Latest news with #roadblocks
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Cotswolds in lockdown as JD Vance's holiday begins: Vice President arrives in tiny hamlet amid huge security operation after enjoying private tour of Hampton Court Palace
A sleepy Cotswolds hamlet is in lockdown today following the arrival of US Vice President JD Vance - with locals met by roadblocks, sniffer dogs and hordes of Secret Service agents. Police have closed off all roads and footpaths leading to the hamlet of Dean, where Donald Trump 's deputy is staying with his family at Dean Manor, an 18th-century country house. Officers are now checking the identity of residents trying to pass through the security cordon, watched on by Secret Service agents in a dressed-down uniform of cream chinos and pale blue-shirts. Vehicles are being searched with sniffer dogs and walkers told to go elsewhere while Mr Vance, his wife, Usha, and children - Ewan, eight, Vivek, five, and Mirabel, three - are in residence. The politician is in the Cotswolds today for a relaxed break with his family after arriving from London, where he enjoyed a private tour of Hampton Court yesterday. Mr Vance rocked up at Henry VIII's former residents in a 19-vehicle motorcade for a morning tour - forcing the site to delay its public opening to 12pm. He now appears to have finished his official business after making a brief trip on Friday to Chevening House, the official residence of British foreign secretary David Lammy. Mr Lammy, 53, and Mr Vance, 41, are understood to have forged an unlikely friendship and spent time with each other's families, alongside engaging in a short, bilateral meeting. The massive security operation surrounding Dean Manor has prompted its owner to apologise to neighbours for the disruption. Pippa Hornby, who bought the 18th-century Cotswolds home with her husband Johnny in 2017, told villagers that she was 'so sorry for the circus' set to take place across the coming days, The Telegraph reported. The manor house was built in 1702 for the MP Thomas Rowney and is close to Jeremy Clarkson's Diddly Squat farm. Set across six acres of land, the sprawling property is home to two cellars, a tennis court, rose garden, basement gym and Georgian orangery. One local previously told the Daily Mail: 'There has been a lot of activity at the manor these last few days. It is hard to miss. Security absolutely everywhere. 'Men dressed identically surrounding the property with ear pieces and dark glasses. 'Blacked out Mercedes vans shuttling people around every few minutes. We have never seen anything like it. It's like something out of a film. 'The word is that it is indeed for JD Vance. So we shall see.' There has been intense activity around the manor house for days. On the main gateway of the property, leading to a sweeping 'in and out' driveway, two suited security guards have been checking the security clearance of those coming and going in a stream of blacked out cars and Mercedes limousine vans. One local said a large antennae placed behind the house, perhaps a telecoms tower, is 'humming constantly'. But another seemed almost entirely unaware of the upcoming visit at all. When asked about Mr Vance, he remarked: 'Who? I'm unsure who that is.' As the Daily Mail reported last month, the tiny village of Charlbury - which is near Dean - is home to the UK's best pub, The Bull. Earlier this year, Charlbury was named as one of the best places to live in Oxfordshire, alongside the towns of Henley and Burford. Meanwhile, the wider Cotswolds have become the latest hot ticket with Americans seeking what they see as a traditional cosy English escape. Ellen DeGeneres, the US talk show host, is reportedly deliberately fleeing her home in the area ahead of Vance's arrival after leaving the US following Trump's election. Fashion journalist Plum Sykes told BBC Radio 4 last month of the cosy English haven: 'It's just so hot and so trendy and so fashionable... it's an incredibly beautiful area because it's being protected, almost like a national park that you can live in. 'Americans cannot get over the charm but since Covid it's been refashioned with all the pleasures of London, Paris and New York. Despite their differences in political opinions, Mr Lammy previously declared that he considers Mr Vance to be a 'friend' and someone who 'completely relates' to him. The pair are said to have bonded over their common backgrounds - both being raised without their fathers - and their religion: Mr Lammy is an Anglican; Mr Vance a baptised Catholic since 2019. Ahead of Mr Vance's visit, which a source claimed would include a 'short bilateral meeting', the Foreign Office said ministerial engagements would be announced in 'the usual way'. In March, the Foreign Secretary and his wife Nicola Green visited the vice-president's official residence in Washington, the Naval Observatory, for a private meeting without officials. The Foreign Secretary told The Guardian earlier this month he and Mr Vance spent a 'wonderful hour and a half' together over drinks at the US Embassy in Italy during the inauguration of the new Pope, Leo XIV. It comes shortly after President Trump visited Scotland, spending time teeing off at his Turnberry golf course in Ayrshire in between holding diplomatic talks with the Prime Minister. Announcing plans for a protest, the Stop Trump Coalition alliance said: 'We are meeting Trump with protests in Aberdeen and Edinburgh this month, and then in London and Windsor in September. 'JD Vance is every bit as unwelcome in the UK as Donald Trump. We remember how Vance cut short his ski trip in Vermont because he was so enraged by the sight of a few protesters. 'We are sure that, even in the Cotswolds, he will find the resistance waiting.'
