🎵Friend, either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of emojis in your community..🎵

Police and schools have issued warnings to parents about a 'sinister emoji' code used by incel teenagers in the wake of the success of Netflix hit Adolescence.

Is there no end to the ridiculous panic over this TV propaganda? Now every quango and charlatan wants a piece of the 'incel' grift... 

Teachers and police forces have distributed a 'periodic table of sinister emojis' believed to be used by under-18s to conceal disturbing messages about violence, sex, drugs, and extremism.

In case any parents were thinking 'Whew! At last, the police and schools are on OUR side!' then I caution you to think again.  

Merseyside Police have already circulated the emoji table to schools and parents, according to the Liverpool Echo. However, critics have dismissed the warnings as 'moral panic'.

And they are right.  

Amit Kalley, the founder of education charity For Working Parents urged mothers and fathers to 'keep researching and asking the right questions' about their children's digital lives. He told the Telegraph: 'The table I created is far from an exhaustive list, but I wanted to include emojis beyond incel and misogyny, because lots of young people are groomed online into drugs and violence and lots of young people are involved in dangerous sexual behaviours, which they can hide from parents by using emojis and acronyms. '

OK, Amit, I'll ask questions: Why the hell is anyone expected to listen to you and your little grift frightening parents about what their kids might be getting up to? You don't appear to have any qualifications for this, after all.  

So..?

Almost twice as many boys as girls routinely cycle in the UK, a pioneering report on young people’s active travel has found.

The study, led by the charity Sustrans...

Oh oh!  

...also found strong support among children for measures to help them cycle and walk, such as dedicated bike lanes, slower traffic speeds and barring motor vehicles from outside schools.

Stopping the school-run madness would be good, but of course if you asked their parents, they'd say something quite different.  

While all active travel is good for long-term heath, long-term studies have shown these benefits are particularly marked when it comes to cycling, especially compared with walking.

Despite walking being safer? Well, sometimes, anyway.  

Lily, a secondary school girl from Swansea, said she used to cycle around her neighbourhood but stopped because “it’s not really seen as cool, and we can be quite self-conscious about that”. A lot of cycling gear was “made for men instead of women”, she added.

Well, just pretend you're a boy, love. It's all the rage now. 

Well, Of Course They Did...

The children’s commissioners of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have written to the UK government calling on it to scrap the controversial two-child limit restricting the amount that larger families can receive in social security benefits.

They want to ensure their jobs. So of course, they need to increase child misery, and what better way to do it than by fighting government plans to decrease it?

While the administrations in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast have put tackling child poverty at the top of their agenda, the control of benefits such as universal credit and child tax credit is not devolved, which limits their power to make changes that could help youngsters experiencing deprivation.

Sensible decision not to devolve it; the government clearly saw what would happen. 

The limit, which was introduced as way of cutting £1bn a year from the welfare bill, bars parents from claiming the child element in tax credits or universal credit for third or subsequent children born after 6 April 2017.

The loss of benefits is worth £2,900 per child per year. The open letter to Coffey claims the limit breaches children’s rights to an adequate standard of living and is contributing to a rising gap in poverty levels between families with three or more children and smaller households.

If anyone's 'breaching children's rights to an adequate standard of living', it's their parents first and foremost. And then the advocates for indiscriminate and irresponsible breeding.  

It also noted that the policy also has disproportionate impacts on social groups where larger families are more common, such as some minority faith and ethnic groups and in Northern Ireland, where families are larger than the rest of the UK.

Ah, if all else fails, proffer the Race Card.  

Weighty Issues

A quarter of children on a weight-loss programme quit the scheme early.

By lunchtime, presumably?

The sessions, which take place twice a week, were recently praised by the Audit Commission for their success rate in stabilising or reducing body fat of youngsters.

Which goes to show just how useless the Audit Commission is…

However, a quarter of those on the scheme have failed to finish.

Might just as well have poured the money down the drain.

