The First Burnham Victim Goes Under The Bus....

Step forward, victim:

Ms Haigh serves as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and First Secretary of State, effectively making her Andy Burnham's deputy. The Prime Minister appointed the convicted fraudster to her powerful role, as well as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, after she masterminded his victory in the Makerfield by-election in June. Her position in the higher echelon of Mr Burnham's administration comes less than two years after she was forced to resign from former PM Keir Starmer's Cabinet.

And now we know why he took such a step, so he'd have someone to blame when things went tits up. 

Louise Haigh signed off on a nationwide emergency wildfire alert that startled millions of people across the country. Ms Haigh, who is head of the Cabinet Office, is understood to have approved the alert, which led to panicked Britons jamming 999 lines and startled drivers swerving across motorways.

Bullshit! Don't tell me a decision like this never crossed the PM's desk. 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss', as the song goes...

The Conservatives, who devised the system more than a decade ago, said the alert was only intended to be used in cases where there was an imminent, direct and mainly localised threat to life.A Cabinet Office report explicitly warned against its use for 'lower level' incidents for fear of creating a 'cry wolf' effect, in which phone users either disabled or ignored the alert in cases of genuine emergency.

Indeed, I first heard this fot real as I headed out to a restaurant in Edinburgh for a birthday meal, because extremely high winds were predicted - and materialised! - the next day. 

The Government had initially considered sending a targeted alert to the areas which were most affected or at risk of wildfires. However, by the afternoon, Ms Haigh's department decided to release the alert across the country following calls from the Fire and Rescue Service, The Telegraph reported.

A request they soon had cause to regret. 

But the plea from fire chiefs soon came back to haunt them as emergency switchboards became overloaded by members of the public accusing their neighbours of having a barbecue.

But every cloud has a silver lining for someone: 

One unlikely benefit of the disruptive alerts was that dozens of prisoners had their hidden mobile phones seized after the loud noises blared out from inside their cells on Friday evening.

Oh. well. 

What The State Did To These Women Was Far Worse Than Anything The Father Did..

Mark walked away with no criminal record or any form of monitoring. He was not placed on the sex offender register and there is nothing he has to disclose to an employer or a partner.

Because he hadn't broken any law, he's written some fiction. That this fiction involved the sexual abuse of his daughter is neither here nor there.

All images of children being abused are grounds for arrest, even when the men are not physically abusing anyone. Yet Emily’s case turned out to be not so clearcut in the eyes of the police. Were written fantasies about child abuse, shared on a legal site, against the law?

In short, no. Not even when an undercover police officer is watching.

This question would lead Emily all the way to parliament to try to toughen the law on sex chat sites.

Of course it did. 

The sexual assault charges against Mark were dropped and changed to the sending by public electronic communication messages of an indecent, obscene or menacing character under the Communications Act 2003. A court date was set and Emily and Fiona expected Mark to plead guilty as he had never denied the horrendous way he had described abusing Emily online.

But that was before he sort legal advice clearly. 

Within days of the arrest, Fiona took radical steps to completely reshape the life that Mark had blown to pieces. “I had a job interview a couple of days later and I just went to it in a daze. I barely remember it but I got the job, and at that moment I decided I would move house and start the new job as soon as I could.”

While Fiona was preparing to move, Emily was going down a rabbit hole into the darkest recesses of the internet. She began to read all she could about sex chat sites and was horrified to learn how easy it is to step straight into sexual chats about children.She wanted the police to know Mark hadn’t touched her, but she wanted him to be prosecuted for sharing his child abuse fantasies online. And she wanted to be recognised as a victim, something the police didn’t seem to understand.

Of course, victim status, what every teenager desires most these days. 

But one day in the run-up to the court hearing, Fiona got a text from Mark saying he was not going to plead guilty. “He said, ‘I’ve found a loophole.’ With help from his lawyer, he had found a way to plead not guilty.”

Just days before the court hearing, the police got in touch. They were dropping the case. “They told us that, after discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service, they didn’t think there was a realistic chance of conviction. The officer I spoke to told me that in the eyes of the law, Emily was not a victim and therefore no crime had been committed. He actually said that in this situation the ‘victim’ was the undercover officer as they were the ones who read the messages.”

Once again the CPS dropped the ball, but shouldn’t they have realised that there was no law broken here before it got this far? 

Fiona has seen Mark only once since the case was dropped: when she met him to get his signature on divorce papers. She saw then how happy he was to have escaped prosecution. “He made it clear that he considered it a prudish response, the public disapproval of a private fetish. We were prudes, the police were as well. It might have been embarrassing to have the messages revealed, but it wasn’t anything that should involve the law.”

Nor should it be. We don't criminalise people for writing fiction. Even if it's distasteful fiction.

For both Fiona and Emily, there is a feeling that people looking in at their situation might be judging them, questioning why they didn’t spot the signs.

They might well ask... 

She and Mark had had their ups and downs. “He was controlling of me. I had discovered in the past he had been chatting to women online. We went to therapy to work on our relationship and I thought we were both putting in effort. Just before this happened I had been feeling he had a swagger to him. Now I know it is because he was still getting fulfilled by a secret online life.”

And like vengeful women everywhere, she cannot tolerate the thought. And is being used by people who do not have her or her daughter's wellbeing ay heart to push their own agenda.. 

McGlynn wants to see “a specific criminal offence to advocate, counsel or glorify child sexual abuse in text”, which would cover discussions in chatrooms and beneath videos on porn sites.

The State should not be encouaging women or men to believe that something they find distateful falls within its purview for the dead hand of the State to resolve. 

I Guess I Am, Readers...

