It’s been months of bitter bitching bad-tempered barracking but never boring dirty-tricks campaigning but now the US election is drawing to an acrimonious close.
The BBC has been fact-checking the candidates all along the trail ..
They say that Donald Trump has been far more active and that there has been a continuation of false claims about the pandemic, his personal record in office and the integrity of postal voting.
The forgetful Mr Biden has been around far less, but also seems to have got a few things wrong – like the president’s name!
It is something that all the Fake News addicts and those celebs who have laid siege to the Fourth Estate for decades cannot deny… the British Press has done its job again.
It has exposed THE TRUTH about a fabulously rich THUG who battered and threatened his partner behind the doors of his Hollywood home.
Johnny Depp did it.
He attacked ex-wife Amber Heard 12 TIMES, the judge said as the star lost his libel case against The Sun.
And The Sun is part of the legion of the Press which has campaigned for victims of domestic violence as far back as I can remember.
In my own career as a journalist, working for most national newspaper titles at one time or another, I have done things which have improved lives, in many cases across the world.
This is part of every journalist’s job.
As I write I am working on exposes involving the lies of a major power and the destruction those lies led to. We – with others – are working on exposing Family Courts in the UK – we are handing over a dossier on a disgusting little narcissistic conman to the police. And we have the support of the British Government to do this.
We too are battling to have parental alienation made a crime across the world and I have just finished a book which names and shames a child-molesting, clog-dancing teacher.
I also spent a decade fighting those in power, including the BBC, to tell THE TRUTH about Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith and clock-collecting hysterically laughing TV presenter Stuart Hall. It was a knockout for them all ultimately because of, in part, the determination of journalists to keep hunting them down.
Surely, it is time to praise the messengers and not put them up in shooting galleries for the rich and famous who want to create a smokescreen to hide their peccadilloes and lies.
A spokesperson for The Sun put it this way: “Domestic abuse victims must never be silenced and we thank the Judge for his careful consideration and thank Amber Heard for her courage in giving evidence to the court.
“London’s High Court ruled we were right to brand the Pirates of the Caribbean actor a wife beater for his brutal attacks on his ex-wife.
“We are committed to obtaining justice for Amber Heard in the US court and defending Ms Heard’s right to free speech.”
The Charity Women’s Aid has said those who experiences domestic abuse “deserve to be listened to and believed”.
“This also applies to survivors who do not fit the image of the ‘perfect’ victim – and regardless of the high profile of the alleged abuser. There is no excuse for domestic abuse.”
The Alice in Wonderland star;s case was brought against News Group Newspapers and executive editor Dan Wootton over an article published on the Sun’s website in 2018.
Ms Heard, aged 34, told of her pain as she relived “traumatic” details of her relationship with a famous person who turned her life into a misery of violence and threats.
Ms Heard’s US lawyer Elaine Charlson Bredehoft has said: “For those of us present for the London High Court trial, this decision and judgment are not a surprise.
“Very soon, we will be presenting even more voluminous evidence in the US.”
Mr Justice Nicol decided against Depp’s defamation case after finding The Sun’s story was accurate.
He ruled Depp’s feelings towards Ms Heard during their three-year relationship were summed up in a text where the actor said he had “no mercy” for her.
He also concluded Depp beat Ms Heard 12 out of 14 times – starting in 2013 when he slapped the actress when she made a comment about his tattoo.
Depp, in his defence, said the Aquaman star’s allegations were a “hoax” and accused her of attacking him. He argued his case for 20 hours in court.
News reports reported that the judge found Depp battered his wife after slipping into his “monster” persona when he binged on drink and drugs.
Depp’s court loss leaves his reputation in tatters.
Those who supported the likes of Hugh Grant and Hacked Off when they campaigned for stronger press regulation, need to think again. Surely the demands of the rich and famous have always been self-serving.
And more Press restrictions would only work against the public’s right to know what goes on behind the closed doors of the powerful and the glitterati.
More importantly is the right of victims to have their stories told.
Reporters Without Borders has placed the UK at 35 out of 180 countries in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index.
And that means that people like me need to do everything we can to get things right… of course we make mistakes – and there are rogues amongst us.
But the SIMPLE TRUTH is that the majority of journalists, like me, want to TELL THE TRUTH, unlike the people we go after who only lie to protect themselves.
People faced long delays at many testing centres but Prime Minister Igor Matovic kept on urging everybody to take part. And by the end of the first day it was reported that nearly half of the population had been tested. One per cent apparently tested positive and went in to quarantine.
