Many of the young churchgoers are also gravitating toward Catholicism: among those aged 18-34 who are active in church life, over 40% identify as Catholic, surpassing Anglicans.

The return to faith among both intellectuals and the young reflects a deep unease with a cultural model that has lost its normative power. For Europe - and for the West more broadly - where debates over identity, welfare, birth rates, and social cohesion are intensifying, these developments deserve close attention. Religion may be returning not only as a legacy of the past, but as a resource for the future - a striking challenge to the atheism and agnosticism that once appeared firmly in command.

Baraka declared, “What we are hearing now about the US draft resolution in the Security Council [is] extremely dangerous. Now they are talking about a 'Board of Peace', which will act like a custodian, which would be allowed to establish executive committees to oversee the Gaza Strip, as if this board is the leader of the Palestinian people.” This international entity would include George Soros's chum Tony Blair.

Hamas is determined not to go anywhere; it still has genocidal hatred for Israel, the PA is rewarding all the genocidal terrorists financially, and the peace lasted exactly as long as any rational person expected. There is no such thing as peace in the Middle East, at least not as long as Islam exists. They believe war against non-Muslims is the highest and holiest calling demanded by Allah.

A religious leader in suburban Texas, standing at the pulpit, calmly explaining the conditions in which a man is allowed to strike his wife — and calling it a form of guidance. And yet, in 2017 and 2020, the City of Plano appears to have handed over twelve grants totaling one million dollars to benefit this same Islamic Association of Collin County. So here is the question every Texan should be asking tonight: Is Texas now rewarding imams who preach that women are inherently inferior and may be beaten into “obedience”?

Because Imam Haque doesn’t stop at “contextual” wife-beating. In another sermon at a different Dallas–Fort Worth mosque, Haque warns men that they may not beat their wives, quote, “to the extent that they die.” This is not some fringe Muslim. This is a Texas imam, given status, platform, and — thanks to the City of Plano — a share of your tax money.

Why is a mosque whose imam openly justifies hitting wives and normalizes the “disciplining” of slaves being showered with public money and political legitimacy? Why did Plano sign off on one million dollars in grants tied to this institution? Where is the so-called “women’s rights” movement in Texas? Where are the domestic violence advocates? Where are the city officials who approved these grants? RAIR Foundation USA will continue exposing what political leaders ignore — and we will hold every official accountable for what comes next.

McDonald’s Price Increases from 2019 to 2024:

• Medium French Fries $1.79 -> $4.19
• McChicken $1.29 -> $3.89
• Big Mac $3.99 -> $7.49
• 10 McNuggets $4.49 -> $7.58
• Cheeseburger $1.00 -> $3.15

Some of this is over a 200% increase in price. This isn’t inflation — it’s legalized robbery. Meanwhile, chains like Subway, Burger King, and even Starbucks kept increases close to inflation. That difference matters, and it proves this is not a universal cost crisis, but it’s a strategic decision, and some companies are using inflation as a cover while others are not. And it’s not just McDonald’s proving the point. When you zoom out across the fast-food sector, the pattern gets even harder to ignore. Some chains are running the same high-velocity price hikes, pushing increases far beyond anything inflation can justify. Others are holding prices steady, showing that these jumps aren’t inevitable, but they’re strategic and selective. They’re basically market testing disguised as economics. The fries weren’t the problem. The system was.

Now my walk (I inevitably walk, because the Underground has truly gone to pot) starts with me taking my life in my hands as I dodge hooded young men and masked e-bike riders barrelling along pavements, through red lights and straight over pedestrian crossings. I make my way along Edgware Road, currently a maze of metal fencing and roadworks, past closed pubs, seemingly ­abandoned churches and ­mysterious 'self-storage' depots, where I see piles of dirty rags and sleeping bags filling the doorways, hands and feet poking out.

I dash towards Hyde Park, past bewildered American tourists as they blink in the grey light while wheeling their suitcases out of hotels and Airbnbs, and watch as it dawns on them that they've paid upwards of £200 a night to stay near what seems to be a migrant hotel on a street where prostitutes pick up their drugs.

I know homelessness is not new. Neither are drugs. Prostitution, as we know, is the oldest profession in the world. But ­seeing it with fresh eyes, I'm struck by just how visible the societal collapse is now – and how much further it has disintegrated since I was last here. Throw in the incessant roadworks, the stink of marijuana on every street, the lack of civic pride, community, cohesion... London might be open to all, as the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, likes to trumpet. But who on earth wants to go there now?

