Sleepy Cotswolds hamlet shut down as JD Vance's holiday gets under way
The friends, in their seventies, were caught out by the massive security operation closing off all roads and footpaths into Dean so that JD Vance, the US vice-president, could enjoy a quiet family holiday at Dean Manor, the 18th century country house which neighbours David Cameron's Oxfordshire home.
'I told the police 'we are two old ladies, we are hardly terrorists',' Janet, who didn't want to give her real name, said.
'The police officers were very nice, one had come from High Wycombe and the other came from Marlow.
'We said 'you poor things, guarding this awful man'. It must be costing us a fortune. Another few thousands pounds down the pan.'
The friends, who live in nearby Chadlington, said villagers had become resigned to the nuisance caused by visitors to Jeremy Clarkson's Diddly Squat farm shop, which is on the outskirts of the village, but this was on another level.
'It's one blinking pantomime after the other,' Jean said. 'We are used to the great and good here. Before David Cameron moved in we had Douglas Hurd and he was lovely. We have Ben Kingsley in Spelsbury and we see him in the woods walking his dog, but to close off the roads is ridiculous.'
US Secret Service officers, dressed down in cream chinos and pale blue T-shirts, and uniformed officers from Thames Valley Police, were stationed at every road and footpath entrance to Dean on Sunday, checking the identity of residents trying to get in and out of their hamlet.
American officials were overheard at one road block mimicking a British accent and asking each other about hoping to try 'a bacon butty' and a 'Sunday dinner' during their trip. One Secret Service member said to another: 'I didn't know I'd need sunblock in the UK.'
Sniffer dogs were used to search vans coming through the roadblocks.
One bemused driver in a removals van asked for directions to Dean Manor. When he was asked by The Times what he was delivering, he said: 'It's for some American guy. I don't know, it's all top secret.'
Inside the security cordon, the single road through the small collection of honey-coloured stone houses was quiet, apart from the regular comings and goings of police vans and people carriers and minibuses with blacked out windows, ferrying personnel back and forth from the manor.
One resident, who runs a fresh eggs honesty box, was not phased by the operation.
'We had Vivienne Westwood driving up here in a tank to protest against David Cameron when he was prime minister, so there's all sorts that have gone on,' she said. 'It's no great hassle. As long as they don't bother me I don't bother with them.'
Another resident said they didn't know Vance was staying at Dean Manor until security tents were erected on the roads into the hamlet on Saturday. The roadblocks began on Sunday.
'I've told some friends in America what's happening and they hate him,' he said. 'They live in Pennsylvania and they're lifelong Democrats. When I told them they just sent me an emoji of some sort of horror. Anyway, I've got nothing against the guy. If he wants to have a holiday that's fine.
'But what sort of holiday can you have when you've got thousands of security guys around you?'
Johnny and Pippa Hornby, the millionaire owners who bought Dean Manor as their home in 2017, have apologised to some locals for 'the circus for the next few days' and said they hoped it would not be 'too disruptive'.
Mr Hornby, chief executive of Luceco, the lighting and electricals company, and his wife open their 18th century manor house's gardens to the public and have hosted artist residencies.
Tatler, the society bible, gave Dean Manor the 'best swimming pool' award in their Country House Awards in 2023, saying: 'Johnny and Pippa Hornby have transformed an Edwardian garden into a waterworld, filled with friends and family. Even the Camerons have been known to pop over for a dip.'
Vance, his wife Usha, and their three children Ewan, eight, Vivek, five, and Mirabel, three, will be able to enjoy the outdoor pool during the heatwave, as well as the tennis court and six acres of manicured gardens.
Their description on the National Garden Scheme website says the garden's 'stone walls are home to an abundant and varied selection of climbing/rambling roses, clematis and hydrangeas'.
'The formal gardens include complex yew hedging and herbaceous borders, kitchen and cutting garden, areas of wildflower meadow, an orchard and water gardens make up areas around the house.'
Before arriving in the Cotswolds, Vance kept hundreds visitors to Hampton Court Palace locked out of the historic attraction on Sunday morning as it was shut down while his family enjoyed a tour of Henry VIII's former residence. The vice-president was seen yawning as he left the palace to join his 20-vehicle motorcade.
