“No! You Can’t Leave The ‘Tribe’!"

Felicity Hayward, a model and activist, thinks 2023 was a turning point. “Ozempic arrived into our industry, and there was a definite change,” she says. Hayward, who has modelled for Mac and appeared on the cover of i-D magazine, monitors the number of designers using curve models across the fashion weeks in London, Paris, New York and Milan for her report Inside the Curve. At first the drop was slow, but this season, she says, “we’ve started to see a huge decline. New York, which had 70 plus-size models in 2023, had 23 earlier this year. At the September 2024 London fashion week, 80 plus-size models were on the runway, but just 26 this year.”

And why is this an issue? Because she doesn't want anyone to leave the reservation, like all progressives! 

Many models have lost weight, says Hayward. “The girls who used to be a size 16 or 18 are now size 12. It’s really difficult because, on one hand, I don’t want to speak about women’s bodies, but if the only plus-size representation we have are also losing weight, it does feel like the whole industry is turning their back on us.”

Gosh, the fashion industry is fickle? Who knew? 

Even when brands appeared to embrace size inclusivity, Nicholas-Williams says she was pessimistic that they would stick to it. “I was, like, this is going to be something that’s for a short period, and then we’re going to go back to how it was. I didn’t think it would be this soon, and so overtly.”

Oh, well, I'm sure you'll find some way to confort yourself, Felicity...

 

Maybe You’re The One Who’s Wrong About The Value Of His Role, George?

Bob Lambert worked for the Metropolitan police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in the 1980s and 1990s, first as an undercover cop infiltrating environmental and animal rights protests, then as operational controller of the squad, supervising other spy cops doing similar work. In the course of his undercover assignments, while posing as a radical activist called Bob Robinson, he deceived four unsuspecting women, innocent of any crime, into starting relationships. He stole his identity from a dead child.

*yawns* He used a trick right out of Freddie Foersyth's 'Day of the Jackal'. So what? 

With one of the women, Jacqui, he fathered a child. Two years later, he vanished. She discovered his true identity by chance more than 20 years later, and has yet to recover from the devastating shock. She says she feels “raped by the state”. The person she loved and trusted was a ghost.

Oh, dry your eyes! You're not the first woman to feel betrayerd, and you won't be the last. 

These fake relationships were standard practice in the team of spy cops Lambert ran. The officers used similar seduction techniques, built similar falsehoods about their lives and used similar methods for destroying or abandoning the relationships when they were redeployed. It looks like a refined, state-sanctioned grooming operation. As Helen Steel, another woman deceived by a spy cop, remarked, “there weren’t any genuine moments – they were purely manipulative and abusive. …. it was as if he set out to destroy my sanity.”

The great majority of the people being spied on were peaceful activists who presented no danger to democracy or human life.

Which we know because they were spied on, George. That's the point. 

We love spy series, spy novels, spy films, how do we think these spies really operate? It's not a world of Aston Martins, shaken Martinis and roulette wheels all the time - it's often convincing some dim bird on reception to look the other way while you access the visitor's book. 

None of the spy cops have suffered legal consequences, though activities such as identity theft and entering homes without a warrant are illegal. Their pensions remain intact, they have kept their medals and commendations. On Tuesday at the inquiry, Belinda Harvey, one of the women deceived into an 18-month relationship with Lambert, damned him as a “cruel and manipulative” liar. But the authorities see him differently. In 2008, Lambert received an MBE for services to the police.

As well he should - he did a man's job. The only reason people like you are squawking about it is you sympathise with the 'victims'.  

I Guess She Just Couldn't Be The Bigger Person About It..?

A pub called The Midget is to change its name. The watering hole, in Abingdon takes its name from the classic MG sports car which was manufactured in the Oxfordshire town, and was opened as 'The Magic Midget' in 1974. But the name was labelled 'disablist hate speech' by disabilities studies lecturer Dr Erin Pritchard.

Oh, FFS! 

Dr Pritchard, who teaches at Liverpool Hope University, said that she and other people with dwarfism find the term 'offensive'. She previously campaigned for Marks and Spencer to rename their Midget Gem sweets to Mini Gems.