Ian Duggan, of Leisure World, said: “It’s difficult because the families are busy. It’s a commitment to two sessions a week.

“However much help and guidance you give, time is a rare commodity. I don’t know if there are other things that can be done to help that. ”

I await the inevitable ‘let’s pay them to lose weight!’ suggestion….

Just Squabble Amongst Yourselves….

…but don’t ask me to pay for it:

The company should only have been given permission to use the Change4Life logo on its website alongside a message encouraging a healthy diet and an active lifestyle.

However, its use of the anti-obesity campaign logo on one of its websites used to promote snacks including KitKats, was sanctioned by the Department of Health.

A boob. Who cares?

Well….

Its continued use of the logo is now under discussion after Sustain, the children's food campaign group, questioned why the symbol was being used on a website promoting high-sugar cereals and confectionery.

The ‘Fakecharity’ website is down, so I can’t look it up (if it is a charity at all, and not merely a quango), but a glance at its own website would seem to indicate that it might well be another one:

”The alliance is independent from the agri-food industry and is funded from grants (from charitable foundations and government or government related sources), membership subscriptions and sales of publications.”

Nestle must be secretly quite amused by the whole thing.

A Nestle spokeswoman said: "The use of the Change4Life logo on our Get Set Go Free website was approved and agreed by the Department of Health.

"We will continue to work with the Department of Health and will act on any changes they advise us to make."

Naturally, the OUTRAGE! Hasn’t been dialled down on the part of the rent-a-mouth:

Children's Food Campaign coordinator Christine Haigh said: "This is yet another example of the food industry claiming to promote healthy lifestyles whilst in fact encouraging families to eat more junk food.

"No company that uses these practices should be allowed to be associated with a Government health campaign, and this should be a wake-up call for the Department of Health which wants to see companies like this more involved in the Change4Life campaign, not less."

Oh, stamp your feet a bit more, love! I bet you’re really cute when you’re angry…

Ooooh! Let's Not Be Too Hasty, Now!

Peter Preston bewails the loss of quangos, fearing the baby is about to go down the plughole with all the bathwater:

When 177 quangos perish at a stroke, there are always victims.

Indeed. We're looking forward to seeing them driven before us, and hearing the lamentation of the women. And the men...

But there are a few lessons, too. It's easy enough, examining the long list of quangoid casualties and threatened species, to wave many of them a light-hearted goodbye. Who, in a supposed new age of localism, needs a central advisory panel on local innovation awards? Did the national policing improvement agency stop car-bound constables racing round with sirens blaring? Observe how many of the doomed were basically regulators regulating other regulators in ripe quango areas like medicine and the law.

Well, quite. How better to provide sinecures for all those ex-MPs and former council honchos?

There is, however, a deeper theme here, one we (and David Cameron) may come to rue when the back-covering chaff has been swept away. Of course the quango mountain has been piled too high. Of course, when you scan the people who sit on such bodies, there are uncanny overlaps of the great, the good and the politically willing. But why did Whitehall and Westminster reach for them in the first place?

Because it's an easy way to be seen to be 'doing something'? And because it creates a nice, cozy little niche job for them when the electorate wise up and vote them out?

You can usually (in crude terms) judge an organisation by the number of outside consultants it employs to tell it what to do. The mere act of picking up the phone is often a blank shrug of despair. So, when a crisis breaks, it is creating some sudden strip of organisational sticking plaster to proclaim it solved.

And I can't see any signs that the Coalition is going to be so very different to Labour in this respect...

It's the same old Whitehall, remember, only with fewer back-office boys around: and the same old political instincts, leaving council tax bands well alone. Prepare, then, for a few utterly predictable disasters after this chronicle of the damned. What does the fated Public Guardian Board do? It supervises the public guardian, who defends the legal rights of mentally ill and disabled people (in short, helpless people). Is there anything in recent history to make one suppose that the public guardian, unsupervised, is capable of getting things right every time?

Absolutely not. Sometimes you need belt and braces. Sometimes the defenceless need defending.