Hundreds of bewildered ticket holders, mostly families with children standing outside, were denied entry at 11am and told to come back at 12pm. They weren't able to begin their visits until 12.30pm.
Vance has previously had to cut holidays short and take extra safety precautions following protests by locals. In March, he curtailed his Vermont ski trip after crowds turned out to protest a day after he 'ambushed' President Zelensky in a bad-tempered meeting between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian leader in the White House.
When the Vances visited Rome the following month, the Colosseum was closed early to accommodate them, which infuriated tourists.
The Stop Trump Coalition is holding a protest on Tuesday in Charlbury, the nearby village which is home to The Bull pub, where celebrities such as Kamala Harris, the previous US vice- president, Ellen DeGeneres and Robbie Williams have dined in the past month.
Laura Macy, an American resident of Charlbury, said she hoped to join the protest but did not want Vance's children to be intimidated.
'Let's all who deplore Trump, Vance, and the deplorable situation in the US raise our voices in any way we can,' she said. 'But let's be careful not to catch any innocent children in the crossfire.
'I have the faces of the young Obama girls, hearing the opposing side's jeers and racist abuse on election night 2008, seared on my memory. They didn't deserve that, and not just because their father is on my side of the political fence. They were children.'
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Anger, fear and a total rejection of politics: the Palestine Action protest was a snapshot of Britain today
In the third month of this tense, parched summer, the British state is under severe strain. Stripped of resources by 14 years of reckless rightwing government, contorting itself to maintain relations with ever more extreme regimes abroad, expanding its security powers at home through ever more tortured logic, regarded by ever more voters with contempt, a once broadly respected institution is increasingly struggling to maintain its authority. You could see the strain on the faces of some of the police officers, reddening with exertion in the sun, as they arrested 521 people in Parliament Square on Saturday for displaying pieces of paper or cardboard with a seven-word message supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action. It was one of the biggest mass arrests in London's history. The many protesters who refused to be led away had to be lifted off the ground, one by one, without the exercise looking too coercive in front of the cameras. Then their floppy, uncooperative forms had to be carried by clusters of officers through the hostile crowd – to chants of 'genocide police!', 'shame on you!' and 'fascist scum!' – to a ring of police vans at the square's perimeter, which were then sometimes obstructed by further protesters, before they eventually drove away. So many officers were needed that some had come from Wales. When Tony Blair's Labour government introduced Welsh devolution 26 years ago, in times of more harmony and less scarcity, cooperation between the nations was probably not envisaged in this form. On Saturday, so that the capital's police custody system was not overwhelmed, those arrested were taken to 'makeshift outdoor processing centres', the Observer reported – as if during a general breakdown of law and order. Some of those released on bail then reportedly went back to the protest. 'Given the numbers of people arrested,' said the Metropolitan police, 'it would have been entirely unrealistic for officers to recognise individuals who returned to [the square].' 'Entirely unrealistic' is not a reassuring phrase for those who believe that the government's approach to Palestine Action is practical and based on sound law. If charged, those arrested will enter the overburdened criminal justice system and then, if found guilty, Britain's bursting jails. It's likely that further supporters of Palestine Action will follow. The organiser of Saturday's protest, Defend Our Juries, has promised a sustained campaign of 'mass, public defiance', to make the proscription of Palestine Action 'unworkable'. This amendment to the 2000 Terrorism Act – a less benign legacy of Blair than devolution – states that anyone who 'wears, carries or displays an article' publicly, 'in such a way… as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of' Palestine Action could be jailed for up to six months; and anyone who 'invites support for' the organisation could be jailed for up to 14 years. Authoritarianism and austerity have risen together in Britain, as the relatively generous public spending of the Blair years has receded and new waves of radical activism have formed over the climate crisis and the destruction of Palestine. Yet the possibility that austerity will make authoritarianism unaffordable, with too much of the government's funds swallowed up by the security state, does not seem prominent in Labour's thinking. The fact that Keir Starmer is a