Tweet Of The Month

And who could forget this unfortunately prophetic Tweet from the newly elected Mike Amesbury?

Post Title Of The Month

A welcome return to blogging from MacHeath, who takes on the Chancellor's expected budget:

 

Quote Of The Month

Fahrenheit 211 has some advice for Reform:

"As I said earlier, this is one of those ideas that sound good and which will get a lot of attention but might end up either being a total failure or bring a whole host of problems for Reform. For what it’s worth my view is that rather than target Tory councillors, which might for reasons listed above, backfire, Reform should be going full on for former Labour voters or voters in traditionally Labour areas or those working class majority areas which have been shamefully left behind both politically and economically by the Labour and Conservative Parties."

Post Of The Month

Natalie at Samizdata on the calls for reparations for slavery....

I Guess All The Wonky Tables In The UK Are Now Level…

The heavily marketed tome, promoted in a prolonged media round by the former prime minister in recent weeks, only just managed to cling on to the No 1 spot in the official UK Top 50 this week, selling 133 more copies than Tim Spector’s The Food for Life, according to Nielsen Bookscan’s Total Consumer Market data.

Of Course They Did....

...after all, would we expect anything different from today's useless police farces?

A farmer who allegedly caught two men trespassing on his land then hogtied them to his quad bike and sped them to the police station has been hailed a hero online. The man, 52, had strapped two lads, aged 17 and 20, across the front and back of his vehicle before driving them four miles to the cops. But instead of quizzing the pair on the alleged trespass, they marched him in for questioning and later arrested him for false imprisonment and assault.

And of course, the two scum have gone bleating to the papers.

Speaking to the newspaper, Hornby's mum said: 'They were frightened to death. Absolutely terrified. The pair of them have nearly fallen off the quad bike'.

She said the events had left her upset, and baffled as to why the farmer had reacted in such an extreme way instead of just calling the police.

Because they are fucking useless at dealing with tresspassing scum like your son? 

We Have A Liar And A Coward For A Prime Minister…

Yesterday evening, on my way home from work, the news started to leak out…

The suspect in the Southport murders was today charged with making the deadly poison ricin. 

Axel Rudakubana, 18, has also been charged with having a study of a terrorist manual after one was found at his home, police said.

If there was any justice in this country, the lying bastard at No 10 would be thrown out of office and all those fast-tracked to prison on his say-so would be released immediately. Apart, of courge, for those for whom the truth has come far, far too late…

I have despised a few PMs in my time (Blair, Brown), I have had contempt for a few (May, Sunak) but I’ve never hated any - until now.

And how do the culprits in this disastrous government face up to the news? Simple. Keep denying reality.

No 10 says any suggestion of them withholding information is 'not correct', adding that their thoughts remain with the victims of the attack.

The police are no better: 

Yesterday, they said the events had still not been declared a terrorist incident because no motive had been established.

And Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy today insisted it was 'certainly not the case' that police were deciding to keep information from the public.

And even blogs are capitulating:

 This country is doomed. 

The Black 'Community' Speaks....

...and shows us why the country will never be free of activists and racehustlers:

Speaking outside Brixton station the morning after a jury took three hours to return a not guilty verdict against Met officer Blake, who had denied murder, Carlton Warren said the verdict was “shocking”. “But what can you say? There’s nothing you can do,” the 64-year-old added. “It’s frustration you feel more than anything, it’s sad for his family, [Chris Kaba’s] not been given a chance. But we’re living in perilous times – it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

It's not going to get better until you lance the festering boil in your own 'community'... 

Ola, 29, has never had a bad encounter with police in London. But in the 15 months he’s been in the country, he’s heard so many stories about “Black people being stopped and searched without a report of them being involved in anything” that he says he’s “not really surprised” by Chris Kaba’s story.The video producer says that even before he arrived in the UK from Nigeria, he had heard stories about police here.

The irony of someone from Nigeria fearing our police won't be lost on anyone... 

On a street near the Ritzy Picturehouse, Isaiah Nature, 52, questioned why lethal force was necessary. “Even though [Chris Kaba] was known as a violent man, if this is my job, I’ve got to look at the situation. I could shoot him in the leg, you could reach for the gun,” he said.

Sure you could, although wouldn't the dashboard get in the way?  

Walking back from a Jamaican bakery on Coldharbour Lane, Tasha Nelson, from Streatham Hill, was adamant that “justice hasn’t been served”. She was sad for a family who have lost a son and incredulous at the idea police can’t “stop a situation” like Chris Kaba’s without resorting to lethal force.“I went to all the vigils, because it’s just down the road from me,” she said. “I think police get away with so much. I have got kids and I’m teaching them how to react [if they get stopped]. I think if it was a Caucasian person bringing up kids, you don’t need to discuss it, it’s not the same. In this situation [Chris Kaba] didn’t have a gun. I think if it had been a Caucasian guy sitting in the car, it would have been entirely different.”

The elected representatives aren't any smarter:

The Clapham and Brixton Hill MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, said “there was a lot of pain and anger and hurt”, first at the fatal shooting, and then at the acquittal, in a borough that has “the lowest confidence in police in London”.

“So many Black men have faced harm, in some cases death, following contact with the police,” she said.

And how many 'following contact with other black men'? Black men like Chris Kaba, in fact? 

“I understand [police] have a complex job with extreme pressures, but no one is above the law. Black people are over-policed as citizens and under-policed as victims.”

Well, if they won't tell the police what they know, what else can the police do? 

Meanwhile, race relations activist Lee Jasper, a former policing director for London, called for juries in such cases to hear expert evidence on institutional racism.

“If the rationale is a police officer only needs a reasonable belief to fire his weapon, then it’s tantamount to a licence to kill,” he said. “This verdict will make it absolutely clear to Black communities that when it comes to the Met police, Black lives don’t matter.”

They don't seem to matter much to the black community either. Maybe tackle that first.

We Can't Save You From Yourselves!

Leading the work on dangerous dogs in South Yorkshire, Chief Inspector Emma Cheney, of South Yorkshire Police, said: “The dog involved in this case has cost our force, and ultimately the taxpayer thousands of pounds.

“The kennelling cost for the dog was over £2,500, in addition to court costs, and further expense of police officers’ time, response and now the veterinary fees to destroy the dog.

“We are working hard to prevent injury from dangerous dogs to our communities but continue to need your help.

“To support us, we continue to urge owners to be vigilant and aware of your dogs, their characteristics and understand that just because your dog has been returned to you, does not label them as ‘safe’.

“As with any dog, you need to take precaution and be realistic about your dog’s ability to cause harm.”

