Tom Ball
@tomfball
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I worked as a teacher for a month at a school run by conspiracists who believed they were battling a sinister plot against humanity. The children were taught that crystals could cure them of illnesses and that Bill Gates was going to force them to eat insects.
Here’s the story:
If schools like Eton and Winchester were established to educate the future administrators of state, Universallkidz was set up with the very opposite purpose.
Tap below to see what our undercover reporter saw
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In Boohoo's warehouse in Burnley, staff refer to themselves as "slaves".
I spent a month working undercover there and by the end felt utterly drained and demoralised. With
@billykenber
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“The better we do in exposing the criminality of the Russian state, the harsher the consequences are for Alexei. But this is our job. We need to show that imprisoning Alexei does not solve the problem for them.”
My interview with
@pevchikh
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My story in
@thetimes
this weekend. If ever there is an example as to why Ofsted needs greater powers to investigate and shut down suspected illegal schools – this is it.
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Among those feared to have died in the channel crossing last week were Kazhal, Hadia, Mubin and Hasti.
I'd met them the week before in the camps. Despite having very little, they offered me tea and pringles. They were kind and dignified people.
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The pandemic created a network of conspiracists. Now bereft of a mass vaccine drive to rail against, they have turned their attention to campaigning against a drag queen reading tour, again using the warped pretext of "saving the children".
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@billykenber
Before starting work at Boohoo I was given two pieces of advice by the manager who interviewed me for the job: wear thick socks to stop your feet from blistering and don’t wear a watch, because it will only make the time pass slower.
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The phrase “we’re not robots, you know” was one that I heard often. It spoke to the lack of dignity that Boohoo showed towards people working at the bottom rung of their company, who — in a town where jobs can be hard to come by — had little choice but to carry on despite it all
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As the song goes, Leeds got knocked down but it got up again. After missing out on the European Capital of Culture due to Brexit, the city is hosting a year of culture anyway.
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New: Newcastle council has voted to de-twin from a Chinese city after
@j_smithfinley
became the first British academic to be sanctioned by Beijing.
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Ahead of seeing Donald Rayfield tonight
@Pushkin_House
I've done a review of his Kolyma Tales translation. The most relentlessly miserable book I've ever read - also pretty brilliant
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At 18, Nuchem could not speak English. Nor could he have told you who the prime minister was or recited his times tables.
At 23, he left behind his arranged marriage and two children, and started life again from scratch.
My piece in
@thetimes
mag:
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I spoke to human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin about his correspondence with whistleblowers inside the FSB. He said support for the regime was waning among officers who complain they will no longer be able to "take their kids to Disneyland"
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Following on from
@DrBlacklock
's brilliant investigation in
@The_Fence_Mag
, we got hold of figures that show that since Martin’s arrest in 2015, the MoD has paid the school over £60mn, and more than 17mn since his conviction in 2021
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If you go and watch the Favourite, read this old
@LRB
piece on Sarah Churchill first. It's great.
'Her lesbianism is unproven mainly because she derived more pleasure from her partners’ frustration than from her own fulfilment.'
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Despite hundreds of hours of evidence during the ten-month trial, the unanswered question that remains is why Lucy Letby committed her horrendous crimes.
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Very sad to hear about Hilary Mantel. I once wrote to her asking who she would like to see commemorated as a statue and she responded with a far more thoughtful answer than my lacklustre question deserved. “Why have statues at all? Isn’t it juvenile, to make men into gods?
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GenderGP, which has vowed to defy the NHS directive banning puberty blockers for children, accepted a £20,000 donation from a “sugar daddy” who paid a YouTuber thousands of pounds to behave like a submissive girl.
Exclusive in today’s
@thetimes
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The mother of the little boy who was photographed standing by her grave was called Marina Naumets.
Five days before the invasion she wrote him a poem on his sixth birthday. "My golden ray of sunlight/ May you be happy all your life!”