former director of public prosecutions and that the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has for many years been one of parliament's leading authorities on national security, has given them a lot of faith in law-and-order solutions to political problems. The Parliament Square protesters took a different view. They had been advised by Defend Our Juries not to give quotes to journalists, to avoid distracting from the protest's focus on the Palestine Action proscription and the genocide in Gaza. Yet the dozen protesters I spoke to informally all talked about Britain's police and politicians without the slightest deference, as part of a system that was failing, practically and ethically, to address our era's escalating crises. As the arrests went on and on, through the hot afternoon and into the evening, many of the protesters barely moved, but kept facing the same way, sitting on the ground with their placards carefully displayed and their backs to the Houses of Parliament. Partly, this was to provide a globally resonant image, but it was also to dramatise their rejection of the will of the Commons, where only 26 MPs voted against Palestine Action's proscription last month. Parliament likes to see itself as a historic defender of freedom and liberty, yet when panics about subversive groups are under way, its liberalism often evaporates. While the Commons narrows its views in times of crisis, the electorate sometimes does the opposite. Half of those arrested in the square were aged 60 or older – usually the most politically conservative demographic. Many had had middle-class careers in public service. Chatting among themselves on the grass in the quieter moments between police surges, they could almost have been taking a break between events at a book festival. One woman sat on a camping stool, wearing a panama hat. When I introduced myself, she said: 'I don't like the Guardian, I read the Telegraph.' The last time Labour was in office, opposition to its more draconian and militaristic policies also emerged across the political spectrum. The more rightwing members of this opposition can be questioned: are they as outraged when Tory governments support wars or suspend civil liberties? My sense is not. But either way, broad opposition erodes a government's legitimacy. At the 2005 election, after the Terrorism Act and the Iraq war, Blair still won, yet with almost a third fewer votes than when he came to power. With Labour more unpopular now, Starmer can less afford to alienate anti-war voters – much as his most illiberal subordinates might want to. Yet any electoral consequences from the scenes in Parliament Square, and from likely sequels, are hardly the only things at stake in the Palestine Action controversy. At mid-afternoon on Saturday, with the police cordon tightening around us, I got talking to two elderly protesters who had watched people being arrested beside them. 'I'm in two minds about carrying on with this,' one of them said, opening and closing her piece of cardboard with its illegal message. Defiant earlier, she now seemed frightened. The legally safe space for protest in Britain is shrinking again. Meanwhile in Gaza, there's no safe space for anything at all. Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Moment staff on London's 'lawless' Tube appear to ignore two fare dodgers who shamelessly push their way through barriers next to where they are standing
This is the moment three Tube workers failed to react as two fare dodgers pushed their way through the barriers on a deserted concourse without paying - right in front of them. The shocking incident is believed to have taken place at the brand new Elizabeth Line station in Woolwich, south-east London last week. Footage shows the two young men brazenly pushing through the barriers designed for the disabled, families and people with luggage. The friends nonchalantly walked past members of station staff, who either failed to notice or more likely failed to act. The incident was captured by commuter Matt Stevens, who has started filming and shaming the fare dodgers, as well as the Transport for London staff who appear to do nothing. He said sarcastically: 'Staff on circa 40k a year standing and watching people barge through barriers with no tickets. Money well spent'. Weeks earlier, at the same station, he filmed 'dozens' of people doing the same. He said: 'Dozens of people breaking through the barriers and your 'enforcement officers' are stood twiddling their thumbs. What an insult to the taxpayers who pay their wages'. On another occasion he photographed a young man pushing through the barriers at Canary Wharf Station. He said in a tweet to TfL: 'He then proceeded to threaten me after I reminded him to buy a ticket. Your staff sat and watched'. MailOnline has asked Transport for London to comment. Hello again @TfL. Staff on circa 40k a year standing and watching people barge through barriers with no tickets. 