This was the police response after an owner called them for help after her unregistered XL Bully, seized by the police and under a destruction order from a magistrate until she appealed and got it back, turned on her other dog and savaged it, whereupon she then 'was concerned for her young children’s safety.'

A situation, I can't help but feel, would have been avoided by not seizing the dog and bearing it off to kennels, but dealing with it then and there at the scene. Certainly would have saved the vet fees. How about a change of policy, Emma? I'm sure the intervening 14  years have seen an improvement in marksmanship...

H/T: Vector via Twitter.

People In Glass Houses, Martin…

Under Keir Starmer, there is a moral compass in Downing Street once more. But something else has gone missing. Too often, Labour now seems to lack not a moral compass, but a fully functioning political one. It has never needed one more than it does today.

And why is that, pray tell?

The most recent evidence that Labour’s political compass has been lost is in the unnecessary and overwrought row about its role in the US election. Here, once again, Labour has allowed its actions to be defined by its critics. As such, it fits a pattern: the failure to spot the danger in the freebies-for-ministers revelations; the tangled rise and fall of Sue Gray; the peremptory cull of winter fuel payments. With a good political compass, all of these could have been avoided.

Martin seems to have forgotten the 'Guardian's' own little foray into US politics, and just how effective that was!   

I Beg Your Pardon?

'Dramatic'? *adopts Paul Hogan accent* That ain't dramatic, mate...this is dramatic! 

And, worryingly, a road I know well! What sort of speed you'd have to be doing to end up there I can't imagine.

Word Salad...

Just in case someone thinks we unfairly single out the 'Mail' here, I'm sent this:

*winces* Did Kamala Harris write this?

H/T: Longrider via email

Oh, Good Grief, 'Mail'!

Did you learn nothing from the last time? 

Sunday Spooky Funnies...

Makes 'Let's be careful out there' even more cheering...

Your Prejudices Are Showing, Gaby...

And they aren't, of course, as the total waste of public money that was the trial of an armed officer for shooting dead a deadly threat has shown...

For Kaba’s grieving family, this latest in a string of acquittals was proof the police “can kill with impunity”, as a campaigner said.

Funny sort of 'impunity' that puts you on trial for following your training. Are you sure you know what that word means, Gaby? Will this help?

Police chiefs, conversely, have responded by demanding more safeguards against prosecution. Though the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has agreed to demands that officers in such cases remain anonymous until convicted – not unreasonably, given the threats reportedly made against Blake and his loved ones – she has ordered an independent review into some of the more questionable asks on the National Police Chiefs’ Council wishlist, alongside a crackdown on police vetting and an overhaul of CPS guidance on charging officers. It’s time to get to the bottom, once and for all, of why successful prosecutions are so rare.

Because every member of that jury would have put themselves in the place of that officer facing a man using a vehicle as a deadly weapon and wondered just what else he was supposed to do, Gaby.... 

The home secretary cannot, however, let herself be held to ransom.

The Home Sec has already been held to ransom (by the racehustlers) many times, what's one more? 

...let us also hear from those who think justice is already almost impossible to get and who understand the human consequences of some of the NPCC’s more technical-sounding demands, such as making it harder for inquests to return verdicts of unlawful killing against police officers.

I think we've heard quite enough from that quarter, with their selective outrage when blacks are harmed by someone not also black, don't you? 

It’s true that we expect extraordinary things of firearms officers. Of the two other fatal shootings investigated in the year Kaba died, one involved a white man with a knife who attacked a police station and charged headlong at a Derbyshire firearms officer, who held off firing until the man was barely arm’s-length away. The other was a white man in Cumbria, holding a knife to a young child’s throat. He was shot after repeatedly refusing to drop the knife, and the child survived. The skill and steadiness under pressure involved in both cases is astonishing, and the consequences of a mistake unimaginable. I certainly couldn’t do it. But the same is true of brain surgery, and that doesn’t render surgeons above the law.

It does mean that it seems to take an extraordinarily long time to bring them to justice, Gaby. And I'd bet there's far more surgeons than AFOs in the country.

Nice Try, Rosie, But Surely The Essence Of Good PR Is....

...not making your clients look unprofessional?

It's home to over 200 animals, ranging from giraffes to cheetahs. But despite this extensive collection, keepers at Bristol Zoo Project have been left baffled by one mysterious creature. The four-legged animal was caught on a night vision camera in the Bear Wood habitat.

Baffled? I could have told you what it was. Every gamekeeper and deerstalker and farmer in the country could have told you what it was. But Rosie struggles on gamely: 

...the confused keepers say it's 'like nothing they have spotted before.'

'The sighting of this mythical-like creature is a mystery to us here at Bristol Zoo Project,' said Rosie Sims, Public Engagement Manager at Bristol Zoo Project.

'Scotland has the Loch Ness monster and Cornwall has the Beast of Bodmin Moor. 'Have we discovered a similar mythical here in Bristol perhaps?'

No, and your keepers should hand in their licences to work at a zoo if they really can't identify a muntjac. 

Of course, that's not what happened, this is a story designed to publicise the zoo by being picked up by a supine MSM who'll print any old press release without stopping to think how likely it is... 

To get to the bottom of it, MailOnline turned to the AI bot, ChatGPT. We uploaded a photo of the creature and asked ChatGPT: 'What animal is this?'

Within seconds, the AI bot responded: 'The animal in the image appears to be a muntjac, also known as a barking deer.'

Imagine being thrashed at animal recognition by 'Mail' journalists...!  

“I Didn’t Get Free Money And Now I’m Traumatised!”

The chief executive of the British Film Institute has apologised to a prominent film-maker of colour for mishandling his complaint about racial discrimination.

What did they do, refuse him entry to a premiere? Call him something unmentionable? 

Qureshi had complained to the BFI that he was given incorrect information about accessing National Lottery funding and inappropriately discouraged from bidding for it, and that his subsequent complaint was handled inappropriately.

Oh. 

The BFI commissioned an independent report from Verita, the complaints reviewer for National Lottery-funded organisations. The report concluded there was not enough evidence to draw conclusions on Qureshi’s view that there was “systemic racism within the BFI”, but it said the organisation’s response to the complaint “fell well short of constituting a formal response”.

Roberts said: “The report clearly indicates that our handling of your complaint fell well short of both your expectations and ours, and we let you down. I would like to reassure you that we take the findings of the Verita report seriously.” He said that the BFI had made several improvements to its complaints procedure, including meetings and phone calls with complainants and stronger training for team members.