Someone who is employed to teach at a university turns out to be a crank with a chip on her shoulder? Gosh! You could knock me down with a feather!  

I wonder why she's not objecting to other, more problematic things? Is it because she'd get a decidedly rougher ride from them? 

Dr Pritchard spoke with the owners of the bar, brewers Greene King, which is set to reopen the venue with the new name in December following a renovation, the Telegraph reported. Its managing director Zoe Bowley said the new branding would honour the town's heritage while ensuring the pub remains a place 'where everyone feels welcome'.

They don't say what the new name will be. May I suggest 'The Special Snowflake'? 

Greene King previously found itself in hot water over a pub called 'The Black Bitch' in Linlithgow, West Lothian, amid fears the name could be seen as racist. Its origins derived from a female greyhound that formed part of the town's traditional crest - but pub bosses opted to rename it The Willow Tree regardless.

And thus left yourself open to pressure from every crank and nutter in the land. So you've only yourself to blame. 

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.

Oh, Really..?

Many families from deprived backgrounds are unable to make the most of NHS-provided diabetes technology because they are unable to afford smartphones, charity workers and healthcare professionals have said.

Well, if you believe this, you've never worked in or visited a foodbank - the 'deprived' tend to have smartphones permanently glued to their hands!

But surely there's an alternative to owning a smartphone for the genuinely poor? Reader, there is...

Although CGMs are compatible with receivers that are provided with the devices, healthcare professionals and charity workers have said when managing type 1 diabetes, especially in small children, using CGM devices with smartphones are necessary.

They might be handier, but are they really necessary..? What do they do that the receivers don't? 

Gillian Adams, a paediatric diabetes specialist nurse at Ealing hospital, west London, said using a smartphone, rather than a receiver, with a CGM device was essential for the management of young children with type 1 diabetes.

“It can be distressing and more difficult for a parent to manage their child’s glucose levels with just a receiver, as they can be anxious when the child is out of their sight, and without a smartphone they have no way of being able to track their glucose levels when they are away from them,” she said. “With a receiver, the child has to have it with them at all times, which means that when they are at school, or at nursery, it is only through a smartphone that parents are able to track their glucose levels.”

Sorry, sweetie, but that really doesn't make them essential or necessary. It simply makes them handier to have. And even if they were essential, is this not something that charities could supply? 

Carolyn Goldhill, the founder of the charity Supporting Children with Diabetes, said it had distributed more than 500 smartphones to families with children with type 1 diabetes.

There you go! 

Of Course It Is...

Government officials warned it was 'open season on ministers' last night as Health Secretary Steve Barclay became the latest senior politician to face bullying allegations. He was accused of 'bad behaviour' towards staff in the Department of Health and Social Care since being appointed last summer.

But allies and ex-colleagues of Mr Barclay denied the allegations and suggested civil servants may now feel 'emboldened' to 'go after' ministers they did not like.

Well, yes. If Sunak and Raab had stuck to their guns and showed a bit of backbone, they'd have had no choice but to back down. Or quit. 

Either way, win/win for the government. 

Sources told The Guardian that Mr Barclay – a former Government whip and Brexit Secretary – was 'constantly angry' and had 'blasted' staff, who in turn found him 'quite challenging'.

Boo hoo hoo! Toughen up, then. 'Challenging' should be in the job description at that level. 

Of course, we all know what's really driving this, don't we? 

It's Not The Value Of The Item...

...it never is, in these stories:

A shopper was left shocked when he discovered that £1 protein bars had been locked in security boxes in Tesco. The security boxes were spotted in the Gilesgate Tesco Extra in County Durham on Boxing Day by customer Andrei Lespezeanu.

He spotted the MyProtein and Dynabars goods under lock and key, despite costing between £1 and £2.50.

It's the relative ease of the theft itself, and the resale value/opportunity.  

'I am confused why the store has felt the need to do this since there are other items in the store worth more that don't have security tags or boxes.'

Keep thinking, Andrei... 

'The only explanation for this that I can come up with is that people are prone to stealing these cereal and protein bars.'

By George, I think he's got it!