👏👏 Money well spent. — Matt Stevens (@MattStevns) August 7, 2025 The fare dodgers push through the barriers while members of staff appeared to do nothing The friends nonchalantly walked past members of station staff, who either failed to notice or more likely failed to act Earlier this year the Mail revealed how TikTok influencers are brazenly showing London Underground passengers how to illegally travel for free by 'bumping' through the station ticket barriers. Young men are filming themselves laughing and joking with each other as they push through the wide-aisle gates in videos liked by hundreds of thousands of viewers. The gates, which were first installed in 2008 at a cost of £12million, are normally used by wheelchair users, older people, parents with children and travellers with luggage. But they are increasingly being used by fare dodgers who either push through the gap in the middle, or quickly follow someone in front of them who touches out. It comes amid a fare dodging epidemic on UK trains, with an official report published this week revealing staff believe the practice is becoming 'normalised' and they are struggling to cope with 'aggressive' passengers who refuse to buy tickets. Videos show young men at stations across the Tube network walking through barriers without being stopped by staff - and even explaining to others how to do it. In one clip posted by rapper Stepz, real name Samuel Agyei, he claims that Transport for London (TfL) have 'upgraded the barriers' but still pushes his way through. References to 'free TfL' and 'free travel' can be heard, as he tells the camera: 'I don't know why they made it look like it's hard to bump through when it's that easy.' In one clip posted by rapper Stepz, real name Samuel Agyei, he claims that Transport for London (TfL) have 'upgraded the barriers' but still pushes his way through at one station Another video by Tenton, who has 70,000 followers, sees the TikToker push through the barriers and ask: 'Mandem, at what age are we gonna stop bumping train?' The clip by Stepz, who has 3.5million TikTok followers, was called 'Still Easy' and has racked up 388,000 likes and nearly 1,000 comments since being posted in 2022. Another video by Tenton, who has 70,000 followers, sees the TikToker push through the barriers and ask: 'Mandem, at what age are we gonna stop bumping train?' He says: 'It's getting silly guys because I'm almost finished uni and I'm still bumping train.' As a staff member walks past, he tells them: 'Sorry, you didn't hear that.' Tenton continues: 'Realistically at what age are we gonna stop? When we got grey hairs we're not gonna be bumping train. Do you get it guys? I think the threshold is 25.' A third video by user CFCRocky7 features a man showing women how to push through the barrier at Stratford, with the caption: 'Saving NPCs [non-player characters] from extortionate train fares @Transport for London.' In another video posted by Parafactual, a series of commuters are shown at East Ham walking through the barriers without paying, following customers who do touch out. Similar videos have also appeared on other social media sites such as Instagram. A video by user CFCRocky7 features a man showing women how to push through the barrier at Stratford, with the caption: 'Saving NPCs [non-player characters] from extortionate train fares' In another video posted by Parafactual, a series of commuters are shown at East Ham station walking through the barriers without paying, following customers who do touch out One posted by Gavin Chee, which has racked up 80,000 views, is called: 'Different types of people bumping TfL. Can't lie know bare talkers.' This shows a series of different attempts to get through the barriers at a Bakerloo line station by the same man in a comedic style, categorised as 'The Scum Bag'; 'The Runner'; 'The Talker'; 'The Savage' and 'The Kwalis'. Fare dodgers are estimated to cost TfL around £130million a year in lost revenue. Wide-aisle gates are the main access point for chronic fare evaders, and TfL has trialled changes to how they work at some stations to see if they can reduce pushers. Siwan Hayward, TfL's director of security, policing and enforcement, said: 'The overwhelming majority of our customers pay the correct fare, however there is a minority who do attempt to travel without a valid ticket which is a criminal offence. 'Fare evasion is unacceptable. That is why we are strengthening our capability to deter and detect fare evaders, including expanding our team of professional investigators to target the most prolific fare evaders across the network. 'This builds on the work of our team of more than 500 uniformed officers already deployed across the network to deal with fare evasion and other anti-social behaviour, keeping staff and customers safe.' Robert Jenrick confronts people pushing through the barriers at Stratford station in London An estimated 3.4 per cent of passengers did not pay fares between April and December 2024 – and they face a fine of £100 if caught, although this is halved if paid within a fortnight Ms Hayward added: 'Fare evasion is not a victimless crime. It robs Londoners of vital investment in a safe, frequent and reliable transport network and we are committed to reducing the current rate of fare evasion to 1.5 per cent by 2030.' And a British Transport Police spokesman said: 'Ticket fraud is not a victimless crime - the cost is passed down to the honest fare-paying members of the travelling public. 