Typical reflexive cringing when ever the RaceCard™ gets pulled and waved around.  

Qureshi said it was “helpful” to get an apology, though it’s “not for what I wanted”. He has not yet decided whether to meet with Roberts. He said: “There is only so many times organisations can say they have learned from their mistakes, usually by inflicting trauma on ethnic minorities. That it took five years to get this far only for them to go ‘trust us again’ is not a reasonable reassurance. Maybe a more significant one is change in their leadership.”

Not getting free money isn't a 'trauma' for most people and I'd stick with the leadership that's grovelled before you if I were you, chum. The next one might just tell you to take a hike! 

They're Not Lovin' It...

Fifth? How many does a small town need...?

McDonald’s initially wanted to open the new restaurant 24/7 but it withdrew an application for the opening hours following objections from residents, who raised concerns about antisocial behaviour, noise and traffic.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s said it had ‘listened to residents’ concerns’. It withdrew the application on September 4, meaning the new branch will not be allowed to open overnight or serve food between 11pm and 5am.

That's as close to 24/7 as probably makes no difference to neighbours... 

H/T: IanJ via email

Kafka Strikes Again...

So, following on from last week's nonsense, I've now received this:

 

I asked for a review, but clearly they still thought it breached their guidelines. So...here's the screenshots. I can't amemd the bit they don't like in order to republish, because I can't see anything that could be classed as 'hate speech'. So it remains in 'trash'. 

If anyone else can see what they find objectionable, do please enlighten me...

When Did 'Round Up The Usual Suspects'...

....become 'Just nick anyone who might be in charge so we can claim to be doing something and we'll sort it all out later'?

Detective Chief Inspector Neil Third, of the Major Crime Investigation Team, said: 'Our heartfelt thoughts and condolences are with the families and loved ones of those who tragically died and they are being supported by officers.

'As part of our investigation, we have made one arrest to enable us to establish whether there have been actions or omissions which are grossly negligent and gather as much information as we can about what has happened.

'It is important to note that the arrest process also provides certain legal protection to individuals and I would ask for the media and public to avoid speculating any further now that legal proceedings are active.'

If you think that means the actions of your team in arresting someone before you even know the cause of this incident won't face scrutiny, you're dead wrong. 

The suspect was arrested just hours after police said the deaths were being treated as 'unexplained' and possible carbon monoxide posioning is the 'primary line of inquiry.'

And if it turns out the cause is faulty equipment and she's not to blame? You'll just let this lady go with a 'Sorry about that!' knowing full well that if she sues, the taxpayer will pick up the tab, I suppose...

“Don’t Do Your Jobs, Just Do As We Tell You!”

Labour MPs have been warned they must not put down any amendments on government bills and must resolve disagreements privately with ministers, in a crackdown on dissent in parliament. In a private message, seen by the Guardian, Labour whips told MPs they could no longer act as if they were in opposition and said amendments suggested a lack of trust in the government.

The message said MPs should be speaking with “one voice” in public.

MPs are elected to represent their constituencies, not kow-tow meekly to the whips of their party. Aren't they? 

There are a number of bills where there is pressure for the government to go further, such as the GB Energy bill and the employment rights bill. But the whip warned it was “not very helpful” for MPs to be putting amendments against their own government, adding: “We are not in opposition any more.”

They said ministers would be happy to have discussions and “reassure them that their concerns are taken into account”, but amendments “make it look like we don’t trust our own government to deliver”.

Well, at last the MPs do represent their communities, because we don't trust you buggers as far as we can throw you either!  

Labour MPs are in a frenzied jostle for places on select committees, elections for which will be held next week between Monday to Wednesday. New MPs and those who missed out on ministerial appointments have been told there is fierce competition for places on the most prestigious committees, such as those for the Treasury, foreign affairs, home affairs and health.

Ah, seats on the gravy train for all!  

No Great Mystery, They Are Exactly Who We Thought They Were....

The rabble-rousers, the racehustlers, the terminally woke...

But in the days and weeks after his death in September 2022, many big names from Jeremy Corbyn to Diane Abbott and the University of Greenwich called for 'justice' after Mr Kaba was gunned down and killed while trying to flee police.

But the truth is Kaba wasn't just an ordinary motorist going about his daily life on September 5, 2022. He was one of London's most feared gangsters fleeing police, high on cocaine and ready to run over anyone in his way.

No-one really believed he wasn't, surely? And the politicians, like the Mayor of London, would have known this. 

Not that the police themselves are free from criticism of their handling of this case: 

Scotland Yard was last night looking to scrap disciplinary charges against Martyn Blake following his acquittal. The police watchdog, who carried out a seven-month investigation into the shooting of Chris Kaba, decided last year that the sergeant should face a separate gross misconduct hearing relating to his 'use of force' after the conclusion of the criminal case. The Met backed the assessment with its Directorate of Professional Standards agreeing there was a disciplinary 'case to answer' on the 'available evidence'.

But now, they've changed their mind, because they can see that public favour is with them: 

But now the force has abandoned its support of the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) decision and will be calling for the disciplinary process to be halted after the Met officer was acquitted of Kaba's murder. The revelation Met bosses initially backed the disciplinary will anger firearms officers who say they are not properly supported and face years of investigation if they pull the trigger to protect a life.

It should anger everyone, because it clearly reveals the Met Police top brass as honourless cowards who do whatever they think will garner them favourable headlines, and not what they believe is the right and lawful thing to do.   

The Most Cringingly Apologetic Response To A Dog Attack I’ve Ever Read

And I've read a lot:

A woman remains in a critical condition in hospital after being mauled by three dogs at a home in Dandenong, in Melbourne's south-east. Police were forced to shoot the dogs when capsicum spray failed to subdue them during the attack on Thursday.

Normal people will wonder why the police even bothered with non-lethal attempts in the first place. 

A hospital spokesperson said her condition on Friday continued to be listed as critical.

The RSPCA's chief veterinarian Bronwyn Oke said it was "an absolute tragedy" for the woman, the police officers who were confronted by the dogs and had to shoot them, and the dogs. "We don't know what's gone on here," Dr Oke told ABC Radio Melbourne. "I can only hope that this woman makes a strong and rapid recovery."

‘Recovery’? Her arm’s not going to grow back, is it? 

But Dr Oke cautioned against a response that focused on the breeds. "We get a real emotive response to pit bulls," she said. "Pit bull isn't actually a breed, it's an umbrella term for dogs that have descended from bulldogs and from terriers.

"When we say things like this breed or this pit bull needs to be euthanised just for being in existence, what we're actually doing is potentially destroying dogs that are absolutely fine.

