Indo-UK News and Discussion - April 2013

[surinder]

i think US suffered from no love of india or a particular attachment to dharmic ideas , they just wanted the weak and war-bankrupt france and UK to vacate the colonies so that as the new global hegemon it could take over before the soviets (a nonentity of a naval and trading power vs the US even then) could get their claws in.

in the middle east, US moved in to control the place once the anglo-french duo limped out. they did try to stage a comeback with the suez canal invasion ... but the backlash from the US was severe and they finally went home. the saudis and iranians moved from being british vassals to staunch american all-lies pumped full of high grade arms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Cris ... ion_Revise
Vice President Richard Nixon later explained: "We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser".[284] Beyond that, it was Eisenhower's belief that if the United States were seen to acquiesce in the attack on Egypt, that the resulting backlash in the Arab world might win the Arabs over to the Soviet Union

Very true. What is not important is not whether the US motive was dharmic and in love with India, but that they were a factor and how big of a factor. The US was not a world power at that point, but had done considerable preparation for taking on that role. FDR made it clear to Churchill that he wasn't letting his boys die to preserve the colonial setup. Churchil and UK were furious, but there was little else to do for UK on the face of German assault. UK and the Congress cohorts don't want to advertise this because it points to the UK's "bebas halat" at that point ... easier for UK to pretend that it gave independence, and easier for Congress to pretend that they are the one who got independence.

[surinder]

Does anyone know if Scottish people played a big role in Indian colonization and rule? I heard that Scots made a lot of money and the Royal Bank of Scotland was involved in the exploitation of India.

[sriram v]

Does anyone know if Scottish people played a big role in Indian colonization and rule? I heard that Scots made a lot of money and the Royal Bank of Scotland was involved in the exploitation of India.

This is what a white mughal Scott has to say on this subject:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... itain.html

Hew believed that on its own Scotland would have little influence on the councils that then governed the world; but attached to the rest of Britain, he believed passionately that it would benefit from a place at the top table, gain employment for its people and free it from conflict and competition with its powerful southern neighbour.

Hew’s gamble paid off. The empire Scotland created in alliance with England may have had deeply questionable effects for the rest of the world – dynamiting the Summer Palace outside Beijing, the grand bazaar in Kabul, the pavilions of Mandalay, and much of the Red Fort in Delhi (near which I write this), as well as many other of the world’s pre-colonial wonders, too – but there is no question it hugely enriched Scotland and turned it from one of the poorest into one of the world’s most prosperous nations.

Where before the abbeys and churches of the Border country I grew up in were burned on an almost annual basis by marauding English armies, now it was the Scots’ Borderers, as well as the Highland Regiments, who were marauding around Lucknow and Cawnpore. This may not have been a very moral swap, but the plunder and opportunities of empire turned my family’s homeland from the Poor Man of Europe into the heartland of the Industrial Revolution, the shipbuilding giant of the world and gave Scots the opportunity to prosper massively from running and administering great swathes of the world.

[Virupaksha]

The red lotus by Parag Tope mentions during 1857 it was the scottish/irish troops which were the most brutal.

[surinder]

So it was leveraged colonialism. (Like leveraged take overs).

They used Scots to colonize India. Indians to conquer Afghanistan. Indians to attack China and provide men/material for Africa and Carribean. Then Indians again to fight in WW2. Shashi is right that by offering India as an opportunity to Scots, the union was preserved and now that India is not there to exploit, the bonds are weakening.

[Rahul M]

Regarding reasons for UK leaving India. One reason ignored is the US contribution to India's independence. US president FDR made it a precondition to join WW2 that UK will leave the colonies. Churchill fretted and fumed, but he needed the US badly. So badly that he asked his daughter-in-law to have an affair with an American to influence FDR. After WW2, mass decolonization happened due to US. For a short period of time, Netherlands refused to leave Indonesia, prompting US to withold Marshall aid. Without Marshall aid, they were bankcorrupt. UK's b@11s squeezed to leave. Other reasons are valid too, but this is a reason Congress/Nehru who hated the US did not want us to know.

if that was the reason it would be hard to explain continued colonization by UK of malaysia and kenya, to name just two, long after WW2.