'We are committed to working closely alongside the railway industry to tackle fare evasion and regularly support them with high visibility patrols at known hotspot locations.' TikTok said it has removed videos which violate its community guidelines around criminal behaviour, and has also blocked associated hashtags and search terms related to this. The social media firm's guidelines state that it does not allow content which promotes or provides instructions on how to commit criminal activities that may harm people or property. Between October and December last year, TikTok claims to have proactively removed 97.1 per cent of content which violated its violence and criminal behaviour policies before it was reported to the firm. The Channel 5 programme 'Fare Evaders: At War With The Law' shows a passenger pushing the gates at Kingston station in London without touching out before attacking police officers Meanwhile a report by the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) released on Wednesday found travellers are using 'a range of techniques to persistently' underpay or avoid paying and see it as a 'victimless crime'. Staff enduring abusive behaviour when asking fare-dodgers to present their tickets are warning that evasion is becoming 'increasingly more challenging to tackle'. The report had been commissioned to look at concerns some passengers were being unfairly prosecuted by train operators over genuine mistakes when buying tickets. But it found fare evasion is a mounting problem now costing taxpayers £400million a year which is resulting in higher fares and less investment cash to improve services. The Mail highlighted some of the worst cases of evasion in exclusive clips from the Channel 5 series Fare Dodgers: At War With The Law, airing on Monday nights at 9pm. And shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick tweeted a video last week in which he confronted people pushing through the barriers at Stratford station in London. It comes after separate video showed furious passengers taking the law into their own hands when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage. British Transport Police (BTP) believe the naked man, who has since been detained under the mental health act, was assaulted on the District line in east London. Up to four men stepped in when he repeatedly refused to pull up his pants at 3.30pm last Thursday. He was pinned to the floor and carried off the train before being arrested by an off duty police officer. But detectives are probing whether the vigilantes committed any criminal offences in the confrontation after he refused to pull up his pants. BTP has appealed for witnesses to the incident but there have been no arrests over the brawl. 'The man had been assaulted by a number of other passengers and was initially arrested by an off duty officer, before being detained under the mental health act and taken to hospital,' the BTP statement said. 'An investigation into the incident is ongoing.' It comes after separate video showed furious passengers taking the law into their own hands when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage A group carried him off the train and pinned him down on the platform, waiting for help to arrive The Daily Mail revealed how he began yelling after the eastbound train travelled between Upton Park and East Ham. He then dropped his trousers and put his belt around his neck. His bottom and genitals were on show, sparking anger and revulsion around him on the train, which was busy with children who are on their summer holidays. A passenger stood up and quickly confronted him, gesticulating angrily. He politely and firmly told him: 'You need to get off the train.' But the man began repeatedly yelling back: 'F*** off.' The commuter said in response: 'What do you mean "f*** off"? You need to get off the f***ing train. Now. There are kids on here.' Footage of the incident showed up to four men kicking and punching the naked man, who was hitting them with his belt. The video then cut to him being pinned to the floor of the carriage. The man was then unceremoniously carried on to the Tube platform at East Ham and dumped to the floor. He was then pinned down as the commuters tried to alert staff. It appears an off duty police officer was on the train and performed an arrest and he was taken to hospital. It is yet another horrifying incident on the Tube, which is run by Sir Sadiq Khan's Transport for London (TfL). Since he became Mayor in 2016, Tube crime rates have more than doubled, and today he has been accused of ignoring a manifesto pledge to maintain a 24-hour police front counter in every borough in the capital. Just last month a brawl broke out on the steps of a packed station - with a screaming toddler ending up on the floor in the chaos.