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After their 14-year-old son was killed in a missile blast, Arseniy Kalabin’s parents and aunt had to carry his body through a freezing river. Driving back to Kyiv for the burial, their car was attacked and his aunt was shot dead.
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As Extinction Rebellion et al take to the streets this weekend, I interviewed Roger Hallam, the movement’s co-founder, for a profile in
@thetimes
mag. After a bit of a rocky start, we had a long and interesting chat.
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In our podcast today, I discussed the investigation and the people behind Universallkidz with
@ManveenRana
. Produced by
@taryn_ruth13
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Worrying new levels of radicalisation among antivaxxers. A group called Alpha Men Assemble has been running combat training sessions for hundreds of activists around the country. In
@thetimes
today.
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I have been called many things, but a "depraved right wing post modernist" is a first
This is an appalling article as you would predict from the heartlands of depraved right wing post modernism. But... keeping buggering on as a famous conservative realist once put it. (There is a real world out there as they will soon find out)
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The Schools Bill was set to close these loopholes, enabling Ofsted to crack down on illegal schools, but it was scrapped last month by the government over a dispute within the Tory party about a section of the bill concerning academies.
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Ukraine is stirring memories of Georgia's own invasion by Russia. My report from the occupation line with South Ossetia
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Was with the 21st mechanised brigade on Ukraine's eastern front this week where commanders say they are already beginning to feel the squeeze on munitions since the Israel-Hamas conflict began.
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Alex Ralls kept a white rabbit that he walked on a leash, and carried an umbrella with LED lights in it. One former teacher told us: “He looked like the kiddycatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. No one was surprised when came out.”
w/
@DrBlacklock
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What was once a migration route operated by migrants themselves is now big business for organised crime groups. As more criminals look to profit from the situation they are increasingly turning violent, migrants in Calais told us. My report in
@thetimes
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Hope Sussex was founded last year by Sadie Single and her husband Matthew both former members of the BNP. Before joining the BNP, Sadie had lived in Australia where she was linked to a neo-Nazi group, according to Hope not Hate. She denies this.
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“Kadyrov’s position has seriously deteriorated in the past few months because of the hate Chechen people have for him and his actions in Ukraine. This is not their war."
My interview with Akhmed Zakayev, leader of the Chechen government in exile.
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As much as Lukashenko likes to stoke fears of a Russian invasion, the Belarusians I met were genuinely worried and the mood in Minsk was nervous. Here's the article I wrote for
@newrepublic
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Last year, Ofsted sent inspectors from its illegal schools team to visit Hope Sussex, but they were stopped at the perimeter by two “obstructive and uncooperative” members of staff. The regulator does not have the power though to force its way onto premises.
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If Beth Mead scores the winning goal tonight, there'll be free shots all round at her local, The Brown Cow in Hinderwell.
With
@char_wace
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DPD's one-hour delivery window is great for customers but it comes at a cost. I spoke to 20 drivers who said they were breaking road laws on a daily basis in order to hit targets – putting their own safety, and that of the public, at risk.
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"This is like the Marxists' version of 'Football's Coming Home'". My piece on Corbyn and the far left in this week's
@spectator
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Tvorchi had to contend with blackouts and air raid sirens while recording their Eurovision song, Heart of Steel. I spoke to the uni mates hoping to bring it home for Ukraine a second year running.
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When Awaab Ishak died in 2020 from prolonged exposure to mould, spending on repairs by the housing association that owned his flat had halved in four years. Meanwhile, the salaries of its senior executives had grown rapidly. Story with
@Effy_Yeomans
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In History lessons, children are taught conspiracies such as the claim US government knew in advance of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in 2001.
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@Tomotelli
@FCOtravel
Hi Tom, I'm a journalist from The Times. Could we have a chat about this? 07907828096 / tom.ball
@the
-times.co.uk
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Graham Phillips, the British civil servant-turned filmmaker, is back in Ukraine promoting Kremlin propaganda after being expelled from the country in 2014 on suspicion of being a Russian spy. In a recent video, he claimed the Bucha massacre was "logically inconsistent".