Well, that's exactly what the Hare family did, who relocated to Russia from the United States two years ago because they felt "persecuted". "We were noticing a great upsurge in LGBT-type policies coming into the government, especially the school system," Leo Hare says.

"This is where we drew a line in the sand," his wife Chantelle adds. "This is a complete demonic attack against the conservative Christian families." In a country where so-called "LGBT propaganda" is banned, they say they feel safer than before. Among those with the bit between their teeth is British national Philip Port from Burnley, Lancashire. He says he applied for the shared values visa for both practical and ideological reasons. "I love Russia," he tells me unapologetically, describing it as "safe as houses". "There's no crime, the streets are clean, it's well-developed," he adds.

His view of the UK is nowhere near as complimentary. "I'm all for gay rights, don't get me wrong, but I think when they're teaching them to children in school - I've got a seven-year-old son, I don't want him being influenced in that way."

In multiple instances, these will be the brightest and the best and those ready to take risks, put in a shift and create that ever elusive ‘growth’ everyone goes on about. They will be the ones who will go on to launch businesses and, down the years, employ thousands and contribute millions in taxes. But NOT here in the UK. Dubai, Italy, Malta and other nations beckon.

It is estimated that of those departing, approximately 16,500 are millionaires or indeed billionaires. Now if you’re infected with the green eye of jealousy and think good riddance to all these wealthy people, it’s probably best you don’t read on. Because the reality is the amount of tax revenue lost to the UK treasury is incalculable. And as they go, those who directly work for them – the drivers, security staff, gardeners and many others – are left jobless.

And as we’re talking numbers, here’s a final one for you: 43,300. That’s the current estimate for the number of people who have arrived here via small boat crossings from France.

Ask yourself this. As we bid farewell to our richest and brightest and welcome, in many cases, thousands of undocumented young males many of whom are poorly educated and from cultures radically different from ours and have included an Ethiopian sex offender, an Egyptian people trafficker and an Afghan murderer, can you blame anyone for leaving?

Precisely.

It is the cost of eggs, not the appeasement of Russia, that is undermining the Trump White House and American voters are not shy about saying so. That is because they are unabashed in their belief that the American way of life is based on an abiding principle: that individuals have an inalienable right to improve their circumstances in life by their own efforts.

Much more recently the European model of state intervention and the creation of a welfare state which is designed to protect the disadvantaged and to care for those who, it is believed, cannot succeed on their own, has been brought into the US electoral arena.

The problem for contemporary democracy is that a great many people believe this too. In fact, it is probably the case that a majority of the populations of Western countries believe both of these arguments – that people should be rewarded for succeeding by their own efforts, and that they should be penalised by having to support those who have not made an effort. It has simply become impossible for societies to sustain this contradiction any longer.

The problem: Walmart has cut the price by shrinking the product. This year’s version is smaller — 15 different products to last year’s 21 — with more own-brand goods. Food inflation is still running at about 3 per cent. This week Trump told a gathering of McDonald’s franchise owners in Washington that he had “normalised” inflation. Yet, according to the restaurant chain’s own chief executive, low-income customers are turning away from the fast-food chain as soaring prices mean the once-cheap treat feels like a splurge. It’s why, in a week where Trump finally agreed to the release of the Epstein files (as a result of rebel Republicans) and presented President Zelensky of Ukraine with a “peace” deal that horrifies many Europeans, the development that most worried his supporters was the one that took place on Wall Street.

The US economy is seen by many as inflated by an AI bubble. Stock market valuations are higher than during the dot-com boom and comparisons are being drawn with America’s railroad bubble in the 19th century: when excitement about future technology brought down an economy. There are reports that AI investments accounted for nearly 92 per cent of US GDP growth in the first half of this year.

Gary Smith, emeritus professor of economics at Pomona College, says: “The Big Tech companies — Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc — have other sources of revenue, but OpenAI and other pure LLM companies are bubbly in that plausible revenue projections don’t justify the high valuations.” Little wonder then that the White House now lists AI infrastructure as one of its five economic priorities. AI is no longer just a tech story in America, it is the core of Trump’s growth strategy.