Borough Council re-issued correct papers and said there will be no changes to the polling procedure in the constituency.

For great swathes of the UK, Prime Minister Cameron is seen as an arrogant, out of touch, over-privileged aristocrat who hates the poor, disadvantaged, elderly, disabled, affordable social housing, those unable to find work in a shrinking job market and just about anyone not from his money-mired hunting and country mansion pals. In a family tree festooned with titles he is also a lineal descendent of King William IV.

Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband’s popularity is faring little better, especially since Tony Blair pitched up, all teeth and perma-tan, to “support him 100%”, also donating £100,000+ in £1,000+ bundles to one hundred Labour parliamentary candidates. Endorsement by Blair after Iraq is the kiss of electoral death.

May 7 general elections approach. Britain is like America. It's all over before polls open. Monied interests win every time.

Ordinary people lose out more than ever in modern memory. It shows in opinion polls.

Only 16% of voters trust politicians. Why anyone besides well-off Brits do they'll have to explain.

On the even of the UK’s legislative elections, Stuart Littlewood reflects on Britain’s bankrupt politics – devoid of talent and beholden to foreign states such as Israel – but detects a glimmer of hope.

Australia’s SBS channel sacked one of its top football commentators, Scott McIntyre, for a series of tweets on Anzac Day doubting the wisdom of glorifying Aussie troops in any theater of war.

McIntyre was one of SBS’s leading football commentators, covering two FIFA World Cups and four Asian Cups. He has over 30,000 followers on Twitter.

“Once again a country “liberated” by the West is sinking deeper and deeper into chaos.”

This could be anyone of the countries in conflict, where Washington and its Western and Middle Eastern stooges sow war – eternal chaos, misery, death – and submission.

This is precisely the point: The Washington / NATO strategy is not to ‘win’ a war or conflict, but to create ongoing – endless chaos. That’s the way (i) to control people, nations and their resources; (ii) to assure the west is in continuous need for military – troops and equipment – remember more than 50% of the US GDP depends on the military industrial complex, related industries and services; and (iii) finally, a country in disarray or chaos, is broke and needs money – money with hardship conditions, ‘austerity’ money from the notorious IMF, World Bank and other associated nefarious ‘development institutions’ and money lenders; money that equals enslavement, especially with corrupt leaders that do not care for their people.

Neither Cameron nor Miliband look like getting an overall majority...

We are forced to choose between dubious pledges by low-calibre leaders nobody wants

It’s polling day and Britain faces a miserable choice. Whichever way it goes it’ll be disastrous.

The two main parties, Conservatives (Tories) and Labour, are neck and neck with a passel of smaller parties snapping at their heels with increasing support.

The economy is still in a deep hole. The much trumpeted recovery is half-baked and fragile. It is based on an increasingly low-wage economy while the fat cats at the other end of the scale keep getting fatter.