Sometimes they do. Certainly, they can't rely on the kindness of strangers authority, now can they? But how come the Public Guadian Board so frequently drops the ball? Is it really worth saving?

Too many facile thumbs down in too speedy and heedless a cull? You can bet on it.

Hey, it's not like Dave's Taliban are blowing up the Bamyan Buddhas, is it? If it emerges that we do need a quango or two, we can always reinstate them. With a much better focus on their role and, more importantly, the right people in place, this time.

Who leaked these bloody plans anyway? It's a disgrace, a betrayal, a threat to national security … I'll report them to Baroness Butler-Sloss and her Security Commission. But oh, they're on the hit list too.

Well, yes. Because they've proved themselves to be about as useless as a chocolate fireguard.

So I'm afraid it's good riddance, quangos. Or at least, a good start...

I've No Doubt They Do...

From Andrew Rawnsley's article on the CSR on CiF:

It is one of the easiest cries in opposition to shout: "Cull the quangos." That is proving hard to do even for such reflexive quango-cullers as Tories. One Conservative minister says: "At first glance, you think: that can go. Then you take another look and you find that a lot of these organisations exist for a purpose."

But is it a useful purpose, one we need and can afford?

Or is it just more pointless nannystate illiberal rubbish of the sort Dick Puddlcote finds all the time?

Another Day, Another Front In The Obesity War

This time, the cunning plan is thicker chips.

Chip shop owners are being encouraged to produce thicker versions because they contain fewer calories and less fat.

'Encouraged' now. Forced later?

The traditional British chip is already thicker - and therefore healthier - than the French fries served by big fast-food chains.

Which lead to this extraordinary 'No, not us, target them too!' demand:

Douglas Roxburgh, president of the National Federation of Fish Fryers, described the move as 'totally unfair'.

'They should be concentrating on fast food outlets who make the thin French fries, not the traditional independent chip shop,' he said.

No, no, no, no! It should be no bloody business of the government and their useless quango what size, thickness or even flavour the nation's chips are!

'We will be opposing this as much as we can until they make it a level playing field and start asking McDonald's, KFC and Burger King to change their chip sizes too.'

Don't think you can appease this ravening beast, Douglas, by throwing your competitors off the sledge. When you run out of competitors, it'll happily gobble you up too.

The next step after government-mandated chips will be smaller portions of government-mandated chips. The next step after that will be no chips...

And it should come as no surprise that this is the latest scheme to come from the FSA:

The FSA scheme will cover Cambridgeshire, Greater Manchester and Northern Ireland by the end of this month. Officials will visit 80 chip shops to examine how much fat is in their chips and offer advice.

There's a nice little earner for some..

Pass The (Small Portion, Healthy, Low-salt) Popcorn...

Cinema-goers should be warned about how many calories are contained in popular snacks such as popcorn, fizzy drink and icecream, according to the nutrition watchdog.

Really? Having been to the cinema increasingly fewer times over the last few years, I'd say a warning about the decibel level produced when chewed by slackjawed morons would be more sensible.

So why are we paying these cretins at the FSA anyway?

The Food Standards Agency is also concerned that portion sizes offered to filmgoers are getting out of control and have called on cinemas to act to tackle the obesity crisis.

Ah, yes. That non-existent 'crisis' again.

If iDave is looking to cut some fat out of his budget, then I'd start with this quango; it's obviously resolved all the serious food safety issues if it has time for its chief executive, one Tim Smith, to meddle in this area:

'There is a myth that popcorn is calorie-free, but that is not the case. It is a concern to us,' he said.

Really? It shouldn't be. It should be none of your remit, frankly.

Mr Smith added: 'When Coke started out in America it was sold in a 5oz bottle and now you can get it in a 64oz bucket. There are 20 fluid ounces in a pint, so that is a three and a bit pints. There can be nothing materially sensible about that, and no one needs that amount of soft drink.'

