More Accurate Headlone: The Definitions Of Each Have Been Stretched Too Far...

Racism and sexism have become normalised in Britain, the equalities minister has said, as she warned that young men were being sucked into violent misogyny by the “cesspit” of social media.

It takes extraordinady chutzpah to make a statement like this the day after the Home Office has had to publish pamphlets exhorting Third World invaders not to behave as if they were still in their foreign shitholes. Or just the typical lack of smarts that we can expect from this dead-on-its-feet Labour government under bodybags Burnham.

Bridget Phillipson said she was increasingly worried about how commonplace misogyny and racism had become, fuelled by online interactions and statements by politicians she said would not have been acceptable a few years ago.

Yes, obviously the real threat is in cyberspacee, not the real world, because you want to control it.  

Speaking to the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast, she said: “I worry that we are at kind of a ground zero in terms of attitudes around violence against women and girls. Things that not very long ago felt totally unacceptable are becoming normal. I think we’re seeing that in terms of attitudes towards women, and I think we see that in terms of attitudes around racism.”

Well, you're certaainly right that some people's attitudes to women stink but they're not always men, are they? Proving this cartoon right: 

She accused the shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, and Reform’s economic spokesperson, Robert Jenrick, of having made racist statements in recent years. Earlier this year, Timothy called Muslims praying in Trafalgar Square an “act of domination”, while Jenrick came under fire in October after the Guardian revealed he had complained he “didn’t see another white face” on a trip to an area of Birmingham.

“We had Nick Timothy, who said some appalling things about Muslim prayer. “Apparently I’m calling him names when I say that’s racist. I think it is fundamentally racist because I don’t think he would say that about any other group.”

Does any other group practise this arrogant seizure of public space for their religious devotions? No? Maybe thats why he doesn't say it.

The women and equalities minister also criticised the police for not taking violence against women and girls seriously enough.

Perhaps they are too busy with internal matters.  

All The News That's Fit To Print....

...and some things that have to be left out:

A Newquay man has been charged after a woman was allegedly struck down by a van and grabbed by its driver. Police investigating reports of an attempted kidnap in Andover in Hampshire, almost 200 miles away from the Cornwall town, shared a public statement yesterday (Friday, March 6).

The statement said 28-year-old Sean Haverty has been charged in connection with the investigation. He has been remanded in custody and was due to appear before Basingstoke Magistrates' Court yesterday.

But not under the name 'Sean Haverty' though: 

                    

 Isn't 'Safiya' a woman's name? Google confirms it. And 'Anna' leaves little doubt. So why is this not worthy of mention? 

H/T: Jenn via Twitter

She Can't Stay In The Closet, It's Not Big Enough...

As you might know if you read my columns, see me a mile away, or talk to me for five seconds, I am a card-carrying lifelong member of the Fat Lesbian Club.

I wonder what sort of cards they carry… 

However, ever since I first laid eyes on the television show Roseanne (very important to me) as a small child, the actor John Goodman has held a special place in my heart. It was confusing for me: did I want to be Dan Conner, or be with Dan Conner? I’m still not sure. He has always been so hot to me, from Dan on Roseanne to Fred Flintstone to Walter in The Big Lebowski. His body has now drawn attention in the last week or so, after a photo of him showing significant weight loss went viral.

He looked ill. Of course the media was rife with speculation. 

It’s not Goodman’s 74-year-old body (his choice) I want to discuss, but instead the arguments that broke out about how he lost the weight. On one side there were many people congratulating him on his hard work. Then there were people claiming he had taken Ozempic so it wasn’t actually hard work, and then there were people defending that by saying he’d been losing weight for years, so he’d done it the “right way”, actually.

I don’t know the details and I don’t care, but none of this is good.

For someone who ‘doesn't care’ you’re rather dwelling on it.

I’m a fat person. We are constantly badgered and tortured by a society that tells us to lose weight, at all costs. If you’re fat, that’s a moral failing: you’re lazy and unhealthy.

Society has spent decades telling fat people that our value depends on our ability to control our weight. Now there is medicine that can make that control easier, and suddenly the problem is not the weight but whether the person has suffered sufficiently to “deserve” it. People resent us for being fat, and they resent us for getting thin.

My god, ‘Not The Nine O’clock News’ was spot on, wasn’t it? 

🎵"Don't stick stickers on my paper knickers..."🎵

...especially not these sort!

Two council cleansing workers were taken to hospital after falling ill while removing an “unauthorised sticker” from a lamppost on Morningside Road on Thursday, sparking a large-scale response by emergency services.A 30-year-old has been arrested and charged after a substance was found on a lamppost in the Morningside area.

What substance? No-one's saying! And these stickers seem not to be 'hazardous' at all, or so the police woulld like us to believe, which makes you wonder what the 30 year old has been charged with. And 30 yrar old what? Man ? Woman? The police say woman. Social media says different.