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I went to Kosmach, a beautiful village in Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains, where Russian disinformation helped to spark a riot.
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The couple, who have four children, re-emerged during the pandemic as prominent Covid-denial activists. During an anti-lockdown march in London in August 2021, Sadie was filmed fighting with police and yanking the ponytail of a female officer.
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With the walls tumbling down all around us, have a slice of this schadenfreude to lift your mood - the time tried and failed spectacularly at stand-up (in the
@spectator
mag this week)
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I love John Banville but I'm not sure he loves me. Got the impression with his latest novel that he would rather the reader wasn't there at all
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Since last summer when Chris Pincher, Tamworth's MP, was accused of groping two men there has been a mordant epitaph doing the rounds among politically minded locals: “The Conservative Party was born in Tamworth in 1834. It died in Tamworth in 2022.”
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I spoke to
@Tsihanouskaya
ahead of her speech at Labour party conference in Liverpool today.
“The chair is shaking beneath Lukashenko and we have to take this opportunity to pressure more."
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"They represent a lie about history - that there’s a moment when you can freeze it, when you can set judgement in stone. If we must have heroes and saints it’s better to commemorate them through stories, which are open to revision, than through street furniture.”
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Sling out your Walkmans everyone
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@georgegrylls
@marcbennetts1
Hated it. No surprise given these horrible huge feet they gave him
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Rusich mercenaries have arrived in Ukraine and are heading for Kharkiv. The group are led by Alexei Milchakov, a man who once said he "gets high off the smell of burning human flesh".
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Thrilled for Liverpool. Thrilled also to get a mention on the inimitable Wombats into The Times news pages.
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She was 34 and is believed to have died from a heart attack while hiding in the basement of their home in Bucha.
Story in the
@thetimes
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In the past six months at least five people — all far-right extremists — have been jailed for charges relating to 3D-printed guns. In the three years before then only six people were convicted. Thanks to
@rajanbasra
for his comments
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@igorsushko
@thetimes
@igorsushko
you'll be pleased to hear none of your content is behind our paywall - I translated it myself
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I visited a pow camp in western Ukraine this week and met with Russian prisoners. Roughly a third are criminals who were offered early release in exchange for heading to the frontlines to serve as cannon fodder.
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@thetimes
He was unfazed by the diminishing returns of XR and compared the group to BLM which only became a mass movement after the murder of George Floyd. "At some point there’s going to be a major catastrophe and then you’re going to have millions of people out on the street.”
#TheBigOne
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Migrants were using maps on their phones and the sun to navigate the way to Britain, all the while dodging tankers.
Mine and
@jackhillphoto
's report from the Channel.
"It was clear even from a distance that the people huddled on board the flimsy inflatable boat in the middle of the world’s busiest shipping lane were lost."
@tomfball
and
@jackhillphoto
head to Dover to report on the recent increase in Channel crossings.
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@SimonLLewis
@Erika_Berenguer
@foreignoffice
Hi Simon, I'm a journalist at The Times. Would your friend be available to speak with us about her situation? My number is 07907828096
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I went on holiday to a communist youth fest in Sochi – read the highlights here
Here's what you've missed at the 19th World Festival of Youth and Students held in
#Sochi
last month
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Cheap Ukrainian, Polish and Belarusian tech labour is fuelling the West's start-up boom.
Here's what I had to say about it for
@prospect_uk
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The campaign trail kicks off with a visit to a dead rock star's bedsit...
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Burning catholics isn’t exactly normal either, but bit of a weird vibe in Lewes tonight
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Alleged FSB whistleblower report makes for interesting reading. Suggests that a nuclear strike on Ukraine is possible with the aim of intimidating the west, and says that the SVR are "digging up dirt" to claim that Ukraine has secretly built its own nuclear weapons
I showed the letter to two actual (current or former) FSB contacts, and they had no doubt it was written by a colleague. They didn't agree with all of his conclusions, but that's a different story.