This used to be a free country, where when you requested a portion of food or drink from a retailer, it never entered their heads to wonder if you needed it. They simply sold it to you!

He said entertainment venues needed to take responsibility.

In other words, the public are greedy, stupid children who need a nanny. And Tim Smith obviously fancies the job. Mind you, who wouldn't, at nearly £200,000 p.a...?

Here We Go Again...

Takeaway and popular brands of soup are overdosing customers with massive levels of salt.

Says who?

Three guesses:

Consensus Action on Salt and Health analysed 575 ready-to- eat ranges and also found high levels in other popular brands.

There were 23 supermarket products with at least two grams of salt - 18 were from brands including Heinz, New Covent Garden and Batchelors.

CASH chairman Professor Graham MacGregor, of Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, said: 'It is the very high levels of salt that are put in our food that leads to thousands of unnecessary stroke and heart deaths.

And yes, that is the load of old fanny that it sounds like, with yet another 'recommended limit' being pulled straight from the nether regions of the bureaucrats, just like those for alcohol and fat.

Surely, Dracula never regarded garlic with as much fear and suspicion as these people regard a fairly harmless and necessary mineral?

They're going to have a conniption when they see what Hollywood has named one of its proposed summer blockbusters...

Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

Hmm, it's been a while since we had a scare about something that required the intervention of the government, isn't it?

A wide-ranging investigation has been launched into the safety of pushchairs following reports of children losing parts of their finger in dangerous hinge mechanisms.

Oh, great...

A new consumer taskforce is acting following problems with Maclaren buggies which have sold by the millions in Britain and throughout the world.

The team, which is part of the Consumer Focus body, believes the problems could be far more widespread.

Well, of course it does! Just think of the extra work to be generated.

Oh, and yes, in case you were wondering, Consumer Focus, despite the friendly-sounding name, is just another quango…

News Just In: Government Hectoring Not Having Any Effect!

People are eating as badly as they were 10 years ago despite hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money being spent on healthy-eating campaigns, the Government's food watchdog admitted yesterday.

So that was all yet another pouring of money down the drain, wasn't it? Still, it kept a few quangos in business, and who is to say that wasn't the idea all along..?

A nationwide nutrition survey for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) revealed that the majority of Britons are still eating too many processed foods and sweets and not enough fresh fruit and vegetables.

According to whom? I don't know about anyone else, but I rather figured when I grew up, I'd leave nannying behind...

Alison Tedstone, the FSA's head of nutrition research, said: "Overall, these results show that the diet of the population has not changed much since 2000. We are still seeing lots of people not achieving the recommendations for macronutrients, but there have been some suggestions of positive improvements."

They are recommendations, Alison. That means that people don’t have to take notice of them if they don’t want to. Look it up in a dictionary sometime…

Mind you, this news simply encouraged the usual control freaks and authoritarians to crawl out of the woodwork...

Richard Watts of Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, said: "After 10 years of largely small, weak or voluntary initiatives, like Change4Life, we have seen little improvement in the nation's diet.

"Where the Government has introduced tough rules, such as improving school food, genuine progress has been made, but unless we really challenge our 'obesogenic' culture by doing things like introducing proper protections from junk-food marketing, these worrying trends will continue."

'Spank me, nanny! Spank me harder, it's for my own good!'

And he's preaching to a lot of converted. Like this charming indivisdual:

artgenie wrote: The solution is simple, but would the authorities do it? Foods containing dangerous ingredients of salts, sugars, fats etc. would be just outlawed from store shelves or food outlets. Just as foods containing drugs are presently not allowed to be sold. Get it???? I doubt it.

Now, it might be sarcasm (what food doesn't contain 'dangerous ingredients of salts, sugars and fats', after all?) but if so, isn't it depressing that you can no longer tell..?

Tell Us Something We Haven’t Already Figured Out For Ourselves…

Up to 90 per cent of the work of government is now conducted by Britain's quango state.