[surinder]

The pre-condition of decolonization for entering WWII and subsequent Marshall aid is indeed well-recorded. FDR's son has detailed conversations that FDR and Churchill had before the US committed to come to UK aid. US knew that dismantling the UK empire is necessary for US to rise. Churchill was mad as hell. FDR told him bluntly that this obsolete economic model (empire stuff) was over. Churchill fumed at that suggestion. (And I am afraid that Congress leaders like JLN, MKG, could not say that blunt truth to Churchill. That is slavery.)

Even before independence US has had representatives in India monitoring UK's rule. Some of the British-INC negotiations during WW2 were done with an eye on keep US public opinion on their side.

[Rahul M]

pre WW2, yes. post that I am not sure US was equally willing to force UK to leave its colonies, fearing communism would take over. heck, it went to war in support of colonialism in vietnam !

[surinder]

Vietnam war was not in support of European colonialism. It was the fear of domino effect collapse of regimes when Communism marches on.

[RoyG]

Vietnam war was not in support of European colonialism. It was the fear of domino effect collapse of regimes when Communism marches on.

The day that Standard oil finished mapping the ocean floor for oil, was the day that the US pulled out.

They won't teach you that in school.

[Singha]

>> The US was not a world power at that point

i believe the US had become the largest navy and largest economy around 1925. the chaos of ww2 only must have made the gap in production and innovation wider, apart from having a even bigger navy and air force. they were not as export dependent as euro countries due to huge domestic market and free play over the western hemisphere to pull in resources from N and S america.

its true they did not have colonies except philipines but in GDP terms were already a superpower.

the ruins of the anglo-french colonies were where they moved in and put their own regimes in charge in a huge scale. and so it persists to this day.

[panduranghari]

US economy was the most powerful in 1860. Only they did not have open aspirations of world domination until the EUropean war of 1914 started. By some estimates, US was growing at 15% in the 50 years between 1860 - 1900.

[Virupaksha]

US economy was the most powerful in 1860. Only they did not have open aspirations of world domination until the EUropean war of 1914 started. By some estimates, US was growing at 15% in the 50 years between 1860 - 1900.

that was the time of start of monroe doctrine, basically become the sole superpower in their near abroad. This domination of american continent was completed by 1900 when they sent the hundred ship around the world around 1904.

[Philip]

Need for a new td.

Tony B.LIar,the villain of the Iraq War has made 60M GBP since demitting office,in so-called lectures around the world and directorships on the boards of plum western MNCs. BLiar is now reportedly secretly negotiating a deal with Hamas! Needless to say if successful,he will get another fat commission.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/312743-chilc ... raq-blair/

Tony Blair holds up Iraq inquiry report over tough criticism?
John Wight

John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio.

18 Aug, 2015 18:45

The scandal surrounding the war in Iraq, unleashed by the US in 2003 with the support of its UK ally, has never gone away. In the UK it has been compounded by an inordinate delay in the publication of the findings of the official inquiry into the war.
TrendsIraq carnage

Chaired by retired civil servant, Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry was set up in 2009 by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Its overriding aim upon inception was to answer, once and for all, the lingering questions over Britain’s involvement in what undoubtedly qualifies as one of the most disastrous wars in which the country has ever been involved.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose name will forever be inextricably linked to this war and its aftermath, took the decision to follow his US counterpart, George W Bush, to Baghdad on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be false, claiming that Saddam had WMD and posed a clear and present danger to his neighbors and the stability of the region. Indeed, many believe that the intelligence used to justify the war was not only false it was fabricated, concocted to conceal the war’s real objective – namely regime change and seizing control of Iraq’s massive oil reserves.

Despite not being given the legal powers to either compel witnesses to appear in front of the inquiry or recommend legal prosecutions in instances where the inquiry adjudged the evidence justified them, Chilcot questioned dozens of people over the two years in which it sat from 2009-2011. Everyone from Tony Blair to the most junior civil servant during his government was questioned during the inquiries deliberations, along with senior military personnel and assorted functionaries.

Considering that this phase of the inquiry ended four years ago, the lack of a final report has brought the entire process – at a cost to the British taxpayer of millions of pounds and counting – into disrepute. Worse, it has completely destroyed any confidence the process may once have enjoyed from the British public over the determination and ability of Sir John Chilcot and his team to uncover the truth.