The precautionary principle in action! How many times have we heard 'I don't understand, he was always fine with my kids!' as a grieving mother faces the news cameras? Since we don't know which dogs of this wretched breed are really 'absolutely fine' and which are ticking time bombs, better not to take the chance, surely? 

She said it could also stop owners from taking their dog to a vet to be desexed. Dr Oke said the way dogs were treated and other environmental factors were often the underlying cause of their behaviour. "We also know that when animals are in larger groups, they can mentally switch, they can go into pack mentality," she said.She also said dogs could behave differently when they were scared, uncomfortable with a situation, in pain or suffering a medical condition. "We've got to remember that animals are animals, they can't express to us in words what's going on," Dr Oke said. "It's really important to know your pet, to read its body language and if you have any change in behaviour to get that actually formally assessed, have a veterinary opinion to see is there something going on."

It's because of attitudes like this that neighbour complaints about these animals go unanswered, leading to this sort of tragedy. Which, if the comments on FaceBook are anything to go by, is also the case in yesterday's Kinross case in the UK, with the dogs responsible being well known and reported to police. 

Seriously, 'Straya, don't you have enough lethal native wildlife to suit? Why would you want to import more?

More Met DEI Hire Woes...

A former Met Police detective who sprayed her neighbour with a garden hose after a row about her dog’s waste has been found to have committed gross misconduct.

The tribunal ruled the former officer would have been handed a final written warning for her “intimidating” behaviour had she not already left the force.

*sighs* Still, neighbour disputes, eh? They happen. Is one incident really a sign she's not good at her j... 

In another incident, the panel heard how DS Chinn also sprayed one of her neighbours in a separate ‘urine’ row in May 2022, which she denied.

Oh!  

“The Panel has found that former DS Chinn knew, by 24th May 2022 at the latest, what was happening and rather than finding an alternative to the washing arrangements, she carried on regardless, in full knowledge of the distress it was causing.”

However, it said there was no evidence “any of the misconduct was pre-planned”, but that DS Chinn “ought to have known better than to act in the way she did.”

Maybe look again at your hiring processes? 

It added the behaviour “has been out of character” and that she may have perceived her neighbour’s actions as provocative.

Try not to employ women who think neighbours who object to a constant stream of dog waste are being unreasonable, perhaps? 

"My children enjoyed the rare taste of meat. "

Last week in London, celebrities including Dame Judi Dench, Ricky Gervais, Dame Joanna Lumley and Sir David Jason launched a petition demanding the Labour government help to starve small black children in Zimbabwe.

Whoops! No, sorry. Got that a bit wrong. Or...did I? 

Last week in London, celebrities including Dame Judi Dench, Ricky Gervais, Dame Joanna Lumley and Sir David Jason launched a petition demanding the Labour government help to stop the 'cruel sport' of trophy hunting in Africa.

They are, of course, outraged that small black children have meat to eat.  

Campfire leaders are emphatic in their support for the government cull. They told us that Zimbabwe cannot cope with so many elephants and is right to 'fight' pro-animal campaigners. 'The meat will save our people,' they added.

Resource Africa, an influential organisation representing the thousands in rural Zimbabwe and other southern African countries facing the 'elephant problem', said a recent UK poll backing the import bill was prompted by British ignorance and populist virtue signalling.

Hard to disagree, isn't it?  

Touche! But the sad truth is, these bunny-huggers, like Dame Judi Dench, Ricky Gervais, Dame Joanna Lumley and Sir David Jason would almost certainly demand stag shooting be stopped too, even as they tucked into venison fillets at the Dorchester...

There Must Be More To This Than Age....

Police issued an appeal to find the woman, who came forward two days after the collision. The mother claims that while officers were initially 'very angry' that a cyclist could have caused these injuries, as soon as they found out it was a 65-year-old woman their judgement changed.

She was told the bike had not been modified to exceed the 15.5 miles per house that such a bike can reach without medal power.

Huh? So if you run a pedestrian down in a bog standard Ford Escort you'll be treated more leniently than if you did it in one with a nitrous injection kit? 

It's got to be more than just the age of the cyclist, surely?

Ms Gore said she was 'very lucky' her son survived adding that she wants people to realise the dangers the heavy and 'potentially faster' e-bikes can pose. MailOnline has approached North Wales Police for a comment.

Doesn't sound like they provided one, does it? 

The Government, Summed Up In A Tweet....

One they themselves put out, clearly thinking it made them look like heroes. 

Along with our partners at @FEMA, we will continue with disaster recovery as a result of Hurricane Milton. The safety of the American people is our top priority. pic.twitter.com/l8NfS8dPlc

— CBP (@CBP) October 17, 2024

 In case they realise, by the time this goes up, and yank it (no pun intended!), here's what it showed:

They Are Dangerous, Yes, 'Mail'...

...but in no sense are they predators! 

Sunday Funnies...

Well, why not, the two careers are eerily similar...

The People That Think Men Can Be Women Speak, Should We Listen?

Top doctors have identified Britain’s immigration system as a “public mental health concern” that inflicts harm on asylum seekers, and risks “re-traumatising” those already affected by psychological distress. The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) has called on ministers to review immigration laws introduced by the last government, saying Labour had a “moral and ethical obligation” to protect the mental health of those seeking sanctuary in the UK.

Well, I'd be more inclined to listen to your squawking about that if you hadn't spent the last 15 years trying to convince us all that a 6ft 300lb former rugby prop-forward was really a woman because he shaved his legs and put some lippy on. Frankly, I think anything you expound on is suspect as a result.  

“A robust immigration policy can still be guided by human kindness, that is fair and compassionate,” said Dr Lade Smith, the RCPsych president. Smith said many asylum seekers had left countries where they had experienced violence, rape, imprisonment and torture, before enduring further trauma on hazardous journeys to the UK, sometimes at the hands of people traffickers.As a result it was unsurprising that many asylum seekers experienced mental illness and were at risk of re-traumatisation because of the treatment they received on arrival. It was the UK’s duty to make their lives “better and not worse”, she said.

Does the UK government not have a duty to existing UK citizens to make their lives better and not worse, then? And what if importing hundreds of thousands of illiterate Third World moochers conflicts with that?

While the new government had made some welcome policy shifts, including scrapping plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, a raft of immigration legislation introduced since 2022 remained in place, she said. These laws criminalised asylum seekers who did not arrive in the UK through established routes, created a more onerous asylum process, and introduced provisions to enable the processing of asylum claims in so-called “third” countries.