Here's the text, worth reading:
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At Samuel’s school one teacher meted out beatings with a soup ladle; another preferred to use his belt.
Despite pledges from government to clamp down on illegal schools, more are being discovered each year.
With
@nicolawoolcock
in today's
@thetimes
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There are thousands of children languishing in illegal schools but Ofsted has neither the resources nor legislative backing to help them, said the watchdog inspector tasked with solving the problem. Story on today's
@thetimes
front page
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Mile Routledge, the student who went on holiday to Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul, is at it again, this time in South Sudan. He's spent his time in Juba so far teaching locals about memes and handing out cash to people on the street.
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Of the 50 storm overflows most frequently discharging sewage, ten were within five miles upstream of beauty spots like Coniston Water in the Lake District, our analysis found. With
@bwebster135
and
@theriverstrust
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Mike Fairclough, the state primary headmaster who we reported earlier this had supported the "school for conspiracists" Hope Sussex, has resigned.
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He was unfazed too by his personal popularity. “Martin Luther King was the most unpopular man in America in 1961. 70 per cent of the American public disagreed with the civil rights campaigns — similar to Insulate Britain. And then, of course, by 1968 he is, as you know, a saint.”
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George Galloway was in high spirits when I spoke to him yesterday, at the second-hand car dealership where he is running his campaign from.
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@stevet674
@piersmorgan
Hi Steve, I'm a journalist from The Times. We are reporting on the confusion over whether people are supposed to be going into work. If you're free would you be able to give me a ring? 07907828096
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@andygmckay
Hi Andy, I'm a journalist from The Times. Could you tell me more about what you saw? I'm on tom.ball
@the
-times.co.uk
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Insulate Britain are putting the government's injunction to the test, deliberately targeting a road within its scope. One insider said: “We are not trying to avoid these injunctions, we actively want to go to prison.”
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@anielawenham
@CityofYork
Hi Aniela, I'm a reporter from The Times. We are writing about parents' responses to schools reopening. Would you be up for having a chat? If so please follow me back and I'll send you a DM. Tom
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“It’s a strange notion, to make an image of someone we admire, then expose it to decades of pigeons, pollution and public indifference. Our attention slides over monuments - they are only seen again when they are defaced or, paradoxically, removed.
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The group's first "direct action" is due to take place at the end of January using a "task team" selected from those who attend the training sessions
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For all the England fans who enjoyed Moscow’s metro so much - try Tashkent for size
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Iron Felix of Red Terror fame watches over this kids’ sports centre in Minsk
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Our new project shows how a conspiracy theory can grow from the darkest recesses of the internet and eventually end up in the mouths of politicians, being broadcast to millions. With
@samjoiner
@Effy_Yeomans
and
@Dan_Clark5
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And this from the CAR
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The Young Communist League are gaining members on the back of the Corbynquake. Here’s what the hardcore had to say about communism’s enfant terrible
“I’m pretty sure Kim Jong-un’s got his heart in the right place.”
@tomfball
meets the millennial communists defending North Korea
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@claireporter69
@Balasub75
@Danny_Watters
@UKinIndia
@NISAU_UK
@HCI_London
@UOB_India
@CGI_Bghm
@IndiaInScotland
@RuchiGhanashyam
Hi Claire, I'm a journalist from The Times. If you're free, would you be able to give me a ring about this? I'm on whatsapp. My number is 07907828096
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Russian state media are publishing videos of fighters across Africa pledging allegiance to the Kremlin and saying they will enter the war in Ukraine
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He left with no qualifications and after leaving the community spent a decade working as a shelf-stacker and scrap metal dealer, before finally last year gaining a degree in computer science.
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@andrewsneill
@EnglandRugby
Hi Andrew, I’m a journalist at The Times writing about the semi final this weekend. Would you be up for having a chat about your wedding clash? My email is tom.ball
@the
-times.co.uk if so. Thanks
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