The reason cited by Chilcot - this former top government functionary civil and later privy counselor - for the inordinate delay in completing his deliberations has been the delay in gathering the responses from those witnesses who have come in for criticism in his report. Known as the Maxwellization process, it enshrines the right of witnesses who have been criticized in an official report to receive advance notice in order to allow them to rebut the criticism prior to the report being published.

The problem is that Sir John Chilcot failed to set a time limit on this process, with the result that it has allowed witnesses to draw the process out to the point where it has become a national scandal. In this regard, there is a strong and growing consensus that Tony Blair is the witness primarily responsible for the ensuing delay, doing so in response to the severe criticism that is thought to be in the report of his role and decision to take the country to war.
John Chilcot © Luke MacGregor
John Chilcot © Luke MacGregor / Reuters

No one will be surprised here, what with Blair’s zeal in involving the UK in military interventions around the world during his time as prime minister only matched by his arrogant disregard for the human suffering involved. When, during his appearance at the inquiry, for example, he was offered the opportunity by Chilcot to apologize for the loss of life incurred during and as a result of the war, Blair refused.

Just to be clear, the number of Iraqis killed, injured, or whose lives were devastated either during the war, the occupation that followed, and up to the present day due to the sectarian violence and terrorism that is a daily occurrence across most of the country, is of biblical magnitude. Add to this the 179 British soldiers killed and a further 6,000 injured, many of those seriously, and you don’t have to be a genius to understand why Blair is so loathed.

Indeed, pushing the low esteem in which the former British prime minister is held even lower is the fact that since leaving political office, Blair has gone on to amass a mountain of money in return for his services as a public speaker and political advisor and consultant to assorted oil companies, international banks, and various governments - some of them of them of the decidedly unsavory kind.

He has turned into a veritable Crassus, driven by money with scant regard for where or how he gets his hands on it.

Meanwhile, as he flies around the world on a luxury private jet, the families of some of the British soldiers killed in Iraq have gone as far as threatening legal action if the Chilcot report resulting from the inquiry into the war in Iraq is not published by the end of 2015. Just think about that – people whose sons, husbands, and brothers were killed after being sent by Tony Blair to Iraq to fight a war that many – including former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan - believe was unleashed in violation of international law, have been forced to resort to the courts in order to force the publication of an inquiry into the war that they believe is being delayed by the man responsible for it.

The dictum that justice delayed is justice denied is accurate when it comes to Iraq. The chaos and carnage resulting from this disastrous war and occupation will follow Tony Blair to the grave. However a growing number around the world believe that it should also follow him into the dock at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

[A_Gupta]

Theodore Dalrymple. If this is UK, it is done for.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_2_tina-nash.html

http://www.city-journal.org/2015/eon0806td.html

[sanjaykumar]

Tell me where is idiocy bred,

Or in the heart or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply.


Well Dalrymple. Perhaps it's bred in state neglect or rather sponsorship of the underclass, where the privileged are impervious to censure as they bugger little boys and the poor are judged for their despair. How dare they despair?

[disha]

Theodore Dalrymple. If this is UK, it is done for.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_2_tina-nash.html

http://www.city-journal.org/2015/eon0806td.html

Looks like the above somehow wiggled out of Leslie Udwin and Darkha Butt's censors!

[Philip]

How the Brit establishment described and kept watch on a Nobel laureate for 18 year.What a gutsy woman who declined the baubles of privilege.

'A subversive brothel keeper and Communist': How Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing was kept under MI5 observation for 18 years

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 64562.html

Doris Lessing: Acclaimed novelist was kept under MI5 observation for 18 years, newly released papers show

Chief concerns were the frequent visits by 'persons of various nationalities' and the fact that its female resident was a 'known Communist'

Cahal Milmo
Friday 21 August 2015

Early in 1956, an officer from Scotland Yard’s Special Branch voiced his suspicions that a flat in Kensington was being used for “immoral purposes”. Chief among his grounds for concern were frequent visits by “persons of various nationalities” and the fact that its female resident was a “known Communist”.