All perfectly sensible measures, which is, of course, why you are set against them. 

There was evidence from Australia that in cases where asylum seekers were removed to offshore locations for claims processing, they then had high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and self-harm, the report says.

*shrugs* 

You May Have To Eat Those Words, Thirwell

When the public inquiry into the crimes of the former nurse Lucy Letby opened in Liverpool last month its chair, Lady Justice Thirlwall, dismissed concerns about the safety of the convictions as “noise”. The judge cautioned that questions being raised were increasing the distress of parents whose children had died or been harmed.

Isn't the point of any enquiry to ask questions, though? Otherwise, why are you even holding it? 

Letby was found guilty across two trials of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others at the Countess of Chester hospital (COCH) in 2015 and 2016. Thirlwall pointed out that in May this year, the court of appeal refused Letby permission to appeal, and she said it was not the role of her inquiry to review the convictions.

It's not. She got that right, but you cannot have an enquiry that closes off a line of questioning because of hurty feels, even in 2024. 

Yet questions about the case, and the number of experts raising them, have continued to mount. Letby is being represented by a new barrister, Mark McDonald, and a number of specialists including leading neonatologists – doctors who specialise in treating premature babies – are voluntarily working with him on an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

This should surely be something the enquiry needs to have an eye on, in case it becomes relevant.  

The Guardian has now learned that from an early stage, Cheshire police recognised the case involved statistics – and they had initially engaged Hutton. According to emails seen by the Guardian, in April 2018 an officer on the investigation approached Hutton, who has extensive experience in medical research. Without naming Letby, he asked Hutton whether she could put a figure on how likely it was to be just a coincidence for one member of staff to be on duty “during all the deaths/collapses” in the neonatal unit, “ie 1 in a million etc”. She informed the police that a proper statistical inquiry would not concentrate on one member of staff from the outset, but instead required full research into all possible explanations for any increase in babies collapsing including their medical conditions and prematurity, as well as the performance of the unit. Reviews commissioned by the hospital had found medical explanations for nearly all of the deaths, criticised the standard of care on the unit and noted a lack of senior doctors.

Then how did the police switch to 'There's been a muuuurderrr!' mode? 

Cheshire police then signed a consultancy agreement with Hutton and agreed fees, the documents suggest. The force did not proceed to commission Hutton’s analysis at that time, but contacted her again in 2021 after Letby had been charged. A video call was arranged, but an officer later cancelled the call. “We have had a further meeting this afternoon where we have informed the prosecutors that we were looking at the validity of statistical evidence again in the case,” he wrote in an email. “The prosecutor does not agree with our line of inquiry and has instructed us not to pursue this avenue, any further, at present.”

Aha! Ominously ticking parcel firmly in the CPS's grasp now!   

Neither the initial engagement with Hutton nor the CPS instruction to the police to drop their line of inquiry into the “validity of the statistical evidence in the case” were disclosed to Letby’s defence team, the Guardian understands.

Ouch! That should cost them, shouldn't it? Or are we ignoring disclosure breaches now? 

Kafka Would Be Delighted...

Apparantly, I've said something someone doesn't want anyone to know. 

What is it? Who can say? They won't tell me:

So how can they prevent me saying it again, whatever it was?

It Worked In WWII, But I Don’t Think It’ll Work Today…

 

Scientists have called for people to go “urban mining” after a study revealed that old cables, phone chargers and other unused electrical goods thrown away or stored in cupboards or drawers could stave off a looming shortage of copper. The research found that in the UK there are approximately 823m unused or broken tech items hiding in “drawers of doom” containing as much as 38,449 tonnes of copper – including 627m cables – enough to provide 30% of the copper needed for the UK’s planned transition to a decarbonised electricity grid by 2030.

Patriots in WWII contributed their spare metal objects to help build Spitfires for the war effort, and clearly, this inspired a PR bod to try the same thing, with a far more imaginary foe than the Nazis.

Scott Butler, from Recycle Your Electricals, which produced the study, called on the public to start recycling their unwanted electrical goods.

Nice try, I suppose. 

Why Did You Expect Anything To Be Learned?

Jack and Paul, aged 12 and nine, hadn’t wanted to visit their father, Darren Sykes. He had previously hit both them and their mum. He’d made them eat until they were sick. He used to call them “mummy’s boys”. Paul had explained all this to a worker at Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) in a formal interview. Throssell had said in an evidence statement that, when angry, Sykes was capable of hurting or killing the boys, that he had told her he intended to take his own life and that he could understand fathers killing their children. Still, contact was awarded to him.

And of course, the end everyone except those involved in the system could see coming happened. 

Ten years on – or, in her own words, “10 years into my life sentence” – Throssell cannot believe how little has been learned. “I’ve had sleepless nights knowing that the judge who made the contact order was still on the bench and the Cafcass worker who interviewed Paul has never been held accountable,” she says.

They never are. And they never learn any lessons, either. 

A paper published in August by the Shera research group, examined 10 anonymous family court cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse carried out by the father – including cases where the father had admitted to it, or there was digital or video evidence, and one of child rape that had led to a prison sentence. In all of these cases, the father ultimately won some form of contact with their children, including overnight stays and 50/50 shared residency. One woman, whose ex was given five years on the sex offender register for downloading child sexual abuse images, mainly of girls, including babies and young children, was told by her Cafcass worker: “Well, it’s all right because you’ve got a son.”

If you think that beggars belief, read on!  

Ironically, Throssell – like many victims of domestic abuse – had first turned to the family courts for protection. “I couldn’t fight on my own any more and I trusted the courts to see sense,” she says.

Her first experience in the courtroom shocked her. Most cases involve allegations of domestic abuse, and women who have fled their ex-partners. Here they were expected to face them again, in close proximity – to sit beside them in waiting rooms, listen while they spun a story. “There were no safety measures,” she says. “He was right there, glaring at me, then verbally attacking me. Then you go inside and it’s like a boardroom with him sitting four seats away, hurling insult after insult. At one point the judge had to tell him to be quiet. I thought this was clear evidence that he can’t control his emotions and wasn’t safe to be around.”

Well, any reasonable person would think so, wouldn't they? But clearly, those sorts don't work in these roles. 

Paul was interviewed by a Cafcass officer for the section 7 report and described life with his dad, listing the many reasons he didn’t want to see him. The Cafcass officer then met with Sykes. The serious case review following the boys’ deaths found that Sykes became “agitated and uncomfortable” in that meeting and barred the door to prevent the officer leaving – her notes stated that she wanted extra support when with him in future. “If that Cafcass officer couldn’t handle seeing him alone, how the hell did she think a nine- and 12-year-old would? She had the power to overrule the contact order there and then,” says Throssell. “But she didn’t.”