Police Scotland later confirmed the substance had been deemed safe following testing, reassuring residents it posed “no threat” to the public. However, emergency services were called out for a second time late on Thursday night following “additional reports of a potential hazardous material" near Hermitage Terrace.

 The colours are significant, I feel...

Police have arrested and charged a 30-year-old woman after an ‘unknown substance’ was discovered on a lamppost in Morningside. She is due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court at a later date.

The mystery deepens...

 

Well, It's Only Fair To Spread The Burden...

                              

....isn't it, Matt?

Sunday Funnies...

 Just in time for the release of 'Planet Zoo 2', I can only hope it doesn't have this level of realism...

Well, We Can Rule Out A Polar Bear...

..but does Paddington have an alibi?

In a rare kind of attack, a bear killed a man in Crystal, New Mexico, on Thursday, local police said. Authorities shot the bear, and the creature fled into woods near the scene of the attack. They said they ultimately found the bear and “neutralized” the animal.They neither identified the victim nor said what type of bear had killed him.

The only known species in the area is the black bear, Ursus americanus. 

North America generally has only a handful of fatal bear attacks annually.

That's not a lot of comfort for the deceased's family in this case, it it? 

As The UK Heatwave Dissipates, The Forces Are Marshalling for Next Year..

The El Niño event that is developing over the Pacific Ocean is likely to be the strongest in living memory, the Met Office has warned. The powerful natural climate phenomenon pushes up global temperatures and can increase the risks of extreme weather. Added to the effects of human-induced climate change, the Met Office is warning that it is "very likely" to mean 2027 is the hottest year on record.

I'd be worried, if I didn;t remember all the forecasts the Met Office made that didn't materialise.... 

There is growing evidence that weather patterns around the world are already being affected, with below-average monsoon rains in India and suppressed hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean. El Niño could put the UK at greater risk of a wet, stormy autumn.

Given monsoons and hurricanes kill people, isn't that rather a good thing? And a wet stormy Autumn is a typical season in the UK, isnt it? 

"We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event", said Prof Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the UK Met Office. "I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts."

Well, we'll see.  

Well, They Would Say That, Wouldn't They?

The programme, titled The Great ADHD Myth?, was broadcast on Tuesday and its host, NHS psychiatrist Dr Max Pemberton, concluded it was "a social construct, not a disorder of the brain". ADHD UK filed a complaint, saying: "ADHD is not a myth. It is not a social construct."

The Royal College of Psychiatrists also warned against "invalidating the condition".

Understandably, they have a business to protect. 

Channel 4 defended the show, saying there is "considerable public debate on various aspects of ADHD" and it "is legitimate for that debate to be explored and for conventional understandings to be challenged".

Once it would have been, but in 2026 that can be a risky business, as one professor has since found out. 

Another charity, ADHD Embrace, raised concerns with Channel 4 in advance, warning the programme risked "perpetuating misinformation about ADHD as a condition and discrimination against those families whose lives have been severely impacted by the condition".

But Channel 4 was not to be cowed... 

Channel 4 said: "Whilst the film does not seek to provide answers from one family's experience, their experiences have opened up discussion around whether today's world is equipped to accommodate ADHD behaviours and the ethics of medicating these, particularly in children and particularly when the long-term effects remain unknown."

Meicating children with little thought to the long term conseqequrances seem to be the way forward these day, that door has been well and truly opened.

Diagnosis rates of ADHD and autism have soared, and waiting lists for assessments on the NHS in England are at record levels, with lists even closing in some areas due to the huge demand. Research from University College London suggests nearly a 20-fold increase in the number of UK adults diagnosed with ADHD between 2000 and 2018.

Reduce the benefits and allowances associated with it if you want to see rates fall. 

Bodybags Sure Can Pick 'em!

The new farming minister fainted while visiting a refrigerated storage unit full of beef, it has been revealed.

Od dear. What was her name?

Stephen Morgan has been on a tour of farms and suppliers since being appointed.

Oops!  

...he felt ill when stepping into the room filled with shelves of meat from slaughtered cattle at a food processing plant in the Lake District. One local farmer, who knew about the incident, said: “He’d been shown large chunks of beef as well as some steaks but then he felt faint. 

“He said something like, ‘I don’t feel too well — I need a moment.’”

But it's OK, he may know sod all about farming, but his background in sociology and politics has made him a master of implausible excuses: 

The Portsmouth South MP explained of his wobble: “I felt unwell moving between the extreme heat and cold storage, and I’m grateful to all the staff at Lake District Farmers. 

“Hats off to the brilliant ­people working in these conditions and temperatures to keep the nation fed.”

When's that election? There was someone more incompetent that Starmer after all!