The potential fifth columnist running an apparent house of ill repute was in fact one Doris Lessing, by then already a novelist of standing, and the “Americans, Chinese, Indians and negroes” visiting her home were attending to discuss the finer points of left-leaning literature and Marxist politics.

The allegation of brothel keeping, which Scotland Yard later begrudgingly admitted was baseless, was just one episode in a near 20-year operation by MI5 and British intelligence to keep Lessing, one of Britain’s most influential novelists who became the oldest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, under surveillance as a suspected subversive.

Documents released on 21 August at the National Archives in Kew, west London, reveal how the novelist, who spent her formative years in Southern Rhodesia, was monitored and her mail intercepted for at least 18 years after she was adjudged to have formed a “deep hatred” of apartheid-style policies in the British colony and become a Communist sympathiser.

Lessing was one of hundreds of leftwing academics and intellectuals whose Cold War contacts with the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) brought them to the attention of MI5, which had thoroughly bugged the party’s London headquarters, as well as phone boxes in the surrounding area to monitor the calls of “surveillance-aware” activists.

But the security services both in Britain and its remaining colonial possessions seem to have considered Lessing a particular threat, closely monitoring her travels to locations from Czechoslovakia to southern Africa, where a tip-off from London of her visit resulted in her being banned for many years from apartheid-era South Africa.

Doris Lessing continued to write until 2008, leaving behind almost 30 novels

One MI5 source told his controllers that the novelist should be considered as “an attractive, forceful, dangerous woman - ruthless… and not prepared to do anything against any form of Communism”.

The scrutiny of the writer began in 1944 when British colonial intelligence officers complained about a pro-Communist book club run in Rhodesia by Lessing and her second husband, Gottfried Lessing, a Jewish refugee. One memo to London said: “The general tone of the club is reported to be very left, and it is stated that most topics of discussion there usually end up in anti-British, anti-capital and anti-imperialist vapourings.”

The writer, who came to Britain in 1949, published her first book, The Grass Is Singing, in 1950 and established herself as a powerful voice on the iniquities of colonialism. She went on to become a multi award-winning author, respected for her firebrand views on inequality and blunt frankness (she called her winning of the Nobel Prize a “bloody disaster” because it stopped her writing).

But MI5 viewed her anti-racist views and her association with various literary and political groups dedicated to building links with the Soviet Union with deep suspicion. One 1951 report in her Security Service personal file said: “Doris Lessing has been described as certainly pro-Communist although it is doubtful if she is a party member. Her Rhodesian background has brought out in her a deep hatred of the colour bar which has now reached the point of fanaticism. In this way her Communist sympathies have been increased.”

A 17-day visit by Lessing to Czechoslovakia and Russia as a delegate of the Authors for World Peace movement in 1951 was watched closely by the Security Service, which arranged for customs officers to search the belongings of those on the tour once they had returned from behind the Iron Curtain.

But the documents suggest it was her continuing links with southern Africa which excited the most interest. When she departed on a tour of Rhodesia and South Africa in 1956 with illustrator Paul Hogarth, a CPGB member who worked for Graham Greene and John Betjeman, their every move was followed.

After a day of following the pair in their borrowed Ford Consul, one intelligence report stated: “They were taking a great deal of evasive action and abnormal security precautions to shake off surveillance.”

Lessing, who was expelled from South Africa during the trip after an alert to the apartheid country’s police force from London, was also followed onto a flight back to Britain and observed to be writing in a large black notebook which her tail considered suspicious because the author covered what she had written each time someone came past.

An attempt to find the notebook in her luggage upon her return to London airport was abandoned because of fears it would alert Lessing to MI5’s scrutiny.

While the author, who died in 2013 aged 94, maintained her radical politics throughout her life, her MI5 file reveals nothing to suggest she was an active threat to national security. She publicly distanced herself from the CPGB and the Soviet Union in the wake of the brutal quashing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Along with other Marxist intellectuals, including the historian Eric Hobsbawm, Lessing wrote an open letter criticising the CPGB for its “hopeless and gutless” failure to condemn the Soviet bloodbath in Budapest.

MI5, which continued to monitor the novelist and open her mail until at least 1962, nonetheless remained unconvinced that Lessing had forsaken all revolutionary ambitions.