Matovic said; “The eyes of Europe and the world are upon us.”
And Defence Minister Jaro Nad described the situation as the army’s biggest logistical operation since the country became independent.
Infections have soared in Slovakia and officials say the only alternative would be a total lock-down.
But President Zuzana Caputova doesn’t appear to agree and exercised her own freedom of speech to call for a rethink of the plan after the armed forces feared there simply aren’t enough trained people to make it work.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the former Supreme Court judge, Lord Sumption, has made some astonishing claims about what is going on under the cloud of Covid.
He said: “This has been the most significant interference with personal freedom in the history of our country. We have never sought to do such a thing before, even in wartime and even when faced with health crises far more serious than this one.”
And he supported a statement I have made often in UK newspapers and on radio, and that is the the UK’s political system is a dictatorship … the only difference is that we get to change our dictators every five years.
Those who are lost in the shadows of our pseudo-democracy have attacked me for saying it.
However, Lord Sumption said: “Ministers are accountable to no one, except once in five years at general elections.”
He also accuses the Government of disregarding the limits of their legal powers.
And this is how freedom dies. The UK’s own days of the dead.
The Government decided, without fanfare or discussion with the population it represents, to increase emergency spending from £11billion to just under £270billion.
The UK economy, jobs and businesses are facing destruction and the NHS is ailing visibly under the strain.
We are a country riven by panic on the streets, fear, misinformation and a cyber information highway riddled with lies, fake news and conspiracy theories.
Then of course there are the new draconian laws keeping us away from our families and friends.
Seeing our old folks was once an inalienable right. Now it is a crime.
So is revealing your face to strangers.
This is the makings of the kind of dystopian world we used to view on our screens while we scoffed popcorn and sank bottles of a wine, never believing for a moment that this fantasy could ever become a reality.
Well it has .. and none of us really have all the facts we need to have the freedom of making our own minds up. We have to believe what those in power tell us.
All influence of democracy has left our shores. And the question has to be, will it ever come back to us?
One ‘fact’ we do know is that comparable numbers of people die from respiratory problems every year. And yet it is difficult to find official figures to support this.
And what about funerals? Small gatherings in a church yard, no wake down the pub and no tearful reunions at the family home. Life at the moment is a perfunctory hatching, matching and dispatching with very little ceremony.
Is it another fact that we have been driven like lemmings to the precipice of loss of freedom, dignity and a new age of political dictatorship?
Are we actually seeing, in the UK, the real end (for now) of personal freedom while Slovakia, which only found democracy in 1989, appears to discuss this disease of the mind and body openly and mobilises all its powers to end the pandemic of fear and fake news?
It’s been months of bitter bitching bad-tempered barracking but never boring dirty-tricks campaigning but now the US election is drawing to an close.
And the BBC has been fact-checking the candidates all along the trail ..
They say that Donald Trump has been far more active and that there has been a continuation of false claims about the pandemic, his personal record in office and the integrity of postal voting.
The forgetful Mr Biden has been around far less, but also seems to have got a few things wrong – like the president’s name!
Jeremy Corbyn has asked the Labour Party to take him back into the party following his comments on the report on anti-Semitism during his leadership.
He said he was ]’very shocked and disappointed’ after the party said he would have the whip removed.
Corbyn said: “I’ve been in the Labour Party all my life. I want to make it very clear. Anti-Semitism has no place whatsoever in our party or our movement.
“I’ve opposed it and racism in all its forms for all my life.”
Well, is he telling the truth?
Were there just a handful of Labourites who acted in an anti-Semitic way in reality has the new Equality and Human Rights Commission long-awaited report got it all wrong?
And is in fact poor old Jezza the real victim?
Talking about the report, which found “specific examples of harassment, discrimination and political interference” and “a lack of leadership”, Mr Corbyn said: “One ant-Semite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.”
But is there a factual basis for his claim?
Well a fact check by Channel 4 went looking for the answers to the following questions… this is their report in full:
Silver screens will flicker on in the long goodnight of entertainment history. But in Moston, Manchester, where I have lived all my life, these ‘stars’ are being extinguished.
The MIP, The Adelphi, The Fourways and the Victory, are all gone for faceless flats and apartments.
The Fourways
We are losing grand elegant Art Deco buildings, electric theatres, screens of dreams, for little boxes of non-entity.
The concrete jungle has become reality.
Why are the powers-that-be allowing this to happen? There has been a sea-change in Manchester in recent years and old Victorian warehouses and tenement blocks in Salford have been turned into luxury – and sometimes affordable – living.