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Hundreds of pupils left 'with nowhere to study' after historic £23k-a-year private school shuts - blaming Labour's VAT raid
A historic independent school has suddenly shut down, blaming economic pressures caused by Labour's introduction of VAT on school fees. Our Lady's Abingdon in Oxfordshire announced its closure with immediate effect on Monday - leaving hundreds of pupils without school places for September. Governors said Chancellor Rachel Reeves 's 20 per cent levy, as well as increases in employer national insurance contributions were the final nails in the coffin for the 160-year-old institution. The Catholic school for boys and girls aged seven to 18 had suffered a sharp drop in pupil numbers in recent months - with families priced out by the rising fees. Our Lady's Abingdon said it had been exploring a number of options to keep the school open but that talks 'broke down' last week, leaving no 'viable path forward'. Frantic parents now have less than a month to find school places for their children for next academic year. A statement on the Our Lady's Abingdon website read: 'Extensive talks took place with other schools and organisations, with the hope of securing a merger or acquisition. 'Until very recently, there was genuine optimism that a solution could be found. Sadly, those talks broke down last week, leaving no viable path forward. 'A range of economic pressures has led to this outcome, mainly the introduction of VAT on school fees, higher National Insurance contributions, the ending of business rates relief for independent schools, and rising operational costs. 'Despite every effort to limit fee increases, affordability has become a growing concern for an increasing number of families. 'This has led to a sharp decline in pupil numbers in recent months, threatening the school's short and long-term viability.' Around 360 pupils attended Our Lady's Abingdon when it closed on Monday, despite it having capacity for 540. Typical fees had reached up to £23,040 per year. Yasmine Currie, a parent who sent her 14-year-old son to the school, told the Oxford Mail: 'Parents have been told at the same time this has gone out on social media. 'It's a small school and my son loved it there – he had a lovely group of friends – now I have to tell him when he gets back from camp he has no school to go to.' Another added: 'It's going to be very difficult now to contact the local education authority during the summer break.' They said they felt like families had been left 'high and dry' and questioned why the school couldn't stay open for another term. The closure of Our Lady's Abingdon comes after the prestigious Mount St Mary's College in Spinkhill, Derbyshire, also shut with immediate effect in July. The Jesuit day and boarding school, which charged up to £21,420 a year for pupils in Years 9 to 13, had served the community for nearly 200 years. Chair of governors, Shaun Whyman, said they had taken the decision with 'profound sadness and a heavy heart' after exhausting all possible alternatives to save the school. Mount St Mary's, whose headmaster is Jack Murphy, said the impact of VAT on fees and the removal of business rates relief had hit it hard. A statement on the school's website read: 'It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that I write to inform you of the immediate closure of Mount St Mary's College and Barlborough Hall School with effect from today, 30th July 2025. 'This decision has not been made lightly, and we understand the shock and distress this news will undoubtedly bring to our entire school community. 'Mount St Mary's College and Barlborough Hall have been cornerstones of our community for nearly 200 years, providing a nurturing and faith-filled environment for generations of children. 'Since 2004, when the schools became an independent charitable trust governed by a dedicated board of trustees, we have sought to uphold the values of Jesuit education and provide an environment in which young people can grow, reflect, and flourish. 'From 2015 onwards, the schools have faced increasing financial pressures, in line with the wider challenges affecting the independent education sector in the UK, including the addition of VAT on school fees and the removal of business rates relief for independent schools. 'Despite the extraordinary efforts of staff, parents, and supporters, the schools have been unable to reach a sustainable financial position.' It went on to say: 'Since early 2025, governors and senior leadership have worked tirelessly to prevent the closure of the schools, seeking an alternative future to ensure continuity for pupils and staff. 'They engaged in complex negotiations to explore different financial models and to find a new owner who would respect the schools' ethos and build on their achievements. 'Initially, several educational organisations expressed interest, and one potential partner remained in detailed negotiations until the last few days. 'However, despite these efforts, no viable option emerged. As of the end of July, the level of debt and lack of a realistic path to financial viability mean we have no alternative but to proceed into Administration. 'We know this will be met with sadness, disappointment, and even anger by those who love these schools. 'We share that sorrow and are committed to being as open and supportive as possible in the weeks ahead. The Administrators have assured us that all options available for the future will be considered. 'Our priority now, as we process this news, is the wellbeing of our pupils, their families, and our staff. 'There will be immediate challenges as the schools enter formal insolvency procedures, during which the appointed professionals will manage the next steps. Regrettably, all ongoing activities, including the Holiday Club, will end with immediate effect.'