See? 

The serious case review, published in 2015, did not conclude that contact should have been suspended, only that this option should have been “considered”.

“Such judgments are difficult to make at the time,” the report stated, “and it is considerably easier to criticise with the benefit of hindsight.”

Well, it gets easier because this system gives us so much practice. 

“All These Worlds Are Yours Save Europa…”

"...attempt no landing there."

Nasa is poised to send a spacecraft to a frosty moon of Jupiter where extraterrestrial life may eke out an existence in an enormous ocean hidden beneath its ice-covered surface. The Europa Clipper mission is due to blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12.06pm local time on Monday after the original plan to launch on Thursday was scrapped due to the battering winds brought by Hurricane Milton.

“It’s a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago but a world that might be habitable today, right now,” said Curt Niebur, a programme scientist on the mission.

I think it's time I fired up the DVD player and watched a certain sci-fi film again... 

It’s Not A Train Line, It’s A Black Hole

Prepare for the next instalment of the great HS2 fiasco.

Stories suggest the chancellor is preparing to shuffle the off-balance sheet financing deck, find £1bn-plus and give a thumbs up to start boring the tunnel from Old Oak Common to Euston.

Got to spend that money taken off pensioners on something, I suppose.... 

That decision will be motivated mainly by the sense that the high-speed line, already stripped of its northern legs by Rishi Sunak, would be even more of a national embarrassment if southbound passengers had to hop off at an industrial estate five miles west of central London.

They'd probably be safer. 

But, if the tunnel is a go, we’re on to the far trickier question of what is to be done with Euston station.

Like HS2 itself, Euston seems to defy every attempt to impose control on costs. Two designs have already been ripped up. The last version came out at £4.8bn when the brief was £2.6bn.

I went via Euston on my trip to Chester, hadn't visited for a while. It's supposedly been 'refurbished' but it's not for the better. Seating with no view of the departure boards is just one obvious faux pas.... 

The final irony of the HS2 debacle will come if the next blueprint for Euston ends up looking like the original that was rejected as unaffordable in 2020. That, laughably, is probably the way to bet.

We are rapidly becoming a joke of a country. 

Pop Quiz! Literally…

A venue in Lincoln has apologised for the treatment of some male attendees at a planned concert by the Last Dinner Party – which the band ultimately cancelled shortly before show time due to illness. On X, one man wrote that on arriving at the Engine Shed, he was “funnelled into a dark corner with other men, told I might be a pervert cus I’m alone and then taken into a room alone with a security guard where I was interrogated and searched. Feel sick.” In subsequent comments, he said he had been asked what his favourite song by the British group was.Another man wrote: “I rocked up there tonight at 8.45 on my own, no queue, I got asked how long I had liked them for, and to name my favourite song. I thought it was a bit strange and the first time I’ve ever felt like I’m on mastermind to get into a gig. Now I’ve read this I understand why now.”

Well, it's more than I do! What a bizarre thing to ask. And why just ask men? 

In a statement posted to X, the Engine Shed said they were aware of reports online that the entry procedure that night “fell far short of our venue entry policy, which requires all attendees to be treated equally and subject to the same entry requirements”. It said that a preliminary investigation had shown that after security were told about incidents at previous gigs by the band, “the venue management team made an ad-hoc change” to policy.

I know this in the 'Guardian' and I shouldn't expect any journalism, but...what incidents? 

The Last Dinner Party posted a statement on Instagram saying that the policies were “created and enforced by the venue at their own discretion, and were not made in consultation with us.

“They do not reflect our beliefs and would not have been implemented had we been made aware of them in advance … Our shows are intended to be safe, welcoming spaes for everyone, which is something we deeply care about. Seeing inclusivity embraced by our fanbase is one of the best parts of performing live.”

I'm not a concert-goer, but I always thought for those who were, it was about the music.... 

I Thought They Said ‘Diversity Is About More Than Colour’..?

It looks like that idea's gone out of the window now...

As Ursula von der Leyen sweet-talked and bullied EU leaders to send more women to Brussels over recent weeks, I kept hoping she would also make her incoming team of European commissioners more racially diverse. Thanks to an unexpected twist of fate involving (very) complicated Belgian politics, Hadja Lahbib, Belgium’s foreign minister, could soon make history as the first ever EU commissioner who is also a person of colour.

The person writing an anguished column in the 'Guardian' about the awful fact that a lineup of EU Commisioners is nearly all white (but could have gay or non-visibly disabled members) is none other than Shada Islam (a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company). 

We can just imagine what sort of 'advice' you get from such a company...

If she gets the parliamentary thumbs up, Lahbib and the incoming EU Council president, Portugal’s former prime minister António Costa, who is of Goan and Mozambican heritage, will give a much-needed reputational tweak to an EU that boasts about being “united in diversity” but whose institutions still keep no data on their staff’s ethnicity and are visibly and notoriously “all-white”.

Now do Nigeria's government.  

Why Do They Love The Dangerous Breeds?

Police were searching Jade Hubbard’s house in Gregory Street in Sudbury for the suspect of another crime when her dog bit one of the officers on the arm. The defendant, 36, was “obnoxious, abusive and obstructive”, Judge Martyn Levett said, and she refused to tell police where the suspect was - but they found him hiding in a cupboard.

The dog is to be destroyed, and an order was made for Hubbard to be disqualified from owning a dog.

Sadly, they can't disqualify her from associating with criminals. And it's a toss up who was more of a dangerous breed anyway: 

Hubbard was also sentenced for a “devastating” assault on another woman in Sudbury.

Judge Levett said Hubbard screamed “do you want me to rip your nose off?” and then bit the victim’s left arm and would not let go.

Perhaps she should be taking that final trip to the vets too? 

Hubbard previously admitted all the offences and the court heard she has a very extensive history of criminality. Judge Levett described her 113 previous convictions as “record breaking” and added this was her 56th court appearance.

“I know of no other case where the courts have passed every conceivable sentence but nothing seems to stop you from reoffending," said Judge Levett. For the dog attack, Hubbard received an eight-month jail sentence and for the assault she received a consecutive 16-month sentence.

Well, I'm sure that'll sort her out... 

H/T: TedHectorMess via Twitter

Have You Run Out Of UK Sob Stories Then, Frances?

