Against the “liberal elite” media trope
A favourite claim of the alt-right, populist right, whatever you want to call them, is that their liberal opponents (whether they be in the Labour party, the Lib Dems themselves, the pro-European wing of...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Why the Daily Mail’s “volunteer army” should be resisted
Today, the Daily Mail launched a campaign to recruit a "volunteer army" to "help" the NHS starting next Spring, in conjunction with a "new social movement called Helpforce". The roles that volunteers are expected...
Why do we house refugees in hostile areas?
This week a video was circulated on social media of a Syrian refugee boy, named Jamal, with his arm in a cast being attacked in a park in Huddersfield by a group of boys...
Is new FGM legislation really needed?
Last Friday a bill sponsored by Lord Berkeley, a Labour life peer (who was formerly a hereditary peer) to extend family law protection to girls deemed at risk of FGM, was derailed by Christopher...
Care homes and revenge evictions
In this morning's Guardian, there's an investigation into abuse in British care homes and the homes involved care for the three main groups of care home residents — the elderly, those with learning disabilities...
So, you don’t want to call “Tommy Robinson” a thug…
This morning the Today programme on Radio 4 covered the story of Gerard Batten, the new leader of UKIP, hiring Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the former leader of the English Defence League, anti-Muslim agitator and self-styled...
Trucking, toilets and wheelchairs (a World Toilet Day post)
Earlier today I came across an article announcing some research that had been done about British workers and their access to toilet breaks, or lack thereof, published by the trade union Unite. Thousands of...
Brexit, ignorance and lies
Last week, a draft agreement for Britain's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) was published; it was some 500 pages long and, as could have been predicted, really pleased nobody. It prompted two Cabinet...
Holby City: the Gaskill saga’s denouement
I've been a fan of the BBC dramas Casualty and Holby City since the 1980s, although I only started watching them on a regular basis again more recently (Casualty was a fixture when I...
Will there ever be a London-Hull motorway?
This morning on a truck drivers' group on Facebook, I saw a link to a report on the Hull Daily Mail website (not linked to the national Daily Mail) which claimed that the proposal...
On aesthetics and housing policy
Recently social media has been abuzz with comment on the new government housing 'tsar', Roger Scruton, previously best known as a philosopher and commentator for various magazines including the Spectator and New Statesman. His...
Why birthright citizenship should be defended
Last week it was announced that Donald Trump favoured ending the automatic American citizenship of anyone born in the USA, which a number of conservative politicians claimed was constitutional although it clearly violates the...
Pittsburgh and anti-Semitism in context
Last Saturday, a racist gunman attacked a synagogue near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and killed 11 worshippers, including four Holocaust survivors, a married couple and two disabled brothers in their fifties; also killed was a doctor...
Social care costs money
Today the Mail on Sunday published two long articles ([1], [2]) by Ian Birrell, a former speechwriter to David Cameron who has a disabled daughter, on the scandal of autistic people and people with...
‘Normalisation’ is real and has consequences
'Normalisation' is the idea that if the media gives too much exposure to extreme views or those without any basis in fact or science, they become the political mainstream and will come to be...
Truckers blocking London? Get real.
This morning I saw a longish interview on the BBC Breakfast show with some guy called Richard Tice, who was identified only as a spokesman for "Leave Means Leave". I didn't hear most of...
What really lies behind Trump, Brexit and “national populism”?
During the post Iraq War days (when Iraq was effectively if not in name under occupation), the pro-war blogger Norman Geras ran an article on what it called the Single Transferable Article About Iraq...
Stacey Dooley and the environmental impact of fashion
I haven't watched any Stacey Dooley for about five years, since I watched her programme on drug smuggling through Ukraine in 2013 and gave it this scathing review. In tonight's BBC Three documentary (shown...
Is Britain really the most tolerant country in Europe?
Last Thursday, on the BBC's Question Time programme (a weekly late-night political panel show in which a panel of politicians and an academic, writer or other lay 'expert'), there was a contribution from an...
High-tech barbarism
Last Tuesday evening there was a 45-minute programme on Radio 4 (part of its File on 4 slot) exposing the abusive treatment of an autistic teenage girl at the St Andrew's hospital in Northampton,...