So, why aren’t they protecting the facades and memories of some of the most beautiful buildings in our town?
The Adelphi
The cinema I remember best is the Moston Imperial Palace – the MIP. It started as an Edwardian music hall and around 1916 became a ‘picture house’ catering 925 people.
The last film to be shown there was apparantly The Cruel Sea, starring Jack Hawkins.
Today it is a bustling food market.
But it is not only the history of cinema which is being wiped in this ancient enclave of Manchester … remember Hough Hall?
This sixteenth century mansion was bought by the once-leading cinematic and video artist Roger Barnard.
But soon that too will be lost.
Fahrenheit 451 was a dystopian film. about the burning of books.
And metaphorically speaking that has come true with the closure of so many libraries. Nobody needs books any more, they just download them from that vast emporium in the sky.
Nobody really needs big imposing cinemas any more either – films can be streamed and watched in the insularity of your own home. No need for a grand gathering of a thousand people to share the drama and the visual excesses of From Here to Eternity or The Great Escape.
But isn’t that a loss too? Surely, grand gatherings and shared experiences are part of the roots of stable societies.
***
Do you know, as I look back on the streets of Moston the moonlight serenades me – it glistened on the orderly privet hedges and on the sanctuary of our homes where there were hot coals in the grate, the armchair and the wireless, cocoa.
We’d been to the pictures and it had been exciting – a cowboy which I liked, especially the horses. Gene Autry, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum.
I grew up watching films.
But in l953 the Royal Wedding came along wrought changes that would outshine the silver screen. The rot for the picture house set in.
If you could afford it people got a television. One neighbour in fifty soon had one and the rest poured into those houses to see the wedding.
People still went to the cinema for the big screen though.- cinemas was still the home of technicolour dreams. And stars like Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra shared their talents and their colourful lifestyles.
There became mesmerising giants 10 feet tall!
But the old stars like James Mason and Olivia de Haviland and Clark Gable weren’t burnt out yet.
***
The first cinema to go in Moston was The Victory. ‘It burned down’, was all I was told as a child during World War II. In fact it was bombed by German aircraft. It was a fierce blaze.
Then the MIP turned into an indoor market with its little cafe. Meanwhile the Adelphi turned into a Bingo Hall, with an Art Deco facia.
The old Adelphi was left standing but became a ruin, though it was still identifiable – the big screen ad the posh tiered seats area.
Today the Art Deco frontage still stands, dilapidated of course, and the the DIY firm that took it over has moved. Will anybody ever think of trying to restore at least part of this icon of cinema?
The Adelphi was initially a tin hut named The Empress on Dean Lane around 1914 or a bit later.
I can only imagine the black and white, silent gems accompanied by the emotive, dramatic piano jingle. A new Art Deco building was standing there by l937. This seated 1312. In l962 it went the way of so many. .
The Fourways emerged into our walking distance in 1939, again with a large seating capacity. It’s last film was ‘Live and Let Die’ with Roger Moore in the lead. It was by then1973. It was demolished and turned into a block of flats named Fourways Walk.
How long before the last vestige of old Moston disappears from our cloud of memories?
Slovakia has decided to impose the first round of nationwide testing over the Halloween weekend, a time when families always get together to remember their dead.
Slovaks at this time usually go to cemeteries and fill them up with flowers and lights.
It began in the ninth century, when families left food on the table for the dead.
But this time they will be standing in line before going into state imposed imprisonment in their high-rise city homes.
Life with the dead is safest if it takes place between the hours of 1am and 5am.
One way or the other though Central and Eastern Europeans will do everything they can to make sure the cemeteries will have their other-worldly glow of memory and love.
Otherwise, here too there will be anarchy on the streets not seen in the last thirty years.
But is the Day of the Dead, like Christmas in the UK, facing irreparable damage because of Covid?
Will it just become a day of devilish costumes and trick-or-treating… trik alebo maškrta ..?
Yes, trick or treating already has adopted a name in Slovakia and America’s ghouls and ghosts – in the guise of Bart Simpson and Harry Potter – now appear at the cemetery gates.
The new Covid lock-down is already set to cost Slovakia at least two billion euros – and there could be an added phenomenal fiscal loss over this holiday too.
The market for the cemetery lamps is estimated to be worth several hundred millions. The numbers of lamps bought are huge. An average grave is covered almost entirely in them through the week of All Saints.
Central Europeans also put fresh flowers and artificial wreaths on graves.
So as Brits abroad, what will you be doing for Halloween?
On the plus side, you will be able to watch a box-set without having to answer the door every few minutes to ‘Bart Simpson’.