Startling new research suggests that once-great Whitehall departments have been reduced to little more than policy-making 'hubs' which distribute taxpayers' money to unaccountable arms-length public bodies.

Ministers are accused of creating a plethora of new bodies so they are 'seen to be acting' in the event of a crisis.

Well, hallelujah!

So many quangos - quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations - have proliferated that there is no clear picture of how many there are or how much they cost.

But some people have attempted to quantify it:

The Government says there are around 800. But a comprehensive survey by the Taxpayers' Alliance campaign group has identified 1,152.

And if you add to that all the fakecharities too…

The frightening evidence of their growing power has come from Professor Matthew Flinders, an expert on government at Sheffield University.

He said their proliferation meant the British state was increasingly 'walking without order' - meaning there is widespread political confusion about the number and status of public bodies.

So, what does the new-government-in-waiting plan to do about it?

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: 'Too many state actions, services and decisions are carried out by unaccountable organisations who don’t have to answer the public. This has a corrosive effect on public trust.

Quite right! And your plans?

'We are committed to reduce the number of quangos. If something needs to be done by the state it should be done by a body which is democratically accountable unless one of David Cameron's three tests applies - it performs a highly technical function, is required to be transparent or impartial.'

Well, I feel so much more reassured as a result of that.

Don’t you?

Of course, maybe someone at Tory HQ will grow some backbone and take Dick Puddlecote's advice. We can only hope...

Too Much Time On Their Hands….

It seems that quangos are still intent on providing fodder for the tabloids in ‘PC madness’ stories:

Right-hand man, gentleman's agreement and whiter than white are the latest phrases to fall foul of the political correctness lobby.

Government quangos have issued fresh lists of phrases they are seeking to ban to avoid causing offence.

You cannot ever avoid causing offence, unless you wish to spend your life in a small room, doing nothing and speaking to no-one.

So, what ‘causes offence’ for these quangos? Oh, the list is long and ridiculous:

Staff at the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission have been advised to use 'miserable day' instead of 'black day'. The Commission claims that certain words carry a 'hierarchical valuation of skin colour'.

You might ask why they think they won’t be held up to ridicule for these sorts of proclamations.

Well, because they thought no-one would ever find out, until Labour shot themselves in the foot:

The examples of political correctness emerged in answer to a series of Freedom of Information requests.

Heh…!

Some of the examples quoted make me think that the 60s are alive and well at least in the minds of some quangocrats:

The Learning and Skills Council wants staff to 'perfect' their brief rather than 'master' it while Newcastle University reckons 'master bedroom' can be problematic.

Wha…?

The National Gallery in London says the phrase gentleman's agreement may be considered offensive to women and suggests using 'unwritten agreement' or ' agreement based on trust' instead.

/headdesk

Advice issued by the South West Regional Development Agency says: 'Terms such as black sheep of the family, black looks and black mark have no direct link to skin colour but potentially serve to reinforce a negative view of all things black.

'Equally, certain terms imply a negative image of black by reinforcing the positive aspects of white.

'For example, in the context of being above suspicion, the phrase whiter than white is often used. Purer than pure or cleaner than clean are alternatives which do not infer that anything other than white should be regarded with suspicion.'

There’s no black coffee for sale in the canteen, I take it?

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Most people assumed that this sort of PC madness went out in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher reined in the Left-wing councils, so it's unbelievable that it's rearing its head again.

'This nonsense proves that quangos need to be culled. They're unaccountable, undemocratic and wasteful.'

Well, Matthew, most people probably did think this, but then, a lot of people realised that they were still there, and suffered no public opprobrium or real job-related consequence for their incompetence, so why wouldn’t they simply bide their time until the stars aligned in their favour again?

And we can make the argument that if they have time for this stuff, they must be seriously overmanned…

Marie Clair, of the Plain English Campaign, said: 'Political correctness has good intentions but things can be taken to an extreme. What is really needed is a bit of common sense.'

Yes. Not just here, either.

We need it in a lot of other places too…