One source was reported as saying in 1958 that he was unconvinced that she had “broken completely with the Communist Party”, adding she “would be prepared to string along if the Party courted her”.

For her part, the novelist maintained a vigorous disdain for the British state even when it eventually decided to honour her. She declined a damehood in 1992 on the basis that the British Empire in whose name it was offered no longer existed. She eventually accepted the offer of being made a Companion of Honour on the basis it meant “you’re not called anything”.

[A_Gupta]

If you read Hindi, see this BBC Hindi article attacking Modi. I did not know that they were allowed to be so partisan.
http://www.bbc.com/hindi/india/2015/08/ ... ow_twitter

[eklavya]

The BBC is quite partisan. Check out this piece of garbage:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-33783510

This journalist and most of his colleagues unfailingly writes articles about India that are neither informative, accurate or entertaining.

It simply isn't worth paying any attention to the BBC for news about India.

As for Zubair Ahmed, who wrote the article you have linked above, check out his (frankly appalling) LinkedIn page:

https://in.linkedin.com/pub/zubair-ahmed/13/4b5/807

My role is to cover all Indian political stories with a global perspective. I am called upon to explain political trends, such as PM Narendra Modi’s frequent foreign trips to the rise of right wing Hindu forces under his rule. I anchor live chat with big political personalities on social media. My remit is to cover politics, but I look at trends to explain the Indian society which is on the cusp of change. My responsibilities include filing stories for wider BBC and across platforms.

Look who he is giving a platform to below:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kvmxn9qpNaI

In short, he is scum.

[arshyam]

Fixed that for you saar. Hope you don't mind

It simply isn't worth paying any attention to the BBC for news about India.

Source: Russia Today: Vladimir Putin's On-Air Media Machine - TIME.com (another magazine with similar reach, but the statistic is interesting, nevertheless.

[panduranghari]

Eklavya,
Do you pay the £145 per annum BBC license fee? If you do, then you cannot complain that they are scum. Because by paying the fee you are indirectly subsidising the scum and allowing them to spout their venom. BBC has and still depends on being subsidised. Stop paying the fee and call them out. Until then, its hypocritical. BBC has only 2 jobs - push propaganda (since 1922) and abuse women/children. I chose not to help them in doing these 2 jobs.

[eklavya]

^^^^
Do you watch TV at all? Or would you rather pay the £1,000 fine rather than the £145.50 licence fee? Or maybe you or a family member are over 75 years old.

[vinod]

You cannot avoid tv license if you have a tv. When I moved house ,disposed off my old tv and before I bought a tv an inspector came to check that I really didn't have it.

I would love to get rid of this unwanted tax being paid for a expensive inefficient media like bbc. I rarely watch it or read articles, there are so much better choices out there.

[panduranghari]

^^^^
Do you watch TV at all? Or would you rather pay the £1,000 fine rather than the £145.50 licence fee? Or maybe you or a family member are over 75 years old.

I do watch Netflix and Youtube on my TV. And I sent a letter to TV license people to stop threatening me with their letters of intended prosecution. In the letter to them, I also took away their implied right of access. I also threatened them with litigation for constant harassment. They sent me a letter telling me they wont trouble me anymore. They did 'request' me to tell them if I chose to watch BBC in the future. Here is the important bit- watch BBC. they do not care if you watch ITV or Channel 4 or RT or Al Jazeera. Only BBC programming.

So there you have your answer.

Here is more information.

http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Withholding ... access.htm

[JE Menon]

^^panduranghari, do you have these letters back and forth, as well as their final request about BBC? Would make an interesting micro-case study...

[panduranghari]

Yes JEM. Let me look through the paperwork. I do think I have kept them. But I will retrieve them over the weekend.

[srin]

You cannot avoid tv license if you have a tv. When I moved house ,disposed off my old tv and before I bought a tv an inspector came to check that I really didn't have it.

I would love to get rid of this unwanted tax being paid for a expensive inefficient media like bbc. I rarely watch it or read articles, there are so much better choices out there.

You need a tv license ?

[Nandu]

You need a tv license ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televisio ... ed_Kingdom

[Neela]

You cannot avoid tv license if you have a tv. When I moved house ,disposed off my old tv and before I bought a tv an inspector came to check that I really didn't have it.