News24
6 days ago
- Politics
- News24
JMPD denies DA's R7 000 daily fine quota claims, says safety comes first
X JMPD Metro police allegedly offered overtime bonuses for hitting R7 000 daily fine targets at strategic roadblock. DA challenges legality of the JMPD operations, claiming traffic stops violate National Road Traffic Act requirements. The party calls this Johannesburg's desperate revenue grab, demands Premier Panyaza Lesufi should act. The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) has denied allegations that the City of Johannesburg is turning law enforcement into a 'cash cow' to plug the municipality's budget shortfalls. According to JMPD spokesperson Xolani Fihla, its enforcement efforts are focused solely on public safety and not on revenue generation. This comes after the DA, in a statement released on Monday, raised serious concerns about the alleged fine collection quotas imposed on JMPD officers. According to the DA, 'officers have reliably informed us that they are under pressure to collect R7 000 a day each'. The party said it had been approached 'by concerned JMPD insiders who describe a system where daily fine quotas are now an unwritten rule'. However, in a statement released on the same day, the JMPD labelled these claims as misleading, insisting that public safety, not profits, is what drives its enforcement operations. Fihla acknowledged that issuing traffic fines was part of a metro officer's duty but insisted that their performance was not judged by the number of fines they issued, but rather by their impact on road safety and compliance. It is important to clarify that while issuing citations is an expected part of an officer's duty to enforce traffic regulations, there is no quota system that they are expected to follow. Xolani Fihla Fihla added: 'The integrity of our operations is paramount. All actions are taken in strict accordance with the law.' The officers are allegedly under pressure to reach their daily R7 000 target, with overtime incentives offered to those who comply, according to the DA. The result? A spike in roadside checks and surprise roadblocks, particularly at major intersections. According to the DA, these are not safety checkpoints, but strategic fine-collection points aimed at squeezing revenue out of ordinary, often economically struggling, motorists. These legally indefensible roadside checks exist solely to extract revenue from struggling motorists, many of whom are already facing economic hardship. DA The party also questioned the legality of many roadside operations, alleging that they fail to meet the basic procedural requirements under the National Road Traffic Act and the SA Police Service Standing Orders, including proper signage, adequate warning to motorists, and senior officer authorisation. 'A DA-led government would restore integrity to JMPD operations. We would end revenue-based targets and bring traffic enforcement back to its core purpose: saving lives.'
Bloomberg
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Kenya Police Barricade Downtown Nairobi From Protesters
Kenyan police placed road blocks on all major thoroughfares into the central business district of the capital before daybreak with the aim of keeping out thousands of demonstrators that had been expected to rally in the city center. (Source: Associated Press)
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
The idea of roadblocks to keep people from their holiday homes sounds fantastical, but is it?