 I Guess I'll have to buy a balaclava now....

Under this definition, I'm in very good company though!

I've Always Wondered What It Takes To Get The RSPCA To Act....

...and now I know:

Jodie Marsh has revealed her £1 million farm was swarmed by RSPCA investigators on Wednesday.

The animal group arrived at the property as they were investigating claims she took her meerkat Mabel to the pub.

And, what? Forced Guinness down the poor beast's throat? 

Taking to Instagram, she filmed the incident as it unfolded- and cleared up the rumours about her animal, revealing that she could not leave her alone as she would cry if she did and needed regular feeding because she was rearing her.

And this took two hours and a team of investigators?Well, no. That was because, thwarted in their purpose (not to help animals in distress, to secure a celebrity scalp, of course!) they went digging around for other things they could boast about in their publicity mailshots.

With the same results.

Jodie revealed that during the two-hour investigation, officers also looked into claims that an emu had a tube stuck in its neck. The glamour model shared that the tube was saving the animal's life as it was for feeding them...

It's not really surprising that they don't understand about 'saving animal's lives', since it's a pretty much alien concept to them. 

Also during the farm inspection, Jodie was asked about keeping a wild muntjac deer and she told officers she was looking after it because it had fallen into a swimming pool nearby.

I can see why that would have baffled them, too... 

Employers, Not Masters Or Parents...

Maureen Martin was accused of gross misconduct after her employer, a housing association, claimed her campaign pledge to promote 'natural marriage' was discriminatory and would offend gay and trans people.

Ms Martin sued London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) for unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment in a case called 'an attack on democracy'. Last night she told The Mail on Sunday she was happy with the out-of-court settlement but described her treatment as chilling.

It seems the fact you are employed by a company to perform a role during work time gives some of them the right to assume control over every aspect of your life, as Longrider points out.  

'I should have had a right to express my own Christian beliefs in my own private time and should not have been required to self-censor my beliefs or be forced out of my job.

'I will be standing again as mayoral candidate in 2024. My message will not have changed. You can fire me, but you cannot silence me.'

Good for her. But where do these companies get the bare-faced cheek to imagine they can control every aspect of our lives? They pay us for our time, and that's all. 

Perhaps Ms Martin should have simply billed them for every hour she worked on her campaign instead?

If The Police Try This With Every Venue Where Crime Happens....

...cities will be empty:

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of rape at a top London restaurant that was a favourite of Prince Philip and has hosted celebrities and politicians for decades.

So far, so 'ho hum'. But wait! 

Police officers said ‘drugs were involved’ in the alleged incident and have made an application for Elysee Greek restaurant and nightclub to be shut down.

*blinks* 

A licensing committee heard that two members of the family that runs the venue have been ‘banned permanently from access to the premises’ but did not say why.

Curiouser and curiouser! 

Councillors decided to suspend Elysee’s licence for six weeks after an extraordinary four-hour hearing, mostly held in secret last Tuesday.

The committee panel heard evidence behind closed doors after the Metropolitan Police asked for it to be held in private. At the end of the meeting, committee chairman Gio Spinella said two members of the Karageorgis family that runs the venue were ‘banned permanently from access to the premises’. But he said the panel had decided against revoking the licence permanently to give the restaurant ‘one final chance’.

Wonder if this will stop the police from bringing such a ridiculous action next time?  

"...we know there is an inextricable link between Class A drugs and... "

"...the Metropolitan Police making absolute arses of themselves on social media."

Footage posted to social media by the force showed officers walking through Shoreditch, which has seen a spike in incidents where women and girls have been made to feel unsafe, and swabbing revellers to ensure a safe 'night time economy'.

Wait, what? How many miscreants did this overblown operation bring to justice? 

The force revealed that the operation on the night saw one woman arrested on suspicion of possession of Class A drugs after she was observed disposing of a suspicious package.

Ha ha ha ha ha! 

Predictably, their efforts to justify themselves in the face of the huge backlash that they then faced from civil liberties groups made things even worse: 

A statement read: 'The video posted by the Met on social media was filmed in Shoreditch during a 'week of action' supporting women's safety between Monday, 6 and Sunday, 12 December 2021.

'The Chair of the local Independent Advisory Group was also invited and was present to observe the operation.

'The use of the machine was a condition of entry, that condition being agreed with the licensees for that night. Anyone who refused was not allowed entry to the venues on that night.

It was made clear to those wanting to attend the venues that the swabbing was voluntary.'

Are you an idiot, unnamed spokeperson? No wonder you didn't want your name on that! Some weren't so savvy... 

Chief Inspector Grace Blake-Turner, from the Met's Taskforce, said: 'Officers attended schools and universities to talk about topics such as consent.. '

Like consent to a random search by a police officer abusing their powers for likes on Facebook...? 

You Might Have Finally Overreached...

A tube strike is set to go ahead in August over plans to scrap the Night Tube train drivers’ pay grade after negotiations broke down between the union and London Underground.

The changes would mean that instead of having a separate role for Night Tube train drivers, all drivers would be expected to work a combination of normal and night shifts.

So? Conditions change in jobs all the time. Either accept them, or find another. 

Strike action was first proposed earlier this month but the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which represents tube drivers, has now confirmed it will go ahead next month. The union has asked all drivers not to book into work after midday for 24 hours on four separate dates - August 3, 5, 24 and 26.

But this might not have the effect it would have had pre-Covid. 

Everyone who can do so has now proved they can work from home. They've been doing it for a year and a half. So four days isn't much of a stretch.

We've all been hoping that automation will break the stranglehold the unions have held on commuters. Maybe a tiny virus, and the effect it has had on working patterns, will do so instead?