I would love to get rid of this unwanted tax being paid for a expensive inefficient media like bbc. I rarely watch it or read articles, there are so much better choices out there.

You need a tv license ?

Yes sir. Common all over Eurupe!
Vaterland charges Eur 54 / Qtr for channels that also show ads.

[srin]

I wonder where is the license raj - here there is no need to have tv license, no need to maintain the lawn / garden ...
You know - we always get beaten up on "ease of doing business". We should create a "ease of living free" index ... we're more laissez faire system than is usually credited.

[JE Menon]

^^Yup... the EU is so regulated, you sometimes wonder if the commies did actually win the cold war...

[Lisa]

^^^^
Do you watch TV at all? Or would you rather pay the £1,000 fine rather than the £145.50 licence fee? Or maybe you or a family member are over 75 years old.

I do watch Netflix and Youtube on my TV. And I sent a letter to TV license people to stop threatening me with their letters of intended prosecution. In the letter to them, I also took away their implied right of access. I also threatened them with litigation for constant harassment. They sent me a letter telling me they wont trouble me anymore. They did 'request' me to tell them if I chose to watch BBC in the future. Here is the important bit- watch BBC. they do not care if you watch ITV or Channel 4 or RT or Al Jazeera. Only BBC programming.

So there you have your answer.

Here is more information.

http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Withholding ... access.htm

Panduranghariji

You may be wrong. Licence fee is payable for watching ANY live TV. The deed can include logging in, for example, to Times Of India where the feed goes live with a feed from the Newshour! It may be a PC but the fee becomes applicable. Read the law again and you will see what I am saying.

Just for your information, from Wiki,

"In the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies, any household watching or recording live television transmissions as they are being broadcast (terrestrial, satellite, cable, or internet) is required to hold a television licence."

[panduranghari]

Could be. I do not watch any of the tripe anyway. Seems I am not missing out anyway. Indian news channels seem to be identical. BRF gives me all the news with reasonable analysis. Who needs terrestrial TV then...as I am a spendthrift anyway.

[JE Menon]

Yes JEM. Let me look through the paperwork. I do think I have kept them. But I will retrieve them over the weekend.

Excellent, because once we have the scans of that, it will be clear evidence that the BBC is sponsored by the government and subsidised by it, and nurtured by it... Impropagandugiri.

[vinod]

Got this link by facebook for Modi's event at Wembley on Nov 13th.
http://www.modiexpress.uk/

[rsingh]

[
You need a tv license ?
Yes sir. Common all over Eurupe!
Vaterland charges Eur 54 / Qtr for channels that also show ads.

Nop. In Belgium it is not. If you have Tv or radio at business site/office then there is a tax of 54 Euros. Private home are exempted from such tax. Instead govt sponsored many computer literacy programmes and encouraged people to go for smart TVs. BBC is without advertisements and that is why uk residents have to pay to watch.

[Multatuli]

Mother Arrested for Buying Daughter 12 Bags of Cocaine for Her 18th Birthday

Any good parent knows the proper amount of cocaine to give their child on his or her 18th birthday, a most deserving of occasions. Kicking off the evening with £300 ($461.03) worth of the great white beast is generally regarded as a bit on the excessive side, far above the recommended 18th birthday cocaine budget of $100.

Nicola Austen would like the world to know that she most assuredly begs to differ. Not only did she purchase the $461 in cocaine, she also divided up the birthday haul in 12 different "wraps" spread across "sections of her living room." According to esteemed literary journal the Daily Mail, the drugs were discovered during a raid at Austen's three-bedroom home in the Kent area near London.

"It's all been blown out of proportion," Austen reportedly told local journalists. "I've had enough. It isn't exactly the scoop of the century, is it? It was a party!" Austen miraculously avoided jail time by proving that her absence would have an "adverse" impact on her family due to the age of her son, as opposed to the totally positive impact that jailed parents usually has on children and other family members.

http://news.yahoo.com/mother-arrested-b ... 31962.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... l-facebook

[member_29172]

Better than a car to be honest, you drive a car at 100kmph, you feel ecstatic for a moment. You snort the good white glucon-d for the entire year and you'd probably be ecstatic for life.

[Haresh]

The truth hurt's

Check out the comments

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... eaked.html