Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
Today would have been Thomas Rawnsley's 21st birthday. Thomas was a man with Down's syndrome and autism, who was in a succession of care homes and NHS hospital units from 2013 until he died...
Kesgrave: ‘It was survival of the fittest’, claims ex-pupil of abuse inquiry school – News – Ipswich Star Last month I gave an interview to a journalist from the Ipswich Star, a local newspaper...
Former pupils call for new investigation into abuse claims at Suffolk school | Society | The Guardian A few weeks ago I was contacted by a journalist from the Guardian, Josh Halliday, who saw...
Every so often I do a Google search for the name of my old school, Kesgrave Hall. (Even before Google came online, I used to search for it using other search engines like Infoseek...
A couple of weeks ago I got a comment asking if one James Russell had applied for any job at Kesgrave Hall, a boarding school I attended from 1989 to 1993 (ages 12 to...
Earlier today Mary Beard, the Cambridge historian well-known for championing the role of women in academia as well as for her TV series, posted tweet defending aid workers accused of sexual abuse in disaster...
This morning it was announced that the government was diverting just over a sixth of the £5.8bn assigned two years ago to the National Roads Fund (NRF) from trunk roads and motorways to regional...
Last Thursday Woman's Hour, the 10am slot on BBC Radio 4, had a feature on the growing trend in the UK for schools to ban girls from wearing skirts (it starts at 32:25, not...
This is the anniversary of Connor Sparrowhawk going into the Slade House learning disability unit in Oxford, where he died 107 days later, in the bath, as a result of staff negligence. His supporters...
I’ve just had my second letter in about a month published in the New Statesman, a British left-of-centre political magazine, this time on the subject of private education, which they ran an extensive feature...
Carers and care workers are the best kind of people. So why are they treated so disgracefully? Yesterday the Guardian published the above article by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, best known for co-founding Vagenda magazine...
The other night I saw a Panorama documentary which covered the issue of children going missing from the care system in the UK. I had been expecting this to be about children who were...
Michael Gove proposes longer school day and shorter holidays | Politics | guardian.co.uk Michael Gove, the current education secretary, has announced extended school days and longer terms, allowing schools to stay open until 4:30pm...
School skirt ban is just the latest battle in the uniform wars | Education | The Guardian Recently a secondary school in Ipswich (the third in the town) changed its uniform code making trousers...
Last week a number of newspapers reported that scientists were "on track to establish the genetic triggers for autism, paving the way for earlier diagnosis of children who could be at risk of developing...
Recently I read two blog posts ([1], [2]) about dealing with old “friends” that pop up on Facebook, and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard of it being a problem. There seems to...
Wheelchair Dancer: Dreaming on Wheels Last night, I had my “first” dream about me as a disabled person. It was scarily vivid. Law and Order style, I shouted to, well, whomever — faceless dream...
Yesterday, the Guardian published an article on the special challenges facing girls and women with autism (It's not just boys who are autistic), in a special women's page guest-edited by Bridget Orr, who has...
Over the past couple of weeks, a scandal has emerged of a serious culture of child abuse at a major children's home on Jersey, Haut de la Garenne, which was closed several years ago...
BBC NEWS: Former head sentenced for cruelty This loathsome creature, who ran a dumping ground, I mean special school, for children with special needs in Norfolk – not a million miles from the place...