Robins and dunnocks have been usurped in the garden by woodpigeons which are now only outnumbered in Britain’s gardens by blackbirds and blue tits.

Woodpigeons, with an estimated three million pairs, have continued to increase their garden populations thanks to a willingness of householders to put out seeds and other food.

They are now the third most common visitor to gardens with the dunnocks, last year’s third-placed bird, falling to fifth and robins staying in fourth.

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The climate change expert Mark Lynas has been scorned by eco-colleagues for daring to speak up for atomic power

I know I should be furious. The EDF takeover of British Energy means that four nuclear power stations could now be built around the UK, the first nuclear new build in a generation. As a long-standing Green party member, one who chops his own wood, grows his own leeks, keeps chickens and puts the kids in washable nappies, antinuclear indignation should spring easily to my lips.

After all, energy is something I care about. The last time I checked my carbon budget, I came in at a fifth of the national average. I rarely fly, even when booked to address faraway audiences about my personal obsession, climate change – a subject I’ve covered in three books. Whenever the word “nuclear” comes up at my talks, a shudder runs through the room. Because everyone knows that real environmentalists loathe nuclear power. It is just evil. Full stop.

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Western do-gooders are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture, according to Britain’s former chief scientist.

Anti-science attitudes among aid agencies, poverty campaigners and green activists are denying the continent access to technology that could improve millions of lives, Professor Sir David King will say today.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods, including GM crops, in favour of indigenous and organic approaches that cannot deliver the continent’s much needed “green revolution”, he believes.

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A novelist yesterday urged the British people to stand by the principle of free speech to ensure that her book about the Prophet Mohammed was published here.

U.S. writer Sherry Jones spoke out after the London home of her publisher Martin Rynja was firebombed.

Mr Rynja had agreed to go ahead with Miss Jones’s book in Britain after a major publishing house pulled out of the deal.

‘You have to ask whether a thug with a gun or petrol bomb should be allowed to censor the people of Great Britain,’ Miss Jones, 47, said at her home in Spokane, Washington state.

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Thousands of Britons leave our shores every year for a new life abroad, official figures show.
But although 75,000 ‘white British’ men and women are moving away, the population is still rising because of an influx of ethnic minority groups.
According to Government estimates, the established white population of England dropped by nearly 250,000 between 2002 and 2006.

Official figures have previously indicated that about 50,000 Britons head for Australia each year and about 30,000 for New Zealand. Last year, a record 400,000 left the country to live abroad for at least 12 months.

Yesterday’s estimates, which show how each ethnic group grew or diminished between 2005 and 2006, provide further evidence of so-called white flight’.

The white British population went down by 70,400 over the year through emigration. And the white Irish population fell by 4,600 because of emigration, bringing the total decline in the existing white population to 75,000.

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A £13MILLION scheme to introduce free prescriptions in Northern Ireland was attacked yesterday as unfair for English patients.

Health ministers in Ulster revealed charges for medicines for all illnesses will be scrapped following similar moves in Scotland and Wales.

But the Patients’ Association condemned the Government’s decision to exclude England from the trend towards free prescriptions.

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Note for non UK readers: Although the article talks about ‘free’ prescriptions, all UK employees fund the NHS through National Insurance which is taken directly from their wages.

 CREMATION pit containing a human jaw bone mixed with animal bones is one of a treasure trove of finds currently coming to light in an archaeological dig in the Isles.

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NEARLY 3,000 YEARS after the death of the Greek poet Homer, his epic tales of the war for Troy and its aftermath remain deeply woven into the fabric of our culture. These stories of pride and rage, massacre and homecoming have been translated and republished over millennia. Even people who have never read a word of “The Iliad” or “The Odyssey” know the phrases they have bequeathed to us - the Trojan horse, the Achilles heel, the face that launched a thousand ships.

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Back in the day, kids dressed up like monsters, super heroes, or the Hulk… now they dress up like minions of the NWO as they go door to door and trick or treat.

I guess it’s all part of getting the little ones accustomed to the police state, now barreling down on us like a runaway freight train. It’s also a good way to prepare them for the jobs of the future.

I didn’t see a prison guard uniform, although there is one for a prisoner.

Maybe next year…

A Viking long house education centre has been rebuilt by retail staff after it was targeted by arsonists.

The large wooden purpose-built hut used by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust in Penwortham was damaged by vandals who set fire to it last year.

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