The scene opens ... it is early summer in Connemara . Dusk is falling. A black Range Rover with 27 D plates approaches Roundstone from the east. The driver slows, dims the lights and pulls over. The woman in the passenger side turns around and speaks to her two children in the back seat. 'Okay, kids, let's go over it again in case we are stopped by the men ... ' 'Where are we going?' she asks. 'To Clifden .' READ MORE 'Where are we staying?' 'The Clifden Arms Hotel.' 'Good.' The woman turns back to the man. 'What if they don't believe us?' 'It's cool. I have made an online booking. We can cancel it when we get to the cottage,' he replies before driving off. 'Why don't the men want us to go to our holiday cottage, Mummy?' the girl asks. The woman pauses before answering quietly: 'They have nowhere to live, and they think it's our fault'. 'Is it our fault?' the girl asks. The driver responds: 'No ... it's the Government's.' Apologies to Paul Lynch and all other authors of post-apocalyptic fiction. The idea of roadblocks in Connemara to stop people getting to their holiday homes admittedly stretches credulity. But until Wednesday the idea that a senior manager in neighbouring Mayo County Council would call for a boycott of holiday homeowners might have seemed equally so. The fact that he was taken seriously – to the point of him being interviewed on RTÉ's Morning Ireland – takes it closer to the level of plausibility. In case you missed it, Tom Gilligan, the council's director of services with responsibility for housing and roads, emailed his colleagues in the local authority's strategic policy committee (SPC) over the weekend floating the idea of a boycott in the context of the housing shortage in the county. 'So, the objective around this proposed boycott is to highlight the impact of underused housing stock on local communities, encourage policy reform and taxation measures on vacant second homes. And also, to push holiday homeowners to either return properties for sale to the rental market or to the long-term rental market,' he told RTÉ. [ 'Nothing is off the table': Mayo housing official defends call to boycott holiday homeowners Opens in new window ] The thing about Gilligan's comments is that – as was said about Donald Trump during his first term – they should be taken seriously but not literally. Like Trump at his most intuitive, Gilligan has tapped into the resentment of a group that understandably feels its voice is not being heard. It is galling to be surrounded by homes that are unoccupied for much of the year in the middle of a housing crisis. In Trump's case, it was blue-collar, rural Americans – mostly men. In Gilligan's case, it's people in rural Ireland who can't find a place for themselves, or their children, to live. While both Trump and Gilligan have identified a group with legitimate grievances, neither seems to have a workable solution to their problems. Trump's first-term efforts at protectionism were stymied by others in his party and Government, but the second time around he launched his disastrous tariff policy. Gilligan's proposed boycott is misguided and even less likely to succeed than the tariffs. But Gilligan has hit on a word that encodes the anger of those who might agree with him. As Gilligan pointed out, the word 'boycott' is synonymous with Mayo and the late 19th century protests against landlord Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. 'The local community at the time took it upon themselves to try a form of civil protest ... It's very important that we should never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world,' he told RTÉ. It will be telling to see where Gilligan's idea goes from here. It will no doubt find favour with some frustrated people in the west of Ireland, but also the ragtag group of charlatans who comprise the far right. If the idea of protest – rather than the unworkable concept of a boycott – does gain some traction with the wider community in Mayo, then this serious local issue could come on to the national agenda. We shouldn't discount the possibility. Gilligan boasts an impressive CV and is very different from the angry self-publicists who spread their poison on social media. A qualified accountant with a MBA in local government from DCU, he has held various posts in the public service and the private sector. He is also the founder of , a national housing initiative developed to get empty/derelict homes back into use. The real takeaway – particularly for holiday homeowners with Range Rovers – is that they underestimate at their peril the level of simmering anger felt by people who are locked out of the housing market in parts of the country where homes sit empty for much of the year.
Washington Post
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
DHS shuts down internal watchdog agencies that advocated for immigrants
The Department of Homeland Security is eradicating three internal watchdog agencies that investigated complaints and advocated for immigrants, calling them 'roadblocks' to immigration enforcement, a spokeswoman said Friday.