It is breakfast and I reach for a painkiller dropped off by a Boots delivery van. The sleep apnoea machine by the bed is beeping and I plug it in to the mains to charge. I can’t stop thinking about the disabled and ill people in Gaza; the dialysis patients who were halfway through their treatment when the power stopped, the children surviving off animal feed who can’t find bread, let alone a wheelchair.

I guess now Labour's in power, everything in the UK is rosy, and you have to look further afield, eh, Frances?

There is one aspect that is rarely talked about: what is happening to disabled Palestinians. That adults and children with disabilities are often the worst affected by conflict is an atrocity as old as war itself. If you are paralysed, you cannot run from shrapnel. If you are deaf, you don’t hear the sirens warning you to take cover. More than a decade of Israeli restrictions on imports and travel mean disabled people in Gaza were living without treatment and equipment long before the first missiles fell.

Congratulations, Frances, you've finally found a truly deserving cause, and you only had to go abroad to find it!  

I unplug my sleep apnoea machine and I wonder if the real darkness will come when any of this seems normal.

No doubt you'd demand we ship them all over here, eh, Frances? Or is that next week's column?

No, Maya, They Only Executed Him Once…

Maya Foa, joint executive director of the human rights group Reprieve, said that Alabama was typical of the increasingly extreme lengths to which death penalty states are prepared to go.

Such as? 

“They’re telling themselves that executing people twice is fine, no matter how much the person suffered the first time. And that a man thrashing and gasping on the gurney for 10 minutes as he desperately fights for life is a ‘textbook’ nitrogen gas execution.”

No-one gets executed twice, Maya. And is he alive now? No? Well then, that's indeed a 'textbook executuion', since that's the entire purpose of one.  

I Must Be Slipping...

...unlike Matt I never thought of that when my weather app went haywire on Thursday morning:

Surely Another Typo, 'Mail'?

 

Shouldn't it be 'the worrier'?

Sunday Funnies...

And you thought it was just China! 

*spoiler, it is mostly China.

It's All Fun And Games Until You Realise You're Paying....

This is Pablo, the ‘gender-fluid’ dachshund at the centre of an 18-month long legal battle against a woke council, which has cost taxpayers more than £63,000. Lesbian social worker Lizzy Pitt was accused of voicing ‘transphobic’ views by her colleague, Gleicon Analha who is Pablo’s owner. He chaired a Zoom call for LGBTQIA+ employees of Cambridgeshire County Council where he said he identified his dachshund as ‘gender fluid’, and put a dress on the animal to prompt debate about gender.

The reporting on this has focussed entirely on the absurdity of a 'gender fluid dog', as expected, and not on the cancerous tumour of allowing a Zoom call for whingers, activists and nutters during worktime.... 

Brazilian-born Mr Analha, who is a young people worker on the council’s Targeted Support Team, complained about Ms Pitt’s comments, and that of another lesbian employee on the Zoom call. In submissions for the case, he described Ms Pitt’s colleague, who also worked in the social work department declaring ‘Your dog is male’ in response to his claims about its gender fluidity.

In an email to his bosses and the council’s HR team, he added: ‘We collected statements of the individuals; we want to take this further. All the LGBTQIA+ peer group agreed to share their statements and take this further.’ Later, he added: ‘Regarding the mental health impact, these transphobic and deeply hurtful attacks touch deeply my values, this is the second night that I couldn’t sleep thinking about the cruelty. This made me wake up overnight and use Saturday morning to write this email.’

This person is clearly utterly unfit to be employed even in this limited capacity. And it seems the council has enough like him to make regular Zoom calls to whinge and snipe at each other a thing! When do they do any actual work? 

Ms Pitt and another lesbian colleague were reported for their 'really aggressive tone' with views that were deemed to be 'non-inclusive and transphobic'. But when Ms Pitt was disciplined by bosses and banned from contacting members of the group or attending meetings, she took them to a tribunal for harassment.

Now, Ms Pitt has been awarded over £55,000 and won £8,000 in legal costs after a judge said records showed she suffered because of her 'gender-critical beliefs'.

Ah, if only that money came out of the pockets of Mr Analha and his line manager. But no, of course not. The taxpayer's paying! Again. 

On his LinkedIn bio, Mr Analha, who is also the council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee Vice-Chair, says : ‘I grew up in Brazil seeing inequalities in my community, for example, on the same street millionaires' houses and "favelas" made of cardboard, I have seen friends dying of transphobia.’

And no 'journalist' challenges this statement? No-one dies of 'transphobia'!

Ms Pitt, who raised £51,529 for her legal case on a crowdfunding page from 2,121 donations, said: 'Let's hope that other employers will start to learn that it's a bad idea to try to stop lesbians asserting their boundaries and silence staff who know that sex is real, and sometimes matters.'

Well, yes, if that happens at least it'll be taxpayers money well spent, I suppose. But who thinks it will? 

A council spokesman said: 'We strive to create a safe, inclusive and compassionate environment for people to work in and recognise this needs to be balanced with everyone being entitled to express their own views and beliefs.

'We will reflect carefully on this final outcome, as well as undertaking a review of our policies and procedures accordingly.'

Doesn't sound like it to me. I suspect the Zoom meetings of the 'B' Ark candidates will continue, at our expense. 

World Class Transport System?

TfL's woes continue:

New trains that were due to be introduced on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) from the end of the year have been delayed indefinitely.

Great! Can this wretched company get nothing right?  

Transport for London said that signalling problems that meant the existing fleet of DLR trains had been going “too fast” made it impossible to keep to timetable for the phased introduction of the new fleet of trains, which boast air conditioning and walk-through carriages.

The country that once built railroads in Africa and India can't run one properly in its own capital.... 

No new date has been set for the arrival of the new trains, which Mayor Sadiq Khan saw when he visited the DLR’s Beckton depot in February 2023. The Standard revealed in June that the £880m new fleet of trains, which is being built in Spain, had run over budget by £61m and was facing delays.

'No date',,? Sounds familiar. 

A 'Cruel Policy', Ruth? I'd Say It's Not Cruel Enough...

This morning, about 300,000 children woke up in households affected by the benefit cap. Lots of these children – enough to fill more than 1,000 primary schools – will be living in cold and damp homes, with food cupboards near empty; in deep poverty that leaves normal childhood activities, such as after-school clubs, swimming lessons and family days out, far out of reach. Since 2020, I’ve been working with colleagues at the universities of York and Oxford and the London School of Economics to investigate the impact of the benefit cap and the two-child limit (commonly referred to as the two-child benefit cap) on families with three or more children.

She doesn't mean the effect on us, the long suffering taxpayer, of course.