And at Christmas you will be able to Skype or Zoom your relatives back in the homeland.
But there is no Skype or Zoom connection to the dead.
Meanwhile it looks like a bleak bleak mid-winter in the UK.
And soon the sporadic bits of civil disobedience we’ve been seeing on the streets could become real anarchy.
Yep, millions of people could soon tell Boris and the government to ‘stuff’ its Covid laws where the turkey doesn’t gobble.
Many believed Boris and his crew haven’t a credible plan to slow infections, that they’ve lost control of the virus – and they are no longer following the scientific advice.
And Maureen Eames, aged 83, may be our new aged revolutionary.
“I don’t give a sod,” she said about the new laws “I’m 83. I want to get out and live.”
She was immediately urged to stand as Prime Minister.
And the backlash has forced Welsh leaders to have a rethink over their Soviet-style shopping ban and their bristling border guards.
So, as we face a cold war on the streets this Christmas, could Boris seize the initiative, put the festive season back on the table and boost the British economy with a feast of spend spend spend?
The new ‘Roku kids’ investigate a world that is getting stranger and stranger. Join in the debates, comment in the box below the show…we promise to answer you
The Czech Republic has brought in a curfew in its battle to curb coronavirus.
Health Minister Roman Prymula said measures already in place — closing bars, restaurants, most shops and schools — had failed to bring the infection rate down.
Slovakia too is tightening restrictions with shopping times for different age groups, bar and cafe closures – except for off-sales – and the mass testing of the population. Meanwhile, protests began again across Europe calling on governments to change the second round of lock-down restrictions.
In Italy there was violence in Milan and Turin, as crowds took to the streets as the sun went down.
The new state of emergency in Spain will last for 15 days but the Government plans to ask for a six-month extension, meaning restrictions – including a 11pm to 6am curfew – could stay until May next year.
Conspiracy theories are being viewed as the truth according to the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project, a survey of about 26,000 people in 25 countries.
Among the most widely believed conspiracies is that the death rate from the John Hopkins University tracker has killed 1.1 million people worldwide, has been “deliberately and greatly exaggerated”.
Nearly 60pc of respondents in Nigeria said this was definitely or probably true, along with more than 40pc in Greece, South Africa, Poland and Mexico. About 38pc of Americans, 36pc of Hungarians, 30pc of Italians and 28pc of Germans felt the same.
As the second wave of coronavirus locks down central Europe fears are growing over pressure on already-strained health staff.
Two decades of emigration and historic underfunding are being blamed.
Staffing could become even more critical than equipment shortages across the region.
Medical staff have been leaving central Europe in their thousands since 2004 when their countries joined the EU.
Now Peter Almos, vice-president of the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors, has said the problem is compounded by the fact that doctors in their 40s and 50s, who could train colleagues, are missing from health care services.
And Slovak president, Zuzana Caputova, supported his view by saying many of Slovakia’s doctors now fall in to the older age categories and are vulnerable to Covid-19.
Almos said that many trained doctors ‘leave and don’t come back complaining about the low salaries and poor working conditions at home’.
He said: “At the moment resident doctors make €3 per hour after taxes, or €6 as a specialist. If you work in Tesco in Hungary as a cashier you can earn more.”
Things are a bit different in Slovakia however, where official figures say that physician earn from 1,880 EUR to 8,660 EUR a month.
But Hungary has recently approved a significant pay increase for doctors. People fear, however, there are too many ‘strings’ attached.
According to Eurostat data, Poland has the lowest number of practising physicians per capita in the EU, with 238 per 100,000 inhabitants, while Romania has 304 and Hungary 338.
Slovakia has 352 for every 100,000 inhabitants.
By comparison, just over the imaginary borders Austria has 524 and Germany 431.
Because of the crisis Milan Kubek, head of the Czech Medical Chamber, has asked Czech doctors working abroad to come home.
This plea has gone out to Slovak medics aboard too.
Meanwhile, the number of new confirmed cases over a one day period in Slovakia has reached what the Health Ministry described as a record high with more than 40,800 confirmed and 159 virus-related deaths.
The ministry said this as Slovak authorities ambitiously set out to test almost the entire population for coronavirus.
At the same time most countries are referring to a ‘common map’ that gives an overview of the pandemic.
This map looks at the notification rate – the total number of newly notified COVID-19 cases per 100 000 population in the last 14 days in each region
Data is then compiled and analysed by the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC).
The Common Map works on a traffic light basis.
Sadly, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for coronavirus.
