The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning as rain hit the Reading pop festival ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend in England.
Attendees arrived to set up camp in heavy rain at the annual music event in Berkshire, which has been blighted by wet weather throughout its history. Rain-affected outdoor music festivals in Britain and abroad date back to the mudbath at Max Yasgur's farm in Woodstock, upstate New York, in 1969.
Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn recalled attending the 1982 Glastonbury festival in Somerset to see singer Van Morrison. Littlejohn said torrential rain forced him to spend 30 minutes pushing his new Evening Standard Vauxhall Cavalier 1.3-litre hatchback out of a quagmire.
An expert on the LBC radio station previously described the pattern of sunshine followed by rain as "climate whiplash". Littlejohn noted that Annie Lennox sang "Here Comes the Rain Again" during her Eurythmics heyday, comparing the current rainfall to traditional summer weather.
Littlejohn criticized the Met Office, claiming the weather service has transformed from a staid organisation into the "provisional wing of Extinction Rebellion". He stated that the forecaster used to deliver routine reports on Azores warm fronts or Dogger Bank squalls bringing light showers to Scarborough on Bank Holiday Monday, but now puts out terror-style, colour-coded alerts.
According to Littlejohn, flash flooding in Britain is largely caused by local councils failing to clear street drains and the Environment Agency refusing to dredge river banks to preserve the habitat of the Depressed River Mussel. He claimed commentators routinely slander critics as "deniers" equating climate debate with the Holocaust.
Littlejohn condemned Britain's Net Zero policies as a suicidal crusade that destroys the industrial base, inflates energy prices, and makes citizens colder and poorer. Comparing Net Zero supporters to historic Flat-Earthers, he cited author G.K. Chesterton's view that when people stop believing in God, they will believe in anything.
While alarmists in Britain catastrophise over hotter-than-July summer days and predict Birmingham will become the new Atlantis, torrential flash floods caused by a glacial collapse in Nepal have wiped out entire communities. Hundreds of people have been confirmed dead and thousands more remain missing in Nepal, including 33 British tourists.
Littlejohn noted that the devastation in Nepal occurred despite political claims by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband regarding North Sea oil drilling or installing solar panels on British farmland. Citing the song "Every Where You Go Always Take the Weather With You" by New Zealand band Crowded House, Littlejohn advised Reading festivalgoers to wear wellies.
North Devon NHS maternity unit closure
An NHS maternity unit at North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple, which serves a population of 32,000, has been closed due to "unsafe levels of medical staffing".
Women in labour are being forced to travel two hours to Exeter to give birth. Mums-to-be have been advised to keep blankets, towels, and water accessible in their cars, and have been given instructions on roadside birthing positions in the back of a car.
The local Member of Parliament warned that "babies are going to be born in lay-bys." Littlejohn questioned why the NHS cannot maintain maternity services in Barnstaple when the health service costs taxpayers around £250 billion a year, contrasting current closures with past decades when local midwives drove Morris Minor cars round the clock.
Littlejohn highlighted a staffing contradiction, noting that UK nursing graduates are working as supermarket shelf-stackers because they cannot find jobs in the NHS or private care homes, while the government grants 100,000 visas annually to foreign nurses and care workers.
Labour backbenchers push for voting reform
Labour backbench MPs are pressing Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to support replacing Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system with proportional representation, arguing the current voting rules are unfair.
The 2024 general election produced a 172-seat parliamentary majority for Labour despite receiving support from only one in five eligible voters. Meanwhile, the Reform UK party won just five seats in Parliament despite receiving over four million votes nationwide.
Littlejohn argued that proportional representation leads to permanent coalitions, political chaos, and indecision. He added that under the current system voters can remove a government every four or five years, but noted Burnham could theoretically become Prime Minister without facing a general election after winning 25,000 votes in a Wigan suburb.
Batman movie filming in Glasgow
Filming has begun in Glasgow, Scotland, for a new Batman feature film starring actor Robert Pattinson.
Local residents have attempted to sneak cans of Irn-Bru, Scotland's popular soft drink, onto the movie set. Referencing Glasgow's famous Duke of Wellington statue in Royal Exchange Square, Littlejohn joked that Batman might end up wearing a traffic cone on his head.
Migrant facilities at former RAF Wethersfield
A new report details extensive leisure facilities provided for asylum seekers housed at the former RAF Wethersfield airbase in Essex.
The Wethersfield facility features a gym, fitness room, table tennis tables, pool tables, snack bars, televisions, and a large sports hall for five-a-side football, basketball, and cricket. Authorities have also supplied 17 minibuses to transport residents into town.
Littlejohn noted that five years after writing a spoof column imagining asylum seekers housed in Maplins-style holiday camps with illustrations by cartoonist Gary, real-world provisions at Wethersfield have surpassed his satire, invoking the classic holiday camp phrase "Hi-de-Hi!".