In our research with families affected by the benefit cap, we have spoken to parents such as Lucy, who pays £1,375 a month to rent a mould-ridden, rat-infested property. At times, the cap has left her family with as little as £65 a week to survive on once the rent and some of the bills are paid. £65. For five of them. It is simply not possible to get by on that.

We spoke to Lucy four times over four years, and she was always doing all she could to move out of that property. But as our analysis of Zoopla listings shows, the housing just isn’t there.

How far afield was she looking? That often proves to be the stumbling block. 

But there is a complete absence of affordable housing in many areas.

In the areas that these people want to live, usually. They don't see the wisdom of cutting their cloth to meet their funds. 

Statistics released today reveal that 123,000 households in England, Scotland and Wales were affected by the benefit cap in May 2024, a rise of about 46,000 in just three months according to government figures. Introduced by George Osborne in 2013, the cap means the most a family without regular work can claim is £25,323 in London and £22,020 in the rest of the country.

In many countries, you wouldn't get anything if you didn't work for it!  

Both the benefit cap and the two-child limit sever a foundational principle within our welfare state that people should be entitled to support based on what they need.

'Entitlement' is the real issue here, isn't it? 

Lifting the benefit cap would provide immediate relief to hundreds of thousands of families such as Lucy’s and Zauna’s, who are currently facing a long, cold winter. What better way, after all, to start investing in our future than by ensuring children’s basic needs are met?

We do. There's a little thing called 'child support'.  

This Is How To React To Government Overreach!

People who keep chickens in their garden now face prison and large fines if they fail to register them all under strict new rules brought in to tackle bird flu.

But within hours of the new Government database going live on October 1, protesters and pranksters managed to crash its website by listing as ‘pets’ everything from rubber chickens to chicken nuggets.

The controversial clampdown, which also applies to keepers of pigeons, ducks, geese and birds of prey, has been introduced as part of a UK-wide effort to prevent the spread of bird flu.

I'm proud of you, Britain!

Last night the site was still suffering technical problems. One smallholder in Easington, County Durham, who asked not to be named, said: ‘This is just petty bureaucracy gone mad. ‘I keep a small flock of chickens on my allotment for their eggs. I moved them indoors, at great expense, during the recent bird flu outbreak, and there’s never been a problem with this.

‘I know other keepers who say they’d be prepared to move the few birds they own into their loft to avoid detection rather than register them.’

This is the situation we have in England now - chicken resistance!  

Jane Howorth, founder of the British Hen Welfare Trust, based in Devon, agrees with the need to keep a register but added: ‘Unfortunately Defra held a consultation and then ignored the results, imposing what many see as unnecessary bureaucracy. I’m unsurprised at the reaction.’

I guess they didn't get the result they wanted, and thought 'well, people will just meekly comply anyway'. Found out it doesn't work like that. Now whose goose is cooked, DEFRA? 

She Sounds Like She’s Making Some Pretty Good Points, John

Sooner or later, someone is going to have to call a halt to Liz Truss’s public appearances. Not for our benefit, but for hers. We’ve nearly reached the point where we’ve tipped over into the Theatre of Cruelty. A freak show where audiences turn up just to see what mad thing she says next.

So, what sort of 'mad things', John?

She believes all that went wrong is that we didn’t get enough of her. Elle ne regrette rien. Her confusion is total. She was brought down by the establishment; unaware that she once was at the centre of that establishment as prime minister. Others were to blame for her ignorance. Britain was in the clutch of a socialist cabal led by the Tories and Labour establishment. Wokery was bringing down the west.

Seems pretty sane to me. Maybe you're the one who is delusional? 

They Can’t, Because The Narrative Is Set

More than 20 scientific experts have written to the UN’s food agency expressing shock at its failure to revise or withdraw a livestock emissions report that two of its cited academics have said contained “multiple and egregious errors”. The alleged inaccuracies are understood to have downplayed the potential of dietary change to reduce agricultural greenhouse gases, which make up about a quarter of total anthropogenic emissions and mostly derive from livestock.

But if they do that, how can they then proceed with the aims of destroying Western agriculture and forcing us all to go vegan? 

One of the signatories to the letter, Jennifer Jacquet, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, compared the FAO’s complaints process unfavourably with those of a science journal, “where you could at least expect a correction to the article”. The FAO’s “pathways toward lower emissions” study was originally billed as “an updated comprehensive overview” of global livestock emissions and was launched at last December’s Cop28 climate summit. Behrens and Hayek said it inappropriately used their work on now outdated nationally recommended diets (NRDs), double-counted meat emissions, mixed different baseline years in analyses, and omitted the opportunity cost of carbon sequestration on non-farmed land.

It's nice to see some scientists aren't about to let the UN roll over them without a fight. 

A Fundamental Misunderstanding...

Barnaby's mum Emma, who spoke on behalf of all three families, told The Mirror: 'We believe what the produced is a very imbalanced documentary – it's shameful, cold, ill-judged, arrogant and thoughtless.' She said watching the BBC’s treatment of the case had made their trauma even worse. The BBC only informed them about the show after they had already filmed it and a fortnight before it was due to be broadcast. Emma also claims that none of the victims families were considered or consulted at any point to be told the show was being made.

I see where this bafflement stems from - you consider yourselves, the relatives of those murdered by a mental patient - as the victims of this incident, as everyone else does. 

But this is a BBC documentary, and to them, the murderous mental patient and his relatives are the real victims.

They only found out the killers family were being interviewed on camera when they watched the show.

The families are also concerned over claims from Calocane's family that they did not know of his mental health issues until after the stabbings and are demanding to know why BBC Panorama editors chose not to mention the fact that his mother was an NHS nurse.

We all know why, don't we, Reader? 

The families tried to reach out to the show's editors to express their concerns but say the responses they got were 'cold' and 'dismissive', forcing them to lodge a formal complaint which has been escalated to the corporation’s highest 'stage two' level and they are now awaiting a response.

They were too busy dealing with the 'Strictly' kerfuffle, clearly... 

It Should Be Automatic...

The court heard that Perry, of Shirley House Drive in Charlton, has two previous convictions including one for a serious assault in 2020.

Her dog has been in kennels since it was seized at the cost of £1,600, the court heard.

Perry cried in the dock as prosecutor Mr Kalber said: “We are seeking a full destruction order for this dog.”

Why is it not automatic in cases like this? And why should the taxpayer not be compensated even if it's at £1 a week and the guilty party is on benefits (as thry so often are)? 

The case was adjourned until November for sentencing, at which time the court will also decide whether the dog should be destroyed.

Why is there any question? And why are the most recents cases often women with these mutts?