Tweet of the Month - Special Election Edition

 These were so good they deserved their own category! 

Tweet Of The Month

Post Title Of The Month

From the blog for all retail workers, Not Always Right, comes this little gem about one of the oldest tricks in the book: 

Quote Of The Month

 Perry at 'Samizdata' on the slow dawning of reality that you're on the wrong side of history:

"But then in late July for an entire week, the RAF and USAAF filled the sky over Hamburg by day and by night. And although Hannelore did not know it at the time, it was called Operation Gomorrah. She told me that on one night in particular, her father called the whole family outside. It was bright as day, the entire skyline to the south a line of incandescent light. By morning, white dust entirely covered their home and farmland, with a constant rain of ash still falling from the sky. 40,000 people had burned to death in a firestorm in a single day in Hamburg. And only then, our friend’s grandmother said, did they finally realise everything was not going to be alright and the war had been a catastrophic mistake. Only then, and from then onwards, did everything they read in the newspapers or heard on the radio ring hollow."

Post Of The Month

 David Thompson on the doomed struggle for artistic purity.

Suspicious Timing...

I later heard from his campaign team that Bamber had not received the letter because HMP Wakefield had banned him from receiving mail and email from journalists.

However, the campaign team said he was not allowed to email a response saying how much he liked the tree because he had also been banned from sending letters and emails to journalists. The campaign group says he is now banned from all forms of correspondence with the media.

Bamber has been writing to journalists since he was jailed in 1985. This is how we have learned about many of the inconsistencies, errors and failings in the initial investigation that make many of us believe his conviction is unsafe at the very least. It’s also how we’ve learned about crucial evidence that has been destroyed in the intervening years. So why would HMP Wakefield stop him now?

Because they can - the Labour Party troubles are good cover after all. 

It’s hard to believe that it is unconnected to the coverage his case has received over the past couple of years.

Yes, it is.  

This month the Sun ran an interview with Michael O’Brien, one of three men wrongly convicted of the 1987 killing of Cardiff newsagent Phillip Saunders, who spent time in jail with Bamber and is convinced he is innocent. O’Brien became a seminal figure in ensuring that prisoners who claimed they were wrongfully convicted had access to the media to make their case. A number of high-profile convictions have been overturned at the court of appeal in recent years. In 2023, Andrew Malkinson was cleared after spending 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. In 2025, Peter Sullivan had his murder conviction quashed after spending 38 years in prison, which is believed to be the UK’s longest wrongful imprisonment. Not surprisingly, these wrongful convictions have led journalists to focus on other potential miscarriages of justice.

When you’re digging for gold and find some, naturally you keep digging! 

The most high profile of these cases are Bamber and Lucy Letby, who was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others. If either of these convictions were to be overturned, it would cast a huge shadow over whether the British justice system is fit for purpose.

There already is a huge shadow over it. It was cast by Michael O’Brien.  

Without giving the Guardian a specific explanation for the decision in Bamber’s case, the Prison Service said it does not issue blanket bans and cited “the need to protect victims from serious distress and maintain confidence in the justice system” as the basis for restrictions on communication. But the Simms and O’Brien ruling states that limitations on communications that are considered “necessary” and “proportionate” to protect the rights of others, including victims, must be justified individually. In Bamber’s case we have seen no such justification.

And you will not see any. Because there isn’t one they could admit to. 

Sunday Funnies...

 I for one would have loved to see No7 come true! 

Blog Hiatus

 Posts will be light to non-existent here and at 'Orphans' for the next few days, as I’m on holiday in beautiful Edinburgh. 

Normal service will resume when I’m back in grimy London.

The People To Whom Those Funds Belonged Thought So...

...ro your objections count for naught!

Timmy the whale is lost at sea, presumed dead. In normal circumstances, the loss of a young humpback whale would be a sad yet unremarkable part of the circle of life. Dead whales help sustain thousands of marine species – and are part of the global carbon cycle.

Yes, they provide much needed food for hideous slimy bottom-feeders, and this case has done much the same in providing publicity opportunities for their two-legged counterparts on land 

Amy Dickham, a professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Oxford, says there are many lessons to reflect on from the case. “It’s really striking that there’s been such a focus on this individual animal at such great cost during a time of great crisis for wildlife funding around the world,” she told me. “It is really questionable whether it was a good use of funds, particularly compared with issues that impact much greater numbers of whales, such as collisions with vessels and entanglements with fishing gear.”

Who are you to question that? It's not your money, and you have no say over how these people want to spend it, which it the real issue, isn't it?  Even more, I suspect, than the danger that the 'experts' might be proved wrong.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said that the rescue for Timmy should “give us all pause”, highlighting it as an example of the challenges of social media.There’s a huge pressure to move rapidly and that doesn’t necessarily give experts the time to carefully consider what the best course of action should be, including things such as euthanasia, which might not be popular with the public but might be the best course of action for the animal’s welfare.”

Given what we know about what 'experts' choose to spend the money they are given on, I'll side with social media on this issue.

I Shouldn't Worry...

Some lifts could now be unsafe as manufacturers have failed to adjust their stated capacities in line with soaring obesity rates, experts warn.

I’ve yet to be in a lift where the sign has any bearing on reality! 

Elevators are required to display signs showing the maximum number of people they can carry but these have not been updated for over two decades. It means they are increasingly at risk of being overloaded even when they are transporting the number of passengers they have supposedly been built for, a conference heard.

Manufacturers' assumption that each person fills a floor area shaped like a small oval is also outdated as bulging waistlines mean many are now big and round, he added.

The lifts in my building claim 24 as maximum capacity, but even for normal sized people, that could realistically only be achieved by several of us sitting on the shoulders of others! Why is it a subject of concern for a conference, anyway?

'What's more, suggesting more people can fit in a lift than is comfortable is stigmatising people living with obesity.' 

*sigh* I might have known…bet they didn’t serve carrot sticks and water for lunch at this conference!